Hellfire from Datuk Bandar and Hishamuddin Dubious Attacks against citizens
Dataran War Dubious Attacks against citizens Revealed Details of their conspiracy
My apologies for a rare detour into the personal, but this is a rare moment.Raja Nong Chik has given a blank cheque to to Mayor Ahmad Fuad to organise to ‘chaos’ to blame on Bersih The words of this column will make no difference. Barisan can reduce the past to rubble as easily as for these … Read more
No Datuk Bandar or Hishamuddin (through the Police) is going to threaten you any longer; we had enough of their “bullying the Rakyat” arrogance. Let them know that this PEOPLE’S POWER.
Datuk Bandar put up barricades and close roads. Isn’t he causing loss of business to petty traders and taxi drivers, and not the participants of Bersih 3? We have heard that he made a lot of corruption money in approving conversion of lands, so it is no surprise he must act according to His Masters’ Voice or he will be removed from the lucrative post as Mayor with power to convert lands within the City.
As for Hishamuddin, we can bet that he is shivering in his pants and having sleepless nights now that the Organisers would not bulge, and have decided to stick onto Dataran Merdeka, come what may.
Go there in the most peaceful manner and gain the sympathy of the Police whose salaries are paid by the Rakyat anyway, while some of the participants are relatives of the Policemen. There will be many foreign correspondents and press men around who will not hesitate to take pictures of any Police brutality and splash them across the world for all to see how this so-called model Malaysia treats its own people in a peaceful sit-in Rally.
Dear Fellow Malaysians, if you have read Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, here are a few lines from “Alice, through the Looking Glass” which are applicable to the political climate of Malaysia:
“The time has come”, the Walrus said, “to talk of many things,
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings!”
Here is our Malaysian version:
“The time has come”, the Oracle said, “to talk of many things,
Of graft, and cows, and submarines, of polls and cheating schemes,
And why Bersih 3 sits in the boiling sun, and whether crooks still have wings!”
HAVE NO FEAR FOR YOUR GOD/ALLAH IS NEAR, the people who deny you your rights are the ones shitting in the pants, now. I am in Jakarta, and I will go to TBA at 1.00pm (one hour behind Malaysia) on 28th April to join the Global Bersih 3.
The United States military report dated July 12, 2007, 9:50 a.m., is just a few lines long, 893 characters to be precise. The document, which is full of military acronyms, deals with an incident in Baghdad and is included in a category called “Direct Fire,” which describes military clashes between Americans and Iraqis. It is one of 59,000 reports in this category included in the documents that WikiLeaks has now released on the Iraq war.
It isn’t even particularly noticeable, not even because of the number of victims it describes. The report talks of “13 AIF KIA,” in the military jargon of the US Army. Translated, it means that 13 enemies (“anti-Iraqi forces”) were “killed in action.” The report also mentions two wounded adults and two wounded Iraqi children. The six sentences relate chronologically how helicopters fired missiles at the enemy, apparently after US ground troops had come under small-arms fire.
It sounds like a routine firefight. But the incident described so tersely by the brief report would later change the way many people viewed the war. The events of that July morning were recorded on video. The incident has now become world famous, after the video was released by WikiLeaks. The footage shows a brutal helicopter attack in which US soldiers killed defenseless civilians.
‘Look at Those Dead Bastards’
The supposed “anti-Iraqi forces” who were killed were probably Iraqis who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, including two employees of the Reuters news agency. The video also shows how the crews asked for permission to open fire on a minibus rushing to the scene — and how they obtained it.
The two severely injured children, who were in the minibus when it came under fire, lost their father in the attacks. He had been driving them to school when he stopped to help the injured Reuters driver.
The shocking footage of the incident is the original video taken from one of the two Apache helicopters, codenamed Crazyhorse 18 and 19, that were involved in the incident. It is filmed from the perspective of the American shooter. In April 2010, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange presented the video, which he had titled “Collateral Murder,” at the National Press Club in Washington. At the time, it was the whistleblowing organization’s biggest scoop to date.
The roughly 18-minute video is difficult to watch, partly because it isn’t clear what’s worse: the images or the recorded conversations of the helicopter crew. “Nice,” says one crew member after a deadly salvo. “Look at those dead bastards.” The conversation continues in a similar tone.
Distorting Reality
But there is a huge gulf between the brief text of the military report that has now been published by WikiLeaks and the footage captured by the helicopter’s camera. The discrepancy makes clear that the military incident reports do not manage to capture the brutal reality of the war. In fact, the opposite is true — the reports actually distort the reality.
Comparing the video evidence and the terse, unspectacular-seeming original report raises the question as to what might have happened during incidents where the internal military reports make for more dramatic reading. And there are plenty of those. Just looking at reports involving the tradition-steeped 227th Aviation Regiment with its fleet of Apache helicopters, which was responsible for the “Collateral Murder” incident, reveals enough examples.
In 2007, the Baghdad battalions of the Fort Hood, Texas-based unit were stationed in Camp Taji to the north of the Iraqi capital. For a total period of 15 months between the end of 2006 and early 2008, the soldiers flew missions from the base. Many of those operations involved particularly “robust” interventions, to use the military jargon.
There is no way that City Hall would allow anyone to set foot on Dataran Merdeka tomorrow, Kuala Lumpur Mayor Ahmad Fuad Ismail said today.
However, the mayor said that the government was not against rallying elsewhere as Malaysia is a democratic country.
“You want to rally, go ahead. Just don’t disturb others lah! If they sit by the road, that’s okay if it doesn’t break the law, right?
“If they really behave on that day, what’s wrong? If you want to rally, use the side walk, sit at the side,” he said.
“But don’t sit in the middle of the road, that’s bad culture… What if cars rammed into you?” he asked.
He said City Hall would not want to take any action on protesters if they rallied peacefully outside Dataran Merdeka and would urge police to do the same.
“If they want to sit, I will talk with the police, biarlah (let them be). We just don’t want them to enter Dataran. I’m not discouraging people to go for a peaceful rally,” he said.
However, Ahmad Fuad said he was concerned about the possibility of traffic congestion, safety of the protesters and the possibility of a “security threat”.
“If there are those parties who are against it, a clash could happen and that’s a security issue. We don’t know what will happen,” he said.
‘It’s police responsibility’
Ahmad Fuad added that the security aspects of the rally tomorrow is the police’s responsibility and no longer City Hall’s.
“I read threatening comments online saying ‘let’s see what will happen to these small-time DBKL officers on 28th’. We’re not trained to get into fights, but just to uphold the law.
“Security issue is no longer DBKL’s responsibility, and I think the police are ready,” he said, though he added it would be a “joint operation”.
“But if there’s nothing much, [well] they’ll be sitting there, we’ll just look at each other and say ‘how are you today?’ It will all be fine,” Ahmad Fuad said in jest.
He said roads leading into Dataran Merdeka would most likely be closed off, including Jalan Raja, Jalan Tun Perak, Jalan Hishamuddin, and possibly Lebuh Pasar.
He said that he would be meeting with the police today and if there are road closures, it will be announced through the media.
“We don’t want to close down the whole city, just those roads leading into Dataran,” he said.
Ahmad Fuad advised the public who are not involved to refrain from coming to the area tomorrow to prevent any untoward incidents.
He also advised rally-goers to keep the city clean.
“Bersih shouldn’t be just about elections, but be Bersih (clean) and don’t litter in public places,” he said.
Ahmad Fuad added that DBKL was ready to face legal action for disallowing Bersih to gather. “It’s a democratic country. DBKL can be sued; we too, can sue. It’s up to the courts to decide.”
Asked why DBKL was issuing statements when the first and second Bersih had been handled by the police, the mayor said it was because Dataran was under the guardianship of City Hall.
He also denied allegations that City Hall was acting without the blessings of the federal government.
Update: On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a ‘hero’. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see bradleymanning.org.
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own “Rules of Engagement”.
Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.
WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.
WikiLeaks obtained this 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. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.
WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.
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