As the mother of an Iraq combat veteran these video confirmations of what many know to be a common occurrence in any war zone is painful to watch and painful to write about. Yet, it is critically important that we as a nation fully understand what is we are asking our youth to do and what we are asking them to become. The WikiLeaks video at the bottom was released Monday and I preferred to wait for calmer and more thoughtful heads to evaluate it because I may not be as objective as I would like but it is imperative we get past the DOD suppression of these events and evaluate the rules of engagement.
When you send people into horrible situations they will often do horrible things. When they come home they have to live with it. There are some well written pieces on this shocking video but the important thing to know is it is not uncommon, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in any war zone. The Pentagon goes to great lengths to hide this from the public. Thankfully, Pentagon staff and others working for the Department of Defense leaked this video to provide the truth to America.
Democracy Now has some exclusive interview footage taken the day after the massacre.
My son, John, who served two tours in Iraq saw the first few moments of this video and believed the young Reuters photographer’s camera lens was an RPG. Nevertheless, the order to fire was given before the twenty two year old photographer took up his camera and people were not firing at anyone as originally reported by the Pentagon and there were no troops beyond the helicopter gunship nearby to fire on anyway. This is painful viewing but it should be watched.
The young soldiers involved in this massacre will have to live with this the rest of their lives, just as my son is living with his experiences.
