Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 106

Forever Youngish?

Leon Russell, Glen Campbell, Waylon Jennings.  And it's Glen who looks stoned!

Shooting at Fort Hood

UPDATES: The usual confusion and false reports and correctons.  CNN told one shooter at large, one dead, self-inflicted.  A report that one person killed--but that might be the shooter.  Usually in the past there are reports of two shooters and it turns out there was only one.  Eyewitness on local TV says some soldiers ordered to knees and face down.  Others patted down.  Evacuations. Stay tuned. The 2009 shooting at Fort Hood led to 12 deaths.

Earlier:  Again.  Injuries reported including one with chet wound and shooter still "active."  And an evacuation near post.  Theories focus on warning, just yesterday, of a recruit, not missint, vowing "jihad" against soldiers. But might just be coincidence.  Local TV coverage live:

kcentv.com - KCEN HD - Waco, Temple, and Killeen

The Most Important Instrument in Our History

As I've noted elsewhere, both here and at The Nation, saw terrific new play Satchmo at the Waldorf last night in NYC.  So in tribute, my photo of little Louis's very first horn, which he picked up at the home for young boys in trouble with the law in New Orleans (a key scene in the play), now displayed in NOLA museum.

Assange + Schmidt = New Book

Just got this press release in the mail from OR Books.  Book to come this September. More here.
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In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: The chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, together with an entourage of US State Department alumni including a top former adviser to Hillary Clinton, arrived from America at Ellingham Hall, the country residence in Norfolk, England where Assange was living under house arrest.

For several hours the besieged leader of the world's most famous insurgent publishing organization and the billionaire head of the world's largest information empire locked horns. The two men debated the political problems faced by human society, and the technological solutions engendered by the global network­ from the Arab Spring to Bitcoin. They outlined radically opposing perspectives: For Assange, the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness. For Schmidt, emancipation is at one with US foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-Western countries to American companies and markets. These differences embodied a tug-of-war over the Internet's future that has only gathered force subsequently.

When Google Met WikiLeaks presents the story of Assange and Schmidt's encounter. Both fascinating and alarming, it contains extensive, new material, written by Assange specifically for this book, providing the best available summary of his vision for the future of the Internet.  The book also includes an edited transcript of the conversation with Schmidt in which Assange outlines the way WikiLeaks works and why it is so significant for governments and corporations. What emerges is the clearest and most sophisticated picture of the philosophy behind WikiLeaks to date.

Assange proposes a radical overhaul of the naming structure of the Internet, one which would revolutionize the way information is accessed. By coupling the intellectual content of a document to its online name­doing away with the haphazard URL system, ­Assange outlines a potential future for the Internet that would make it faster and much more difficult to censor.

In contrast, Schmidt’s contribution equates progress with the geographic expansion of Google, supported by the US State Department. In cutting prose, Assange denounces this world-view as "technocratic imperialism" and offers a stringent critique of its methods, goals and effects.

These are vital counterpoints for anyone interested in where the Internet­and by extension human civilization­is heading. The difference between the paths taken by Assange and Schmidt was illustrated subsequently by their responses to the Snowden disclosures: while WikiLeaks aided the whistleblower's escape, Google scrambled to manage a public relations backlash after the revelation that it had taken money from the NSA to process spying requests from the US government.

In June 2011, the North and South poles of the Internet came together in the English countryside for an historic dialogue. This extraordinary book tells the story of that unlikely encounter, and its significance for us all.

Chelsea Manning on 'Collateral Murder'

As I've noted earlier, this week marks the fourth anniversary of WikiLeaks' release of the now famous "Collateral Murder" video from Iraq--showing a murderous U.S. attack on Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters staffers, from the air--leaked by Pfc. Chelsea Manning.  It set off what might be called the "Year of WikiLeaks."  Here's how the long-silent Manning described his decision to leak the chilling video in his statement at his recent hearing (after he admitted to doing the deed).   It's included in my new book on Iraq, So Wrong for So Long.  To watch key portion of the video, go here.

Facts regarding the unauthorized storage and disclosure of the 12 July 2007 aerial weapons team or AW team video.

During the mid-February 2010 time frame the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division targeting analyst , then Specialist Jihrleah W. Showman and others discussed a video that Ms. Showman had found on the 'T' drive.

The video depicted several individuals being engaged by an aerial weapons team. At first I did not consider the video very special, as I have viewed countless other war porn type videos depicting combat. However, the recording of audio comments by the aerial weapons team crew and the second engagement in the video of an unarmed bongo truck troubled me.

As Showman and a few other analysts and officers in the T-SCIF commented on the video and debated whether the crew violated the rules of engagement or ROE in the second engagement, I shied away from this debate, instead conducting some research on the event. I wanted to learn what happened and whether there was any background to the events of the day that the event occurred, 12 July 2007.

Using Google I searched for the event by its date  and general location. I found several news accounts involving two Reuters employees who were killed during the aerial weapon team engagement. Another story explained that Reuters had requested for a copy of the video under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA. Reuters wanted to view the video in order to be able to understand what had happened and to improve their safety practices in combat zones. A spokesperson for Reuters was quoted saying that the video might help avoid the reoccurrence of the tragedy and believed there was a compelling need for the immediate release of the video.

Despite the submission of the FOIA request, the news account explained that CENTCOM replied to Reuters stating that they could not give a time frame for considering a FOIA request and that the video might no longer exist. Another story I found written a year later said that even though Reuters was still pursuing their request, they still did not receive a formal response or written determination in accordance with FOIA.

The fact neither CENTCOM or Multi National Forces Iraq or MNF-I would not voluntarily release the video troubled me further. It was clear to me that the event happened because the aerial weapons team mistakenly identified Reuters employees as a potential threat and that the people in the bongo truck were merely attempting to assist the wounded. The people in the van were not a threat but merely 'good samaritans'. The most alarming aspect of the video to me, however, was the seemly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have.

They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging and seemed to not value human life by referring to them as quote "dead bastards" unquote and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety. The individual is seriously wounded. Instead of calling for medical attention to the location, one of the aerial weapons team crew members verbally asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage. For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.

While saddened by the aerial weapons team crew's lack of concern about human life, I was disturbed by the response of the discovery of injured children at the scene. In the video, you can see that the bongo truck driving up to assist the wounded individual. In response the aerial weapons team crew-- as soon as the individuals are a threat, they repeatedly request for authorization to fire on the bongo truck and once granted they engage the vehicle at least six times.

Shortly after the second engagement, a mechanized infantry unit arrives at the scene. Within minutes, the aerial weapons team crew learns that children were in the van and despite the injuries the crew exhibits no remorse. Instead, they downplay the significance of their actions, saying quote "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kid's into a battle" unquote.

The aerial weapons team crew members sound like they lack sympathy for the children or the parents. Later in a particularly disturbing manner, the aerial weapons team crew verbalizes enjoyment at the sight of one of the ground vehicles driving over a body-- or one of the bodies. As I continued my research, I found an article discussing the book, The Good Soldiers, written by Washington Post writer David Finkel.

In Mr. Finkel's book, he writes about the aerial weapons team attack. As, I read an online excerpt in Google Books, I followed Mr. Finkel's account of the event belonging to the video. I quickly realize that Mr. Finkel was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of the aerial weapons team crew.

It is clear to me that Mr. Finkel obtained access and a copy of the video during his tenure as an embedded journalist. I was aghast at Mr. Finkel's portrayal of the incident. Reading his account, one would believe the engagement was somehow justified as 'payback' for an earlier attack that lead to the death of a soldier. Mr. Finkel ends his account of the engagement by discussing how a soldier finds an individual still alive from the attack. He writes that the soldier finds him and sees him gesture with his two forefingers together, a common method in the Middle East to communicate that they are friendly. However, instead of assisting him, the soldier makes an obscene gesture extending his middle finger.

The individual apparently dies shortly thereafter. Reading this, I can only think of how this person was simply trying to help others, and then he quickly finds he needs help as well. To make matter worse, in the last moments of his life, he continues to express his friendly gesture-- his friendly intent-- only to find himself receiving this well known gesture of unfriendliness. For me it's all a big mess, and I am left wondering what these things mean, and how it all fits together , and it burdens me emotionally.

I saved a copy of the video on my workstation. I searched for and found the rules of engagement, the rules of engagement annexes, and a flow chart from the 2007 time period-- as well as an unclassified Rules of Engagement smart card from 2006. On 15 February 2010 I burned these documents onto a CD-RW, the same time I burned the 10 Reykjavik 13 cable onto a CD-RW. At the time, I placed the video and rules for of engagement information onto my personal laptop in my CHU. I planned to keep this information there until I redeployed in Summer of 2010. I planned on providing this to the Reuters office in London to assist them in preventing events such as this in the future.

However, after the WLO published 10 Reykjavik 13 I altered my plans. I decided to provide the video and the rules of engagement to them so that Reuters would have this information before I re-deployed from Iraq. On about 21 February 2010, I as described above, I used the WLO submission form and uploaded the documents. The WLO released the video on 5 April 2010. After the release, I was concern about the impact of the video and how it would be received by the general public.

I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members. I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan are targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public, who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled-- if not more troubled that me by what they saw.

Greg Mitchell’s new edition of So Wrong for So Long on Iraq includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword with updates.  

11 Years Ago: Only the End of the Beginning in Iraq

Eleven years ago this week I appeared on  a segment for Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS on media coverage of the early days of the Iraq war.  (I was the editor of Editor & Publisher at the time.) U.S. forces would be interesting Baghdad within a week and victory banners were being prepared but some of us were very uneasy about what would happen next--and the lies used to get us in there to begin with.    Indeed, the interview would conclude with Moyers asking, "Do you have a sense that when the battle is over, this story's only begun?"   Here, from the transcript.  Much more on these issues in my new book, So Wrong for So Long.  
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MOYERS:  Do you think the public knows that the reporters who are embedded had to sign a contract with the Pentagon in order to be accepted for this role? That they had to agree to play by the rules?

MITCHELL: Well, it's a good question whether they know but also whether they care. I think, as we found in polls over the years, that the American people... believe that there should be all sorts of restrictions. And, of course, everyone agrees that in war time there should be more restrictions. But the question is, to what degree? And we've seen in our interviews with editors in the past couple weeks, many cases of editors getting a lot of mail from readers who are upset about their coverage. And it shows that the people have a really different view about what the rights and the responsibilities of the press are.

MOYERS: I saw your story about USA TODAY the other day... the editor of USA TODAY got in trouble for this photograph, didn't he?

MITCHELL: Well, they ran a photograph of some dead Iraqi soldiers on the front page. And a large number of readers complained because on the same day they ran a photo inside of a U.S. soldier surrounded by happy Iraqi children. And so these people were saying, "Why wasn't that photo on the front page instead of the dead Iraqi soldiers?"

And the executive editor of USA TODAY told us that, yeah, the reason was simple. It was a day of great bloodshed. One of those days of great pessimism. And he thought it would have been inappropriate and misleading to show this happy photo on the front page. So he went with the more grim photo.

Another example I'll give you, the DALLAS MORNING NEWS editor told us that they've gotten a lot of complaints for showing dead civilians or damaged civilians of Iraqis on the on the front page. And he says that it's viewed by the readers as an anti-war statement... showing the casualties on the other side is an anti-war statement. And that really goes against all the principles of press coverage that we believe in which is, you know, showing what is happening. And letting the people deal with it as they can.

MOYERS: Do you think that journalists can be objective about what they're reporting when they are alongside the troops who are protecting them as they move forward?

MITCHELL: Well, I think that's one of the problems. These reporters have been living with these troops. Reporting with them, getting to know them. And, of course, that's all terrific. You know, no one could really be against that.

But in practice it could modify or adjust what they report about the actions....One of the problems in this whole campaign has been that originally we were told that the embedded reporters would only make up maybe half of the reporters who would be covering the conflict. The rest would be independent. But what's happened is because of the dangers over there-- almost all the reporters are the embedded reporters. So there's very few free-roaming reporters who can report without any restrictions whatsoever.

But the problem is that the commentators on TV have almost from the beginning adopted a "we" attitude. They now are reporting, "We are advancing. We are taking fire. We are taking prisoners."  So all objectivity has been dropped. And, as human beings, I think we could agree it's understandable in this situation. But, as journalists, it's not the best situation where commentators, anchormen-- reporters in the field -- are talking about this as a "we" rather than a U.S. mission or the U.S. soldiers.

MOYERS: Fox News has become the cheerleader for the government. What does it do to other news organizations when Fox proves that jingoism is more popular than journalism?

MITCHELL: I think the problem with that is that a lot of the other--particularly the cable news networks have-- felt that they have to keep up with that. I think there's a certain competition to show that they're not soft on the war, that they don't have any less patriotism than Fox. And we've seen it just this morning. I saw an interview on CNN with an Australian woman who had been in Baghdad and had just left. And the woman kept saying that, you know, she was amazed how much the Iraqi people, although they may not like Saddam Hussein, were very angry about the bombings.

Many of their children had been injured or killed....And the person who was the interviewer back in the U.S. asked her one aggressive question after another. After he finished talking to her, he then sort of editorialized on the air, saying-- "Well, we've talked to countless people who say that the Iraqi civilians will welcome with open arms the American soldiers."  Now that may or may not be true. But the point is that even after one of the rare kind of dissenting or contrary opinions was expressed, the anchor felt he had to then jump in and editorialize, saying, "You can disregard what this woman said. You know, we have other information."

The press should report straight down the line. You know, let the people see all sides. Let the people get all the information as quickly as they can. And let the chips fall where they may....

MOYERS: What concerns you about what's not being covered?

MITCHELL: My complaint is with the cable news networks that are on 24/7 and yet have found virtually no time to interview psychologists and theologians and other observers who could talk about what this is doing to us what this is doing to us as a country.

MOYERS: What do you think is stake for democracy and how we journalists cover this war?

MITCHELL: Edward R. Murrow had a quote on his wall in his office from Thoreau in which he said something like, "To speak the truth, you need two people. One to speak it and one to hear it."

And I think that sums up the relationship not only between the military and the press but the press and the American people. You know, the press often is reporting factual matters. And the public sometimes turns away from it. We entered this war, with upwards of half the people in the country believing that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack.

Now, how did that happen? Was that the media's fault? Was it the government's fault for putting out the stories? Or is the public sometimes not receptive, and the public wants to believe what the public wants to believe?

MOYERS: Last question. Do you have a sense that when the battle is over, this story's only begun?

MITCHELL:  I don't think most Americans understand that this is going to be something that's with us for years and decades, and I'm not sure we get a sense of that from the coverage which seems to be oriented towards next week or next month, when the battle will be over. The boys will start to come home, and it will be a glorious episode in our past rather than something that's just the beginning of this story.

We're really at the beginning of the story of the U.S. and Iraq in the 21st century.

Greg Mitchell’s new edition of So Wrong for So Long includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword with updates right up to Bradley Manning’s hearing last month.    

11 Years Ago: Iraq No Vietnam. Right?

At my magazine, E&P, Chris Hedges had been warning about this for weeks.  But on this date in 2003 the first deep doubts about what would happen after the U.S. took Baghdad appeared in the NYT.  Veteran reporter Ethan Bronner noted at NYT  "muted" Iraqi response to U.S. liberators.  Nick Kristof opened his NYT column ten years ago today from Iraq with this: "Let's be clear: Iraq will not turn into another Vietnam."  The war would end in a matter of days.  Whoops.  But Kristof did add:   "Yet if this isn't Vietnam, neither is it the Afghanistan campaign, where we were hailed as liberators. I was in Afghanistan during that war, and the difference is manifest. Afghans were giddy and jubilant, while Iraqis now are typically sullen and distrustful -- and thirsty.

"And that's our biggest long-term problem. For all the talk about our forces being short of armored divisions, or our supply lines being stretched so taut that marines were down to one meal a day, those are tactical issues that will be forgotten six months from now. The fundamental and strategic challenge is that so far many ordinary Iraqis regard us, as best I can tell, as conquerors rather than liberators."
One Iraqi tells him:  ''Money was O.K. under Saddam.  'Freedom was not so good. As a people, we were doing O.K. before the invasion. But the war upsets our lives. It brings destruction.''

Greg Mitchell’s new edition of So Wrong for So Long includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword with updates right up to Bradley Manning’s hearing last month.    

Cheney on Bomb-Bomb-Bomb Iran (for Israel)

Old friend and colleague David Corn (with Andy Kroll)  strikes again in the leaked tape arena with one today capturing Dick Cheney telling friends of Israel, at Sheldon Adelson's bash in Vegas this past weekend, that bombing Iran might be a very swell idea (to cheers).  But there was more in his critique of Obama and new "isolationists," such as Rand Paul.  For example:

Nobody who's been our friend in the past any longer has any sense of trust in we'll keep our commitments, that we'll be there in a crisis when they need us. On the other hand, none of our adversaries need fear us." Noting that the chief responsibility of a president is to protect the United States against "all enemies foreign and domestic," Cheney claimed that today that charge "is not being pursued in any kind of coherent manner."

Four Years Ago: What Happened After Release of 'Collateral Murder'

In this space, I recounted how Julian Assange and his (then) merry band put together the soon-to-be infamous (and revealing) "Collateral Murder" video from Iraq, leaked by Chelsea Manning.  Assange then left Iceland for D.C. and the press conference.  Here's what happened next, below.  For much more, see my books The Age of WikiLeaks and (with Kevin Gosztola) Truth and Consequences: Chelsea Manning .
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On April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks posted on its site the Iraq video, now titled Collateral Murder. It showed U.S. Army Apache helicopter air strikes in an eastern district of Baghdad in July 2007, which killed two staffers for Reuters and a dozen or more others. WikiLeaks said it had obtained the video from unnamed "whistleblowers" in the military.

The video drew a massive worldwide audience, quickly reaching millions. Now WikiLeaks had fully arrived -- as a concept, as an organization, as a media fixture in America.

Mass attention, but also confusion, greeted the video's debut. The WikiLeaks site crashed from all the interest and versions showing up on YouTube varied in length (without explanation) and quality. Sound was an issue, since one key aspect was the often crude or celebratory commentary by crew members in the helicopters as they targeted, then destroyed, some of those on the street below. "Look at those dead bastards!" one crew member exclaimed. Some versions of the videos helpfully included verbatim subtitles.

Quickly, a Pentagon official confirmed to Reuters that it was legit. Reuters had been attempting since 2007, under the Freedom of Information Act, to get a copy of the video. According to The New York Times, "Reuters employees were allowed to view the video on an off-the-record basis two weeks after the killings, but they were not allowed to obtain a copy of it." Now the military revealed that it could not even find its own copy of the video.

The shorter tape exposed the first two attacks on that fateful July day. First, the "Crazyhorse 1/8" copter team targeted with 30 mm cannon fire a group of about ten men walking on an urban street, suspected insurgents, more than one possibly carrying weapons, including an AK-47. This was when the two Reuters staffers, Namir Noor-Eldeen (who was holding a camera with a long lens that might have been viewed by some as an RPG launcher) and Saeed Chmagh were hit, the first killed instantly, the other badly wounded.

The second incident involved 30 mm cannon fire aimed at an unarmed Iraqi who had arrived in his van (with the two children in the front seat) to rescue the wounded Chmagh, who was crawling on the pavement. Three died in this assault, including Chmagh and the van driver, and the two kids were severely wounded.

The full video included a third incident a little later on the same day, showing three Hellfire missiles fired into a building by an Apache crew (with the unfortunate code name "Bush"). Several men -- some perhaps armed, others unarmed -- had been shown entering the building. Some of them, and an unknown number of civilians, including women and children, were reported to have died there.

The mainstream press covered it widely. Elisabeth Bumiller at The New York Times noted that at the time of the 2007 incident the military had cited "hostile" fire in the area. But now she observed flatly that "the video does not show hostile action." Yet a military investigation after the incident had cleared the copter crews and no disciplinary action was taken.

The audio fueled the outrage. "Just, fucking -- once you get on 'em, just open 'em up," one crew member advised. As the wounded Reuters staffer crawled on the sidewalk, a crew member practically begged him, "All you gotta do is pick up a weapon," meaning that then he could be fired on again.

When it became clear that two children were hurt, someone commented, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." When a U.S. vehicle rolled over a dead body, one observer seemed to chuckle.

Hours after the video appeared, the U.S. Central Command released its report on the 2007 incident. It asserted that the soldiers of Bravo Company 2-16 Infantry had come under small arms and RPG fire that morning nearby, forcing the arrival of the Apaches. From there on out the crew adhered to the rules of engagement. The report included pictures of machine guns and grenades it claimed were found near the bodies of those killed. The Reuters employees, it charged, "made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives and their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the coalition ground forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them." But how could men walking in the street a mile from the helicopters effectively display their press credentials?

Fox News interviewed Assange, who said, "it's likely some of the individuals seen in the video were carrying weapons." In fact, a draft version of the video made specific reference to the AK-47s and RPGs, but then WikiLeaks became "unsure" about it. "Based upon visual evidence I suspect there probably were AKs and an RPG, but I'm not sure that means anything," Assange said. "Nearly every Iraqi household has a rifle or an AK. Those guys could have just been protecting their area."

Talking to Fox, Assange called the assault on the van the most damning part of the video. "I'm very skeptical that was done under the rules of engagement; and if it was legal, the rules of engagement must be changed," he said.

Pentagon chief Robert Gates slammed WikiLeaks for releasing the video without providing any context. It was like looking at a war "through a soda straw... These people can put out anything they want, and they're never held accountable for it." But Assange countered, "it's ludicrous to allege that we have taken anything out of context in this video." He called Gates a "liar" and asked the media to "stop spinning."

Greg Mitchell is author of more than a dozen books, including his latest on Chelsea Manning and "The Age of WikiLeaks." His new book on Iraq and the media is "So Wrong for So Long."

Four Years Ago in Iceland: Assange Prepares 'Collateral Murder'

This happened, four years ago, as Julian Assange, in Iceland, with his merry band of followers, prepared the release of what he would call Collateral Murder, a video of a U.S. gunship's attack on Iraqi civilians below, including two staffers from Reuters.  Video, we now know, leaked by Chelsea Manning.  The following excerpted from my book, The Age of WikiLeaks .  Also see my new book (updated version) on media malpractice and Iraq.  And updated book on Chelsea Manning (with Kevin Gosztola), Truth and Consequences .   And here's my piece on what happened after the Iraq video was released by Assange. 

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It’s safe to say that before the spring of 2010, few Americans had ever heard the name “WikiLeaks.” Its  co-founder, Julian Assange, hailed from Australia and was a name in hardly any households.  The shadowy organization, aided by a corps of volunteers, had been leaking sensitive documents for more than three years, but drawn only modest media coverage in the U.S., beyond a few brief flurries:  when it published messages hacked from Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! account, exposed emails between climate scientists on global warming, and released 570,000 pager intercepts from September 11, 2001.   Beyond that, the leaks generally related to subjects or regions that few Americans cared much about:  Kenya, Scientology, overseas banks, British National Party, the commodities firm Trafigura, and so on.

That changed suddenly when WikiLeaks, on April 5, 2010, posted on its site—following Assange’s official unveiling at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.-- the "Collateral Murder" video.  It showed U.S. Army Apache helicopter air strikes in an eastern district of Baghdad on July 12, 2007, which killed two staffers for Reuters and a dozen or more others. WikiLeaks said it had obtained the video from unnamed “whistleblowers” in the military.  This would turn out to be one source, actually, named Pfc. Bradley Manning.

The video, posted at WikiLeaks.org, at YouTube and then at countless other sites, drew a massive worldwide audience, quickly reaching millions.  It was the day after Easter, a slow news day otherwise. Now WikiLeaks had fully arrived – as a concept, as an organization, as a media fixture in America.  For the week following the video’s release, the word "wikileaks" showed the greatest growth around the world as a search term measured by Google Insights.

Perhaps the first hint of what was to come came earlier in the year, when WikiLeaks at its Twitter feed made a public request for help in decrypting a video it described as "US bomb strikes on civilians.”  For some reason, it suggested March 21 as a possible release date.  

The organization, however, was scrambling for funds.  Assange, 38, had pleaded for donations to prepare what he described as hundreds of thousands of pages of documents relating to “corrupt banks, the U.S. detainee system, the Iraq war, China, the U.N,” and other topics. A German foundation reportedly collected about $1 million for the WikiLeaks account, easing the way for a very busy 2010.    

Intrigued by WikiLeaks,  New Yorker writer Raffi Khatchadourian had emailed Assange,  and then chatted with him on the the phone, establishing a certain level of trust. Assange mentioned the video, in somewhat vague terms.  The writer knew it would make a splash if released.  He'd wanted to write about WikiLeaks anyway and so,  with an okay from his editor,  he flew off to frigid Reykjavik, Iceland, in late-March.  Khatchadourian, author of the article "The Kill Company" (on Operation Iron Triangle in Iraq) and a profile of Adam Gadahn (an American who joined Al-Qaeda) must have  seemed to Assange like a good man for this job. 

At a  newly-rented house soon dubbed the “bunker,” Khatchadourian found that half a dozen volunteers had joined the tall, silver-haired Assange, and were readying the release of the 38-minute cockpit video from Iraq, which they labeled Project B.   Assange had told the owner of the house they were journalists covering the volcanic eruption then disrupting air travel in Europe.  He had chosen Iceland for his secret task after spending time there helping to draft a law with strong free-speech provisions.  Some people involved in that fight, including a member of parliament, Birgitta Jonsdottir, now were engaged with Project B.

Also involved was Rop Gonggrijp, a well-known Dutch hacker and businessman, who knew Assange well.  As Khatchadourian described it in his New Yorker report two months later, Gonggrijp “became the unofficial manager and treasurer of Project B, advancing about ten thousand euros to WikiLeaks to finance it.”

 he footage from Iraq, living on a hard drive in the bunker, was still in the early stages of editing.  Assange would not identify his source for the video,  saying only that the person was unhappy about the helicopter attack in Iraq.  Khatchadourian captured Assange’s describing to his colleagues what was on the video:  “In the first phase, you will see an attack that is based upon a mistake, but certainly a very careless mistake.  In the second part, the attack is clearly murder, according to the definition of the average man.  And in the third part, you will see the killing of innocent civilians in the course of soldiers going after a legitimate target.”

As days passed, Assange worked night and day, editing the footage and scrubbing any elements that might reveal the leaker, while trying to decide if he wanted to release the full video and/or a shorter version, with commentary, that would be more viewer-friendly.  The video did not yet have a name.  He considered “Permission to Engage,” before choosing “Collateral Murder.”  The New Yorker writer quoted him telling Gonggrijp, “We want to knock out this ‘collateral damage’ euphemism, and so when anyone uses it they will think, ‘collateral murder.’”

 Much time was spent analyzing the video for evidence of Iraqi targets carrying rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) or AK-47s.   Assange spotted what seemed to be weapons but in most cases it was not conclusive.   He had declined to ask military experts for advice, since they were “not terribly cooperative” when he told them it was for a WikiLeaks release.

Breaking the code of secrecy, Assange dispatched two Icelandic reporters to Baghdad to notify the families of those killed or injured in the attack, including the mother of a boy and a girl who had been sitting in a van driven to the scene by their father.   Assange wanted to prepare the families for publicity but also to gain some telling details on what happened that day.  

At some point, Assange made a frank admission to Khatchadourian.  Yes, he tried to foster “harm-minimization” to individuals in his work but WikiLeaks could not spend all of its time checking every detail.  He was aware that some leaks risked harming the innocent -- “collateral damage, if you will" -- and that one day WikiLeaks members might get “blood on our hands.”

Finally, Assange finished the edited version, at eighteen minutes, which covered  the first two attacks.  He also picked an opening quote, from Orwell: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.”  The intro would also include information on the deaths of the two Reuters staffers and the Army’s investigation absolving crew members for that.  It handled the delicate issue of guns on the ground by observing that “some of the men appear to have been armed [but] the behavior of nearly everyone was relaxed.”

In the bunker, Assange predicted: “The video shows what modern warfare has become and, I think, after seeing it, whenever people hear about a certain number of   casualties   that resulted during fighting with close air support, they will understand what is going on.  The video also makes clear that civilians are listed as insurgents automatically, unless they are children, and that bystanders who are killed are not even mentioned.”

Greg Mitchell’s new edition of So Wrong for So Long on Iraq includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen, a new introduction and a lengthy afterword with updates.   He's also co-authored (with Kevin Gosztola a book about Chelsea Manning, Truth and Consequences .