WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization and website founded by Julian Assange, offered a $50,000 reward for military records of the U.S. war crime of bombing the Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on October 2nd. [1] And they asked for some very specific material that the U.S. no doubt will refuse to release. Here's their ask:
“The AC-130 records its attacks with high resolution gun cameras. According to military procedure, this footage should have been retained along with the cockpit audio. A post-massacre inquiry report referred to as an ‘AR 15-6’ should have also been commissioned. We are raising a U.S. $50,000 bounty to obtain the footage, the cockpit audio, the inquiry report and other relevant materials.” [2] [3]
Wow! Talk about tickling the throat of the tiger. That sure got the attention of the U.S., I'll bet.
The U.S. has already taken extreme measures to destroy WikiLeaks. It arranged for credit card companies and Paypal to bar donations to WikiLeaks. It has launched numerous computer attacks against the organization and unleashed the whole panoply of secret police repressive and close surveillance against the group. Most notoriously, it arranged a long-running criminal “investigation” of Assange by Sweden, and now has him trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Ecuador has granted Assange political asylum, a decision Britain refuses to respect. It has a police cordon around the Embassy, and planted a listening device inside, violating diplomatic sovereignty. And the U.S. has a secret indictment of Assange. It is licking its chops waiting for an opportunity to seize him and imprison him for decades, if not life. There is an ongoing grand jury “investigation” of WikiLeaks, a standard political repression weapon the U.S. uses.
WikiLeaks incited the enduring hatred of the U.S. government and some U.S. elites (a number of whom publicly called for Assange's murder) by exposing, among other things, one of the most blood chilling U.S. war crimes, the murder of Reuters journalists in Iraq by a murderous U.S. helicopter crew, who also fired on a van full of children whose father had stopped to aid the journalists after they had been gunned down in the street.
WikiLeaks was given the helicopter's video and audio recording of the murders anonymously by U.S. Army private Chelsea Manning, who was turned in by FBI secret police informer Adrian Lamo, in whom Manning unwisely confided in online. Manning was then kept naked for a year in a Marine brig (despite being an Army private), court-martialed, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The murderers of course suffered no consequences at all. [See the collateral murder video.]
The U.S. is used to getting its way and will break any law to get it.
It took the extreme measure of forcing down the presidential plane of Bolivian president Evo Morales and had it searched when it suspected that Edward Snowden was onboard. Snowden is the man who exposed some of the massive NSA global surveillance programs.
To show their displeasure with al-Jazeera, the Qatari news outfit, they bombed its offices four times in Kabul and Baghdad, and kidnapped one of its employees, who they imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, where they tried to force him to be a spy inside al-Jazeera for them.
Considering the U.S.' willingness to commit any crime, I have an idea! Why not a drone strike on the Ecuadorean embassy in London? It's the next logical step after bombing a hospital run by an internationally renowned organization. What do you think, Barack? It's not like you'd be technically bombing London. The embassy is Ecuadorean national territory by law. You could always say it was a “mistake,” issue an “apology,” and announce an “investigation” afterwards if the squawking got too loud.
Ecuador does have a left-wing government now, after all. And the president is (falsely) accused of attacking press “freedom.” You could say bombing their embassy strikes a blow for freedom. That's no more far-fetched than a lot of U.S. propaganda, such as support for fascist death squad terror states is “defending freedom and democracy.”
But Obama did “apologize” to Médecins Sans Frontières....five days after the war crime, and a few hours after MSF publicly called for an independent of the crime under the Geneva Convention. Guess he thought he could dissuade them with a “sorry.”
1] “Afghanistan: MSF staff killed and hospital partially destroyed in Kunduz,” and “Kunduz Hospital Airstrike,” Médecins Sans Frontières.
2] “Wikileaks Offers to Pay $50,000 for Kunduz Bombing Footage,” Time magazine, October 8, 2015. You could go to the WikiLeaks website, but the U.S. government will trap your IP address and plant spyware and maybe worse on your computer. You could try using the Tor browser and a vpn, but there's no guarantee that would provide absolute protection. I suppose you could use a computer in an Internet cafe or library, so it won't be your computer- but if you use your actual name to use it, they might find out your name, depending on how fanatical they are. (Pretty fanatical, generally speaking.) Living in a global police state gets to be a real pain in the ass....
Interestingly, Time referred to WikiLeaks as “Transparency activist group Wikileaks” I was surprised by that non-derogatory, accurate description from a U.S. establishment media organ.
3] The AC-130 is the murderous flying gunship the U.S. unleashed on the hospital- it has also been used in El Salvador, Vietnam, and other poor countries victimized by the U.S., generally against people who have no defense against it. It is a cargo plane reconfigured with rapid-fire cannons to blow people on the ground to bits. It also carries air-to-ground missiles. There are plans to add a laser weapon. It also helped murder 4,000 Panamanians when the U.S. invaded that country on the orders of Bush the Elder.
There's an amoral description of the plane and its history at Wikipedia.
Standard weapons are two 20mm cannons, a 25mm Gatling gun that fires 1,800 rounds per minute, a 40mm cannon that fires 100 rounds a minute, and a large 105mm cannon that can fire 10 shells a minute. It is also packed with various surveillance and electronic equipment. See Federation of American Scientists for specs.
My, what
Big Bullets you Butchers have! 40mm munitions on the flying abattoir.
AC-130 gunship with air to ground
missiles on wingpod.
Lockheed Martin manufactures the killer aircraft. Note cannons protruding from fuselage.
Black Americans can enjoy the benefits of
slaughtering people too.
You've come a long way, Baby-
you've got your own gun now.
That's what I call progress!
After awhile one does gets blase about butchery.
Obama won't unleash this on ISIS or on Assad's forces- but a hospital makes a perfect target. Hospitals can't shoot back!
[Scroll down to earlier essays for
details on the hospital bombing and its aftermath, and the
ever-changing series of smarmy U.S. lies.]
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