Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post: Calling it a case of 'collateral murder,' the Wikileaks Web site today released harrowing until-now secret video of a US Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuters photographer and his driver -- and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men.
None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon's initial cover story... Reporters working for Wikileaks determined that the driver of the van was a good Samaritan on his way to take his small children to a tutoring session. He was killed and his two children were badly injured...
Crew members can be heard celebrating their kills... A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded. Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses. And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying, 'Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle.'...
Julian Assange [editor of Wikileaks] said the helicopter crew approached its job as if it were a video game, not something involving human lives. 'Their desire was simply to kill,' he said. 'Their desire was to get high scores on that computer game.'
