Wikileaks and Collateral Murder

With the newest set of files from Wikileaks and controversy swirling one can look at the impact and significance of the earlier leak around video of a US helicopter attack in Iraq.

To understand the issue of Wikileaks, it's important to understand how significant the earlier video from was in terms of showing the public what their involvement in Iraq really entails. Here are just a few of the most basic points:

• The casualness of the men doing the killing suggests that this is not an out of the ordinary incident.
• The men doing this killing from a position of technological safety are not brave or soldierly in the sense of that most people probably think of soldiers risking their lives to fight.
• Firing on a vehicle that is attempting to pickup wounded people is a war crime if the vehicle is marked and not being used in combat. In this case, the vehicle is not marked but the men doing the killing clearly describe the van as picking up the wounded.
• The cover up actions indicate that the military understood that this was an illegal action.
• Firing on the vehicle when children were visible (even if hard to see) is by any definition morally wrong -- shooting at kidnappers using hostages as a shield occurs it is usually done only in extreme cases to save lives of other hostages -- spraying a van carrying children in a combat zone is not an attempt to save lives.
• After they learned that children had been wounded in the attack and cavalierly dismissing it shows that the men doing the killing are doing evil; for their own sakes, if for no one's else, they should be removed from situations where they can harm others.
  

Julian Assange may ultimately have to face trial himself and only then will some of the allegations against him be proven. But, the debate on how much the public should be allowed to know about the way it's government conducts foreign policy or war will go on.