I think it is unfortunate if most people were to share the mindset that war or warring is a somehow a privilege of a nation or an organisation. And the video from Wikileaks showing an attack helicopter gunning down people should be an important opportunity in trying to come to terms in understanding and discussing the problems of warfare and its imherent ills for which warfare can be said to be a crime in itself.

One consequence of the disclosure of this particular video tape in question, and also the disclosure of what is known as “the war diaries”, has been an obvious attempts at solidifying, or arguing for, a moral imperative where national interests is to be the norm when it comes to “being moral”, leaving personal and commonsensical justifications defaulting to practically becoming a criminal offence and even worse, when going adversly against the interests of the state, which owns and fields military power. Being moral in making choices, ultimately becomes rather “being moral” on behalf of the discretion of whoever or whatever is carrying out foreign policy or pursuing special interests in that regard. I see a big and difficult problem when a goverment wants to advocate an ultimate moral hegemony, where personal acts of morality is deemed not only to be subordinate but becomes an offence and a crime, with treason in this, becoming but a failed scheme at containing discipline to pursue ill fated, speculative and reckless endeavurs of a government waging war.

I want to characterize what I read at the top reader comment as fallacious tripe not really dealing with a critique of this event, but rather seem to show an unapologetic attitude to the effect of promoting the soldiers privileged right of outright killing civilians and others. With the people on the ground not acting hostile, any caims of necessity thus falls short of a minimum of credibility for wanting to properly discharging live fire with the intent to kill. An important argument for what I believe is pro-war supporters seem to be the act of pre-emptive strikes, which in a nutshell so to speak, was the start of the ill fated invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands left dead and a country still in a sorry state, with Colin Powell having gone before the UN security council, doing his speculative warmongering with his conjectural argument of lets-bomb-Iraq just because the government of USA think its a good idea based on the manufactured and unfounded claims they provided. Pre-emptive strikes makes own losses predictably low, but it is partly based on the idea that gaining the initiative to fire first a good idea, with an assurance that hostile fire does not become an actuality, making what is known as “civilian deaths” a disturbing consequence as they in various ways become targets and victims.

The Wikileaks video show a set of rather peculiar circumstances in warfare, strictly speaking, showing the crew of an anti tank helicopter, rather casually, firing high caliber projectiles into a crowd of people with the first video sequence with timestamp ending at 06:49. The other video sequence starting with timestamp at 07:20 show continual attack by guided missile fire against a building, supposedly housing multiple riflemen. It is unclear to me if the omitted 31min of tape would be of interest somehow or if it maybe was removed for skipping towared the point showing what convenience the US military indulged in for securing an area, killing civilians in the process while it was presumably not really being necessary, spending two or perhaps three rounds of hellfire missiles from afar. I wonder what the gunner meant when he uttered “Uh shit, why I do I have AP flashing on there?”, does anyone know what it actually meant?

From watching the first sequence, it seem clear that the people and the minivan was gunned down while not presenting hostile fire or really being posing a threat as such. A pre-emptive strike was apparantly performed against a possible enemy, which just so happened to be civilians including two reporters and two children sitting in the minivan. An unknown man with a gun and another one with a suspicious object deemed to be a rocket propelled granade, were deemed to be insurgents and combatants while not showing to actually being it, causing surrounding people to all be deemed combatants and targets.

The man walking on the ground among others nearby seened to be carrying an automatic rifle, which to my knowledge might not be uncommon, and he was walking together with a man carrying what in my opinion might be a camera stand for all I know. It seem clear from the footage that noone can properly identify what the people on the ground were really carrying, despite the expense and effort put into the design and manufacturing of this attack helicopter, apparanly not having been designed or equipped to police an area or engaging specific human targets, with the power of discrimination that the US military or others might want us to believe or trust.

I tried finding some relevant facts about the targeting system used with the AH-64 helicopter but come up short in learning precisely how sharp the images are displayed for the pilot/gunner when zoomed in (probably having used older equipment than what is to be used today, equipment maybe dating to before 1990, which afaik would be called legacy TADS system, Target Acquisition Designation Sight).

A robber can be said to be better off gunning down all of his victims despite merely having the intent of wanting to rob people of their valuables, because he would in this way be sure to not faced with a threatening situation as he rob their now dead or dying bodies. A practical measure, a very speculative one, but not really a necessary measure. Undoubtedly, this problem of projecting control by acts of deadly pre-emptive force, scale with a limiting of the investment for resolving combat or security issues in urban areas. Theory and praxis is with this made one and the same. What they did is true, because they just did it, or, they wanted to achieve something and they achieved it because they could. Luck had nothing to do with it, skill had nothing to do with it, opportunity had nothing to do with it. Wanting to dictate reality and getting away with murder is what would be a way of understanding how there is this call for wanting to do everything in their power, for getting their way, all the way.

But enough about this initial remark to the first comment, what I would argue to be of particular interest, is the way warfare apparantly is conducted, adding to this, my contempt and unforgiving disgust of what seem to me to be an unquestionable privilege to conduct and wage warfare. I would like to think I have something important to say here, something should not be disregarded because it somehow go against a so called law of war, as was mentioned earlier.

“Conduct” and “wage” are two different words with two different meanings in this case, everyone ought to look up a dictionary with an accompanyng etymology and perchance educate yourselves. Some dabbling into philosophy (maybe avoiding Kant, avoiding useless indoctrination in having moral imperatives, when wanting to try relate to difficult problems in person) and language theory might be a good future investment so to speak, building on your experiences later on. It might take one ten years to get a clue, and then the rest of ones life trying to relate to what one learn along the way. It make alot of sense to me that people, but more importantly organisations, would want to keep things predictable, engaging primarily in wishful thinking more so than real cooperation and restraint, with people and organizations using their power to dictate and try shape the future of tomorrow.

I would like to quickly add that I worry my engagement in this attempt at a critique, of what I want to characterize as a political sport and a political game, using those associations as a stinging metaphor here with the latest Iraq and Aghan war in mind, that this will imprint the label of “anarchist” on me, which I would argue is undeserved. I am no pasifist, but I am no arnarchist either.

It seem fair that nobody get to really dictate reality, and each is necessarily left to his own to try making his/her own mind. What sort of goes out the window with an incessant defence of so called truth and facts being the core of the arguments in a discussion, is the proper concern for the real people sort of leaving them to suffer the consequences. My first order of critique would be to point out, what I have to believe, is the all-too-same praxis of conducting and waging war. The “law” of the military that George seem to point out, maybe could well be coined as tautological in nature, would be nothing but self a serving privilege of doing violence, mass murder, serial killings, assassinations, destruction, oppression, controlling, harrassment, threaths, torture, indifference, deceit, discrimination, robbery, manipulation, experimentation, and also making a gamble of everyones future.

On pondering the riddle of what came first, the chicken or the egg, it seem obvious that the process is what should be of interest, and not the apparant lure of stupefying futility of posing such a problem, nor the lure of necessesary stupidity in which one appreciate what can be said to be a dazzling problem such as the conundrum of the chicken and the egg. A dazzle, why else did people bother telling the riddle of the chicken and the egg, presumably being historically a mere fascinating conundrum.

I would say that the Wikileaks video offer certain evidence, truths and facts of how warfare is waged, it ought to be everyones concern how war is conducted should people succomb to apologetic attitudes about the irresponsible and patently un-sane crimes, gambles, mistakes and horrors of warfare.

Like with the problem of racism (as such) which I dabbled on some forum somewhere, for example words where like “white” and “black” used in casual meanings are sort of patently racist terms, but if noone really cared, in a sense racism would not be a controversy any more than using the terms “woman”or “man”. So warfare is not really a chicken or an egg in some futile puzzle of mankind as much as warfare are an ill of civilization and all that. Warfare not really being a necessary evil (because it all depends on the circumstances). What could patently seem necessary evil in our day and time being a cruel joke? Maybe the idea that religion of “gods” have their “god” given rights to rule mankind or their societies, a conundrum with people having little or no choice but to accept or ignore their community. This way being forced to be men of faith or to be ruled by it. Statehood probably can be said to be apart of a similar problem, forcing its subjects to put up with it or to try control them should they object to, or be viewed as a threat to its self interests. Securing a good or even prosperous life for “most people” sounds nice, but falls short of a minimum of dignity for minorities not quite fitting in all things concidered.

I hereby accuse people of stating “Human nature never change” of being liars and conmen. With the understanding that “human nature” change all the time. Me smothering another human being with a blunt object is not really human nature, as little as me drowning in water, or being able to walk on the moon in a spacesuit. Whatever context fitting the idea of a “human nature”, is surely a man made project actualized for whatever cause that is in any case a fact. A real mess.

Our reality and the actuality of it in our understanding, are not patently real, as if “reality” was given in advance with particular facts constituting our reality. I believe it was Wittgenstein that pointed out that one does not really think the same-same thoughts. One can say one does not stand outside a system objectively so to speak, but one is included into it.

And also, this piece of text is not me really voicing my opinions. If you hear anything with your ears, it is not me talking for sure. And anyone perchance thinking I maybe wrote this as a result of a stream of consciousness, they would give me too much credit. “The problem of representation” and problems with actuality ought to be a concern for everyone dabbling in what vaguely can be called philosophy, and perhaps more importantly for those discussing problems relating to politics or simply theirs or others lives.

And what is morality, if not about making a choice. Not really by doing a certain action, not really being valuable as an imperative by simply wanting to be moral, not wanting to be good, nor being apart of any boon you helped create. It’s a complicated world and others would probably want one to sort of stand in line, because that just so happens to be very effective by making use of perchance effortless cooperation. Maybe now, perchance a worrysome idea of a warring civilization or unbridled nationalism will hopefully spark a curiousity for dabbling into how things make sense to you and how you relate to it.

Society, as a general idea of how people live their lives, offer ways of dictating what is your reality every day whether anyone had that intention or not. Getting an impression of the weather outside sort of does this too, regardless of you agree to that idea being of any importance.

In my part of the world, the press and media is sometimes called the “fourth state power”, being a watcher of the three other state powers, but to me that idea also sounds like a way of abusing the goodwill given by readers, given to shitty online newspapers; with newspapers apparantly providing mainly entertainment, being coorporations and presumably being tools for politicians more than being a good source of news for a general populace.

I take it you are a trained and experienced Psychiatrist/psychologist and have interviewed members of the 227th Av. Regt to come up with your assertion that the aircrew on that day are/were sociopathic and I take it that you have worn the uniform in the service of your country and know the ins and outs of combat tactics especially viz a viz military aviation tactics to assert that they are cowards?.. although I doubt that you have.

Of course when you first viewed the video you didnt know that there were journalists amongst the ‘unarmed non-combatants’ in that group but you spotted straight away that they were armed with little more than a Nikon and a tape recorder…. although I kind of doubt that too.

Of course the ‘unarmed non-combatants’ werent actually carrying an RPG anti armour missile and its warheads to actually, maybe, kind of use them… they were probably just for show to ‘big it up’ in front of the press eh Ken..does that sound like a reasonable explanation of carrying such weaponry?

Had you ever been in a situation where you have to watch every window for a possible sniper attack, where every loud noise makes your heart jump and your spittle turn to sandpaper. Where there is a possibilty of being blown to little bloody chunks at any and every street corner, or worse crippled, blinded, disabled for life where you need someone to wipe your backside for the rest of that life. Because I have Ken… and before you go bleating on about baby killing etc etc etc I served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia not Iraq.

Had you ever been in such a situation then perhaps you may understand why a helicopter gunship crew felt justified in opening fire on a bunch of armed men (not all armed admittedly) on the street corner a block or so away from where your comrades were being attacked….. but I kind of doubt that you have been in such a situation have you Ken otherwise that mind of yours may be a little less narrow than it appears to be.

For your information defending the crew in opening up on the armed men on the street corner! yes indeed and I would have done likewise without blinking. Defending the crew in attacking the van that came to the wounded journalists aid! when have I ever done that?… or are things so black and white in your head that seeing as I have defended them once ergo I must have defended them on every occasion. That was indeed a bit too much for me!

Your last statement is a real eye opener though Ken….

“One can only hope that the Iraqi people were avenged for this outrage by the Iraqi resistance”

….I take it that you mean that you hope that soemwhere in the USA/Europe the Military or Police will be knocking on some wive’s or mother’s door to inform them that their husband or son has been killed? I take it that you mean that you want US/Coalition troops to be killed to exact some sort of vengence?

You dont really sound like a very nice human being to me Ken, I am glad I dont know you because I wouldn’t waste my p**s on you if you were on fire!

One can only hope that the Iraqi people were avenged for this outrage by the Iraqi resistance. To they question of “why do they hate us?”, it’s because of people like George.

The more I learn about Bradley the more any feelings of sympathy I had for him dissapear. He downloaded over a quarter of a million files. Do you think he read/viewed them all first? I doubt it. He has made public files which may endanger the lives of people. I am not talking about the military (who have a dangerous enough job anyway) but the local intelligence sources on the ground. Julian Assange and his team have had to ‘censor’ the documents to protect these people. What gave Manning the right to do this? outrage at his job?

One or two files or videos to show supposed wrongdoing I can understand but what he has done is far beyond this and I hope the Military throw the book at him to be honest. And if anyone on the gound in Afghanistan or Iraq dies as a result of these documents being published I hope he gets charged with aiding and abetting murder of course that would be hard to prove and the people on the ground would still be dead in any case!

You disagree with this war, I disagree with this war. I want the military brought back home right away because I dont think the livs of the Iraqis or the Afghanis are worth the loss of a single British serviceman or woman!(and of course the lives of the soldiers from many other countries) The people of Iraq and even more Afghanistan have lived under horrendous opressive regimes and did nothing about it, so why should we spill blood to help them, becuase whether you agree with the war’s or not intrinsically the personal freedoms of these people have been enhanced. Life is however inherently far more dangerous for them purely because of the murderous intent of their own fellow countrymen…why do you want the troops withdrawn James? Why do you want the troops withdrawn Shawn? So that the people will be free of US/Coalition opression… dont make me laugh!

I have read some of the files that have already been published on the Wikileaks website. Check out incident by severity! how many hundreds if not thousands of civilians have been killed by roadside bombs, by suicide bombers, by car bambs…? makes the ‘collateral murder’ video seem like a day at the kindergarten in comparison. None of these bombings involved US/Coalition forces yet I dont see one single cry of outrage or protest on any websites such as this one!… do you only care about the psople killed by the US Military?

Shawn you stated above “Neither am I obliged to discuss my conscience with you about suicide bombers, innocents, etc”… If you want people to see your point of view as viable I think you DO need to make your conscience clearly visible on this issue. Otherwise you are just another protestor against your government for all an any reason and your real values are pitifull!

When you watch parts of the video where the guncamera flips bewteen views, the views where the helicopter is far away from the aiming point is because that IS how far the Helicopter was from the scene.

So the weapons operator only sees whats on a black and white TV screen infront of him, a small screen (smaller than the computer screen that you are reading this on)in a vibrating helicopter which is making manouvres all the time, he also undoubtedly has to aid the pilot in viewing whats outside the helicopter with regards to RPG attacks and where the other helicopter is in relationship to thier own position, The pilot has to fly the aircraft and also keep a view on whats going on outside.

So what you see on the video is what the Weapons operator saw, no more and no less. If you spotted the children in the van first time around before wikileaks pointed it out then you are a far far more observant person than I am. If you spotted that the dark stubby onject that the guy was pointing around the street corner was a camera (and lets face it wikileaks had already pointed that fact out on the video)pointing it up the road where a US forces unit were in a firefight, then you are a far far more observant person than I am.

Its easy to jump on something for your cause and be blinded to anything other than what you want to see, because it makes sense to you, because it fits in with your expectations..no! you have to be objective.

I don’t know anything about Bradley Manning as a person aside from the most superifical accounts. But what he has done is a service, and a costly one. It is a service to the only cause consistently worth struggling for: peace. He has revealed the character of something evil that is perpetuated by its own secrecy.

May God bless him and keep him; and may we study every document that he sacrificed to put into our hands. Because the revelatory process is ongoing, and we are called to participate in it.