Marjorie Cohn, Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and author of the forthcoming United States and Torture (NYU Press, December 2010) argues forcefully at the Huffington Post for the vindication of those who expose war crimes through unauthorized leaks online.
Commanders decided that the wounded children would not be taken to a U.S. military field hospital. Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers on the scene who picked up one of the children and tried to take him to a military vehicle, was reprimanded for his response.
The U.S. Central Command exonerated the soldiers and refused to reopen the investigation. Reporters Without Borders said, “If this young soldier had not leaked the video, we would have no evidence of what was clearly a serious abuse on the part of the U.S. military.”
In fact, the actions depicted in “Collateral Murder” contain evidence of three violations of the laws of war set forth in the Geneva Conventions, which amount to war crimes.
