Bravo 2-16 soldiers upset over ‘Incident in New Baghdad’ whistleblower film

Editor’s Note: By now most people are familiar with Bravo Company 2-16′s  Apache helicopter assault which was revealed to the public as part of the famous 201o Wikileaks/Bradley Manning document dump. It ranks up there as one of the most sinister revelations into the killer-psychology present within the US armed forces occupations overseas. In this instance, members of Bravo Co. are upset with their colleague Ethan McCord for backing the new whistleblower film of the incident. Their defensive stance over the issue is not unlike the US military’s defensive stance over Bradley Manning’s punishment – the soldiers, like their institutional employer, are not capable of taking any real responsibility for their crimes and for murders committed under the cover of an unconstitutional military operation overseas. If you listen to the cold language used by these soldiers during this raid, then their inability to recall the events of the day should come as no surprise. To carry out these crimes in the way they did, they would have to be seriously mentally ill, or completely brainwashed by the US military machine. In either case, someone should step forward to take responsibility for what happened – either the soldiers or the military brass. If neither do so, then we have an irredeemably broken military institution in the US.

David Montgomery
Washington Post
February 22, 2012

On July 12, 2007, during a long, hot mission, American soldiers searched houses in a ruined maze of a neighborhood in east Baghdad. The largely routine effort came to a violent conclusion: An Apache helicopter circling overhead spotted several men carrying weapons. The chopper stalked the targets, then opened fire. Among the 11 killed were a Reuters photographer and his driver. Among the wounded were two young children.

The Army investigated. No one was publicly found at fault.

… First, a classified video of the action as seen from the Apache was released by WikiLeaks in April 2010. Now a 22-minute documentary of the “Incident in New Baghdad” by director James Spione is up for an Academy Award at the Oscar ceremony Sunday.

… Rather than clearing things up for the men who were there, if anything, the politically motivated dissemination of the video — which WikiLeaks called “Collateral Murder” — dug the two camps more deeply into their positions. The prospect of an Oscar for “Incident in New Baghdad” — based on the video and featuring McCord’s take on events — has driven defenders of the 2-16’s honor to a furious activism of their own…

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