Just got send a disturbing link from some onbaord footage from a US-Gunship taken in Iraq-in 2007.

It is a 17 minute video of the engagement of what the pilots consider to be a hostile threat, but is actually a couple of Reuters reporters and a bunch of Iraqi_civilians. The website that has released this got their hands on a leaked copy of the video, decyrpted it and have released it for the world to see.

I am going to place this on here for the sole reason of balance.

I have family in the military, and whilst being against any acts of violence from nation to nation, from man to man, it is of value that we all, as a collective group of people inhabiting this planet at least acknowledge what each other is capable of.

Knowledge is power, and to be fore-warned is to be fore-armed, so to speak.

War, or the fight for limited resources, is a truely ugly side of humanity. What is worse now is that we have evolved our technology to provide a complete disassociation from the physical acts of violence against one another. What you see here if you click play, and the film doesnt get deleted from youtube, is an example of our video game generation of soldiers at their emotionally isolated best (or worst). It is concerning that there are people out there supposedly acting on behalf of the "good folks of the free world" doing this kind of thing.

The power of the internet, and the freedom of the blogging community, is that we can share this information and make everyone just that little bit more accountable for their actions. Hopefully this kind of madness will one day stop. There really is no need. We all have more than enough of everything by now surely.

The website that this came from, along with supporting documentation can be found here:
http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/index.html

To fill in the details for those that might not actually want to watch the very graphic slaughter of 15 or so people that appear to be just going about their business, and then have the event be laughed about by those carrying it out, here is what happened:

A group of individuals are gathered on a street in broad daylight. Two of the group are later identified as Reuters reporters, and as such are carrying camera's slung over their shoulders. The pilots in the apache-gunship identify the group as carrying weapons.
To be fair, given the quality of the footage that they are looking at one could feasibly mistake the cameras as weapons perhaps. What one cannot mistake is the fact that these men are definately not engaged in any kind of firefight.
The helicopter opens fire and takes out most of them, then comes back for more as the injured attempt to crawl away. A van pulls up to help out one of the injured as he attempts to crawl away. The gunship_takes them out too. It later transpires that the van driver is just an average guy trying to help out, and has his two kids in the van at the time. They both survive, the only ones. It is graphic footage, but raw and gritty.

Major Shawn Turner, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents.

"We regret the loss of innocent life, but this incident was promptly investigated and there was never any attempt to cover up any aspect of this engagement," Turner said.

David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, said the video released by WikiLeaks showed the deaths of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were "tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones."

"The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," he said.

Reuters has pressed the U.S. military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing of the two staff.

Turner said the military had released documents to Reuters last year in response to the FOIA request showing the presence of weapons on the scene, including AK-47 rifles and an RPG 7 grenade launcher.