Wikileaks has released a video that may either blow up in the whistleblowing site’s face or make a ton of people in the Army very uncomfortable. Likely both. With “Collateral Murder,” Wikileaks reveals what it says is “a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.” The 17+ minute video embedded at CollateralMurder.com is chilling for its detached view to a massacre and the casual attitudes of the men heard on the radio traffic accompanying the scene. More on the video from Wikileaks:
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
[…]WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.
It remains to be seen as to whether the videos – which are disturbing but shot from a distance and not overtly bloody – are actually in keeping with Youtube’s policy of not allowing videos with violent content.