The archive is the second cache obtained by the independent organization WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations. The Iraq documents shed new light on such fraught subjects as civilian deaths, detainee abuse and the involvement of Iran
“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.
Video game wars from Collateral Murder:
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
Via NYTimes.
The Shrine Down the Hall: a look at some of the bedrooms America’s war dead left behind. Link.
Military planners are talking about a 50 year war in the “Arc of Instability” that stretches across the Middle East. What would a 50 year peace plan look like?
Quote: In this perspective, Iraq is only an immediate front, with Afghanistan and Pakistan the expanding fronts, in a single larger war from the Middle East to South Asia. Instead of thinking of Iraq like Vietnam, a war that was definitively ended, it is better to think of Iraq as a setback, or better a stalemate, on a larger battlefield where victory or defeat are painfully hard to define over a timespan of five decades.
Martin’s commentary: With President Change just redistributing the wars, it certainly seems like there’s long-war thinking going on behind U.S. military involvement.
Hayden says the useful comparison might not be Vietnam but the Indian Wars: long, drawn out skirmishes across a wide field with irregular fighters and shifting alligiences. Good as far as it goes, but those wars ended with colonization, with more non-natives living in the West than Native Americans.
Perhaps more meanacing is the idea of the classic British counter-insurgency wars that attempt to break the spirit of the occupied country through long drawn out conflict. This war depends on being fought outside of camera range—a U.S. officer is quoted saying: “you want to whack bad guys quietly and cover your tracks with humanitarian aid projects.” Hayden says Abu Grahib-style prison is being expanded in Afghanistan and Pakistan is just as much of a powderkeg ready to explode.
Via JohanPDX
Stephen Colbert doing his ultra-patriotic shtick from Iraq. It’s so meta, it’s meta-meta, but it works. Even Obama is in on the joke, even McCain pokes some good natured fun at himself.
