Blog #9: Collateral Murder

 Collateral Murder or Mistake?

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and give the appearance of solidity to pure wind”. - George Orwell

    The quote above was shown at the beginning of the film Collateral Murder, and I agree with this because that is exactly what we see happening in the past and the present. We continuously see the press reporting on anything the government does pertaining to war. The press is able to release anything they feel but are not the ones being patronized about it because they are supporting the government. However, on the other hand, we have journalists who want to get to the root of the problem and release the truth and are always patronized. Those who aren’t journalists who release the truth without permission are labeled as whistleblowers and sometimes put in jail.

    We have seen this happening today with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tucker Carlson stated on fox news that we are being lied to about the real reason for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was portrayed in the media that the real cause behind the invasion was due to Vladimir Putin’s mental state. But we all know that it is bull crap because there have been individuals such as Nigel Farage who has actually predicted in 2014 that this invasion would happen one day, and he shared his theory with the world.

    We have seen from this incident how the government will lie to try and cover up their lies and cause more harm instead of telling the truth.

    Now, let's take a step back to April 5th, 2010, when a site called Wikileaks released unseen footage of a U.S. Apache helicopter shooting and killing innocent men and injuring two children.

    For this shocking film, we can thank Julian Assange, the founder of the organization Wikileaks. Assange stated that he wanted to practice “scientific journalism,” It would be used to provide primary source materials with a minimum of editorial commentary. With this organization, he was able to release thousands of internal/classified documents from various government and corporate entities.

    Once the footage was released, things began to take a turn for not only Assange but also for the government because the truth was finally being released.

    During the video, there were two war journalists who were killed because the U.S. soldiers had mistaken their cameras for guns, but in the video, you can see that it did not look like a gun, and they also did not appear to be a threat.

The question posed to footage is, was it collateral murder?

I believe that the answer is yes. In the video, you can hear the soldiers state;

 “Light 'em all up. Come on, fire!” 

“Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards. Nice shooting”

“Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”

    These soldiers thought this was funny and had no remorse after shooting and injuring two children. They tried to state that they brought the kids into a battle, but that was inaccurate because the men they killed did not pose one single threat to them. The men in the truck were just innocent civilians trying to help another innocent civilian. 

    Once the video was released there, many people saw the truth, and many views about the government began to change quickly. It seems like the government began to panic and the easiest thing for them to do to cover their butts was to go after Julian Assange, and he is still currently being held in prison in Britain.

    The question that we always have when situations come to light is why?? But in reality, we will never actually know the reality behind anything because the government will always try to cover up the truth.