Why Everyone in the U.S. Who Counts Wants Julian Assange Dead
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Before and after images of the van that came to pick up the bodies of eleven men shot to death by circling American helicopters in Iraq in 2007. Both children in the van were wounded. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," said one of the pilots. "That's right," replies another. From the video Collateral Murder.
by Thomas Neuburger
Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder, the 2007 war footage that was leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.
It's brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a special kind of murder — murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine guns slowly circling their targets like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are dead.
The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead.
They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today.
"Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians — including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?"
Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it's not for being a douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world. They want him dead for publishing videos like these.
Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial: “The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as ‘dead bastards,’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers.”
The Wikileaks page for the video is here. A transcript is here.
This was done in our name, to "keep us safe." This continues to be done every day that we and our allies are at "war" in the Middle East.
Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to witness and acknowledge their deaths.
Labels: Chelsea Manning, Collateral Murder, Gaius Publius, Iraq War, Julian Assange, Thomas Neuburger, war crimes, wikileaks
posted by Gaius Publius @ 9:00 AM
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9 Comments:
The American Government is filled with war criminals who should have ended up in the Hague. But because America "won" the Cold War (after allowing the Russians to do most of the fighting to destroy the Third Reich), our criminals won a free pass to continue their war crimes since there is no one strong enough to force American war criminals to the courts for trial.
And Americans don't understand why much of the world hates our guts and wants to cause us harm.
Assange tried to educate us about our hypocrisy. The US now wants to make him pay for that with his life, for the Empire must NEVER be questioned.
Devastating, Tom, but thanks for the challenge of watching it. It crystallizes the importance of Assange and of Wikileaks.
I hope your column is sent about widely. Though many will avert their gaze, it ought to go to every member of Congress as political creeps call for the annihilation of Assange. And for that matter, for opening the Pandora's Box of conflict with Iran.
This film, this nutshell of horror, demonstrates the reality behind the US never ratifying membership in the International Criminal Court after its creation in 1998, and why the US joins Israel in doing everything they can to undermine it. Other non-members include China, India, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Qatar.
Afghanistan is categorized as a non-international armed conflict. Crimes the ICC can pursue in such conflicts include murder, outrages on personal dignity and sentencing or execution without due process. Others include attacking civilians or civilian objects, causing excessive incidental death or damage, using expanding bullets, denying quarter and treacherously killing or wounding. What greater treachery than murdering people picking up their dead?
I would point out that I first saw that in about 2008(?) after assange posted it.
that was over a decade ago.
our Nazis will always protect their own who ordered/perpetrated this. they only lament we did not do a lot more.
the democraps will never address it because obamanation actually *DID* more and they will always revere him in spite of his being a blatant war criminal.
Besides, they were all brown... and muslims... and terrorists... and evildoers. God hates them and wants us to kill them all... cuz god is lazy I suppose.
"Why Everyone in the U.S. Who Counts Wants Julian Assange Dead"
because everyone who "counts" in this shithole is a Nazi, including democrap leadershit.
"They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with"
Because the US MIC has dehumanized most of our soldiers. Back in the 80's I saw the government start to brainwash our young children with video games of shooting and blowing things up...all for fun! And then came the extremely disrespectful rap music that they constantly recited and boy were these kids all worked up and ready for war and this is the result. MIC and our government must be very proud of themselves! What country is going to man up and take them out to save the planet?
My bad, in my comment above, I meant to say, "Like Afghanistan, Iraq is categorized as a non-international armed conflict."
The two tragedies are joined at the hip. After Condoleeza Rice gave her bogus warning on WMD's, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," I was having dinner with a close friend who grew up in Afghanistan, whose family had lived there for countless generations. He told me that if the US invades Iraq, taking its eye off the ball in Afghanistan at this critical time, then Afghanistan is lost.
By the way, we can thank chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson for the smoking gun/mushroom cloud metaphor. He currently offers his wisdom as a Washington Post op-ed columnist, where he beats the drum on Iran.
Skip, read PNAC. Review your history from inauguration to 9/11. Iraq was their target all along. Anthrax; forged yellowcake docs; lies about Al tubes; "mushroom clouds"; "WMDs"... all geared to get the dumbest motherfuckers in the history of earth to support an arbitrary invasion for Iraq's oil. The first of PNAC's OPEC dominos.
9/11 did 2 things: it sidetracked, briefly, the buildup to do Iraq and it made cheney/Rumsfeld pretend to do Afghanistan. It also meant that OBL had to live long enough to conflate him with Saddam so that Iraq could also be done. Thus the Tora Bora order to stand down when OBL could possibly have been blown to hell because they hadn't yet invaded Iraq.
Naturally, with their crosshairs on Baghdad, they only pretended to do Afghanistan.
Go back and review the troop numbers. They put an order of magnitude more men, equipment, sorties and so on in Iraq... who did nothing to the united shitholes of white jesus.
Gerson and rice are shit. But blame voters. They are who "elected" Reagan and cheney, and then obamanation who normalized all of what they all did.
At one time I loved America so much that my heart beat red, white, and blue, but that began to change in 2003 after George Walker Bush gave his state of the union address to convince Congress and the American people that Iraq was the enemy with WMD ( LIES) and that in order to get rid of the Axis of evil the American people would have to give up some civil liberties ECT.. ECT... It was almost verbatim the same speech Adolf Hilter gave German citizens when Hitlers Nazi were going to invade Poland and France. For what it's worth this woman who is a naturalized citizen of the United States of America is so DEEPLY ASHAMED and Heartbroken over what "WE the PEOPLE of the United States of America have allowed to happen to nations and people around the world who weren't big enough to stand up to the tyranny of our rogue nation. I'm so sorry. If there is anything I can do to make up for it PLEASE comment back
Nice to know you can tell the 'Vets' you hope they rot in hell behind an 'anonymous' tag, eh? Go down to the local VA hospital and tell em to their face.
This country needs to be run like an ADULT DAY CARE CENTER because of stupidity like this. Venezuela (aka Utopia South) works much better doesn't it? Sheep...
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