Haditha video from BradBlog

[KansDem]

Bear with me if this has already been posted. I found that this Haditha video (actually two videos) linked at BradBlog helped me to understand better what is going on with this tragedy. Perhaps other DUers will also find it informative...

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002589.htm

(AP) A videotape taken by an Iraqi shows the aftermath of an alleged attack by U.S. troops on civilians in their homes in a western town last November: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.
...
The video, obtained by Time magazine and repeatedly aired by Arab televisions throughout the day, also showed bodies of women and children in plastic bags on the floor of what appeared to be a morgue. Men were seen standing in the middle of bodies, some of which were covered with blankets before being placed in a pickup truck.

The images were broadcast a day after residents of Haditha, 140 miles west of Baghdad, told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.

Last week, the U.S. military announced that a dozen Marines are under investigation for possible war crimes in the Nov. 19 incident, which left at least 23 Iraqis dead in addition to the Marine.

[JuniperLea]

1. Ugh....

There's no way I can watch that.


:cry:

[Selatius]

2. I won't watch the video.

It's not a technical issue; it's not that I'm against showing the reality of war. It's just that I'm tired of viewing the face of war. I've seen enough.

This war is the worst thing the US government ever did since Viet Nam.

[Igel]

3. Bullet holes in the walls?

I could swear I read that one witness said evidence that it was an execution-style massacre was precisely the lack of bullet holes in the walls. (And so the video says ... but in one shot, there are clearly bullet holes in one wall unassociated with blood spatter, something that you don't expect given the description.) I think I understand the atrocity less well now than I did 20 minutes ago.

The video wasn't nearly as gruesome as I was expecting.

[ginnyinWI]

4. this is going to cause more people to sit up and take notice.

The war goes on and on and on and people tune it out. They're going to have to look at this and realize how bad it's gotten. All of the statements and testimonials and extra reporting are going to have an impact.

[tocqueville]

5. but where are the PICTURES of the massacre/burial ?

for some reason they have "disappeared" from the Internet...

those are not for the faint hearted, the video is nothing compared to them...

[helderheid]

6. I've not seen either.

[KansDem]

7. I've wondered the same thing.

In trying to glean information about this tragedy from the Internet, this video was about all I could find doing simple google searching. This reminds me somewhat of the Abu Ghraib photos/videos that we kept reading about but couldn't see until after a FOIA lawsuit against the DOD ran its course, and even then the most heinous views are still unobtainable (as far as I know).

Simply reading press and media descriptions of these photos will not have the full effect that exposing them uncensored to the American people will have. Unfortunately, as a nation we need to be smacked upside the head with a 2x4 in order for the extent of this crime, and the entire bogus "war" itself, to sink in.

[RebelOne]

8. CNN showed the Iraqi's video this past weekend quite a few times.