Monday, April 5, 2010

God Bless the Internet

Despite efforts by the US military to block its release, Wikileaks has managed to reveal a video showing some gruesome attacks on what appears to be civilians that aren't acting in a threatening manner. Two journalists were killed. The video is here.

The release of this video was announced about a week ago, so the news agencies have had plenty of time to be ready. Despite that for most of the day to this point it was Al Jazeera and the BBC that were willing to cover it. Since then some American press has relented. I see nothing at CNN at the moment (an interesting contrast between Al Jazeera and CNN here) but Fox does have it as does MSNBC.

A couple of interesting tidbits. It's worthwhile to contrast the NY Times article that described the attack at the time with the actual footage. "Clashes" have left 16 people dead. Helicopters were called in and in the "ensuing fight" people were killed. People standing around with a camera and getting shot? That's a "clash". A van collecting the body of an injured journalist, with two children pretty clearly visible in the front passenger seat of the van? That's an "ensuing fight."

Here's a google maps shot of the location of the attack.

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