The servicemen overhead describe him as "possibly picking up bodies and weapons" and ask for permission to engage. "'Come on, let us shoot!" one serviceman demands. They open fire. When ground troops arrive they find more dead men and two injured children.

Wikileaks, a worldwide watchdog of powerful interests, released the unencrypted video Monday at the National Press Club. The video has since been seen by millions on YouTube, garnered endless news coverage, and is provoking debate over whether the "rules of engagement" were legitimately applied.

"Either the rules permit what is clearly impermissible moral offenses or the process of the adjudication of those rules is in error,'' Julian Assange, Wikipedia's cofounder, told Russia Today.

The U.K.'s Guardian reports that the US military attacked even though "there is no shooting or even pointing of weapons." The website "PrisonPlanet calls it a "sickening video...of U.S. troops slaughtering innocent civilians."

The New Yorker calls it a "propaganda film." Mediaite calls Wikileaks irresponsible for labeling the killings "indiscriminate." The Jawa Report excoriates Wikileaks as "beyond stupid" and "evil." A Washington Post reporter who published a book last year on the surge in Iraq writes on the paper's website that "contrary to some interpretations that this was an attack on some people walking down the street on a nice day, the day was anything but that. It happened in the midst of a large operation to clear an area where US soldiers had been getting shot at, injured, and killed with increasing frequency."

Someone by the name of "Jack" points out on The Crossed Pond, "We must accept that Islamic observations of these events will be decidedly more hostile, and will thus breed further animosity."

Commenters outside the realm of politics found the video significant for its groundbreaking use of the Internet for the release of a classified military document. "Something big happened in the tech world this weekend, and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the Apple iPad,'' wrote Nicole Kobie on IT Pro.

While many saw the shootings as horrific crimes, those schooled in war defended the military and even described their denigrating remarks about the dead as controlled. "If you or any of your readers assume for even a moment that things like that mean that they or the other hundreds of thousands of Soldiers who embrace dark humor and excess to cope with what they're doing are somehow depraved, then you need to be re-introduced to the reality,'' someone wrote to The Atlantic claiming to be a soldier on active duty.

USNews rightly pointed out that, "For all our technological marvels, well-trained troops, and sophisticated weaponry, war is a crude and brutal tool. Accidents happen. There is collateral damage. Kids get killed. And survivors don't forget."

When asked on Al Jazeera TV if he could verify the authenticity of the tape, Wikileaks cofounder Julian Assange answers, "As sure as one can be of anything in life.''

Still to be determined: who's truth will prevail.



Author Elizabeth C. supports Wikileaks' mission and has made small donations to its efforts.