Last month marked the 10th anniversary of WikiLeaks’ publication of the Collateral Murder video. The video shows how two Apache helicopters murdered 11 Iraqi people including two Reuters journalists. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.  This is one of the publications Julian Assange is being indicted for espionage. He faces 175 years in a US jail if extradited from the UK.  WikiLeaks obtained the video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. They analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material and spoke to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

After the video was released, one of the soldiers involved in the incident, Ethan McCord, said the following:

“If you feel threatened in any way, you’re able to engage that person. Many soldiers felt threatened just by the fact that you were looking at them, so they fired their weapons on anybody that was looking at them because they (I) felt threatened. We were told if we were to fire on anybody, and if it were to be investigated, that ‘officers will take care of you.’ ”

“We were told by our battalion commander to kill every m***** f****** on the street.  Many soldiers would not do that, we decided we were going to shoot into the rooftops of buildings because, if you didn’t fire, the NCOs in your platoon would make your life hell.”

“This happens on a daily basis, destroying vans full of children, the destruction of the Iraqi people happens on a daily basis.” (source)

 When it comes to Julian Assange, most of the world knows why they hunted him, and why he’s been treated the way he’s been treated and tortured in prison. The same goes for people like Edward Snowden, it’s because they expose lies, corruption, deceit, immoral and unethical actions that their own governments, as well as governments around the world have participated in. He exposed these characteristics that seem to represents the backbone of the Western military alliance and the American empire. He exposed, in the words of John F. Hylan, former Mayor of New York City, the “real menace of the Republic”, the “invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation.” He exposed the ones “who virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes.” (source)(source)

How far have we sunk if telling the truth becomes a crime? How far have we sunk if we prosecute people that expose war crimes for exposing war crimes?  How far have we sunk when we no longer prosecute our own war criminals? Because we identify more with them, than we identify with their people that actually expose these crimes. What does that tell about us and about our governments? In a democracy, the power does not belong to the government, but to the people. But the people have to claim it. Secrecy disempowers the people because it prevents them from exercising democratic control, which is precisely why governments want secrecy. Nils Melzer (source)

Since this video was released, more people became aware of the connections that the US government had at the time with terrorist organizations. Information about the US funding terrorist groups, arming terrorist groups and even staging terrorist attacks has come to light. More people became aware of the fact that the same powers who claim to be going overseas to locate and take down these terrorists are the same ones who created them in the first place. This is referred to as ‘false flag terrorism,’ and the creation of terrorism has allowed powerful people to infiltrate other countries for ulterior motives.

Thanks to people like Julian Assange and many others, many people have had a big shift with regards to their perception of the world. More people are becoming aware about aspects of the human experience they were once unaware of. In order to stop these aspects, we must first become aware of them. With awareness comes a shift in consciousness, and that shift in consciousness then leads to action. The world is changing, and it’s changing fast. We have to go through the growing pains first.

Below is a recent release from Wikileaks, Collateral Murder 10 Years On: Short Documentary