Watching the Domestication of the Wikileaks Helicopter Controversy

This essay provides readers with a rhetorical analysis of 2007 WikiLeaks helicopter controversy. It argues that while critics of the Iraqi War might have hoped that the publicizing of this incident might have mobilized intellectual and public dissent that could have led to hasty exit strategies, this potential was domesticated. What actually happened is that U.S. military personnel were about to use apologia, recontextualization, humanization, and transcendence strategies as ways of deflecting concerns about the loss of civilian life.