In a few days it will be July 12th, marking the 11-year memorial or "anniversary" of the "Collateral Murder" massacre that occurred in Iraq on July 12, 2007. A US airstrike from Apache helicopters murdered a dozen people in the streets of Baghdad.
The US claimed those killed were anti-Iraqi forces or insurgents, but this wasn't the case. Why did they attack in the first place? A weapon was allegedly seen. The reality is that there was no weapon. This was the justification for this massacre of Iraqi civilians.
The weapon that was allegedly "seen" was a rocket-launcher. They mistook a camera for a rocket-launcher:
A Reuters journalist named Namir Noor-Eldeen, one of the most respected Reuters employees in Baghdad, was among those attacked. Along with his driver, Saeed Chmagh, and several others. Saleh Matasher Tomal, a driver who was trying to help those unjustly attacked and injured, was also attacked by the helicopter. His van was bombarded with bullets, and his two children who were in the van were also injured.
This is what the van looked like after the attack:
After the attack, a military investigation found no wrongdoing on the part of the soldiers. Obviously. It was all above board and within the law of armed conflict, they said. It followed the "Rules of Engagement".
Before Wikileaks released the "Collateral Murder" video, Reuters had tried but failed to get the video through the Freedom of Information Act. The video shows the slaying of civilians, and the continual attack upon them even after they were injured.
We wouldn't even know about any of this if it weren't for whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, now know as Chelsea Manning. Manning leaked the footage of the attack to WikiLeaks who published it for the world to see in 2010. Manning was charged as a traitor for exposing government and military wrongdoings. He was sent to 35 years in prison under the Espionage Act. In 2017, President Obama commuted the sentence and Manning was released from prison in May 2017.
If you've never watched the video, you should. It's pretty horrible, and you get to hear the mindset of these murderous soldiers, with jovial and laughing comments from those doing the murdering of innocent civilians.
Here are some transcripts of the event:
03:23 All right, hahaha, I hit [shot] 'em...
The area is caked in dust after the 30-mm machine gun attack from the Apache helicopter. These are huge bullets.
This is the size relative to someone's hand:
When a van comes along to help people, they don't want that to happen, those people that are helping others must be evil too! They claim that there were weapons, and beg to be allowed to engage and shoot the van that is helping people they just shot up.
07:18 Bushmaster; Crazyhorse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons.
07:25 Let me engage.
07:28 Can I shoot?
07:31 Roger. Break. Uh Crazyhorse One-Eight request permission to uh engage.
07:36 Picking up the wounded?
07:38 Yeah, we're trying to get permission to engage.
07:41 Come on, let us shoot!
The military had this video, and knew what happened. But when Reuters asked how their staff members were killed, the military did not tell them. THe military even said they didn't know how the children were injured. Seriously? It seems pretty clear to anyone who watches the video that a helicopter was firing bullets at a van that was helping innocent people.
Even the transcripts show that they knew there were children involved at the time. Of course, these pathetic men blamed the innocent people were shooting at.
17:46 Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.
17:48 That's right.
Yes, that's right, how dare parents be allowed to transport their children in a van and help others who are being attacked and murdered by the invading military force of the US? How dare they...
One more transcript of these "good boys" enjoying the carnage they unleashed on innocent Iraqis:
36:53 There it goes! Look at that bitch go!
36:56 Patoosh!
37:03 Ah, sweet.
37:07 Need a little more room.
37:09 Nice missile.
37:11 Does it look good?
37:12 Sweet!
They sound like great bunch of guys, right? Freedom is great, isn't it? Let's keep supporting the demented governments and the military-industrial-pharma-banking complex. We're going to make a fucking great world this way!
We only know of this one incident, on this one day. Crimes like this are plenty, according to U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord who said about the "Collateral Murder" video:
"If this video disgusts you, it should. It happens daily in Iraq. The rules of engagement in Iraq are a joke."
We're being lied to, constantly. They try to deny or justify their crimes until they get exposed with facts, like the "Collateral Murder" video has done.
The US has gone on to invade and occupy other areas of the Middle-East. Some posed a threat to US hegemony, like Libya's Qaddafi who wanted to get onto a gold-standard monetary system. Others are just obstacles to a globalist-socialist New World Order. In 11 years, things have kept crawling along towards this plan, and innocent people like those in Syria fall prey to the tyranny of the new conquistador global domination agenda.
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