ameratsu said:
I completely disagree with this point. Subduing this sort of thing and measures like preventing photography/coverage of fallen American soldiers returning home is simply an effort to make war look tactical and sterile when its absolutely not. Americans just as much as everyone else in the world should be aware of questionable events like this. Wikileaks is doing the public a service by releasing things like this. Think of any terrorist incident in modern history. It is always brought to light, thoroughly investigated and details are often overwhelming. Failures on the part of the military that result in civilian deaths need to be investigated and disclosed like we expect in those circumstances. Covering it up only to have it spill over like this hurts the image of the US and completely undermines what the US is supposed to stand for. For the record, my primary issue is with the way they're conducting themselves (complete callousness, like they're playing a video game honestly) and saying over the radio that the van was "picking up bodies and weapons" when they were trying to picking up a single wounded journalist. |
Well first, on images of fallen soldiers coming home, I think that is absolutely 100% the right of the family to decide what is and is not shown. To me that is the only sane position to take.
Second, the effort isn't to make war look clean, because frankly nobody with a brain would believe that it is no matter what you tell/show them.
As for having an investigation, absolutely! I'm in no way saying sweep it under the rug and forget about. I'm saying handle the issue discretely until absolute command of all possible facts is secured. From there you decide how to move forward. If that includes indicting the soldiers and/or the officers making the decisions, then so be it. But those gruesome details still don't need to be made public and only relevant information should be relayed to involved parties (ie families are told someone is being tried for the death, and the accusations against them but not the specific blood details). The only scenario where the actual evidence should be disseminated is when there is an attempt to sweep it under the rug. Seeing that justice is done is the only thing I can accept as a reasonable justification for the damage done by making a video like this public.
I think we agree on their comments being reprehensible but as for them picking up a single journalist, I would point out you're using information you've obtained in hindsight. The situation is that they have reported fire on US troops in the area, these men were standing in a group of armed men and appeared to be armed themselves. Others came to retrieve them and there was no way for them to know their intentions were purely to aid, or that the man they were helping was not a combatant. There was simply a ton of ambiguity, and judging their actions based on the advantage of additional information is simply unfair.
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
