Seconds to decide . . .

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WARNING: THE LINK ABOVE CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF COMBAT

An organization called "Wikileaks" has posted an edited version of the video above. I'll warn you now, it is horrifying and graphic. The video is from the optical sighting equipment on a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship. It details an aerial attack on a group of men in Baghdad in 2007. The attack resulted in the deaths of, among others, two journalists, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen who were covering the war for Reuters. The attack also resulted in the wounding of two young children.

Wikileaks, according to Wikipedia, "is a Sweden or Iceland-based website launched in December 2006 that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of its sources. The website is run by The Sunshine Press, and has said it was founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director. Within a year of its launch, the site said its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents. It has won a number of new media awards for its reports."

I want to invite you to watch the video above, and then watch the version posted at the Wikileaks website, here.

The first thing you may notice, other than the horrifying and harrowing raw content of the video, is the packaging done by the watchdogs at Wikileaks. We start off with an appropriate quote, move on to some background information and then proceed to the video feed, complete with subtitles and labels. At various points, we fade to black so that more background information can be passed along. The extra information helps to clarify a chaotic picture, helps us to see things we may have missed, documents the atrocity unfolding before our eyes . . . or does it?

The problem with the reporting in the edited version is simply this: It may be slick and tell a compelling tale, but it's not journalism. To paraphrase the late Paul Harvey, you're not hearing "the rest of the story." The labels, information crawls and subtitles, while truthful on the face of things, obscure and hide the other facts and prevent you from developing the perspective you need to form a complete picture. Even the raw video itself lacks this perspective, as it only displays a small piece of a very big picture. The folks at Wikileaks would have you believe that the U.S. Army rained murder and destruction on a group of peaceful, innocent bystanders with no provocation, and that the Army has covered this event up or painted it as a heroic combat mission.

Here are some things you may not have realized if you only watched the edited version: Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen were journalists embedded with an armed insurgent group. This is not an uncommon happenstance, but any journalist working a combat zone for an international news organization certainly understands the risk entailed by such action. How do we know this? Reuters admits as much and there is evidence in the video. Look at about the 1:43 mark. See the two guys just above and to the right of the cross-hairs? One is armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and the other is carrying an RPG launcher. There are no arrows or labels pointing to these two gents in the edited video.

Also, if you look at the video from 2:06 to 2:17, you'll notice someone kneeling just behind the building to the right of the cross-hairs and fiddling with a tubular object. Just as he is about to be obscured from the camera by the corner of the building, he points this tube directly at the helicopter. What is he doing? As it turns out, that is one of the journalists pointing a telephoto lens equipped camera, but that helps to illustrate my next point.

Wikileaks describes the attack as indiscriminate. The fact is, the Apache was on a combat mission over hostile territory. They were monitoring a group of armed insurgents who were equipped with weapons capable of shooting down their helicopter and at least one of this group pointed an object resembling a weapon at their aircraft. They believed they were taking ground fire (this is supported by the subtitles, although it is unclear where they believed the fire was coming from). None of this is mentioned in the edited version's "analysis." No attempt is given to provide the viewer with this perspective. Wikileaks is leading their audience to a predetermined conclusion from the very beginning. Look at the Orwell quote use for an establishing lead. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." To my mind, once you take that step, you've left the world of hard journalism and entered in to Op-Ed writing. You've abdicated your position as an objective journalist and you are engaged in sensationalism.

There is no denying that this incident is tragic. The two journalists who lost their lives were bravely performing a vital service to the free world. They also knew the risks. The fact that children were wounded is horrifying, but no less horrifying is the fact that the adults caring for those children chose to take them in to an active firefight. To be fair, the U.S. Army hasn't handled inquiries into this situation in a forthright manner, and that has contributed to the perception of wrongdoing and cover-up. Reuters has been asking forceful and probing questions since the incident and received no good answers and their request for the video via the Freedom of Information Act has been stonewalled. You can also make an argument against attacking the van that attempted to rescue the wounded. Some interesting comments were made here on that very subject. We don't really know whether or not the attack was made in accordance with the established rules of engagement, primarily because we don't know what those were at the time. Wikileaks claims to have them, but I can't see them posted anywhere on their site.

The simple fact is, this situation is as complex as it is tragic. To attempt to reduce it to a simple act of wanton murder is to surrender to an agenda. The soldiers in that helicopter had to examine a chaotic and ambiguous situation and make a choice within a few seconds. The price of failure could very well have been their death and the deaths of the infantry soldiers whom they were covering. They didn't have the leisure to examine the video at length as we have done. The comments they made during and after engaging the insurgents were indeed graphic, and may be shocking to the layman. They are also absolutely common to any battlefield. This is after all war, and not a debate. Witness also the efforts of the ground troops to save the life of the wounded child. This also was discounted by the "analysis."

I believe Wikileaks can, and has provided a valuable service. Too much secrecy is a bad thing for free societies. Those who would engage in cover up and conspiracy should have cause to worry and to fear exposure. The trick for Wikileaks and like organizations will be to avoid engaging in those activities themselves by shading the truth to fit their own notions.

Book review: Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle"

Neal Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle" is nearly as intimidating to review as it is to read. At 2,700 plus printed pages spread over three volumes (the page count and number of discreet books may vary depending on the format of your purchase), this work is massive in scope, setting, ambition and sheer physical size. The picture at left is the handwritten manuscript for the work, displayed behind the three published hardcover volumes. The experience of reading it is worth every carpal tunnel syndrome pang you will suffer and more (even this slight price to pay can be alleviated by using one of the readily available electronic book readers now on the market).

Set against the backdrop of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, The Baroque Cycle features a bewildering number of characters, both historic and entirely fictional, pursuing their plot strings and character arcs across five continents and nearly 50 years. The cycle follows three main characters, Jack Shaftoe, Eliza and Daniel Waterhouse as they rub shoulders with and often directly influence the movers and shakers of enlightenment Europe. Their story arcs shape Stephenson's hyper-historic, mind-bending narrative of the shaping of the modern world. Historic figures from the period (Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, John Churchill, Louis XIV and George I to name a few) are blended with a rogues gallery of highly developed, idiosyncratic fictional characters to tell the tale of the foundations of modern science, politics, commerce and finance.

Stephenson's writing style is wryly humorous, with an eye for the ridiculous. I feel it fair to warn you that reading this work in public will result in sudden fits of laughter, assumptions of mental disorder and possible beverage squirting as the author makes deft use of the hilarious and ridiculous to both advance plot points and diffuse tension. Jack Shaftoe, in particular, is equal parts swashbuckling adventurer and comic misfit as his various sobriquets (King of the Vagabonds, L'Emmerdeur, Half-Cocked Jack, and more) will attest. Stephenson often writes of Jack's actions being prey to the influence of "The Imp of the Perverse." The same could be said of the entire work, providing a lively and surprise filled narrative, even considering the accuracy of the story's historic events. The reader is treated to a picture of the period that spares no detail, however distasteful (the sanitary conditions of the age, or lack thereof, seem to hold a particular fascination) or racy, and therefore the work is not for prudes or the squeamish. For those who may be daunted by the work's sheer size, I can promise that the pages turn quickly with a goodly amount of belly laughs interspersed with "I'll be damned" moments.

In all, this is a story and an author worth investing your hard earned guineas and increasingly valuable time in. The dividends will be rich and rewarding.