WikiLeaks Video

Forewarning: The following video is a gunsight video from an Apache helicopter during a conflict in which 12 people are killed and 2 children seriously wounded.



Two of the dead were Reuters reporters. Reuters filed a freedom of information act request to get the video. The were not successful, but WikiLeaks obtained and posted the video. The above is a short version. The longer version can be seen here.

I ignored all mention of this video and its implications for the first 5 days it was released. I didn't want to watch the video, so I didn't see the point in reading the various opinions on it. Then I decided that it was important to watch. I can't articulate why it is, but I feel strongly about it.

There has been a lot of discussion about this in the blogosphere, but a couple of my observations first.

1. It is a very disturbing video to watch. The dying people look like people-shaped specks and the soldiers seem cavalier about taking their lives. On the other hand, I don't know that we want to ask our soldiers to strongly identify with each and every life they take. They are asked to do an enormous task, and I don't feel comfortable judging their cognitive approaches to it.

2. I only watched the short video. It doesn't look like anything was going on when they started shooting. However, they clearly have a better vantage point than the gunsight video, because they talk about colors -- the video is in black and white. Also, at one point someone says that one of the guys is shooting. Again, it's really hard to make any judgments without any expertise.

3. Toward the end of the short-version video, they show a van with two children in the front, suggesting that the soldiers saw the children and fired anyway. The army contended they didn't know children were there. I actually feel like I can offer a reasonably informed opinion about this part. Inattentional blindness (see the bottom of the post for an example) is a well-known phenomenon, in which large and incongruous images in the visual field can be completely overlooked because the attention is focused elsewhere. In this case, I wouldn't be surprised if the children had little signs that said "We're kids," and were still overlooked. The soldiers were probably watching the grown men outside the van and could have easily missed the small children in the front seat of the van.

4. Demanding an accounting and explanation for what the tape shows does not mean that someone hates soldiers. It means that our military should be willing to defend their actions or be willing to acknowledge and address lapses.

As for the other views, see the roundup on The Atlantic.

The views include: War Crime, Doesn't Meet "Hostile Intent" Criteria, and Proper Military Conduct.


*If you want to see inattentional blindness, get someone else to view the video here. You might want to get a couple somebodies. It doesn't work on everyone, but even with two people, you have a high chance that at least one of them will miss the "unexpected event." Tell the person that it is a test of attention & there is a really big gender difference. Tell the person to count ONLY the basketball passes between the members of the WHITE team. They should not get distracted by the passes between the members of the BLACK team. Once they're done, ask how many passes they counted. Then ask if they noticed anything odd. Most people will not have noticed anything odd. Let them watch it again and tell them just to watch -- not to count. They should be surprised.