Rising Hegemon
Wikileaks, the whistle-blower website, is reportedly preparing to release secret video of a notorious US air strike said to have killed scores of Afghan civilians.
The video apparently shows previously classified footage from US warplanes called in to bomb Taliban fighters during a fire fight in Farah province last year.
The Afghan government said at the time that the strikes by F-18 and B1 planes near Granai killed 147 civilians. An independent Afghan inquiry later put the toll at 86.
There's no doubt that video of American (or other NATO) forces killing civilians is beyond being obviously tragic, embarrassing and counter-productive to the effort in Afghanistan -- but not nearly as much as -- y'know killing civilians. If something like Wikileaks can cause it to be curtailed it's both good news for the innocent civilians and for the chances of the effort in Afghanistan to be successful (if that is at all possible).
5 comments:
If State gets the puppet they want, a government the CIA wants, the oil companies a pipeline going to Europe instead of China, the military gets to keep bases there indefinitely, that'll be victory to the people inside the Beltway
It won't matter how many civilians we kill in the process. That has never, ever mattered, at least not since WWII, when bombing civilians from the air became the norm, rather than the exception.
The horror of Vietnam was broadcast into 'Murikan TeeVee sets, and that helped galvanize national support to end that war. The war machine learned from this, and has suppressed anything that gritty, bloody, and real ever since. It may take a group like Wikileaks to finally bring that horror back home where it might actually do some good.
Then again, the first WIkileaks video of killing the Iraqi journalists immediately became war porn for the righties, I suppose because they have no souls.
I saw "Men Who Stare at Goats" this weekend. It was funny, but there's some pretty black humor about us 'winning hearts and minds' in the Middle East.
this administration isn't above prosecuting whistleblowers. they've already done so.
It won't help those civilians who were murdered. Just call it a day and get on back here. Killing other indiscriminately is just plain wrong. vox
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