Gates says (WikiLeaks) video of U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq out of context

Source: LA Times

The Defense secretary says the video on a website is akin to 'looking at the war through a soda straw' and that viewers could not have understood what was going on before or after the strike.


Reporting from Lima, Peru
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday took a swipe at the website that released secret military video of a 2007 helicopter gunship incident in Iraq in which civilians, including two news agency employees, were killed.

Gates said the videos released by the group WikiLeaks were out of context and provided an incomplete picture of the battlefield, comparing it to war as seen "through a soda straw."

"These people can put out whatever they want and are never held accountable for it," said Gates, speaking to reporters aboard his plane en route to Lima, Peru, for a defense ministers conference this week. "There is no before and no after. It is only the present."

The WikiLeaks website last week released classified video of a 2007 shooting in Iraq by an Apache helicopter that killed two Reuters news agency employees and 10 other civilians. Those wounded included children.

Helicopter crew members said they mistook the people on the ground for insurgents.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-gates-video14-2010apr14,0,708305.story

for what are very patently war crimes.

No more phased withdrawal at this point - time we are out of there.

Pakistan and Yemen to that list as well.

I agree, we need to see the whole bloody soda. This was just one moment in 7 years of this shit.

Sure. Whatever.

Gates is a fucking idiot. Not much has changed when it comes to US war and occupation. :wtf:

not that you wish you had? :shrug: paraphrasing (recycling) Rummy talking points...

... apparently part of the strategy of n-dimensional chess of change is to keep the exact same personnel in charge of the exact same insane policy. And if that personnel has some very very dirty luggage, like Mr. Gates being up to the gills into the Iran-Contra fiasco, then it is even doubleplusgood!

Us mere mortals can only cope with the complexities of 2D chess, so we are hopeless when it comes to understand the magnitude of genius involved in masterful n-dimensional chess playing.

Okay then. :banghead:

Yes, one can see more in this video than is actually there. We aren't told why they were in that area, looking for folks. We don't know why they so quickly decided that a camera was an RPG. We don't know why they cared so much that someone might come along and actually help someone shot and lying on the ground.

I'm fairly sure these guys thought they were in some sort of "Blackhawk Down" situation. They seemed to be seeing threats everywhere.

The part that Gates, and by extension Obama, is missing is that this is what you decide to accept when you decide to fight a war, especially in an urban area. No US city would accept this kind of "policing". Shooting with large caliber guns from a couple of thousand of feet away? Any police officer would be in trouble for this kind of shooting. When you decide to go to war, you are deciding to kill innocent people. You don't fight wars and only kill the "bad guys". So when our leaders talk about "peace with honor" or "finishing the job" or "bringing democracy to the region", they are talking about the price being paid by the innocent.
Gates needs to go back to that fill and look at it with his wide view, and make the case that even with the wide view, what we are doing, what we are paying, is worth these people, these children, being shot and killed at a distance, and their bodies being run over by our trucks.

And why are we now spending money to train the Iraqi's to do it to themselves.

Yeah for releasing these leaked videos, someone should be held accountable!

But for starting two illegal wars based on lies to enrich your rich military contractor buddies, No Accountability.

USA USA USA!

Their aim just wasn't very good. That's what you're saying Robert - right?

are there per day? Post ALL of the videos so we can get the whole picture.

Which is how Gates wants us to make our democratic decisions.

then its mainly the fault of the pentagon and the Bush administration for being being so secretive.

on this very site.

if its really out of context then explain the fucking context you asshole.

could repeat could accept that the initial contact was justified.

However after the initial contact it was clear that the two initial survivors did not have weapons and were not a threat and the continuation of the attack was not just pointless but counter productive. If indeed they were bad guys then they were eliminating possible sources of information.

Looking at the video it was clear that the van was a good Samaritan. A rescue van for bad guys would have atleast glanced in the air to see if there was a threat and it was clear that the Good Samaritans were completely absorbed by the carnage before them.

Again there was no weapons seen in the van and 2 or 3 rounds into the engine could have disabled it while the ground troops were arriving on scene.

What is so alarming about the video is not that they concluded that they were all insurgents but that there was no questioning, especially for the Good Samaritans, before they made the conclusion.

Based on other actions Gates has taken I wonder if this is a pro forma defense and if he didn't have other opinions privately, in any case this is not Gates brightest moment.

And a big FU, too, Gates.

to target and murder those from the news media. I feel pretty certain those orders came from
the top. There are several incidents when the media was shot at or killed for which the 'excuse'
of mistaken identity was used. And they'll continue to use that until a whistleblower or other
inside source provides proof that these killings were intentionally ordered.

That includes the unprovoked killing of citizens as well.