Wikileaks releases what could be evidence of the murder of Reuters journalists as well as civilians in Iraq

WWW--This is a very big deal and gives some more context to possible harassment of Wikileaks by American military and/or intelligence personnel as well as of anyone trying to report the reality on the ground in American occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't even know how to put this into words, but I do recall this incident from July 12th, 2007 where Iraqi Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed by "friendly fire"...only now it appears that the fire was quite intentional and anything-but-friendly. There also seems to be an element of bloodlust and cowardice on the part of the crew of the Apaches. Did they know the two were journalists? This is unclear, but there is mention in the communications transcript from the copters that seems to connotate that they knew they were "civilians."Is this yet another "isolated" event?

Recall that in early April 2003, three Al-Jazeera journalists were killed by "friendly fire," and also calls to mind the "accidental" shooting of hostage and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena who was fired on by American troops just outside of the Baghdad International Airport and nearly killed. One of her Italian intelligence agent rescuers--Nicola Calipari--died of his wounds. Sgrena worked for the Italian Communist paper, Il Manifesto. One might think you're life might be in danger as a correspondent if you're not towing the line for the Pentagon.

A separate site from the main Wikileaks home has been created for the release, possibly for security measures to prevent its hacking:

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. (www.collateralmurder.com/index)

The military has been mostly silent on how the event occurred and how the slain died, but ruled in an inquiry that the rules of engagement at that time were observed. The whole story underscores the weakness of the FOIA as well, but whatever works, it's out now. Reuters demanded an inquiry and action in the aftermath in 2007, just as they've had to in obtaining the release of other Iraqi Reuters employees/journalists, from Iraqi prisons, and got very little from the Pentagon--at least not copies. They were shown the materials off-the-record. Criminals don't tend to indict themselves, especially when they're the ones in power.

There's no indication from any source of any combat or exchanges of fire immediately before the Apache helicopter gunner opened-fire on civilians and the two journalists, killing as many as eleven. One individual was viewed brandishing an RPG (soviet-designed rocket propelled grenade), but was seen after the event began and shots had already been fired. Two U.S. Army Apache helicopters were involved the 2007 incident with some ground forces nearby. Footage from one helicopter has been leaked to Wikileaks by a military whistleblower(s) and the activist site itself claims to have conducted interviews with other journalists, military personnel and other witnesses at the scene, including consulting with Reuters over the basic facts and timeline.

...WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work. (ibid)

Wikileaks makes a fine point that occurred to me almost immediately: if we're seeing what we think we're seeing (and hearing), the event could even be part of a pattern of violence, harassment, and intimidation against members of the press in American war zones, especially considering that Reuters has had other incidents of harassment directed against their personnel in Iraq. A few of these journalists were arrested under flimsy pretenses and ferried off to the palatial Abu-Ghraib prison where God knows how they were treated. Now is a time of scoundrels. It hasn't ended with the national elections of 2008.

Wikileaks appears to have done their homework and have even included photographs, a timeline, documents, and even the transcript of the communications between the helicopters, also very telling when taken with the rules of engagement at the time and the 38 minute video. This exchange is most galling and not honorable behavior for soldiers of any army, of any nation:

...17:46 Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

17:48 That's right. ...

18:29 I think they just drove over a body.

18:31 Hey hey!

18:32 Yeah!

18:37 Maybe it was just a visual illusion, but it looked like it.

18:41 Well, they're dead, so. ...

(http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html)

After these comments, there were more shots fired by the crew of the main Apache helicopter and a missile was fired into a building filled with armed civilians. There's no indication that any shots had been fired at the military personnel at any point in the roughly 38 minute event. It should be noted that many Iraqis carry AK-47s into dangerous areas, which one can assume, is when occupying troops and militias are present. Johnny got his gun, was instilled with fear and trained to kill, and imbued with a hair-trigger mentality. This isn't how soldiers are supposed to behave, not at all. Yet, the Pentagon says that this was part of the rules of engagement at the time. Are they sure they want to stand by that one?

Contrary to popular belief, life isn't a videogame.

"BREAKING NEWS-LEAKED VIDEO FOOTAGE EXPOSES PENTAGON MURDER COVER-UP," The Elf Wax Times, 04.05.2010: http://www.elfwax.com/news/breaking-news-video-footage-to-expose-pentagon-murder-cover-up/

Wikileak's page on the 2007 slaughter: http://collateralmurder.com/en/download.html

Tyler Bass's blog: http://spectaclemonopolized.blogspot.com/

NYTimes article on original Baghdad attack in July 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html

"The war on Wikileaks and why it matters," Salon.com, 03.27.2010: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+salon%252Fgreenwald+%2528Glenn+Greenwald%2529

http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html

"U.S. Bombing Raid Kills Three Journalists in Bagdad," Fox News.com, 04.08.2003: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83503,00.html

Portions of suppressed detainee photos may have been online since February 15, 2006

Sydney, Australia--A section of the detainee abuse photos that President Obama is fighting the release of in federal court might have been posted as early as February 15th, 2006 on the Sydney Morning Herald's site by-way of an anonymous whistle-blower of unknown nationality. Some of these photos are as bad if not worse than the ones previously released in 2004 to a horrified world.

The president has stated that keeping the photographs from disclosure is to protect American troops and to limit any more damage to the reputation of the United States throughout the world, especially in Muslim nations. The security situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan have also been invoked.

All the president is pointing-out is that torture doesn't work and that he would prefer we don't know about...just like the last president. They honeymoon's over, believe it. It's even money that Rahm Emanuel weighed-in on this one in a very big way, but that's Dutch Schultz for ya'.

Below are a few photos I captured from the Australian site, just in case they're "yanked" (pun intended).

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/photos-us-doesnt-want-seen/2006/02/14/1139890737099.html

An open letter to dumb women who are going to vote for Sarah Palin because she's a dumb woman too

The Campaign Trail of Tears--Ladies, nobody wants to date a fascist--well, except you. Face the fact that you're all mental midgets and female reactionaries. Your great-great grandmothers voted for Warren G. Harding because he was vaguely rugged and handsome to them, he was a former football player, and he was as stupid as they were.You have become banal reincarnations of these women, and the dumbos who thought Dan Quayle was "cute" (they thought Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump was too though, which is telling).

The reality is, you just have a perverse streak with a dash of dumb, that weird little thing that you gals sometimes engage in when you're bored: "Something might happen--no wait, I'll make something happen. Besides, I'm hungry for a problem. Hmmmm. Why not help men ruin the world some more and vote for this woman because she's a woman for no logical reason?"

But why shouldn't there be women leading softer, gentler lynch mobs, endless wars, insane interventionism, and an inevitable economic collapse? Why, indeed, should men be the only ones to destroy brown people in other countries? Look, you even let a Black woman do it first in the State Department, killing thousands from a desk no less, and women were not even allowed to oversee sexual torture at Abu-Ghraib prison, it's not right, it's wrong. Glass ceiling that. And why can't a woman endanger the world as President John F. Kennedy did, bring us the Cuban Missile Crisis? Again, unfair.

Why shouldn't a Republican woman do the same for our contemporary relations with Russia when we came so close with North Korea under Bush/Cheney? Let's be honest that it's never been done before, therefore it should be done, if for no other reason at all. Nevermind that, we're just itching to end that goddamned anxiety that we created in our culture from dropping "the atomic bomb" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You see, since that time, we know that we've had it coming and that it was just an arbitrary action to keep the Soviets out of Japan...uh, OK, and for power, money, cheap skilled labor, and a lot of permanent military bases there.

And Mrs. Palin is pro-life alright: she decided to have sex and conceive after she was 42, raising her chances of giving-birth to a child with down's syndrome almost exponentially. No, that wasn't selfish at all, not in any way whatsoever when you already have three kids.

And she doesn't talk like a taxi driver from Minnesota, or a prostitute from Anchorage, not at all, those are just nasty rumors. Her voice is so eloquent the Bard would be jealous, the pansy, and I like so believe in dragons, unicorns, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus, I think. And clearly, sex education for dummies should be the Palin campaign primer. Stupid people can be national politicians, just look at the last eight years. And yeah.

yours-in-Christ, Matt Janovic

FOR NATO: Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò (1975) review

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain. ---The Marquis de Sade

So you say you've seen nearly every major Italian giallo? You've seen your Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Michele Soavi, and even all of the "classics" of Italian film? You've seen your Leone, Fellini, DeSicca, Bertolucci, Martino, and even most of the world classics? By this point, you've probably seen it all, and you think there's no film that will shock you?

If you haven't seen Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salo: 120 Days of Sodom," you are flatly wrong. Pasolini didn't even live to see the release of this film. He was "murdered" by a male hustler (or so the official story plays).

Who was Pier Paolo Pasolini? Pasolini was the most important postwar intellectual in Italy, period. Like a Renaissance polymath, he was adept at journalism, the novel, poetry, screenwriting, directing motion-pictures, painting and drawing, and more. The polymath also liked cruising teenage boys, was a walking scandal, and yet paradoxically truly was the conscience of postwar Italy until his murder on November 2nd, 1975. He could only be an irritant in the culture he arose in, and he pricked the conscience of a nation. It's likely that he engineered his own murder, placing its date on the day of the dead as a frame...

Pasolini's revolutionary philosophy was simultaneously opposed to fascism and communism, and he had many enemies in the political arena, as well as the religious one with the Vatican. All said, however, it's possible that Pier Pasolini was murdered by a right wing assassination team under the aegis of "GLADIO," a NATO program of secret armies throughout Western Europe. GLADIO began, ostensibly, as a defense against a hypothetical Soviet invasion of Europe.

Overall, GLADIO was more often used to attack legitimate leftist political parties, trade unions, and populist groups. GLADIO operations were responsible for breaking the Marseilles dock strikes in the late 1940s as just one example of their handiwork. Their activities in Italy during the Cold War are known to be extensive. Italy is a flashpoint, a fixed, coordinate in the nexus of control of the Western power structure.

In Italy, the Red Brigade bombings in the 1970s were even instigated by GLADIO operatives to justify a law and order crackdown on the Italian Communist Party who were poised to take power at that time. It's a mystery as to how much influence the CIA had in all of this. The existence of the P-2 conspiracy (oddly, involving the Vatican, the CIA, KGB, and renegade Freemasons!) had yet to break in the international media. All this aside, there were dozens of politically motivated killings in 1970s Italy, and Pasolini's was just one of many.

One has to ponder the Vatican's involvement in his murder, as they were a primary adversary of Pasolini. And so, Salo enters this bloody fray. It could not be more controversial, and it's a scream of rage against how little we all really care about or value human life. Pasolini was outraged and disappointed with the human condition, and Italian politics had become a bloody chaos, leading director Sergio Leone to remark at the time that, "Italian politics have become ridiculous." Both directors were friends.

The scenario of Salo is fairly simple: a group of Italian fascists retreat to a palace in Northern Italy (where there was a great deal of support for Italian fascism and the Monarch) with a group of sixteen captive boys and girls. One is a bishop, a judge, a politician, and-so-on, representing symbols of established authority. It is Mussolini's short-lived Republic of Salo, created especially for him by the disintegrating Nazi regime. Hence, "Salo" is a title that almost any Italian of the 1970s (or today) might recognize. For 120 days, they degrade their victims in almost every imaginable--and unimaginable--manner.

There is homosexual rape, sundry forms of buggery, forcing people to eat excrement, forced heterosexual couplings, forced marriage, sadism of every kind, and finally, death. Just about everything you could imagine occurs, and worse. Of course, it's all based loosely on De Sade's tale and stays pretty close to the text's themes and scenarios.

Pasolini chapters each section with some of the structure of Dante's "Inferno," which is a real mark of his genius. One can even sense an atavistic Manichean influence in the work, which isn't surprising: Friuli has been historically known as an ancient citadel on the Northern "boot" of Italy, where the ideas of the world hating sect are still evident in the local culture. Pasolini's home state, Friuli, has been thought of as a place of subversion for centuries.

The Italian polymath understood that, under the right circumstances, we are all capable of these depredations. This is a lesson that he and others learned during the resistance to Italian and German fascism in Italy during WWII. Pasolini witnessed and experienced injustices committed by the partisans, losing his own brother to a firing squad.

There's a little Hitler in everyone, and we all the potential to become assassins under the proper conditions. Beyond that, To say this film is merely a statement on fascism would be wrong--it's a manifesto on what cruelty rests within all human hearts, especially once one has supped on power. In Salo and his other works in other mediums, Pasolini is saying that humanity has a dark heart and that nothing is really true.

This was the point that "Italy's conscience" had reached artistically by 1975, though his existential crisis regarding the future of humanity had begun much earlier. Salo was always lurking there in Pasolini's mind, waiting for its time to emerge. Some online reviewers have stated that they didn't find the film shocking--they should check themselves into a clinic somewhere, as Salo is beyond shocking. But it should be remembered that De Sade was only writing about the sexual habits of his kind--the aristocracy before the French Revolution of 1789. De Sade wasn't simply trying to shock. He was chronicling the sexual tastes and behaviors of the French aristocracy before the revolution.

I've noticed that even avid fans of contemporary directors such as Takashi Miike respect the power of this film. Miike has some similarities in theme and style with Pasolini, but goes for a more genre, stylized look (it's not the heady 1970s anymore). Even John Waters lists this film as sicker than his own worst offenders. It could be argued that Desperate Living (1977) is an oblique spoof of Salo. To say I was shocked by this film would be an understatement. But, besides being pretty sick, this film looks astonishingly lush and challenges the audience by shoving the beautiful and the grotesque in our faces. This is another aspect of Pasolini's genius of showing us depredations in such a lovely setting.

Salo transcends the subversive and never fails to shock. The late Tonnino della Colli's cinematography lends the film a look that could be hung in the Louvre, and it gives the film a greater subversive edge overall. Several of the shot compositions resemble well-known works of Western art. Della Colli was director of photography for Fellini, Sergio Leone, and many other classic Italian directors. It should be noted that the film is not "legitimately available" in the United State for copyright reasons. However, there are very good copies out there even though it's not in print. I found a copy that's an exact duplicate of the original US edition for a decent price, so it is out there to be found with a little searching.

The Criterion edition is reportedly the most expensive collector's DVD in the world, going for as much as $1,000.00 USD. [Ed., 08.31.2008--Which is now probably devalued with the new Criterion edition.] This was the best transfer in 1998, but it appears that there is a new continental European DVD purported to be definitive, as well as a BFI edition that's unexceptional. This writer possesses a few Ken Russell DVDs ("Salome's Last Dance") that are worth as much as $300.00 USD, so this is a shocker! It's funny to see used DVDs of the big Hollywood fare at $3.99 USD, while these are in the hundreds! It says a lot about what is lasting and meaningful to people, and it's not blockbuster movies.

A dubious company called "Water Bearer" has a set of Pasolini's other works, but I have it on good word that they are of extremely poor quality and aren't restored and come from aging 35mm prints. It would be nice if Criterion did a Pasolini Box that included a new HD transfer of "Salo" with extensive restoration. Salo is one of the most important films ever made. We all stand accused, even the filmmaker, and that's the point. Be forewarned: not for children or adults who fear soul-searing, raw existentialism. So, why? Why would anyone want to watch this? 

NOTE: The "ass-judging-scene" is similar to photos of the "flesh pyramid" at Abu-Ghraib. The new Criterion edition will bring a fresh reassessment of this Italian masterpiece, with only the omission of one extraneous 25 second scene. It will be HD from the best film elements. Brace yourselves.

(Revised 07.06.2008)

[Ed., 10.05.2008--I see no reason why Pasolini couldn't have been murdered by various rightist elements, while at the same time having brought it about purposefully. Why not?]

Boyfuckers Inc: the Mark Foley Story (MOLESTATION NATION)

"The GOP really stands for Group Of Perverts. Investigate Hastert and Boehnner while you're at it. They knew for at least 10 months. And yes, the Christian Right has no problem with this kind of behavior. Groping children and exploiting them is right up their alley."
--An anonymous poster at www.rawstory.com

"A world of secret hungers
are hurting the men
who make your laws.
Every desire is hidden-away..."
--From 'Brown Shoes Don't Make-it' (1967), by
Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention

Washington D.C.--In case you think this post is insensitive, think again. It's from a victim of child molestation. This perp from Florida needs to be put under house-arrest for the rest of his life.

More galling the whole affair is the fact that the GOP's leadership KNEW FOR YEARS that this degenerate was guilty of this. This is a criminal act, or at least was before the year 2000. Apparently, it isn't any longer if you're a Republican, a Bishop, or priest, or just powerful and connected.

I've done social work with children who have had their parents put-out their cigarettes on their bodies, beaten them, everything you can imagine and worse. The problem of abuse is far more widespread than most Americans know (or do they know?) or would care to admit. It's a "conspiracy-of-silence," our dirty secret as a nation.

The e-mails/IMs released yesterday by ABC were transmitted by Foley in 2003. It is likely the teenager alerted the press to this, good show.

The Washington Post really hits the GOP hard with the facts in today's article, it's stunning, but it appears ABC tipped-the-balance by actually doing their job. Once again, like Bob Ney, this scum says he's "failed his family." Well, no shit.

House Majority Leader John Boehner has admitted knowing since this Spring about Foley's sexcapades, a criminal act of suppression for not reporting it immediately, and a felony. The House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, is playing cagey about whether he knew of it or not.

At the Capitol Hill signing ceremony for the commissions bill, a GOP campaign priority, reporters asked Hastert only about Foley. "He's done the right thing," Hastert replied. "I've asked John Shimkus [R-Ill.], who is head of the Page Board, to look into this issue regarding Congressman Foley. We want to make sure that all of our pages are safe and our page system is safe. None of us are happy about it [my emphasis]." (Washpo, 09/30/2006)

There's an obvious problem with the last sentence: for as long as ten-months, page boys were unprotected by this veil-of-secrecy, done for political gain. Of course they "aren't happy" about it, but they don't really care about the victim--or the ones we might not know about. Ironically, it was a journalist who told members of the congressional GOP about what was happening between Foley and staffers.

We are a sick culture. With this example of Foley, our own social statistics on sexual molestation (the ones we know of), Abu-Ghraib, the torture sessions in Afghanistan and the CIA's secret prisons dotting-the-globe, we come-off as one big child molestation machine.

This is because we are. Small-wonder that people in other nations hate and fear us. They should, we are a shameful people, we are moral-cowards. Foley should be put in general population of a State Prison, where inmates will pour their urine on him every time he walks the cell-block. If there is there is a line--even for murderers--it is this: you don't hurt a child, and they will kill this child molester. If he somehow miraculously survives his time in prison, he should be under house arrest for the rest of his life, with no legal rights or protection.

Now we know what the GOP is willing-to-do to win in November, besides rigging the polls. Foley was also the co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He was also Tom Delay's right-hand (job) man. Apparently, the GOP has a sense-of-humor after-all, a sick one. He voted just like his other peers in the GOP: against working-class people, then felt he was above-the-law and molest our children too. The GOP is the part of child-abuse, the disease-made-flesh. The horror-of-it-all...

The email-exchange (molestation):
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/story?id=2509586&page=1

Boyfucker-Central:
http://www.nrcc.org/

For Republicans, Conservative Democrats, Bishops & priests:
www.nambla.org

Tim Mahoney's Take on Marky:
http://www.timmahoneyforflorida.com/e3/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=46