Video showing U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down 12 civilians in Baghdad attack leaked online

by Danny Kaplan - Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall Fri Apr 09, 2010 18:03

In a Counterpunch article Alexander Cockburn states that: The Pentagon is reeling after two lethal episodes uncovered by diligent journalism show trigger-happy U.S. Army helicopter pilots and U.S. Special Forces slaughtering civilians, then seeking to cover up their crimes.

The worldwide web was transfixed on Monday when Wikileaks put up on YouTube a 38-minute video, along with a 17-minute edited version, taken from a U.S. Army Apache helicopter, one of two firing on a group of Iraqis in Baghdad at a street corner in July of 2007. Twelve civilians died, including a Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and a Reuters driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Wikileaks said it had got the footage from whistle-blowers in the military and had been able to break the encryption code. The Pentagon has confirmed the video is genuine.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has finally admitted that Special Forces troops killed two pregnant Afghan women and a girl in a February, 2010, raid, in which two Afghan government officials were also killed. Brilliant reporting by Jerome Starkey of The Times of London has blown apart the U.S. military’s cover-up story that the women were killed by knife wounds administered several hours before the raid.

It now appears that the knife wounds may have been inflicted by the Special Forces troops retrieving their bullets from the dead or dying women's bodies. Starkey’s story last Sunday in The Times reported that “Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also ‘dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”

Defense analyst Pierre Sprey, who led the design teams for the F-16 and A-10 and who spent many years in the Pentagon, stresses two particularly damning features of the footage. The first is the claim that Noor-Eldeen’s telephoto lense could be mistaken for an RPG. “A big telephoto for a 35mm camera is under a foot and half at most. An RPG, unloaded , is 3 feet long and loaded, 4 foot long. These guys were breathing hard to kill someone.”

Sprey’s second point is that an Apache helicopter makes a very loud “whomp, whomp” noise. “ Twelve guys are unconcerned, with loud helicopters right overhead. Imagine if they were planning an assault on American troops. They’d be crouched down and skulking along walls, spread out. They would not be walking casually down the middle of the street, totally ignoring the helicopters.” (full report on link)

by Michael Lally Thu Apr 08, 2010 21:16

As the US Central Command says it has no plans to reopen an investigation into the July 2007 helicopter massacre that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, Democracy Now play never-before-seen eyewitness interviews filmed the day after the massace.

by Sean Thu Apr 08, 2010 20:43

Richard Neville writes in Counterpunch: When you think about it, when you tally up the criminal carnage of the last decade, and when you listen to the brutal exchanges on the Apache gunship - “please, another kill … light 'em all up” - you start to wonder what drives the spiralling of today's military atrocities. Yes, an army marches on its stomach, and that may still be true, but these days you get the sense that the burgers are washed down with lavish tumblers of blood. Often the blood of innocents. It becomes an addiction, perhaps, an insatiable desire that's part Gothic and part Surrealist, like a videogame played on a helicopter hovering over Transylvania (full reprort on link).

by Bazooka Joe Thu Apr 08, 2010 17:25

The video showing US Apache killing unarmed journalists, civilians and children
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/23/xH9xSHcFreY

Good Interview with Wikileaks editor about the video.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/20/7QEdAykXxoM

http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/21/gZNJm35V2_0

by Fred Johnston Thu Apr 08, 2010 02:27

Let us remember that these brave-hearts who laughed and joked while committing murder from the air probably had a pint at Shannon Airport courtesy of our craven, leprechaun government while on the way to Iraq. That makes us complicit in the deaths of those people.

by Danny - AATW Thu Apr 08, 2010 00:41

Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) is a direct action group that was established in 2003 in response to the construction of the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. The group works in cooperation with Palestinians in a joint popular struggle against the occupation.

Since its formation, the group has participated in hundreds of demonstrations and direct actions against the wall specifically, and the occupation generally, all over the West Bank. All of AATW's work in Palestine is coordinated through villages' local popular committees and is essentially Palestinian led.

It is the duty of Israeli citizens to resist immoral policies and actions carried out in our name. We believe that it is possible to do more than demonstrate inside Israel or participate in humanitarian relief actions. Israeli apartheid and occupation isn't going to end by itself - it will end when it becomes ungovernable and unmanageable. It is time to physically oppose the bulldozers, the army and the occupation.

by Danny - Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall Thu Apr 08, 2010 00:23

Thanks for shining a light on the dark, inhuman corporations that perfect killing machines for profit.

by anti-militarist Wed Apr 07, 2010 14:54

Some more about the Apache helicopter here. All people who work at the design of such murder machines deserve to be treated as war criminals .

HIDAS, the Helicopter Integrated Defensive Aids System, designed and manufactured by BAE Systems, detects, identifies, prioritises and counters threats to the Apache helicopter, without the need for crew intervention..............
HIDAS can be used in Automatic, Semi-automatic or Manual mode, thus offering significant operational benefits to the Apache aircrew. It increases their situational awareness, reduces the time to react to threats and increases the efficiency and effectiveness of countermeasures. In short, it enhances survivability on the battlefield, where crew workload is at its highest.

HIDAS is fully programmable by the user to detect and counter enemy weapon systems[ telephoto lenses ? a.m.] providing for a mission library of over 5,000 threat modes. The BAE Systems Merlin integrated EW operational support system enables the user to create his own mission libraries, specifying the required countermeasures, and to carry out post-flight analysis of mission data.

BAE Systems is an international company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defence and aerospace systems in the air, on land, at sea and in space. The company designs, manufactures and supports military aircraft, surface ships, submarines, radar, avionics, communications, electronics and guided weapon systems. It is a pioneer in technology with a heritage stretching back hundreds of years. It is at the forefront of innovation, working to develop the next generation of intelligent defence systems.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft...s.htm

by Margaret E. - none Wed Apr 07, 2010 13:40

The Iraqi civilians were massacred with a fearsome weapon: This is what allexperts say about it, the Hughes M230 Chain Gun is a 30 mm automatic cannon developed and manufactured by Hughes (McDonnell Douglas). As the name implies it is an electrically operated chain gun.

The 30mm, M230 Automatic Gun is a component of the Area Weapon System on the AH-64A Apache Helicopter. The M230 is a single barrel, externally powered (3 HP electric motor), electrically fired, chain driven weapon. It is mounted in the lower section of the gun turret on the underside of the Apache Helicopter. It fires 30mm linkless ammunition at a rate of 625 + 25 shots per minute (SPM). The M230 Gun has a positive cook-off safety (open bolt clearing) and double ram prevention.

M230 Chain Gun