Wiki-what-the-f*ck

The year still feels freshly minted in these first few weeks of January and in the spirit of confession, turning over new leaves etc. I am going to reveal something that, once I thought about it, I was somewhat ashamed of. Despite being a curious person and the fact that I'm studying JOURNALISM of all things, I have never visited the Wikileaks website. Until yesterday that is.

Of course I've been getting the highlight reel on the six o'clock news like the rest of the world and I would smirk in righteous satisfaction at all the "diplomatic embarrassment" these leaked cables and reports caused in the hushed hallways of power. But for some reason (and please don't ask me why) I was content to allow the news to filter and emphasize whatever aspects of this phenomena it decided to cover in its broadcasts or print on its pages.

In Canada it seemed the majority of the media scrutiny levelled at the Wikileak cables was focused on the mild trash-talking Canada received from American diplomats. Apparently we're "insecure" or something (insert sarcasm here). And if it wasn't our fleeting national embarrassment at the realization that the global community doesn't consider us a superpower *gasp* the media focus was on the allegations of sexual misconduct facing Julian Assange in Sweden. Precious little else made the news that I saw.

However after visiting the Wikileaks website I realized what has American DOD lawyers scrambling to find a loophole to lasso Assange with so they can drag him off to Gitmo and throw away the key.

Linked on the Wikileaks homepage is the video 'Collateral Murder' that was originally posted in April 2010. At the time of its release I was probably sweating through an iyengar yoga class somewhere in northern India. If this video made waves when it was released to the public it certainly didn't cause a ripple in South Asia. If this was splattered all over the front pages and was being blared from banks of TVs on every street corner please correct my ignorance.

But I was absolutely shocked that I'd never heard this revealing video referenced in any paper or newscast in the months since.

I watched the shortened version of the video with nothing short of horror.

The video shows two Apache gunships firing on a group of Iraqis in a Baghdadi suburb. It's true some of them look like they could be carrying guns but they're not shooting anyone or acting suspiciously, they in fact, appear to be simply hanging out. The Apaches open fire on the group and huge clouds of dust immediately obscure the scene from view. When it clears the devastation is total, even with the grainy quality of the film the blood splatters on the pavement are clearly visible.

One of the Apache gunners spots the sole surviving Iraqi attempting to crawl away. The man's progress is painfully slow and it is clear that he has been severely wounded.

Minutes later a van pulls up and several men attempt to move the wounded man inside. The gunners, pilots and ground command explode in a frenzy of chatter. "They are trying to retrieve the weapons!" they shout back and forth though no one on the ground takes a step towards the corpses scattered in the street several metres away.

The rescuers succeed in getting the wounded man into the vehicle but as they attempt to drive away the gunners receive authorization to fire. Dust engulfs the van and it crashes into a wall.

When ground troops arrive they discover that there are two children in the van, both wounded and one near death. The soldier who discovers them requests they be evacuated to a U.S. military hospital, shortly after his request is turned down. The children are to be taken to a nearby Iraqi hospital where the quality of care is sure to be lower.

Despite that it is heart-wrenching to watch a clearly wounded man and his rescuers be mowed down by heavy fire from above these events would probably have been forgotten. And they were forgotten.

Until Reuters started asking what had happened to their cameramen. It turns out that two of the men in that apparently menacing group of Iraqis were journalists and were carrying not guns, but cameras.

The wounded man inching his way along the pavement after the initial attack was Saeed Chamagh a Reuters photographer. His Reuters colleague, Namir Noor-Eldeen, was killed in the initial assault. As ground troops arrived on scene to secure the area one of their Humvees drove over Namir's body as it lay in the dust.

The internal U.S. military report on the incident named all the Iraqis killed as insurgents.

Now I'm not suggesting that Wikileaks is perfect, nothing is. They editorialize and their bias is very clear. But if you strip away the commentary and look at the hard images you're left with a chilling portrait of a war. The war in Iraq was founded on Colin Powell's deceptive report to the U.N. about the presence of WMDs and on fabricated ties between the Iraq and al-Qaeda. It begs the question, where does the deception end? And with unprovoked acts of violence such as the one depicted in 'Collateral Murder,' will the paranoid imaginings of the U.S. Department of Defence become a tragic self-fulfilling prophecy?

The release of the 'Collateral Murder' video changes nothing in the grand scheme of things but I would rather know than not know the truth, no matter how ugly and confusing it turns out to be.



On a lighter note, due to my abject poverty I've encountered another one of life's magical firsts; my first time visiting a food bank, yay! The university runs a community food room and I've included a picture of the haul I'm allowed to take home on a weekly basis. Due to the over-representation of soup and soup-like products in the food bank my salt intake (and no doubt my blood pressure) has gone through the roof. And since canned/packaged goods tend to be somewhat lacking in flavour it forces you to get a bit creative. Below is my version of egg-drop Mr. Noodles soup with peas. Sodium-licious!