Armstrong on Wikileaks
Matt Armstrong has a must-read, incisive, take on the manipulatively edited propaganda popularly known as the “Wikileaks video”:
The true fiasco exposed by Wikileaks
….The Wikileaks release apparently caught the Defense Department flatfooted. Even today, three days after its release, there is largely silence from DOD, save a brief public comment and a link to documents and photos at http://www.centcom.mil/ (hidden in plain sight through the link labeled “Link to FOIA documents on July 2007 New Baghdad Combat Action“). Don’t bother going to http://www.defense.mil/ as that site, and hence the Pentagon, has nothing readily available either. The April 6 briefing pack did not include the explanatory imagery and there is no news release explanation the Department’s position. It’s as if nothing happened. When asked about the situation, senior official at DOD pointed me to the “great piece” in The New York Times explaining how trained soldiers view and operate in these events differently than civilians. This, however, misses the point.
Despite the vigorous discussion online and over the air whether there was a violation of the laws of war, the old belief that if you ignore a problem it will go away continues to dominate.
Read the rest here.
April 12th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Well I guess the DOD now knows how it feels to be on the end of a Info op.Normal people when they see this kind of thing react with the gut, and that gut says, killing is wrong, big style wrong, all the spinning, all the explaining, framing is pointless. Killing is wrong, people who kill with apparent relish are bad. In a way its like that iconic image of a South Vietnamese girls being napalmed, tragic, but there was a military operation going on, and those thing can happen, nobody wants them too, but they happen. With normal people those kind of arguments don’t work. Killing is wrong and thats all there is to it. Its the reason why body bags are a taboo issue, the last thing you want to do is remind people that death is part of war, In all the years America has been at war I can still count on one hand the amount of dead bodies I’ve seen on the mainstream media.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
[…] of Zenpundit, MountainRunner’s description of the doctored Wikileak […]
April 13th, 2010 at 12:02 am
One of the commenters at the linked blog states something along the lines of "here’s the next one," and points out another video set to be released?
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At this point, who is thinking about that inevitable next step? Because there is more coming down the line, for sure. I’d send that stuff out to bloggers and let them start working on making sure the online interpretations are accurate, like, NOW. I mean, let it be honest and upfront and don’t spin, just be first with it.
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What do you all think? Is that reasonable? Who IS watching the store on this?
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– Madhu