By Anthony Gregory
Those who revealed and shared the “collateral murder” video footage of the Apache helicopter atrocity in Iraq were accused of not supporting the troops, taking the video out of context and so forth. To publicize U.S. war crimes has been called unAmerican.
Well, two of the soldiers involved have written an open letter of apology to the families injured by this atrocity, asking fellow Americans to sign it. It says in part:
We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.
We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and carried out in the name of “god and country”. The soldier in video said that your husband shouldn’t have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.
If you want to support these troops, sign the letter and do your part to spread the truth—that our occupying armies in the Middle East are causing great harm, committing great violence against the innocent—for as long as Americans are more offended by people pointing out U.S. atrocities than by the atrocities themselves, our foreign policy will continue to be atrocious, generating hatred and terrorism toward America and destroying much-needed wealth and priceless liberties in the process.