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US soldier charged over Iraq video leak

05:55 AM Jul 08, 2010

WASHINGTON - A United States army intelligence analyst was charged on Tuesday with leaking a highly classified video of American forces killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad and other secret diplomatic cables to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

Private Bradley Manning, who had top-secret security clearance, was arrested in Iraq in May in connection with the video, which caused great embarrassment to the US military.

It showed an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency. The air crew is heard falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead. WikiLeaks titled the video Collateral Murder.

Manning, 22, was arrested after boasting in emails to a high-profile former hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he passed the material to WikiLeaks along with a staggering 260,000 classified American diplomatic reports.

WikiLeaks says it plans to release a second US military video that shows one of the deadliest US air strikes in Afghanistan, in which the Afghan government said about 140 civilians died, including 92 children in the village of Garani in May last year.

The charge sheet says Manning leaked the material to "bring discredit upon the armed forces".

Although WikiLeaks has not formally acknowledged that Manning is the source of the material it has retained three lawyers in the US to help defend him. If convicted on all charges, Manning could be sentenced to a maximum 52 years in prison.

Hours after the military announcement, Wikileaks sent out a tweet complaining that while Manning was charged, the "trigger-happy Apache crew remain uncharged".

The case has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leak 40 years ago of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of the Vietnam War.

It has bolstered perceptions that the administration of President Barack Obama, despite a stated policy of open government, is as determined as its predecessors with keeping secrets.

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Wikileaks Soldier Who Found Rocket Launcher at Scene Says No Attack Was Imminent

Ralph Lopez

The soldier in a now-famous Wikileaks video who found a rocket launcher at the scene of a controversial 2007 Apache helicopter attack, in Baghdad, said in a radio interview this week that he did not believe an ambush was imminent. The video shows 12 men, including two Reuters newsmen, standing on a street corner before being fired upon with the Apache�s 30mm cannon, resulting in what appears to be an unprovoked massacre. The video caused an international outcry after it was leaked to the media by the government watchdog Wikileaks. The presence of the rocket launcher was seized upon by defenders of the attack as proof that the attack was justified, and that this was evidence of an impending ambush.

The soldier, Ethan McCord, can be seen in the video as he runs with a wounded child in his arms to a Bradley armored vehicle, seeking to get the child to help.

�One thing I do need to make clear is that when I came onto the scene I did see an RPG and an AK-47, however, my experience in Iraq is when the locals see someone with a camera, maybe a photographer, someone with a news agency, is they always come out with their weapons, kind of like showing off...look what I have, make me famous, put me in the magazine type of thing...my personal belief is that I do not believe these guys had anything to do with the attacks we were facing earlier, from a few blocks away, these guys were walking around nonchalantly, they weren�t gathering in any kind of formation to do anything to us...�

McCord�s remarks solve the riddle in the minds of many as to why would-be attackers would be standing so casually out in the open and with so little concern for the small but visible pair of Apaches so dreaded by insurgents, and undermines the Pentagon's conclusion that it was justified.

At one point McCord criticized media war analysts, whom he called �these supposed war analysts [who] were going over this video , who knew nothing of what happened that day...�

In the wide-ranging interview with Cindy Sheehan on her weekly radio program Cindy Sheehan�s Soapbox, McCord also again attested to witnessing a high-level war crime, that of random execution of civilians in retaliation for an attack on U.S. forces, a crime which was successfully prosecuted after World War II. McCord�s allegation was broadcast widely across the Internet two months after he first made it in an interview in April.

In that interview, McCord recounted that, in the middle of a particularly turbulent time when his battalion was being hit frequently by IEDs, his battalion commander issued an order which was to be a new �SOP� or Standard Operating Procedure. McCord attests that the commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, gave the order to engage in �360 rotational fire� upon being hit by an IED. McCord recalls the commander saying �If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every *beep* on the street.�

more at link

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COLLATERAL MURDER HERO NEEDS OUR HELP!

ETHAN MCCORD IN TROUBLE!


You can also listen to an interview on Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox with Ethan here:

http://sheehan.streamguys.org/SoapboxInternet08082010.mp3

If our movement for peace and justice is to prevail, we must reward those who join it.

When Wikileaks released a video called Collateral Murder earlier this year, one soldier was seen in the video rescuing injured children from a van that had been attacked by a U.S. helicopter. That soldier, Ethan McCord, spoke out against the incident of murder and the murderous war. He and another veteran, Josh Stieber, published an open letter of apology to the people of Iraq.


Last summer peace activists were calling Ethan McCord the bravest man alive, and corporate newspapers were calling him a soldier for peace.


Watch this speech he gave.


Now Ethan McCord cannot pay his bills. The military doesn't even "support the troops" that keep quiet. There is little chance of it supporting Ethan.

That's our job.


Do you appreciate what Ethan has done to expose the nature of our wars? Then please contribute directly to him. Every penny goes straight to Ethan:


DONATE HERE.


Ethan McCord has also exposed more war crimes and even worse war crimes.

This is the kind of truth-telling that our government and our corporate media do not do. In fact, the government would like to criminalize it, and the corporate media would like to silence it. Wikileaks is only able to expose information when whistleblowers are willing to leak information or speak out. They must be rewarded.


DONATE HERE.


Peace on Earth.