"Collateral Murder"

The above is an Apache helicopter video which was released by Wikileaks after accessing it from the US government under the Freedom of Information Act. The entire video is rather disturbing; it shows a scene on the Eastern side of Baghdad on July 12, 2007 (I was not in Iraq at that time), in which several people, likely innocent, were killed by the gunship's 30mm cannons. These include a Namir Noor-Eldeen and a Saeed Chmagh, who were working for Reuters.

At first glance, it looks like the pilots mistook the camera equipment and tripods the men were carrying for AK-47 weapons and RPGs (although at least one of them did have an actual weapon). A short while after the initial salvo, a van pulls up to load one wounded person inside. This van has two children in it (what in God's name that driver was thinking in doing this, I'll never know!). The pilots believe that insurgents are arriving help their buddies escape and so they destroy the van. The children were wounded and they were taken to an Iraqi hospital. What happened after that is unknown.

It's very easy to condemn this and hindsight is always 20/20. The usual talking heads are all over this already. But without knowing the full context of the situation in that neighborhood at that time, it's really impossible to make an informed judgment. Had there been incidents on that street for the last several days? Who knows? Unfortunately, making this problem even worse, a shorter and edited version, titled Collateral Murder (a less than objective title) is making the rounds of the liberal blogosphere. It adds in it's own narrative, making it even less reliable. One innocent death is too many. But we should be careful; I've seen too many incidents such as this distorted and spun out of control.

It may behoove the Pentagon to release the intelligence reports prior to the incident and the investigation afterwards to give us a more complete picture. The Jawa Report has some thoughts that echo my own.

Update: The mainstream media are now reporting this as a front page story.