Iraq War Logs: "Collateral Murder" Air Crew Strikes Again (UPDATED)

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Friday October 22, 2010 · 4:06 PM PDT

2010/10/22 · 16:06

UPDATE: DaNang65 has informed me that the call sign for an aircraft--in this case Crazyhorse 18--does not necessarily mean that the same crew was piloting this mission. It is entirely possible other airmen were involved here. However, this does not take away from the central point of my diary: that American forces killed two AIF that had attempted to surrender, and had enough trepidation about it to actually check with a lawyer first. It is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions (see my comment below) to mistreat enemy who have laid down their arms--let alone to kill them. Original diary follows:

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The huge trove of nearly 400,000 documents just released by Wikileaks contains an astonishing array of data, but in reading the New York Times' initial summation, a familiar name leapt out at me from one of the specific documents that the newspaper provided on its website:

Crazyhorse 18.

Jimbo47

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Tuesday September 14, 2010 · 6:25 AM PDT

2010/09/14 · 06:25

The spectre of an American Army officer ordering soldiers to kill civilians in Iraq has once again reared its ugly head--but this time, author Ralph Lopez, writing in Truthout on Sunday, finally put a name to the man who, according to a number of published interviews with several veterans over the past six months, ordered his battalion to shoot any and all civilians on the street in response to IED attacks. The officer, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, will be familiar to anyone who has read David Finkel's acclaimed account of Bravo Company 2-16, The Good Soldiers. But if the accusations against Kauzlarich are true, it raises disturbing questions not only about the conduct of the U.S. Army in Iraq, but also of the veracity and intent of Finkel's much-heralded book.

First, however, I must confess that the attribution of the "shoot civilians" order to Lt. Col. Kauzlarich did not surprise me. Back in May I interviewed Ethan McCord myself, and with the camera rolling he related the whole incident--referring repeatedly to Kauzlarich by name...

Jimbo47

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Wednesday April 14, 2010 · 6:13 AM PDT

2010/04/14 · 06:13

As a followup to SuperBowlIXX's analysis about Defense Secretary Robert Gates' Sunday television appearance, I would like to direct your attention to the Washington Post article published yesterday, in which Gates again responded, appropriately enough from a military aircraft, to the "Collateral Murder" video.

Jimbo47

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Monday April 12, 2010 · 10:09 PM PDT

2010/04/12 · 22:09

"I am obliged to say that I personally feel that nothing justifies it--neither Communism, Fascism, nationalism, tyranny nor freedom; the conquest of the earth or the preservation of any way of life: nothing. Nothing in the world, however base nor however good, nor however theoretically admirable, can justify murder as an act of policy."
- James Cameron, Point of Departure

This morning it happened again. I was awake by 5 am, thinking about The Video.

By now the pixelated monochrome images are familiar to many of you. A group of men, some carrying what appear to be weapons, hustling down a dusty Baghdad street. A husky guy gesturing toward a nearby corner, then a young photographer peering around a building. The men gathering in a loose group on the sidewalk, discussing something.

Then, obliteration.

Why is this clip so disturbing? Because it depicts the violent death of a group of largely unarmed guys in mid-conversation, you say? Yeah, that's kinda messed up. But as we peer through this little window into the Iraq conflict, there is so very much more that is deeply upsetting.

Jimbo47

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Thursday April 08, 2010 · 11:52 AM PDT

2010/04/08 · 11:52

I've observed over the past few days a lot of handwringing on Kos about the MSM's lack of attention to the leaked Pentagon video of the deaths of twelve people, including two Reuters reporters, in Iraq in 2007--especially the way most networks are avoiding showing the most disturbing sections of the footage. Predictably, Fox News filled the void a few minutes ago with an "analysis" that included highlighting blurry-looking pixels that they claimed clearly represented an RPG being carried by one of the men walking on the street. "Our soldiers on the ground sure knew what they saw," intoned the reporter, barely containing his contempt for those for whom slaughter of innocents still raises an eyebrow. The entire segment took all of the Pentagon's claims at face value and then, without a trace of irony, criticized the Wikileaks site for "editorializing" about the footage.

Jimbo47

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Wednesday June 24, 2009 · 7:33 AM PDT

2009/06/24 · 07:33

Being an old-fashioned sorta guy, one who can actually remember a world without cell phones, TIVOs, DVDs, VCRs, personal computers and, for that matter, this here interweb, I sometimes still amuse myself by going down to my local barely-staying-in-business stationery shop and purchasing something called a newspaper. I don't do this as often as I used to, because the newspaper of record now fetches the astounding sum of 2 bucks on weekdays--but anyhow, yesterday was one of those amuse-myself kind of days, and as I was perusing my Tuesday New York Times I happened to stumble over this little tidbit, buried unobtrusively below the fold on page 16:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Clean Water Act does not prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from allowing mining waste to be dumped into rivers, streams and other waters.

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