Yves here. Even though this post covers known territory, it seems worthwhile to encourage those of you who haven’t watched the “Collateral Murder” footage to view the full version. It’s important not only to keep the public (and that includes people in your personal circle) focused on what Assange’s true hanging crime is in the eyes of the officialdom….and it ain’t RussiaGate. That serves as a convenient diversion from his real offense. That effort has a secondary benefit of having more people watch the video.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTyranny!
Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder, the 2007 war footage that was leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.
It’s brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a special kind of murder — murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine guns slowly circling their targets in helicopters like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are dead.
The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead.
They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we’re watching today.
“Everyone” in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all “respectable” U.S. politicians — including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, “Can’t we just drone this guy?”
Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it’s not for being a douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world. They want him dead for publishing videos like these.
Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial: “The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as ‘dead bastards,’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers.”
The Wikileaks page for the video is here. A transcript is here.
This was done in our name, to “keep us safe.” This continues to be done every day that we and our allies are at “war” in the Middle East.
Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to witness and acknowledge their deaths.
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Tangentially related, regarding bloodlust:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/14/latest-game-of-thrones-episode-sends-curveball-to-children-named-khaleesi
How curious …. watching GoT with the wife the other day and seeing this post – instantly clicked in my head E.g. the diminishment of those that create friction for those that have “Big Sky” agendas and the propensity for those that action them to deliver their betters blood lust for them.
I secretly wondered what core fans with emotive connections received the sacking of the city. Was show at fault for dashed expectations or some other externalization for not delivering their interpretation of the “Big Sky” agenda.
Then there is all the medium to small scores settled amongst the carnage, reminiscent of a paper by some French research team I posted long ago on Rwanda – veritable dictionary on terms of murder between peoples.
I fear parents approve of barbarism amongst their children these days – look at the computer games that are popular. Or perhaps they are so busy keeping the lights on they have no time for parenting. When I was young it was ‘cowboys and indians’ and you counted to ten to be revivified. The dismantling of bodies and the splattering of gore in today’s computer games is far worse. Still, we have repudiated regulation so ‘anything goes’
I don’t see anything inappropriate here, it is a war zone, these guys had rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
I’m pretty sure the people killed were civilians and unarmed. Someone else maybe can confirm?
My memory of it is the drivers were reporters carrying cameras. Trying to collect bodies, not firing… Don’t think the kids had any weapons.
I could watch it again, but I doubt alan has.
If someone has some time, point out when the killed drivers had the weapons in the film.
I think its relative to consider why it was a “war zone” at all.
Some “guys” appear to have had rifles and RPGs, some other guys had a 700 billion dollar a year budget with all the helicopters and missiles that buys.
Brave.
How dare those people take up arms against foreign invaders of their country! It’s their own hubris & stupidity that got them killed. They should have known better. And, it’s a war zone after all; some collateral damage is to be expected.
{sarc. off}
Who was it that said “when I think that God is just, I tremble for my country”?
Thomas Jefferson.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
” these guys had rifles and rocket propelled grenades.”
They did not. You hear the American gunners saying they did. They don’t. That thing you see early in the video that looks like a camera bag is, indeed, a camera bag.
But the gunners are not mistaken, as bad as that would be. They name the camera bag a rifle so that they can get permission to shoot. And the officer giving the permission, who has been through this routine many times, knows that they are lying and simultaneously assembling their story for afterward.
Everyone in the entire chain of command knows that what will be found on the ground after is a bunch of dead civilians, and the apparent weapons will have somehow disappeared (never existing in the first place.)
This is why our author says the entire US military structure is implicated in crime, from bottom to top.
–Gaianne
In WWII my father took the view that his German enemies were largely conscripted young men doing their duty for their country. He didn’t hate them. Then he saw Belsen. “Paradoxically” he told me “if I’d been ordered to take my men forward ten miles every day and kill every German I met I would have obeyed.”
Later, of course, he cooled down. But people do get wound up by events in war – they are exhausted, scared, too hot or too cold, hungry, thirsty, their bowels are misbehaving, they are appalled and angry about events they’ve witnessed, and so on.
None of these mitigating factors seem to apply to many murders committed in war, including (I assume) this case. The fact is that war is coarsening even of good men, and gives bad men endless opportunities for inexcusable savagery. That’s why no war should be fought in the absence of a vital national interest.
Executing Assange would be a savage little mini-war all of its own.
Your comment reminded me of what a guy named Mike Hastie, a U.S. Army Medic in Vietnam, said once: “One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head. The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.”
I came across an article the other day talking about how the Pentagon wages war these days as seen in Fallujah-
https://original.antiwar.com/David_Swanson/2019/05/07/fallujah-forgotten/
Unmentioned in that article is such war crimes as cutting water and power from a city full of civilians, US snipers shooting civilians trying to escape the city by crossing a river or those US snipers posted atop the hospital that shot any ambulances, ambulance drivers or any injured or wounded civilians that tried to approach the hospital. Sure Fallujah was a long time ago but the same play book is still being used in places like Raqqa in Syria where civilians were massacred by indiscriminate artillery or bombing to get ISIS out. As it was, ISIS fighters were allowed to leave the city so that they could go south and fight the Syrian army while the civilians had to stay.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. Readers like you are one reason I like NC. Don’t you think all of us are complicit in failing to protest these wars? And aren’t we selecting the most bloodthirsty and unbalanced among us with a volunteer military? The solution has to be by the citizenry at the voting booth, in the streets, everywhere. We must demand a military draft so the citizens get to see and react to war close up. With a draft Iraq and Afg would not have happened. Many Americans are too lazy and greedy to care. When I mention Assange my friends and coworkers hardly know who he is…..let alone care. Just as every German shares some guilt over what happened we are equally guilty…..even St. Ob. Where are the protests over the military budget and the lack of a draft?
“…aren’t we selecting the most bloodthirsty and unbalanced among us with a volunteer military?”
Yes. There’s a reason I’ve never voiced “Thank you for your service” to a member or former member of the military and probably never will unless/until they are involved in actual DEFENSE of the country.
And yes to reinstating the draft – and this time include women. Maybe some people wouldn’t be so passive about these imperial wars if their daughters were liable to be drafted & sent “over there”.
We have to train our cops somewhere? If gaming, FOX, (ALL media), taxpayer’s A-Beka textbooks and church didn’t teach them how to enforce 1% law, maintain order and line their own pockets; killing folks for oil, poppies, labor or to hear the lamentation of their women got us to where we all are today? http://inthesetimes.com/article/21885/chelsea-manning-julian-assange-war-crimes-wikileaks-press-freedoms
In the 1990s there was a sensational historical study “Ordinary Men” about a special murder squad in the Holocaust that was in fact composed of soldiers who did it all reluctantly.
That study was later thoroughly debunked. They were hardened Nazis selected for their brutality who claimed otherwise after the war.
None of the individuals in the chain of command of that helicopter were “ordinary men.”
The problem with that idea is one of distance.
The Einsatzgruppen were directly, ‘hands on’ killing people.
Those helicopter gunners, drone operators, et. al. are not directly engaging with those they are killing. A psychological distance is involved. A mental disconnect is possible. The famous experiment where people are given the chance to increase the level of pain induced in a ‘subject’ where the subject is not identified as a particular human being to the operator comes to mind. Distance makes a difference.
If I remember my history correctly, the soldiers in the Einsatzgruppen and camp guard components were allowed to opt out of the units without severe penalties. The idea being to self select for the more depraved and or fanatical National Socialist troops for the task.
Americas present semi-professional soldiery have more generally self selected for the more ambitious “lower class citizens.” The lure of “free” education is strong in a Credentialed economy. Especially to the poor.
I don’t know if being in the Einsatzgruppen was at all voluntary, but not doing the actual murders was generally not punished. The death camps were pretty much run by volunteers especially in the more “hands on” positions”
A large part of the camp guards was comprised of “Ethnic Germans,” a quite fluid definition, comprising those from outside the formal borders of Germany, often determined simply by one’s ability to speak German.
Part of the insidious evil of the system, and a lesson we should never forget, is the function of the ‘Kapos’ in the camps. Kapos were inmates of the camp who performed much of the work, often just to stay alive a little while longer.
That same dynamic can be applied anywhere, even here, and now.
Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. As you said, subsequently shown to be methodological and historiographical garbage. But he still got a Harvard job out of it.
Do you mean Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning? I read it the book and it seems legitimate. About 500 men of which a few dozen never shot, many more who did very reluctantly, and often stopped because they couldn’t handle it, and a large number who did just fine with the murders. The battalions always had a generous supply of alcohol. The scary part was the description of the gradual acclimatization to putting bullets into the head of men, women, and children by most of the battalion. Although they never seemed to celebrate their accomplishments. Unlike some Americans do today. Just under 500 hundred men murdering 83,000 people.
Just declaring war on a country doesn’t make it war in my mind. To be a war, the other country has to be able to fight back.
Drugs can’t fight back either. Seems to be a category error.
I second Felix_47’s thanks for your thoughtful comment. I would like to add that, based on my reading, many of our returning service[wo]men suffer more from the horror of how they violated their personal moral codes while in theater than they do from residual fear. I suspect that’s how it’s always been.
YUUUUUUP
I served in 2013 40 miles from the Iranian Border right outside Herat. FOB Shindand had an Air Force Base where we ran the Airfield. 94D ATC Equipment Repairers and Controllers. Everyday we watched the two CIA Drones take off. There call signs are Black Bird and Big Brother.
Seeing them return with no missles left, I felt pity for the families of the dead.
The fact that US drone operators allegedly call the people they shoot and kill remotely ‘bug splat’ says everything about how divorced they are from humanity.
When this first leaked out, I’d a coworker & three young supervisors, all immigrants, who’d fought in the US military, basically to get the balance of their families citizenship (along with, NDE training/ education). I was also living with an USAF brat/ wife who’s mom had been Bund Deutscher Mädel. It was odd to have these guys cheer on uranium slugs homogonize FLIR images of people from Apaches or drones. They’d send each other murder porn, ceaselessly. Watch it, with affected bravado in air conditioned offices whenever we’d wander in from the hot, nasty mill floor. The mom who’d actually been under RAF Lancasters, returning from the Ruhr, dumping bombs on Mainz went into shock for several weeks during shock and awe. The Alans of the world won’t see anything inappropriate, at the tiny FLIR images, here, find themselves wandering into battle zones?
I did contact my Congressional Representative about this. I’m not sure how much good it will do.
I am approaching my 80th year on this earth and some days it seems that the decades have been a long series of being taught to hate a certain group of people and then, discovering that it was all a charade.
From the Hollywood movies I saw, featuring as ‘enemies,’ the ‘yellow slant-eyed Japs,’ and the ‘savage redskins,’ to elementary school teachers lecturing us on the evils of Communist States, where small children like us were encouraged to spy upon and report their parents’ activities to the government, life was a series of lessons on who and how to hate and demonize. During the Korean War, we were told of an enemy who ‘brain-washed’ POW’s; little did we know that our own Establishment had taken brain-washing and the ‘manufacture of consent’ to stratospheric heights.
By Viet Nam, I had become wary of government indoctrination and by the time of the Iraq invasion, I refused to believe that all Muslims were evil-doers or that another invasion of yet another small country that had been f*cked over by white colonialists was right or necessary.
Normal people have to be taught to hate. And normal people have to view the people that their government orders them to kill as sub-human monsters. If once that fiction slips, and soldiers see the people they massacre as their own mothers, brothers and children, something inside them begins to fester and ferment. Alan’s comment, ‘I don’t see anything inappropriate here, it is a war zone,’ is correct on a superficial level.
However, the real perversity of the behavior shown on the tape is not that men view other humans as targets, as ‘game’ to be picked off one by one, but that a government, supposedly committed to freedom, democracy, liberty … all those good words ….. has been rolling along for decades, centuries even, pretending to be a force for good, while it has been hard at work at manipulating and deceiving its citizens, turning them into soulless killing machines by brain-washing them to hate Black people, Indigenous people, Asian people and now, Muslims and Arabs.
That is the ‘crime’ for which Julian Assange must pay the price.
This is an excellent comment and I thank you for it. It encapsulates some of the feelings I have had roiling inside me for a long time now.
As a 34 y/r old its only been a few years since ive broken the chains and escaped the cave. I got taught to love my neighbor while also hating blacks, gays, Soviets, Jews. I never hated, merely laughed, and went about my social experiences.
Not even watching that second plane hit the Twin Towers did i feel hatred toward the Hi Jackers. I thought 9/11 was the coolest and most terrifying thing id ever saw.
Til Katrina.
And the GFC.
Sucks that America truly could become the Vanguard of the World Proletariat and yet here we are, the real GWOT Terrorists.
Every citizen of the US should see this video, but they won’t. Even if they do, every effort will be made to obfuscate the clear immoral message on display. The murdering of civilians in time of war. Official US policy, which is bipartisan, is to confuse the population and seek justification for the unjustifiable. It is easier to avert one eyes and pretend that evil is not present. It is easier to live in denial.
But that is the danger of war. The loss of humanity. Wars of choice are the basis for all human evil. There is no reaching people who cannot accept that statement or choose to believe otherwise. Waging war is a choice. War is the opening of Pandoras box. The bane of humanity is that some individuals thrive on the chaos of war. They seek it out, and do everything in their power to perpetuate it in the world. Finding reasons for war and persuading others to wage war is their mission in life. War is always justifiable.
The first casualty of war is truth, as Aeschylus put down centuries ago. People need to seek, and demand the truth before anything will ever change. The lies and obfuscation are so great, something must give. In the end, it always does. Death and destruction find everyone in the end. One must choose to hamper or delay that outcome, or by default and inaction, accelerate it.
When stripped of all the marketing and Orwellian doublespeak, murdering and killing is what our society is about. Killing undesirables and nature. Small gestures of kindness are offset by the vastness of exploitation and greed. This murderous momentum can only be stopped by people, collectively choosing to live in peace.
When people of moral inclinations turn their eyes away form injustice, evil is allowed to thrive in the world.
Staring directly into the eyes of evil leads to insanity if not tempered by the will to live a different way. Collectively, we must find this different way. Choosing not to wage war on others is only a first step. But the danger is that how we live our everyday lives leads us right back to this warlike nature and existence.
Ending the cycle of death must reach public consciousness and a means for reaching a world of meaning and immortality. In a word, Life instead of Death. Collective life.
Those who seek war, and find meaning in war should, and must be our true enemy.
Goebbels would be really proud of the US propaganda machine.
Why not, he was copying racist US agitprop non-stop, without embarrassment: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/ https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow and you can witness the results right here in this thread? I’m waiting for AI, facial recognition drone swarms to become the next “Cops?”
A needed trip down memory lane. Good stuff!
A bit off the point, but related. I think of something like the French Revolution. Think of what is remembered as the Reign of Terror. It’s not the the reign of the royal family that was starving the country and had all kinds of torturous executions.
Re: “They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as ‘dead bastards,’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers.” Chelsea Manning
And people still deny this type of war culture permeates throughout this society and, just like the military war machine, finds allies with the worst actors internationally and has common ground with those professed as enemies.
This is why I hope we can avoid “taking to the streets” in the coming years. The bloodthirsty attitude displayed by the military pilots in that clip was shared by the police and private security personnel who put down the Water Protectors in North Dakota, surrounded Ferguson and, earlier, and suppressed Occupy. Even if all precautions against provocation are taken, it’s probable that any significant protest will be met with deadly violence — violence that will cheered on by our equally bloodthirsty politicians and the press. That’s why non-confrontational alternatives to street protests like general strikes may be our best option, although there’s no guarantee that the establishment won’t turn their attack dogs on anyone who participates in those as well. Worse than seeing innocent people gunned down in an Iraqi village square would be young (and older) Americans gunned down on the Washington Mall by our own military and police. There’s little comfort that the murderers may someday be brought to justice if we lose hundreds or thousands of innocents getting there. I have absolutely no faith that more than a very few of the current membership of our military and police would resist illegal orders, because I don’t think many of them have the moral capacity to see how evil such orders would be.
If there are any members of the security establishment out there who disagree with me, I invite them to prove me wrong — if they have the courage to (and it _will_ take courage).
Agreed.
This dynamic is almost the standard default system for the endless game of “Rulers and Ruled.”
America has already shot down peaceful protesters, burned out squatters camps, and ‘infiltrated’ and degraded ‘reform’ movements. Human nature hasn’t changed much over the last few millennia.
About the only comfort I get from a lifetime’s viewing of the ‘Pageant of Civilization’ is that “Karma is a B—-.”
To re-purpose that aphorism; “Karma is your friend.”
This video has nothing to do with why Assange is a target. It displays the ugly and evil side of war.
Wikileaks revealed the true power structure behind the throne. That is Assange’s sin. He revealed the men who represent real wealth and power, how decisions are made and how made people are inserted throughout government. He exposed methods of control and communication of the latest version of the Roman Empire.
Review how Geithner was named Secretary of the Treasury. Consider the list of appointees sent from a major bank and all involved and those behind them. They are the real power that runs this country and they do not want to be exposed.
Assange Embarrassed those in Power. He Committed Lèse-majesté.
That’s his crime. Lèse-majesté is always the crime most savagely prosecuted.
ISTR reading that the bank was Citibank. It chose Obama’s cabinet.
Well, yes this is what’s really happening with Assange. Without Assange Chelsea would not have been able to expose this stuff. And Assange is ultra dangerous to the West because he can’t be censored. Assange is a far worse problem than Chelsea. With Assange gone no one else in their right mind would publish things this awful. The “free press” stands behind him theoretically, but not really. We’ll understand just exactly who the free press really is soon enough. Chelsea will probably never be set free. So if our tactics or so unbearable to acknowledge, why do we use them? What exactly is at stake? And what important thing could not be resolved with enough good will and cooperation? As opposed to slaughter.
With Assange gone no one else in their right mind would publish things this awful.
I would.
I understand your thinking here, and would like to agree. However, this subject makes me think of an old saying concerning the use of torture in general. In essence, Torture is it’s own excuse.
“As above, so below,” say the Alchemists. This is true everywhere.
Applying the above to our quandry, I come to the conclusion that we are being ruled by insane people. People who secretly delight in inflicting pain and destruction, on anyone, friend or foe. Our dilemma is that, when ‘things’ finally get ‘going’ on the domestic political front, the so called “Forces of Light” will have to adopt many of the tactics and many of the methods of those we are trying to replace. Even if the ‘changing of the guard’ is successful, we will then have the difficult task of convincing Cincinnatus to go back to the farm.
well Wikileaks is still in business, still accepting leaks. I don’t mean that the persecution of Assange isn’t chilling, it is. How many people want to be Chelsea either?
While I agree those “who count” didn’t like the airing of this video, sadly, most people aren’t outraged. Many even rationalize this barbaric behavior as unavoidable (“we’re at war”), even necessary to keep us “safe.”
No, I think the real reason those in power want Assange dead is wikileaks’s greater crime (in their eyes) of exposing the security states operations, i.e., Vault 7. This treasure trove of CIA hacking tools (including source code) reveals their vast spying capabilities and how phony evidence can be created, planted and spread to falsely incriminate people, organizations, even countries setting the stage for govt actions (“cough” Venezuela, Iran). Now THOSE are revelations that can’t be allowed. Curiously (or not), Vault 7 hasn’t gotten that much coverage. It really, really should. https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/
Vault7 is concerning although UMBRAGE doesn’t show false flag use or capabilities as has been reported in conservative media. That’s stretching the truth to fit a narrative.
Better questions about Vault7 are things like why horde 0-days when people testified before congress that our intelligence services don’t? How come civilian electronics have become targets for technology infused spy craft? Why are our home routers and smart TVs pawns to be sacrificed for the greater good of the CIA/NSA, North Korea, China, Israel, Iran, UK, EU, India, Africa and SVR/GRU? I wish these types of questions got more attention. We need a Geneva Convention on nation-state hacking and election reforms including funding/assistance for electronic operational security. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to fit into the RussiaGate narrative.
Julian, thanks for not releasing all those 0-days on the internet and helping whistleblowers! I wish you didn’t perpetuate the Seth Rich lie but you have changed the world for the better despite your extremely narcissistic Assange.
Devastating, Tom, but thanks for the challenge of watching it. It crystallizes the importance of Assange and of Wikileaks.
I hope your column is sent about widely. Though many will avert their gaze, the topic remains timely and ought to go to every member of Congress as political creeps call for the annihilation of Assange. And for that matter, for opening the Pandora’s Box of conflict with Iran.
This war horror in a nutshell demonstrates the reality behind the US never ratifying membership in the International Criminal Court after its creation in 1998, and why the US joins Israel in doing everything they can to undermine it. Other non-members include China, India, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Qatar.
Like Afghanistan, Iraq is categorized as a non-international armed conflict. Crimes the ICC can pursue in such conflicts include murder, outrages on personal dignity and sentencing or execution without due process. Others include attacking civilians or civilian objects, causing excessive incidental death or damage, using expanding bullets, denying quarter and treacherously killing or wounding. What greater treachery than murdering people picking up their dead and wounded?
The two tragedies are joined at the hip. After Condoleeza Rice gave her bogus warning on WMD’s, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” I was having dinner with a close friend who grew up in Afghanistan, whose family had lived there for countless generations. He told me that if the US invades Iraq, taking its eye off the ball in Afghanistan at this critical time, then Afghanistan is lost.
By the way, we can thank chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson for the smoking gun/mushroom cloud metaphor. He currently offers his wisdom as a Washington Post op-ed columnist, where he beats the drum on Iran, remaining true to his creation of the Bush-era phrase “axis of evil”.
The USA is not the only country that exercise brutality and murder on people with a different point of view. Has anyone watched the violence inflicted by paramilitary police on the Gilet Jaunes protesters in Paris? And this is on their own citizens. It’s much easier when distance is a factor together with targets referred to as road kill.
Anyone who watches GoT and other like movies are rapidly desensitised by the serving up of gore and horror and just can’t wait for the next episode. Video games are all about killing your enemy in the safety of your living room. The RAF and Luftwaffe were hated by ground troops for their ability to rain death and destruction from the sky in relative anonymity. The human race is essentially a thoughtless predator. Global wars eventually bring the reality of this human condition into focus. Hopefully the next one provides an opportunity to modify this element of our nature. It is coming and we are all in rehearsal. Turn your eyes East.
Nobody is saying the US is the only nation that brutalizes and murders people. What gave you that idea? WikiLeaks has released lots of material about other countries human rights abuses but they don’t get nearly as much media attention as the American stuff. America is not like France, Canada the UK or other “normal” countries that are constrained by their relative lack of power and complaining about the United States getting singled out for criticism is akin to a Roman citizen back in the day rolling his eyes and lamenting that nobody ever gives Rome a break.
Besides, if you are American, you have no influence over French or Chinese policies and complaining about these countries makes no sense whatsoever. And, let’s face it, when it comes to unprovoked wars of aggression the United States is in a league of its own and deserves all the criticism it gets.
The media blatantly promotes every US war and war-in-the-making and blocks out any and all dissenting voices. This is why the establishment is going after WikiLeaks. By revealing the ugly reality of war that TPTB and their media partners hide from the people Assange’s organization crossed a red line and he is being publicly abused as a warning to future truth-seeking idealists. What they don’t say is that if the media lived up to its own hype and spoke truth to power there would be no need for organizations like WikiLeaks.
Pointing out that other countries aren’t perfect so why focus on America’s transgressions is classic whataboutery.
No, they’re not. The most recent episode was a depiction of the inhuman devastation that can be wrought by a powerful superweapon by a faction considerably more powerful than those it is targeting, rendered with a John Hersey-like perspective of unadulterated horror. It was an onslaught.
No, they’re not. This is a ludicrous statement on its face.
The above are pearl-clutching tropes one associates with (typically conservative/Republican) moral panic, based on negligible and unreasoned generalities. I hope they’re not taken unduly seriously.
Maybe the modern class structure is built not on the working class and the bourgeoisie, but on war criminals and infantile citizens.