{"id":189349,"date":"2010-04-12T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/04\/12\/a-coda-on-collateral-murder\/"},"modified":"2010-04-12T20:59:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T01:59:00","slug":"a-coda-on-collateral-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/04\/12\/a-coda-on-collateral-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"A Coda on “Collateral Murder”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A soldier whose unit was involved in the incident captured on video is saying that these actions were business as usual and were fully in accord with the rules of engagement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The full statement is after the break, but his basic point is that this is an inevitable part of war.<\/p>\n

Certainly this is true to some degree, but the incident is also a reflection of some real issues with US doctrine, particularly with the aggressive use of air power, and rules of engagement.<\/p>\n

Both of these problems contribute, and continue to contribute to, a situation where we are creating an environment where we create more insurgents, and, in the long run, more dead American soldiers.<\/p>\n

Statement follows:
<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/strong>
April 9, 2010 10:45 AM<\/td>\n		\n
CONTACT: Media Advisory<\/strong><\/div>\n
Sarah Lazare: sarah.lazare@gmail.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Veteran of “Collateral Murder” Company Speaks Out<\/span> <\/p>\n

WASHINGTON – April 9 – Josh Stieber, who is a former soldier of the \u201cCollateral Murder\u201d Company, says that the acts of brutality caught on film and recently released via Wikileaks are not isolated instances, but were commonplace during his tour of duty.<\/p>\n

\u2028\u2028\u201cA lot of my friends are in that video,\u201d says Stieber. \u201cAfter watching the video, I would definitely say that that is, nine times out of ten, the way things ended up. Killing was following military protocol. It was going along with the rules as they are.\u201d\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n

Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16, whose members were involved in the incident captured in Wikileaks’ \u201cCollateral Murder\u201d video, which has made international headlines by depicting a July 2007 shooting incident outside of Baghdad in which over a dozen people, including two Reuters employees, were killed. Although he was not present at the scene of the video, he knows those who were involved and is familiar with the environment. Stieber, who now works to promote peace and alternatives to war, is speaking publicly about his time in Iraq and the incident captured in this video.\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these videos shock and revolt you, they show the reality of what war is like,\u201d says Stieber. \u201cIf you don\u2019t like what you see in them, it means we should be working harder towards alternatives to war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2028\u2028Stieber currently lives in Washington, D.C.\u2028\u2028
\u2028
BACKGROUND ON JOSH STIEBER:
<\/b>Branch of service: United States Army (USA)\u2028
Unit: 1st ID\u2028
Rank: Spc.
\u2028Home: Laytonsville, Maryland\u2028
Served in: Baghdad (Rustamiyah) 07-08 Fort Riley, KS 06-07, 08-09\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n

###<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A soldier whose unit was involved in the incident captured on video is saying that these actions were business as usual and were fully in accord with the rules of engagement. The full statement is after the break, but his basic point is that this is an inevitable part of war. Certainly this is true …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1090,1006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-ethics","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}