Collateral Murder, read the caption of the controversial video depicting a diabolical Baghdad airstrike in April of 2010. The footage released by the Wikileaks website included two US soldiers releasing fire on a group of mostly unarmed men, including two journalists (Saeed Chmag and Namir Noor-Eldeen of Reuters) whose cameras were thought to be weapens. After eight men were killed, the soldiers targeted a van housing three unarmed men and two children, killing three more men. In the last airstrike the US militants fired three missiles, destroying a building where a number of men, some armed, ran for shelter. The US soldiers approached the event with a disturbing callousness. “Look at those dead bastards,” they exclaimed, as if the people they just gunned down were characters in a video game.
The disturbing video was released just months after the Wikileaks website exposed 400, 000 documents known as the Iraq War Logs. The mainstreaming of this classified information caused a stir in society similar to that of the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the early 70’s. These papers exposed the bloody battle in Vietnam, displaying a brutally honest form of journalism that managed to sharply decrease the public’s support of the war. Every subsequent US war was carefully managed by the government and media. A more sanitized portrayal of war allowed for the positive support of the war in Iraq. Stained by the raw data exposed by the Wikileaks, many now question the morality of the government in its use of censorship in the media (one classified document showed that around 15 000 civilian deaths had not been admitted by the US government; other files record the brutish deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Iran locations).
Although the leaked footage and documents managed to raise questions concerning the morality of the military conduct of US troops, Assange’s integrity continues to be questioned. Rape accusations undermine Julian Assange’s credibility, and many hold to the idea that the government has a right to keep things secret. Fox News accused Wikileaks for censoring the video depiction of the Baghdad airstrike, shaping and editing the content in a way that underemphasized the fact that some of the civilians were indeed armed. Political comedian Stephen Colbert said that, by editing the video and entitling it Collateral Murder, the site produced a mere editorial. This argument remains disputed; the site also posted the longer, unedited version of the Baghdad airstrike.
Wikileaks is a non profit media organization that brings classified world news to the public. It was created by Julian Assange and the Sunshine Press organization. Since its launch in 2007, the webiste has publicized 1.2 million leaked documents. It relies heavily on volunteers, who work labouriously to keep the identities of contributing journalists anonymous. The website is notorious for its its radical anti-censorship stance. Because of the leak of the Iraq War Logs, Julian Assange has received signifcant amounts of criticism. Hilary Clinton condemned the leaks for putting “the lives of US and its partners’ service and civilians at risk”; from the other perspective, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iranian politician Mohammad Javad dismissed the documents that accused them of political corruption. In his interview with The Guardian, Julian Assange justifies his actions, stating that the information he publicized no longer holds military relevance, asit is no longer necessary to keep deployment locations hidden because the military has already carried out these orders. He supports the leak, saying that good journalism at its heart is controversial; the publication of this classifed information was effective because it got people talking about the true nature of the war.
– Karalee Congo