Anguished hand-wringing has been the predominant response of most people to the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. However, there are moments when it should be replaced by a righteous rage & anger; Bush's war for oil in Iraq was notable for having a pliant mainstream media, eagerly lapping up the official line in return for the juvenile thrill of being "embedded". The culprits weren't just the usual suspects, but the BBC & New York Times, too.
Over the Easter weekend Wikileaks (www.wikileaks.org ) posted a video online showing a horrific incident in Baghdad in June 2007. Two Reuters journalists were spotted by a US Apache helicopter. Convinced that the cameras the two journalists wore around their shoulders were weapons, the order was given to kill. In the last few days the Pentagon has gone into full smear mode, accusing Wikileaks of being hostile to the US & implying that it's little better than a terrorist website. Such desperation is contemptible, yet understandable when you view the video; what you see in the video is a war crime, the US personnel delighting in their bloodlust & ignorance. Even when it transpires that there are two children badly injured, one US official remarks that the "terrorists" shouldn't have brought their children with them.
The video is, naturally, sickening. However, the anger it generates should be channelled at the US for sitting on it for so long while lying about its details:
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0405/video-shows-forces-firing-killing-reporters/ .
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