Different war, same script. It’s always the same damn script.

Calling it a case of “collateral murder,” the WikiLeaks Web site today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuters photographer and his driver — and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men.

None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon’s initial cover story; they were milling about on a street corner. One man was evidently carrying a gun, though that was and is hardly an uncommon occurrence in Baghdad.

Reporters working for WikiLeaks determined that the driver of the van was a good Samaritan on his way to take his small children to a tutoring session. He was killed and his two children were badly injured.

The military had successfully suppressed this video since 2007, and then Wikileaks had to come along and fuck up a perfectly good cover-up:

In the video, which Reuters has been asking to see since 2007, crew members can be heard celebrating their kills.

Anyone who follows official rhetoric with even half their mind knows that we have the finest military in the world. These must be the exceptions who prove the rule:

“Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street.

A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: “Come on, let us shoot!”

Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses.

And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: “Well, it’s their fault bringing their kids to a battle.”
[...]
Unveiling the video at the National Press Club on Monday morning, (Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks) said the helicopter crew approached its job as if it were a video game, not something involving human lives. Their desire was simply to kill,” he said. “Their desire was to get high scores on that computer game.”

For the record, this was the official initial obligatory cover-up:

The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians (Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40). According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.

“There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.

But Bleichwehl is a rank amateur compared to Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich:

Washington Post reporter David Finkel described the incident — and the video — in great detail in his September 2009 book, “The Good Soldiers“. A summary can be found here.

Finkel also described a review session after Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, commander of the Army’s 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment and his soldiers returned to base, which “concluded that everyone had acted appropriately.” (Kauzlarich was also involved in the Army’s Pat Tillman cover-up, and later told ESPN that the reluctance of Tillman’s parents to accept the military’s story that he was killed by enemy action, rather than friendly fire, was the unfortunate result of their lack of Christian faith.)

(Not to worry, I have it on good authority that Kauzlarich has it totally wrong. A lack of Christian faith only screws you in the afterlife, not over here.

Remember, Kauzlarich had access to the video when he concluded, no doubt due to his strong Christian faith, “that everyone had acted appropriately.” I don’t know why, but I get the very distinct feeling that his afterlife will turn out to be very different from what he fondly imagines.)

Like Dan Froomkin, who I’ve been quoting all along, I saved the best part for last:

Just last month, WikiLeaks posted the results of a U.S. counterintelligence investigation into none other than WikiLeaks itself. The report determined that WikiLeaks “represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army.”

And the video shows us what the military considers the appropriate way to deal with people who don’t even constitute any kind of threat to the US Army, or any member thereof.