The Tonka Report

April 6, 2010: Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet.com - April 6, 2010

Bloodthirsty neo-cons who would defend barbecuing Arab babies on the White House lawn if they were told it was part of the “war on terror” are disgracefully scrambling to defend a shocking video released by Wikileaks which shows U.S. Apache helicopters massacring Iraqi journalists and children in Baghdad while laughing about it.

“The newly released video of the Baghdad attacks was recorded on one of two Apache helicopters hunting for insurgents on 12 July 2007,” reports the Guardian. “Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. The Pentagon blocked an attempt by Reuters to obtain the video through a freedom of information request. Wikileaks director Julian Assange said his organisation had to break through encryption by the military to view it.”

The video shows the journalists openly walking down the middle of the street with tripods and video cameras while talking to other Iraqis and preparing to set up filming.

Claiming the men are carrying RPG rocket grenade launchers, the Apache pilots indiscriminately open fire on the group, before firing again at people who attempt to rescue the dying men. The rescuers’ van, which is seen to contain at least two children, is blown to pieces as the soldiers laugh and chuckle, “Hahaha. I hit ‘em,” and “Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards.”

“One of the men on the ground, believed to be Chmagh, is seen wounded and trying to crawl to safety. One of the helicopter crew is heard wishing for the man to reach for a gun, even though there is none visible nearby, so he has the pretext for opening fire: “All you gotta do is pick up a weapon.” A van draws up next to the wounded man and Iraqis climb out. They are unarmed and start to carry the victim to the vehicle in what would appear to be an attempt to get him to hospital. One of the helicopters opens fire with armour-piercing shells. “Look at that. Right through the windshield,” says one of the crew. Another responds with a laugh. Sitting behind the windscreen were two children who were wounded.”

Shortly after, a U.S. Humvee drives over one of the dead bodies. “I think they just drove over a body,” one of the pilots says, while chuckling…

The video arrives in the same week it was revealed that U.S. special forces dug bullets out of victims following a botched raid in Afghanistan and then lied to their superiors about the incident in an effort to cover-up the murder of innocent civilians – two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother.

As the following clip highlights, this latest horror is merely the most recent in a long chain of videos cataloging the unreasonable and unprovoked abuse and brutality innocent Iraqis have been subjected to since the March 2003 invasion…

Some apologists, people like CFR stooge Brett H. McGurk, have blamed “fog of war” for the attack, while acknowledging the tragedy of the incident, but others have shamefully blamed the very people who were slaughtered for the entire incident.

Despite the fact that U.S. military admits that none of the men were carrying rocket launchers, Hot Air writer Ed Morrissey claims the Iraqis were gunned down because they were aiming RPG’s at U.S. troops. “It’s difficult to imagine any other purpose for an RPG launcher at that time and place. That’s exactly the kind of threat that US airborne forces were tasked to detect and destroy, which is why the gunships targeted and shot all of the members of the group,” Morrissey absurdly states, completely lying about the nature of the entire incident.

As the Guardian report clarifies, “One of the helicopter crew is heard saying that one of the group is shooting. But the video shows there is no shooting or even pointing of weapons. The men are standing around, apparently unperturbed.”

The men are clearly walking openly and casually down the middle of the street, and are at ease with the fact that there are two Apache attack helicopters hovering over them. If they were preparing to attack the choppers or U.S. troops nearby, they would hardly be strolling around talking on mobile phones and chatting, they would be hunkered down amidst nearby buildings. The men are clearly at ease and not in an attack posture – as is born out by the fact that they were journalists preparing to film interviews. Or as Wikileaks director Julian Assange puts it, “Why would anyone be so relaxed with two Apaches if someone was carrying an RPG and that person was an enemy of the United States?”

Unsatisfied with just running defense for people who massacre innocents and kids while laughing about it, Morrissey then has the temerity to justify the subsequent slaughter of the brave individuals who tried to help the dying victims.

“Another accusation is that US forces fired on and killed rescue workers attempting to carry one of the journalists out of the area. However, the video clearly shows that the vehicle in question bore no markings of a rescue vehicle at all, and the men who ran out of the van to grab the wounded man wore no uniforms identifying themselves as such. Under any rules of engagement, and especially in a terrorist hot zone like Baghdad in 2007, that vehicle would properly be seen as support for the terrorists that had just been engaged and a legitimate target for US forces. While they didn’t grab weapons before getting shot, the truth is that the gunships didn’t give them the chance to try, either — which is exactly what they’re trained to do. They don’t need to wait until someone gets hold of the RPG launcher and fires it at the gunship or at the reinforcements that had already begun to approach the scene,” he writes.

Again, Morrissey’s entire twisted logic is based around the premise that the men were carrying RPG rocket launchers, which is confirmed and admitted not to be the case by Major Shawn Turner, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. Claiming the Apache pilots mistook the cameras for RPG rockets is one thing, but Morrissey continues to claim that the cameras were RPG’s in order to justify the slaughter, despite the fact that it’s fully confirmed that the men were not carrying RPG’s – they were journalists with tripods and long lens cameras.

Morrissey’s characterization of the victims as the “terrorists that had just been engaged” is also completely at odds with the fact that the men were civilians, journalists and children. Illustrating the level of denial and delusion that neo-cons wrap themselves in when acting as apologists for war crimes, one Hot Air reader even goes so far as to claim that the entire video is fake, despite the fact that the U.S. military admits it is genuine and has spent years trying to block its release.

“This has all the hallmarks of some bullshit Hollywood production. The soldiers sound scripted, the Bradley Fighting vehicles look inauthentic,” a poster named Cr4sh Dummy ludicrously claims. “My conclusions is that (t)his is simply and unequivocally a viral video for some bullshit antiwar movie based on this event,” the commenter blathers.

Again, the U.S. military itself admits that the video is genuine, but that’s not enough for the tragically retarded “fans” of Michelle Malkin. This reminds us of when Malkin hysterically claimed that a video showing U.S. soldiers throwing a puppy off a clip was a hoax (off a cliff) and that the dog was a stuffed toy. “Watch the clip closely. The puppy doesn’t move. It’s clear to me that it’s either dead or a stuffed toy. The sound effects of a dog yapping seem to have been dubbed in,” wrote Malkin…

The soldier who threw the puppy off the cliff, Lance Cpl. David Motari, was later kicked out of the Corps, and a second Marine involved was disciplined. Malkin never retracted her ridiculous claim that the dog was a stuffed toy.

In another Malkin-linked blog piece, the writer recycles the lie that “the video shows armed insurgents engaging or about to engage US troops,” when it shows the exact opposite, as every analyst who has watched it agrees, and the author all but praises the murdering Apache pilots while attacking Wikileaks for releasing the video as, “Beyond stupid, they’re evil.”

Apparently, ripping innocent men who have families and children limb from limb for no good reason is perfectly acceptable, but releasing a film of the incident is “evil”. What pit of hell did these monsters climb out of? Directing his vitriol at the brave van drivers who attempted to save their dying loved ones, the blogger snaps, “You are stupid. Innocent, but stupid. You’re asking to be killed.”

The rest of the article attempts to convince the reader that cameras and tripods were in fact RPG’s, when as we have exhaustively stressed was admitted not to be the case by the U.S. military itself. The victims were Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver who also worked for Reuters news agency – they were not RPG carrying terrorists.

“Military spokesman Turner said that during the engagement, the helicopter mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher,” reports the Mail.

There were never any RPG’s, yet neo-cons are still trying to make the case that the slaughter was justified because the men were carrying RPG’s. The scale of this deception knows no bounds.

The vulgarity in seeing Malkin and her ilk defend these murderers is underlined by the fact that the soldiers immensely enjoyed killing these innocent men, laughing and chuckling all the way, and as Assange points out, “The behaviour of the pilots is like a computer game. When Saeed is crawling, clearly unable to do anything, their response is: come on buddy, we want to kill you, just pick up a weapon … It appears to be a desire to get a higher score, or a higher number of kills.”

Amidst the myriad of obfuscation and denial, neo-con apologists have no come-back for this blatant barbarism. Blowing up vans containing little kids with enjoyment cannot be explained away by Malkin’s bloodthirsty readers, but judging by the comments in response to the article, many of them would indeed support barbecuing Arab babies on the White House lawn to ’send a message that we are getting tough with the terrorists’ – to these thugs, the means justifies the ends.

Neo-Cons will go to any lengths to defend and downplay wanton acts of cruelty and barbarism. To them, “supporting the troops” means defending people who slaughter kids and murder little puppies. These people are truly devoid of any human emotion. That’s why they have to invent convoluted theories and outright lies in a desperate effort to explain away something that fits every definition of a war crime.

WikiLeaks: Civilians Murdered In Baghdad

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Again, the video above is the full unedited version of the US military’s massacre of innocent Iraqi civilians and children released by WikiLeaks on Monday, April 5, 2010… - SJH  

Link to original article below…

http://www.infowars.com/neo-cons-defend-massacre-of-iraqi-journalists-children/

April 6, 2010: MSNBC and Associated Press (AP) – April 5, 2010

WASHINGTON – A senior U.S. military official on Monday confirmed as authentic a gritty war video that shows U.S. forces firing repeatedly on people along a Baghdad street.

The incident on July 12, 2007, happened the same day and in the same area that a Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver were killed. Two children also were wounded.

The senior military official confirmed that the video posted Monday at Wikileaks.org was of a 2007 incident in the New Baghdad District of eastern Baghdad. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the video and a Pentagon investigation have never been released.

The official said the military could not confirm the identities of the Reuters employees in the film. The Pentagon would not confirm the video’s authenticity on the record, despite repeated requests from The Associated Press. “At this time, we are working to verify the source of the video, its veracity, and when or where it was recorded,” a statement from U.S. military headquarters in Iraq said late Monday.

An investigation of the shooting found that the crew of the two Apache helicopters at the scene might have erroneously identified photographer’s cameras as weapons, NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported.

According to U.S. officials, the pilots arrived to find a group of men approaching the area of a battle with what looked to be AK-47s slung over their shoulders and at least one rocket-propelled grenade. The investigation later concluded that what was thought to be an RPG was really a long-range photography lens; likewise, the camera looked like an AK-47.

Wikileaks said it obtained the video “as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers.” It added that “the video, shot from an Apache helicopter … clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.”

Reuters said Monday that it could not verify that the video was of its employees dying, even though it looks like one of the men killed had a camera slung over his shoulder. Still, the video is “graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result,” said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters news.

In 2008, Reuters said it had been shown video of the incident shortly after it happened, and that it immediately filed a Freedom of Information Act request to have the video released. That request was never met, Reuters said.

Reuters stated that its photographer and his driver “had gone to the area after hearing of a military raid on a building around dawn that day, and were with a group of men at the time. It is believed two or three of these men may have been carrying weapons, although witnesses said none were assuming a hostile posture.

“The U.S. military said the helicopter attack, in which nine other people were killed, occurred after security forces came under fire,” Reuters stated at the time.

According to a July 19 summary of the investigation, obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. troops acted appropriately. Reuters employees were likely “intermixed among the insurgents” and difficult to distinguish because of their equipment, the document states. “It is worth noting the fact that insurgent groups often video and photograph friendly activity and insurgent attacks against friendly forces for use in training videos and for use as propaganda to exploit or highlight their capabilities,” the document concludes.

In an audiotape released with the video, the shooters can be heard asking for permission to engage, and one says “Light ‘em all up!”  Some men drop immediately, while at least one can be seen scrambling to get away. “Ah, yeah, look at those dead bastards. Nice,” one shooter says.

The helicopters later destroy a vehicle that arrived on the scene to help a wounded man. When ground forces arrive, the video shows what looks to be a child being carried from the vehicle and U.S. troops saying the child should be sent to a local Iraqi hospital. “Well, it’s their fault bringing their kids into the battle,” a cockpit voice can be heard saying.

Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks spokesman, told MSNBC TV that the video “shows the debasement and moral corruption of soldiers as a result of war. It seems like they are playing video games with people’s lives.”

Brett McGurk, a former National Security Council staff member and now an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, countered that the video should be seen in the context that the area was “the hottest of the hot zones” in Iraq. But retired Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, now a spokesman for the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, said he felt the video showed “a failure of training” and that the crew did not seem to be following rules of engagement.

“The Good Soldiers,” a 2009 book by Washington Post reporter David Finkel, described the incident, saying that Noor-Eldeen and his driver managed to run away after the first rounds were fired but then the gunner tracked Noor-Eldeen into a pile of trash and fired three more bursts, killing him as he tried to stand up in a cloud of dust. The driver was wounded and was being taken away by a van when the gunner opened fire on it, killing him and two other men, and injuring two children inside, Finkel wrote.

WikiLeaks: Civilians Murdered In Baghdad

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Warning! The raw video above is graphic. This is a follow-up article with the same exact video as was posted in the previous article here on TTR in order to verify both it’s authenticity and veracity. Watch the video… But be forewarned, it is disturbing! - SJH

Link to original article below…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36182383/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/