"Oh Dude"

That was the pilot's reaction after his precision-guided bomb hit the target -- a group of about 20 or so people walking across a downtown street in Fallujah. It is unclear whether they were armed insurgents or civilians but proper protocals were met according to the military, a ground controller confirmed with the pilot to "take them out."(WMV) He does in spectacular fasion.

The British point out this defines the difference between our rules of engagement and theirs. We shoot anything that moves, particularly in Fallujah. Even the wounded and unarmed.(RealPlayer)

Seymour Hersh spoke at Berkeley last Friday, October 8th. He told a story about recently receiving a call from an American lieutenant in Iraq who'd just witnessed other American soldiers massacring Iraqis.

We've put our most honorable men and women in a position where dishonorable accusations are unavoidable. I've no doubt that 30 years from now, there will be a presidential campaign where this century's version of the Swift Boaters will do battle over the holographic "Interlynk" in your living room with today's whistlblowers. And the line between Vietnam and Iraq and the definition of atrocities will again inflame our souls.

Hersh Story from A Tiny Revolution: Uh Oh [Via Eschaton] CNN carried the videos which are out there if you and Google get along.

(Note. The Fallujah cockpit video is from April but only surfaced last week in the UK. It is being "investigated" according to UK media)

UPDATE: A commentor at A Tiny Revolution (Martina) provides this link from U.C.Berkeley News on Sy Hersch's lecture. Only fitting that the man credited with exposing My Lai Massacre and the abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal should know even more than we ever wanted to know.

ADDENDUM: On Bruce's Mind has the RealAudio of Hersh's Berkeley appearance.