The NYTimes is reporting that a military analyst who leaked the “Collateral Murder” videos to Wikileaks has been arrested.
If you missed the leaks at the time, you can watch them at CollateralMurder.com. They are videos taken from the gun-sights of US helicopters, complete with the commentary from military personnel firing down into the Iraqi neighborhoods below them. The videos capture the killing of civilians, including two Reuters journalists. They show just how impersonal murder has become. This is a video game war and there’s no real consequence to shooting the wrong target from thousands of feet away.
The arrested soldier is Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Md. Motives for leaking the videos are unreported at this time, but one would suspect they include a moral revulsion to what the American war has become. The war has largely been fought out of sight. Manning has helped give us a glimpse of what’s happening. It’s horrific in its banality but so is the war in Iraq.