coming up on r t today is the anniversary of the release of the collateral murder video it gave the public a shocking look at the brutality of the iraq war and the human rights abuses that the military covered up we'll revisit that day and speak with one of the soldiers featured in that video. and while questions still loom over the obama administration's drone program activists have begun protesting against the very companies that make these weapons more on that ahead. and you've heard about the growing tensions in the korean peninsula from the mainstream media but what does this military buildup look like we'll give you a glimpse at the numbers. it's friday april fifth four pm in washington d.c. i'm mega lopez and you are watching our t.v. well today is the third anniversary of the release of

a video known as collateral murder it's a video that highlighted the brutality of the iraq war showing a helicopter target and kill a group of iraqi civilians up until this point we've heard the outcry from the public after seeing this video we've witnessed the manhunt by the government to find the people responsible for leaking the tape but we've never really heard from the soldiers themselves the ones featured in the collateral murder video that is until now our travels kansas this week and sat down with ethan mccord he's one of the ground soldiers and his story is one of regret and heartbreak prepare yourself this report is not a pretty one. by the way it was the video that put wiki leaks on the map turned the tide of war in iraq and landed private first class bradley manning in military detention but for army veteran ethan mccord it was just another day on duty the helicopters are approximately about a mile and a half away. when they resume in these guys. and from looking at it

now you can't see anything when i mean that right there is obviously a camera dangling. if you're to really pay attention. that guy has in a k forty seven right there baghdad iraq two thousand and seven two hundred sixteenth battalion was out patrolling a volatile part of the city i was about five blocks away four or five blocks away to the. to the left of the screen this was a battalion wide mission and then the situation turned deadly. we heard the apaches firing. ethan and his infantry squad began running toward the scene to provide support again the apache helicopter opened fire. when he arrived on the scene the apache guns were quiet the accused enemies were dead. one guy's head the top of his head was

completely off and the brains were. on the ground and the smell of this now still haunts me. i don't even know how to describe it when he approached the van a noisy thing wasn't expecting a cry of a little girl and she was four years old. you could tell she had a wound to the stomach and. i never looking at me in. the blood around her eyes made her eyes so ghostly why even grab the girl and ran into a nearby building he then picks glass out of her eyes so she could blink and handed her off to a medic i went back outside and. was told to take pictures so i started taking pictures of the inside of the van and that's when he discovered the little boy and that's me. that is a little boy who i originally thought was dead despite their injuries the children

survived but part of ethan changed forever that day i couldn't stop myself from crying i couldn't stop myself from feeling the way that i was feeling when he did seek mental help he says he was mocked by his commanders and threatened with expulsion from the military when i started drinking and metal have given me prescriptions thirteen prescriptions. geodon depakote. prozac and i was i was a zombie but things got worse i started daydreaming of killing my own children and everybody around me so even took matters into his own hands i had already begun drinking pretty heavily and. down all the pills and i drank a fifth of crown row ten o'clock in the morning and

my wife at the time found me that was the first time even tried to take his own life after that he was dismissed from the army i was kicked out with no disability and. no benefits from the army was whoever he returned to wichita and then even attempted suicide for a second time i actually wrote a poem before i did a. rep of the gun in my mouth and. i don't know if i really want to talk about it. easton story is tragic but he certainly isn't alone tens of thousands of military veteran suffer the effects of p.t.s.d. long after they leave the battlefield and for those who simply can't cope with the stress often times they choose to end their own lives their fathers and brothers sons and soldiers and now they're simply another times will see an american wars

abroad in the past two years alone ethan has lost eight of his veteran brothers to suicide and his outlook on life hasn't improved with time i know that i will never ever ever get better i'll never get over this for the rules of the collateral murder video was just another black mark on an unpopular war for ethan it was a catalyst that made him question the entire purpose of the iraq war you know america. john wayne you know we were the white house americans are always out well we're going to try to help people that's all we do is try to spread freedom and democracy the barrel of a gun history will be the ultimate determinant of how the iraq war is viewed but for ethan and so many soldiers suffering from post war stress the future is far and the past is too much to cope with reporting from wichita kansas meghan lopez r t now despite the fact that ethan and his squad have been lambasted for the horrific

scenes that came out of the collateral murder video he actually supports private first class bradley manning and he wants him to be released even says that bradley manning is a true hero an american patriot now on this the anniversary of the release of the collateral murder video i'm joined now by wiki leaks post person christian who are often sent to talk about the video and the aftermath as well as the current legal case of founder julian assange hi there christian thank you so much for joining the program it's been three years now since the video was actually released the iraq war is over what else has changed in that time. well the one thing that has not changed the victims. you see in the video the collateral better video have still have not got any justice in my mind. this is clearly a war crime the killing in the shooting of the minivan especially and the killing of the year the father of the two children ethan dragged out of the minivan and

saved i traveled to. was there just two days before the release of the the collateral murder video and i met these two children. door and saeed they were eight and twelve years at the time and their father of mater. his only crime was to be driving them to special tutoring and stopping when he came up on the scene to save a site smartly reuter employee who was bleeding to death on the sidewalk. it was heartbreaking to meet them they still have the scars of that incident and of course the psychological logical effects of being shot and losing their father is terrible they still have not got any justice this event has not been investigated properly as a war crime should be the they should have some justice and that is that in my mind this is a very symbolic thing this video because it was not

a unique when we released the iraq war logs in october twenty ten there were so many incidents that were similar to this one and actually the field report about the collateral murder incident on july twelfth two thousand and seven was only eight or ten lines long it was in in the general scheme of things very insignificant in the. in iraq and question there was a oh is that something to bring up is the fact that this as i was talking to even the core of that the soldier that was featured in the video before you know this. it is just one example of so many examples the war was so many years along so can you talk about this can you talk about some of the documents that you have found some of the documents that wiki leaks has released and talk about what were some of the things that surprised you the most. well i mean it was the cold blooded

killing often with reference to some legal aspects rules of engagement i can tell you about what the iraq war documents you gave us as well it was one incident where people were surrendering to a helicopter they might have been insurgents but they had sort of way their weapons and the crew of the apache gunship the helicopter basically radio back to headquarters and said what shall we do and the headquarters and we'll have to we'll call up the lawyers and they came back to the crew and so will we have talked to the lawyers and the lawyer so that technically you cannot surrender to on aircraft so spoken that was what would happen in the iraq war and it was a very the same thing happened with the collateral murder video incident it was a. superficial investigation done at the time and it was a total brush over all was within the laws of war and rules of engagement it is

extremely brutal picture that all the information that we have revealed a bold to iraq war has brought to light it's a terrible chapter and a dark one in over history and question you and your organization of the only ones to express but those are the same as sentiments that question also excuse me about it and also to take it and my talks with him now as i understand it. the collateral murder video in many people's opinions was supposed to have ended the war it was really the turning point is that how your organization sees it. well i mean the information that we revealed had an effect of actually bring you the war to an end the year if you if you look back there was a plan to keep. keep soldiers in iraq or u.s. soldiers for far longer than. actually happened and it was because of the information that came out in the diplomatic cables concerning the iraq war. the

iraqi population. of it is a war crime so the government could not give immunity to the u.s. soldier. and obama decided to pull out all the troops far earlier than expected and we have a short amount of time left but i do want to get julian a songe and find out what his current status is can you i haven't i don't talk about what what joyous launch is up to these days well i mean he's still doing the work that he has been doing throughout all the time that he has been in the house arrest or in the ecuadorian embassy in london still doing his work he has a good internet connection and we are continuing to work and we have actually a press conference on monday in washington to see who. the. new projects and this is all of course under the direction of julius jones we hope that

your tuition will change and you could walk free hopefully very soon and finally your organization was lambasted for leaking this video and arguably the largest document drop in american history with these leaks has anything that you have done change the wars in your opinion. changed the war zone the order to change the world i think it has changed the perspective people have on the information sharing and the power that information can have in making historical changes and i think that we have contributed to a very very important changes it is. nobody argues against the fact that the diplomatic cable release started in the towards the end of the year two thousand and ten did have a catalyst to affect the arab spring and the tremendous changes we have seen in the region and there are so many stories that have come out that have changed our views on the world and have changed history yes it's always in the years afterward that

we discover the most about the war from the present question her often said what he likes pokes person thank you for joining us thanks for having me so we have heard from one of the soldiers of the collateral murder video who was actually on the ground that day we just heard from the wiki leaks post person talking about his take on the aftermath of the video and the iraq war now let's hear from some of the other players who were involved the peoples whose lives were affected extend beyond the children who were pulled from that man and the soldiers that were featured in that video first up with the leaks founder joyless onj who has been holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london for almost nine months he is attempting to escape extradition to sweden r.t. was the first news organization to speak with a songe after he released the collateral murder video here's what he told us. this is a case i believe where you can see that the internal near military making use of the do not work to bring justice or accountability and so it is the court of public

jury of public opinion that will try these soldiers and commanders and the people who decided the action was within the rules of engagement a songe was so afraid of extradition because sweden in the us have such friendly times he says being extradited to sweden could land him in an american prison to suffer the same fate as private first class bradley manning the man who is actually behind the leak itself now manning meanwhile has surpassed one thousand days in pretrial detention and has yet to see his day in court here's what manning said in her pretrial hearing recently listen closely. and finally p.j. crowley he is the former united states assistant secretary of state for public

affairs who resigned in after he made a critical comment about the per harsh treatment of bradley manning his comments cost him his job he recently came on our t.v. to talk about the iraq war here's part of that interview. i'm actually a firm believer. in the case against bradley manning his release of hundreds of thousands of documents some of them classified you know to wiki leaks has done serious damage to the united states national security and the national interest you know that said in a pretrial setting where anyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law i did think that his treatment was excessive three men with three different points of view on the iraq war and the collateral murder video these men certainly weren't the only ones whose lives were changed after the leak of this video but on this the anniversary of the release it's important to look at how far

reaching the costs of one video really are and think about the impacts of almost a decade of war on the global community to find out what's next for wiki leaks our team will be attending a news conference this monday here in washington d.c. we'll be broadcasting the entire event live on our web site that's r t dot com so be sure to tune in moving on now human rights activists from new york to san diego kicked off a month long nationwide protest against the use of drones both abroad as well as back home it's all part of the april day of action demonstrations the drone industry has provided a huge boost for san diego's economy the area has now been dubbed the drone hub because of its technical and manufacturing expertise and that is where protesters staged their demonstration r.t. correspondent ramon galindo was there and he brings us this report. we're in san diego where demonstrators here are speaking out against drone warfare and secret

surveillance is part of a nationwide anti drone campaign going on throughout this month there outside of the offices of general tom makes the defense contractor in charge of making predator drones and reaper drones for the air force and cia in the war on terror they're also in charge of making the drones for customs and border protection surveil the us mexico border now defense contractors have been a large part of the economy here in southern california for decades but may have people that we spoke to here today say that there's a major problem with making so much money off of warfare and secret surveillance to think that the workers here either ignore or don't care about what they're doing in the c.e.o. of this company general atomics neal blewett who's making a lot of money and of a technology that's killing people in a lot of places and making the u.s. hated around the world we wanted to hear this message one of the things that i think is important is building our lives within the military industrial complex and

i think that we really need to look hard at that because these people need to work they need to figure out how they're going to go about change transitioning into a green job into transportation into something where they can take their skills be retrained and create something that's life affirming not death affirming i love my country in the freedoms that we have and i feel that these drones are infringing upon our freedoms and they're already being used in parts of the united states up on the washington canada border and some law enforcement agencies are using them and i believe it's a slippery slope and we need something in place to curtail this technology and what they're using it for top government officials including former cia director leon panetta has said that drones are here to stay regardless of the different views about him. here in california and in other states around the nation legislators are

proposing laws that would restrict the use of drones here domestically this fight that the drone industry says that in the next decade we could see tens of thousands of drones in u.s. airspace despite those odds as you drone demonstrators like these to fight on and will be will continue to see protests like these nationwide in san diego. or t. tensions between the u.s. and north korea are at unprecedented levels this week new reports have come out saying that north korea has prepared two missiles for a launch the country also sent out an advisory to foreign diplomats in pyongyang warning them that it cannot guarantee their safety and the safety of the embassies in the capital if a conflict ensues now both north korea and the u.s. are talking strategy now r.t. correspondent margaret how takes a look at the chessboard so back in two thousand and two then president george w. bush had some strong words for a certain group of countries in

a state of the union address north korea as a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction. starting a citizens. iran aggressively pursue these weapons an export terror while an unelected few repressed urania people hope for freedom. he reckoned to be dishonest hostility toward america and to support terror states like these and their terrorist allies constitute and actions should be evil arming to threaten the peace of the world. now that designation the axis of evil still continues today now almost eleven years later tensions with one of those countries north korea are possibly coming to a head so as reports of u.s. military build up around that region what exactly does this mean logistically speaking well in response to north korea's contend you hostilities and nuclear threats the u.s. has of april first moved at least one more ship capable of intercepting

a missile should north korea decide to launch an attack now this ship the u.s.s. fitzgerald sits just off the coast about region also on the map twenty eight thousand troops on the korean peninsula and sixty seven thousand troops stationed in japan also on the table a high altitude area defense program known as bad which is the landing base system developed by lockheed martin now this base uses truck mounted launchers to intercept these missiles the u.s. sent these to guam last week in addition of the troops on the ground rounding l.p.'s resources two navy destroyers deployed in the western pacific region now the name of the scheme is battleship which is now underway despite not knowing whether this blistering rhetoric will ever turn into war these troop movements give us an idea of what it just might look like and washington margaret how r.t. . is that a gun in your pocket well for one pennsylvania police officer the answer is yes and then some in a recent sting operation to undercut to uncover

a prostitution ring in pittsburgh things got a little out of hand when an undercover police officer ronald solicited the services from twenty six year old diana gross apparently deposed was good at pretending he was not a police officer very good the woman's lawyer says development actually allowed diana gross to perform oral sex on him before revealing that he was a cop and arresting her this raises huge concerns about the ways powerful people take advantage of their positions but there are some strange details about this incident as well to talk more about this curious case comedian dan wilbur joins me now. oh say there dan is this one of the perks of the job it is one of the perks of the job sometimes someone does something really awful to you and you get to sue him over you mean the cop no no this is not one of the perks for the cop the cop i think is supposed to protect and serve not where protection and be serviced that's

not how it's. hard distinction there so the real problem of this complaint is that really a case of he said she said i mean people are more inclined to believe police officers so is this case closed. yeah unfortunately i think it is going to be a he said she said the important thing that we should do is just legalize prostitution because it's just who needs vice cops anyway we the real day i'm that's going on the real crime that's going on in america is that men are receiving oral sex for free all over the place and i haven't met one deserving man that's receiving it i mean i haven't done anything to receive that ever i've been deserving of that ever and yet i receive it to sometimes three nights a year was counting me. counting on one hand i think that sounds like a plea for the single but it's not only that he allowed this woman to perform oral

sex on you him as you say they agree to a fee of one hundred forty five dollars which is an odd number to come up with and i've never solicit sex before so i don't know what the real number and you should be coming up with for such service says but the problem here is that she didn't even see any of that money when she actually performed the services right it is that's upsetting and one hundred forty five dollars isn't enough i mean you can't even buy the new play station with that i can't even get a we you for doing one and i was going to try i was going to even take a pay cut and do a couple manually but you know i have to save my wrist strength for a wee tennis tournament that i'm scheduled in my house. things to do over the weekend but dan i have to ask you where is the line when does undercover work go too far because so many times we see these these undercover shows these undercover police officers to catch a predator i can't i can't even name all of them why does it go too far. well in this situation he clearly did something wrong but for me i mean i self deputized

myself to catch a coke dealer in my apartment building and i couldn't figure out whether he was a coke dealer or not until maybe six or seven months down the line of of really negotiating how much coke i could get from him so you know who knows if he's someone who the police should deal with the word or just some small time crook that no one should pay attention to until i've bought all of his drugs so in that case i think that the court should waive all the charges against me and we have a short amount of time left and but i have to ask the house of the police officer be punished well she didn't get any money so that he shouldn't be concerned. that the money comedian dan wilbur thank you so much for joining us do and that is going to do it for now but if you missed any part of today shows you are in luck for more of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america there we

post all of our interviews online in full so be sure to check them out and don't forget to comment to forward them to your friends and to always share a share feedback with us and for the latest and greatest information coming out of your world and around the world go to our website our website r t dot com slash usa you can always find lots of information that we just didn't have time to cover today and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez i'll see you right back here at five pm. i think. i'm on. six. but. it's. just see.

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