Julian Assange - WikiLeaks (17 page)

“For this project we're producing an edit that will support our own comments and analyses. We could call it
Permission to Engage
, or maybe something a bit more shocking.”

Two minutes later, he said to Rop: “Let's abuse the nice euphemism of ‘collateral damage' and call the film ‘Collateral Murder.'”

At the beginning, the video was just some kind of puzzle, with proof and images to be understood in their context. Julian and
the entire team spent a lot of time rebuilding the whole story by pointing out every detail. Every group worked on a specific point: the structure of command, the rules of engagement, the jargon used by the soldiers on the radio and most importantly, if and how the Iraqis on the ground were armed.

“One of them has a weapon,” said Julian, looking at blurred images of a man going down a street. “Look at all those people standing there.”

“And there's a boy with a RPG
¹⁹
under his arm,” Rop added.

“I'm not sure,” Julian retorted. “It seems a bit small for a RPG.”

They viewed the film together one more time.

“You know, it's weird. If he has a RPG, then there's only one. So where are the other weapons? And all those guys there. It's weird.”

“It's a really tricky job,” Rop sighed. “Maybe you should have accepted the military officials' invitation to clear some things up, no?”

“Listen, I think they'd have done more harm than good. Anyway, when it's for WikiLeaks, they aren't very cooperative. Let's look at it again.”

Julian set up
Project B
like a surprise attack. His war was waged on another field, but like all wars, it remained a war of nerves: quick decisions, swift action and a lot of uphill strategy.

He reinforced the rumors by saying that the video was shot in Afghanistan in 2009, in the hope that the Department of Defense would be caught off guard. Julian thought the military was very suspicious of the media, and believed it was not fair for institutions to know the story before the general public did.

“Isn't there a risk of you being thrown in jail if you go to the United States?” asked an activist.

“It'll be a lot riskier for me to go there after this. For now, it's still quite safe,” Julian explained.

“They say Gitmo
²⁰
is really nice this time of year,” Rop joked.

The conversation ended there and everybody went back to their screens.

Julian never had long conversations while working. He even talked to the team in a telegraphic manner.

While faith in their action gave WikiLeaks members an increased ability to work, Julian simply had an exceptional ability to concentrate. You could leave the house at night and find him exactly in the same place the next morning.

To better manage who did what, Rop and another activist organized the work using sticky notes on the kitchen counter.

Elsewhere in the house, people were translating the subtitles in different languages, while others were making sure the servers would be able to handle the traffic caused by the announcement of the video.

Julian wanted the families of the Iraqis who died in this attack to be contacted and warned of the unavoidable assault by the media that would try to get as much additional information as possible. In agreement with the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, he sent two Icelandic journalists to Baghdad to find them.

At the end of the week, the film was almost finished. By examining it frame by frame, details were revealed that could not be seen during a normal viewing.

The film editors were no longer smiling, having spent several days watching the last living moments of these people on the
streets of Baghdad. It eventually brought them down and it was time for the group to finish their mission.

The film was eighteen minutes long and showed an obvious lack of human dimension in the attack. It started with a quote by George Orwell that fit the images perfectly; a quote that Julian had been using for a long time: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

The film gave information about the two journalists who were killed and the official explanations regarding the attack.

For the soundtrack, Julian worked with an editor and an Icelandic activist, GG, who asked him permission to use the dialogue between the helicopter pilots. “It'll provide some emotional appeal,” he said.

“It's very choppy and difficult to understand,” Julian observed.

“I'd like to insist, it's used all the time to incite emotion.”

“At the same time, we're already portraying the soldiers as monsters. Do we really need to make it worse?” the film editor asked.

“But emotion is always real. I worked on the soundtrack of a movie that was nominated for an Oscar, I know what I'm talking about!” GG retorted.

“OK, what do you suggest?” asked Julian.

“Dialogues and helicopter noises interrupted by silence,” said the activist.

The editor made the changes: he took out the voice of the soldiers in the opening sequence, but kept the radio sounds, the noises and a few distorted voices. Julian gave his final approval.

While the film was being edited, Julian was preoccupied with one of his constant worries: security.

Once the video went live, it had to be impossible to take offline. The
www.collateralmurder.com
site had to be impregnable and untraceable. Even though the issue of WikiLeaks' security was permanent, it was well managed thanks to some twenty servers installed throughout the world, with mirror sites also online to ensure that information couldn't be traced. A government that wanted to remove content from the WikiLeaks site would have to practically dismantle the entire Internet. There had to be maximum protection as much for those who sent information as for all the volunteers working on it.

Late on Saturday night, shortly after the work was finally finished, Julian received an e-mail from the two special Icelandic correspondents in Baghdad: the soldiers who came to the scene after the attack found two children in the truck. The children lived in the neighborhood and were on their way to school with their father that morning. The journalists also found the owner of the building that had been attacked who said that several families lived there and that seven residents died during the attack. The owner, a retired English teacher, lost his wife and daughter.

In the war room, the discussion heated up. What to do with this last-minute news? Was it important to provide this information right away or was it better to just sit on it for now? If the military justified firing hellfire missiles by arguing that there were no civilian causalities, WikiLeaks could strike back by unveiling this information. Sitting on this information made for a strong ambush.

Suddenly, Birgitta turned to Rop and said:

“Are you crying?”

“Yes, I'm crying because they were just children and it's sad,” he answered.

He quickly collected himself and continued the conversation. “Ah, shit!”

“Yeah, that's right, let's leave them in the shit,” said one of the activists.

“Now they'll have to walk in it, that's the logical conclusion, isn't it?” Rop asked.

“I want to re-edit the film and put in the hellfire attack,” Julian said with conviction.

The eyes of the exhausted team were all on Julian. Many of them were almost in tears, harassed and shocked. The silence that ensued seemed to be hanging from the white ceiling of the little Icelandic house.

“There were three families living in the back... we can't just give up.”

Then came the discussion of reason; re-editing the film was impossible. The team couldn't take it anymore, they did their absolute best, and in a few hours, it would be Easter.

The sympathizers left the little white house silently with mixed feelings. They firmly believed in the actions they executed, but the latest information they received from the journalists that were urgently sent to Baghdad left them confused. Why did they do that? Would it change anything? What would the response of the public be to the film? And what about American politicians? What they did know for sure was that it was a minefield.

The site had already received more than a hundred threats of legal action, but none of them had materialized.

This time, the images that would be placed on the site would have an impact that even Julian could not yet imagine. He worked day and night to show the partiality of the American government in this matter, and put the average Joe and Jane at the heart of the world's state secrets.

It was 10:30 a.m. the next morning. Rop opened the drapes and let the light shine into the house. He was wearing a long T-shirt and a freshly washed pair of black pants. He fought to make sure that everyone met their deadlines. The final minutes were dedicated to looking for one of their contacts that might know a criminal defense lawyer in the United States.

Glued to his computer, Julian typed without stopping.

“Are we on time?” he asked in passing.

“We still have three hours,” Rop answered.

Worried, Julian turned back to his computer. He checked a copy of the rules of engagement used in Iraq since 2006. It was one of the American army documents classified ‘defense secret' that he planned to post on the site with the video. WikiLeaks had to make sure there were no digital traces that could reveal their sources. Julian erased the documents as quickly as possible.

The streets of Reykjavik were empty, and the cathedral bells were ringing. Julian was still at his computer.

Rop picked up all the sticky notes in the kitchen, removing any trace of their work.

Just before noon, they would distance themselves from the last traces of
Project B
and leave for the airport. Julian was not quite ready to leave, he hadn't shaved and his hair was a mess. It was time to drop the bomb and he was writing to the press: the detonator. Birgitta wanted to help. Julian asked her:

“Do you want to cut my hair while I'm doing this?”

“Of course not, I'm not going to cut your hair while you're working.”

She headed to the kitchen to make tea. Julian continued to type quickly on his keyboard. After a few minutes, she started
to cut his hair with some hesitation. She stopped a second and asked:

“If you get arrested, keep in touch with me, OK?”

Julian nodded. In the mean time, Rop had collected Julian's things and placed them in a bag. He paid the owner for the house. The dishes were washed, the furniture was put back the way it originally was.

The team piled into a single car and drove off.

Increasingly important information came in from Julian's sources. He had won the respect of those who were forced to stay silent. They were the witnesses of an invisible world so real that their human integrity pushed them to act. He was finally ready to face the enemies of the truth.

Immediate shock

Published on
25 November 2010
by
sophox
|
Leave a comment
|

Now I know more about Julian Assange. Here's the video that has the United States scared and that has Mr. WikiLeaks at war with American politics. And I understand why. It's a real bomb. It was hidden, but they uncovered it.

I really wonder what planet I've been living on these past few months. I've just watched the
Collateral Murder
film edited by WikiLeaks. It's been online since April and many versions of it can easily be found. The entire film lasts 18 minutes and it's a shocker.

This is a wakeup call for the inhabitants of the ‘another day, another dollar' planet. This video shows some American army guys shooting Iraqis without even being sure if they're armed or not. And in the end, they just shoot at will.

I'm still in shock. They're in the helicopter and the sound is eerie, with lots of noise and limited dialogue. Sometimes it gets choppy and we can hear the silence. It makes you think.

The images are quite blurry. In the beginning, I figured that from up there, on screen it's not easy to tell whether a civilian has a weapon or not. But they're trained to do this, right?

Once they start shooting, it's as if they've crossed over into another world, a world where killing humans is no big deal. These guys are so cool, congratulating themselves, that for a moment we think the civilians lying on the dusty ground will get up. But this first shot kills eight people, including two journalists.

Some highlights for you: “Request permission to engage”… After the shootout, one of them notices that there are “a bunch of bodies layin' there.” “Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards,” he
adds. “Nice,” his teammate replies. The conversation ends with “well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”

After they've shot civilians, a truck arrives to try and save them. Two men get out and we can see that there is still someone inside. Two children.