Last
seconds on this earth. One of the Iraqis moves
back to his vehicle (a farm tractor and trailer?).
Click or right-click image to download MPEG video
(5 MB).
THIS is another of those moving images of war — moving in both senses of the word.
We have nothing but praise for the US officer who ensured that this video was clandestinely released to the Internet. It is more obscene than the worst images we have been shown of the torture of prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib prison. Unfortunately the video and its sound track provide no clue as to why these four Iraqi men were targeted and machine-gunned to death from a safe range by the American airmen in their helicopter gunship, with all the detachment of youngsters in a video
arcade. The Iraqis may have been up to no good — there is no clue. They may have been, as the source website suggests, “innocent farmers” selected by the US airmen for some fun, or target practice. We just don’t know. We are unlikely to be told by the Pentagon or its spokesmen, let alone by its smooth talking sicko spokesman, Brigadier-General Mark
Kimmitt, in Baghdad (below).
[Brig Mark Kimmitt]
Whatever the facts, images like these may well mitigate the world’s sorrow when it hears in future that an American helicopter gunship has been shot down by the Iraqi resistance. Needless killing of civilians in war is a crime. The deliberate killing of a wounded enemy who poses no further threat in combat is also a crime outlawed by the laws of war. If other videos like this come our way, we will post them.
If the original website disappears we will replace the out-link with the actual video. No memory holes here, so long as our website survives.
Similar video of AC-130 gunship shooting up forty civilians in Afghanistan
French TV screens images of
US helicopter crew killing Iraqis
Sound-track: Acknowledgments to
[other truck]
“To the right””See if there is anybody moving by the
truck””Wait for moving””I don’t see any””Good, store that””Auto range, store””Oops — there another guy underneath
there””Underneath””Moving right there””Fire”” HIT him!””Target 4″”We’re taking other truck out?””Wait for movement by the truck””Movement right there””Roger”“He’s wounded”“Hit him”“He’s in the truck””Hit the truck — hit him””Go forward of it — hit him””Roger.”
He’s Wounded HIT HIM!: