So US Govt released one video where local defenders fail.
I wonder how many videos does US Govt has where US failed...along the lines of the infamous "Collateral Murder" one.

In retrospect, I think Assange should have made an effort to only release information that revealed corruption or wrongdoing. I don't see much point in leaking classified information just for the sake of releasing classified information. Less wikileaks, more wikiwhistleblowing. Were there any other major bombshells other than the 'Collateral Murder' video? And what ever happened to those supposed leaks that were to bring Bank of America to its knees? Daniel Ellsberg he is not.

That approximation of civilian casualties alone is reason enough to question the intent of this video: objective journalism or propaganda?

Add the "almost supernatural effectiveness" or the grossly misleading "inherent right to self-defence under international law" and I'm inclined to say that this is a disgusting propaganda piece.

When he emphasized the "humane" behaviour of operators (let the children leave before pulling the trigger) and the insinuation that victims of drone attacks are actually thankful for it, well that's just icing on the cake.


What he fails to mention:

-- low rate of civilian casualties: every male of fighting age in the target area is now considered a militant, so everything you hit is a target, unless there is concrete intelligence to prove otherwise, posthumously.

-- pinpoint accuracy: UAVs hit their targets, but the targets themselves are defined as such by piss-poor intelligence or no intelligence at all.

-- guilt by proximity: if you are near a suspect or, generally speaking, in a strike-zone, your mere presence makes you a suspect yourself, as defined by the Obama administration. Now try to square this definition with previous accusations that terrorists embed themselves into the civilian population.

-- double-tap: again, your mere presence at the site of a strike, even if your intent is to provide medical assistance, turns you into a target (eg Collateral Murder). And better stay away from funerals as well, or else they send you a present.

-- US citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were intentionally killed by drone strikes, without trial.

-- collateral damage: when you kill a person's family, you provide that person with a non-ideological reason to fight the US, a personal vendetta. Recent drone attacks in Yemen increased the numbers of AQAP members by killing civilians left, right and center.

-- covert killings, proxy warfare: the use of UAVs, particularly in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, reminds us of the good old days. Death from above or how I learned to love the drone.

>> ^Shepppard:

Sorry Jig, awareness or not, I don't really feel this should be on the sift.
Post a news story about it, get the message out. Don't post the actual video.
Your title is misleading, I came in thinking this was going to be something funny (there's another video of a single druggie trying to fight a bunch of cops, but he's "girl" hitting them.) And because I didn't read the text first I saw something I never want to see again.
The message should get out, but videosift is not the medium for this.


Who died and made you the guy who makes decisions....YEAH!

Despite being a moron Shepppard is right about one thing the Title. It could've been much clearer and done in a way that could've shown more respect for this serious incident. I think we should have a "kill" tag or something like that. It's not something some of us want to have anything to do with when we check out our sift, I pass by a lot of videos because the descriptions are obviously something I don't want to see. However I believe having them available is a good idea...just like the Wikileaks collateral murder video which took me about a year to actually get up the guts to watch.

Compared to Wikileaks previous leaks the cables are information carpet bomb. Some of it is pretty damning, but most is pretty everyday stuff. Tbh I think Wikileaks/Julian wanted more publicity, and going after the empire with massive quanities of leaked cables is probably the easiest way to get it.

I do think that democracy can't properly function without transparency, and the mainstream media in the US is honestly doing the country a huge disservice. The trouble is I think the leaking of massive quantities of unfiltered information doesn't really educates the public at all. Its too much at once and the media has done more reporting about wikileaks, Julian and the govt reaction to the leaks than the actual content of the leaks themselves. Collateral murder had a narrative, and as such I think it ended up receiving the attention it deserved rather than being sidelined by stories about the quantity of leaked cables and Julians personal life.

I hope wikileaks decide to not just scattergun information in the hope that the media is capable of finding the important truths because clearly they are not capable. I also wish Julian had remained anonymous. He did a good job of publicising wikileaks prior to these cables, but since then he's become a easy target and I think its done them more damage than good.

No. It's not a crime. Manning committed the crime. Then he blabbed about it and is getting what he deserves.

Not until he hangs will Manning 'get what he deserves'. But I doubt we have the balls to hang traitors anymore.

Assange's crime is taking those classified documents as well as classified diplomatic cables and making them available to a wider audience, including America's enemies. Corporate espionage and the rest is another matter and another set of crimes.

Uncovering secrets is what real journalism is all about.

The American mainstream libmedia gave up journalism long ago. Now the useful idiots just carry water for taxocrats and the left.

What's going on here is pure fucking evil perpetrated by the incestuous marriage of business and politics.

Which has been going on since the beginning of human history. And really, how much of THE TRUTH changes things? It was known well before Tim Geithner was made Secretary of the Treasury he was a m0therfcking TAX CHEAT. Did anyone care? Apparently not.

When it comes to shining a light on the truth that none of you fucks are free, the cables, the collateral murder video and all the rest is nothing compared to the reaction to them, by business and politics.

It's the people screaming "You are not free" who have even more tyrannical plans for the human race. There's nothing more common than "revolutionaries" adopting the same tactics and principles of the "oppressors" they overthrow. And so: yawn.

It used to be common sense that to maintain freedom and order, things like military operational readiness, technology and war plans and even diplomatic secrets should be hidden from the prying eyes of our enemies. I'm sure the Germans wished for American "transparency" about D-Day and the Japanese (Happy December 7th!) about our atom bomb programs.

For attacking the USA the wikiclown should be considered fair game. He claims to be an "anarchist" so I'm sure he'll enjoy his fate.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Fencing stolen information? You mean publishing whistleblower documents?
Assangle published the finook traitor's stolen classified documents. That's a crime.
You should check out dystopianfuturetoday's video about that. It's even broadcast on your favorite news station.
You mean America's favorite news station?
A foreign enemy like bin laden? If he would, he'd have been free for at least 10 more years.
The wikiclown isn't a diaperheaded billionaire with a network of jihadist vermin. But it sure looks like he could've used a spidey hole about now.


No. It's not a crime. Manning committed the crime. Then he blabbed about it and is getting what he deserves.

Uncovering secrets is what real journalism is all about.

What's going on here is pure fucking evil perpetrated by the incestuous marriage of business and politics.

When it comes to shining a light on the truth that none of you fucks are free, the cables, the collateral murder video and all the rest is nothing compared to the reaction to them, by business and politics.

While I agree with both of you that editing politically sensitive documents is sketchy...

1) They did also release the unedited version.

2) I will trust them as long as they continue to supply unedited versions of their edited documents.

3) If one day they edit something so as to hide relevant information, then they will lose my trust. Their editing of the collateral murder video is innocent, no?

4) If they are truly trying to spread truth, then better that they provide the edited versions, as opposed to them releasing tedious documents that will be unscrupulously edited by liars and agents of misinformation.

@burdturgler, fair enough. I'm not so sure he really implied that the political "enhancements" were exactly for sale though.

Generally speaking, it's a whistleblower site -- people are turning over confidential information that they believe is evidence that some sort of breach of legal or ethical standards had taken place.

For example, the climategate e-mails in raw form were too numerous and unfocused for an average person to glean anything meaningful from them at all, unless they spent hours or days reading them all.

Much better to edit them down to the juiciest, most damning bits, and then work through whether the worst of the worst really proved anything.

Other than the obviously biased title "Collateral Murder", a lot of what the editing did here was fill in supplemental information that you might not have been able to glean from watching the raw camera footage.

I'm still not sure it really proves criminal action, either by US military code or international law, but it sure does bring home that war is hell.

As for getting more attention, it kinda defeats the purpose of publicizing things like this, and the risk their informers are taking to provide it, if everyone ignores it.

I'm not sure they've made the right choice by going down this path, but I don't necessarily think they've made the wrong one, either.

>> ^burdturgler:
..

did you actually watch the video?
all they did was point out the facts and cut out stuff unnecessary to tell the story
they identified the people in the video and narrated the events with text
only thing not straight is the title; collateral murder
why? people get bored when they see a 40 minute video with a vague description

to keep with the theme.. here's the unedited interview;
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/260785/april-12-2010/exclusives---julian-assange-unedited-interview

Haven't you heard?

People don't give a shit about un-edited material.

They want to see the raw bloody impact!

The boom in your face action!

The above is sarcasm.

There are two sides to that sword, would this video have gotten as much attention had it not been edited and called collateral murder? That's not begging the question, that is a serious question and a point of view that I hold.

I think the media calls it Shock Value.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/collateral-murder-baghdad-anything

Another perspective that balances that of WikiLeaks. Hate if you will, but the best approach is to get above the emotional response and examine it dispassionately.

>> ^alizarin:

>> ^Crake:
RT is not Reuters, but 'Russia Today', not quite as reputable afaik. Tag change plz?

1) The story is about Reuters reporters being shot, that's what the tag is about I'm sure.
2) Does reputability come into it if it's an isolated interview?


Oooh right... hadn't thought that far. But yes, reputability is pretty important in any case, but the RT logo is right there on the screen I guess, so it's not a biggie.

>> ^Crake:

RT is not Reuters, but 'Russia Today', not quite as reputable afaik. Tag change plz?


1) The story is about Reuters reporters being shot, that's what the tag is about I'm sure.
2) Does reputability come into it if it's an isolated interview?