(Best investigation done on this incident linked via above graphic)

The below video supposedly showing U.S. military Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent persons in 2007 (Iraq) elicited comments from me a while ago. It has come up again in discussion and this time I will post it here at RPT in order to reference it in the future.

Conservative Refocus News Blog has this about the above video:

….However, the Web site does not slow down the video to show that at least one man in that group was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a clearly visible weapon that runs nearly two-thirds the length of his body. 

WikiLeaks also does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG. 

“It gives you a limited perspective,” said Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. “The video only tells you a portion of the activity that was happening that day. Just from watching that video, people cannot understand the complex battles that occurred. You are seeing only a very narrow picture of the events.” 

Hanzlik said images gathered during a military investigation of the incident show multiple weapons around the dead bodies in the courtyard, including at least three RPGs. 

“Our forces were engaged in combat all that day with individuals that fit the description of the men in that video. Their age, their weapons, and the fact that they were within the distance of the forces that had been engaged made it apparent these guys were potentially a threat,” Hanzlik said. 

Military officials have also pointed out that the men in the video are the only people visible on those streets. That indicated something was going on and that these individuals still felt they could walk freely, one official told Fox News. 

Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks editor, [the guy who leaked the video] acknowledged to Fox News in an interview Tuesday evening that “it’s likely some of the individuals seen in the video were carrying weapons.”….

…read more…

Of course, you will hear the critics of this military action say the military is at fault, and not the guys carrying the RPGs and AK-47s, but you didn’t hear them complain that between March and September 1991, the Iraqi Army and security services killed as many as 300,000 Shiites. One mass grave near the city of Hillah is said to hold 30,000 bodies alone. These Iraqi military officials that carried this out received medals, mansions, and $$ for their service. In cases when the military purposefully targets innocent lives (which is almost never), court-marshals abound! But, the most important thing to know is that children were not killed. Some adults were killed in the situation were, innocents and terrorists, but the children survived!

“The watching helicopter crews requested permission to engage, stating “…looks like [the men] possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons” from the scene,^[31] and upon receiving permission opened fire on the van and its occupants.^[18][24][30] Two children sitting in the front seat were wounded but survived.^[18][24][30] Chmagh was killed^[18][24][30] along with the father of the children.^[32]“ (Wiki)

Some good audio of Julian Assange can be found at Science and Technology’s post titled, The Internet Springs a Leak:

…That may be, but some critics say Wikileak’s posting of some documents in and of itself may be in error.

“To my way of thinking, their approach is quite wrong,” says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy and publisher of the Secrecy News blog.  “Not every act of editorial judgment is censorship, and not every act of withholding information is censorship.”

[….]

Aftergood has plenty of experience receiving, vetting, and publishing secrets.  He has praise for Wikileak’s posting of the Baghdad video.  “It’s useful for all of us to be reminded from time to time that war is genuinely, unspeakably horrible.  And I think this video did the service of reminding all of us of that.”

But Aftergood says, “There are also problems with the video and the way it was released.”   He says the video appears to show the presence of weapons such as a rocket propelled grenade (RPG), something not noted in the Wikileaks on-screen graphics.  Assange says the video was classified, a claim Aftergood cannot verify.  And the titling of the video itself – Wikileaks calls it “Collateral Murder” – is something Aftergood calls “a heavy-handed, propagandistic exercise.”

…read more…

Just another example of weapons found at the scene as viewed from the helicopter as well as on the ground investigators:

View from the ground:

View From the Apache:

So, all being said, this video making new rounds on FaceBook is a big flop for the anti-military crowd.