Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Dilmah G on July 31, 2010, 12:18:01 am
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I'm not sure whether this man has rocks in his head or was just born ignorant. Either way, Assange and the wanker who leaked it all should both be tried for treason.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/publication-of-afghan-informant-details-worth-the-risk-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/story-e6frg6so-1225898273552
THE FOUNDER of WikiLeaks was forced last night to defend his decision to publish tens of thousands of uncensored intelligence documents.
The Times revealed that the names, villages, relatives' names and even precise GPS locations of Afghans co-operating with Nato forces could be accessed easily from files released by WikiLeaks.
Human rights groups criticised the internet site and one US politician said that the security breaches amounted to a ready-made Taliban hitlist.
Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website, told The Times that he would "deeply regret" any harm caused by the disclosures.
But in an extensive interview he defended his actions:
he claimed that many informers in Afghanistan were "acting in a criminal way" by sharing false information with Nato authorities;
he said the White House knew that informants' names could be exposed before the release but did nothing to help WikiLeaks to vet the data;
he insisted that any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information.
Mr Assange said: "No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret - our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm them. That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it's extremely important to the history of this war."
Jane Harman, the congresswoman who chairs the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, said: "While I strongly support a free press and I am a co-sponsor of the press shield law, these leaks are deadly serious. Someone inadvertently, or on purpose, gave the Taliban its new 'enemies list'."
Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "Real people die when sources and methods are revealed. Clearly people who are co-operating with us are now at risk. That is precisely one of the reasons we've been so concerned about this leak.
"The whole campaign is about convincing Afghans that it's worth taking the risk to come and work with us to take a stand against the repression and brutality of the Taliban."
A spokesman for President Karzai of Afghanistan predicted that the leak would cause "a big disaster in the future". Siamak Heraway said: "We worry about this. We will see informants being assassinated by the Taliban; we will see a massacre."
Mr Assange told The Times that many Afghan informants, including those whose details were potentially disclosed, were "telling soldiers false stories ... creating victims themselves". When asked if that justified releasing their identities, the former computer hacker replied: "It doesn't mean it's OK for their identities not to be revealed."
Mr Assange, who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, said that any document that "clearly jeopardised innocent people" could be added to the bank of 15,000 documents already held back from publication. "If we made a mistake we will review our procedures and react," he said.
But he admitted that any remedial action could well have no effect, as the information was already in the public domain.
Mr Assange said that he had asked the White House last week to help to "minimise the chances of innocent informers being named". He said that the White House did not respond.
He added: "We understand the importance of protecting our confidential sources. The United States appears to have given every UN soldier and contractor access to the names of many of its confidential sources without proper protection."
There is no evidence so far that the Taliban have used the information to identify and kill people whom they regard as enemies. But there is a growing fear that the leaking of such sensitive intelligence, including private conversations between US troops and Afghan elders in villages across the country, has left a lot of people exposed.
Ahmad Nader Nadery, a commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said that revealing the names and villages of people who interacted with US troops was very irresponsible. "I am sure that the Taliban have already downloaded the WikiLeaks reports and are looking for names," he said.
Michael Hayden, the Director of the CIA between 2006 and 2009, said: "We have a tremendous moral responsibility to our sources. Because of the nature of our work, your sources are literally putting their life in your hands."
Adam Holloway MP, a member of the Commons Select Defence Committee, said: "I hope the blood of someone's life is not on that hacker's hands. This is going to put people in danger, even just those who have had conversations with American soldiers. The whole point has been the need to separate the population from the insurgency. If people think their names will be leaked across the planet for engaging with Western forces it makes it that much more difficult."
A spokesman for Reporters Without Borders said: "Our first impression is that it seems a little surprising to see Afghan names here. Clearly, when we work on reports on sensitive stories there is always attention that local innocent names are not mentioned."
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I have mixed feelings about wikileaks.
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They're usually great, I'll admit, but this time they've really overstepped the mark.
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Didn't he boast about being hosted in Sweden because they have strict laws about revealing sources?
I suspect he's basically just nullified any argument against revealing who his own sources are.
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Thing is, for me there's a mixture of emotions, some of the information in there is very sensitive and damaging to relations between countries that are going to be needed if this whole mess stands any chance of being cleared up, but other information is more along the lines of 'face-saving', basically trying to stifle the real human cost of the war, which I find unfortunate, though understandable from a PR point of view, it really will not help either side come to a resolution when facts like this are being revealed.
Part of me is glad that the Coalition has to now look at least part of the cost of the war in they eye instead of burying it in paperwork, but part of me is also annoyed that information that could damage relationships between entire countries has been released, to me, releasing information about the casualities caused by your own team is whistleblowing, but revealing secret information gathered on the activities of the other guys? That's just a little too close to treason for my tastes.
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My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?
The man isn't just a traitor, he's an accessory to murder.
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Without wikileaks, we wouldn't know **** about ACTA, and many other nasty things.
Mixed feelings suck man.
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My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?
It wasn't simple negligence. He held back documents he believe would bring direct harm to human lives. He apparently just missed some.
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My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?
The man isn't just a traitor, he's an accessory to murder.
The real problem is the Pentagon has been trying as hard as it can to muzzle the press in order to bury what war is really like. There's a reason you don't see american coffins coming home anymore, because they closed off the port they use, and bring them in in the middle of the night. The whole war in Afghanistan was bungled almost right from the beginning, not enough people to capture bin laden or and allowing the taliban to slip away, no exit strategy. At least with our other bungled occupation the Iraqi government told us to leave by a certain time, here there is no such thing. Like it or not, we're stuck for quite a while, and with that huge mineral find, we're probably never going to leave.
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Part of me is glad that the Coalition has to now look at least part of the cost of the war in they eye instead of burying it in paperwork, but part of me is also annoyed that information that could damage relationships between entire countries has been released, to me, releasing information about the casualities caused by your own team is whistleblowing, but revealing secret information gathered on the activities of the other guys? That's just a little too close to treason for my tastes.
Oh, there's no question he's commited treason. What do you think the leaker is being charged with?
But more to the point everyone's all on about how it's "bringing things into the open" and blahblahblah. Stop. Back up. It's done nothing of the sort.
In simplest terms the only new information that this has brought to light was the stuff about ways and means that anyone sane should have left buried to prevent a greater cost in lives, time, and treasure. There is nothing that was not always publically available about casualities, difficulties with the locals and Pakistan. It has been an open secret that Pakistan has ties to the Taliban and needs to clean up its own intelligence service for years and anyone to whom this is news has not been showing much interest in the problems in Afghanistan. People have reported on this in the news before even.
There is absolutely nothing of informational value to the general public that has been newly disclosed by this. There was absolutely no reason to disclose it to the general public for that very reason. It was egotistical stupidity, pure and simple.
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Part of me is glad that the Coalition has to now look at least part of the cost of the war in they eye instead of burying it in paperwork, but part of me is also annoyed that information that could damage relationships between entire countries has been released, to me, releasing information about the casualities caused by your own team is whistleblowing, but revealing secret information gathered on the activities of the other guys? That's just a little too close to treason for my tastes.
Oh, there's no question he's commited treason. What do you think the leaker is being charged with?
But more to the point everyone's all on about how it's "bringing things into the open" and blahblahblah. Stop. Back up. It's done nothing of the sort.
In simplest terms the only new information that this has brought to light was the stuff about ways and means that anyone sane should have left buried to prevent a greater cost in lives, time, and treasure. There is nothing that was not always publically available about casualities, difficulties with the locals and Pakistan. It has been an open secret that Pakistan has ties to the Taliban and needs to clean up its own intelligence service for years and anyone to whom this is news has not been showing much interest in the problems in Afghanistan. People have reported on this in the news before even.
There is absolutely nothing of informational value to the general public that has been newly disclosed by this. There was absolutely no reason to disclose it to the general public for that very reason. It was egotistical stupidity, pure and simple.
And let's forget that his leak included the names of hundreds of Afghan informants who are now living on borrowed time. A large number of them will be killed by the Taliban, and it will hamper future efforts to get information from sympathetic people in Afghanistan.
These guys are absolute mother****ers and I would happily see them go to the wall. Civvie bull**** about "But they brought things to light!" be damned.
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NGTM-1R: Agreed, I had a read through and didn't find anything too new.
Ravenholme: Also agreed.My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?
It wasn't simple negligence. He held back documents he believe would bring direct harm to human lives. He apparently just missed some.
But see, that isn't good enough. These are people's lives who depend on this kind of information being withheld. People's lives who at times like now, rest upon the morality and competence of people working with and around US departments of defence and intelligence. And now people like Assange. A person whose staff can't do their job properly, evidently. (Not to say they're completely incompetent, but there was absolutely no margin for error this time. I have a feeling they just wanted to push the thing out the door rather than evaluate the thing in depth).
I probably wouldn't be able to do a better job of it, but then again, I'm not the one trying to equate war to some kind of karma system (See: Assange's comments about how the informants had it coming) or trying to undermine US intelligence and the entire war effort by publishing all of this.
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My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?
It wasn't simple negligence. He held back documents he believe would bring direct harm to human lives. He apparently just missed some.
I'm calling bull**** on that. If he was really concerned about putting people in harm's way he wouldn't have done it AT ALL. The fact he held anything back clearly shows he knew it was stupid. This was about causing a stir. Really what pisses me off even more than the initial leak/posting is how fast the media was to snatch it all up and start spreading it as far and fast as possible. I'm all for free press, but same thing applies as to individuals: your freedoms end the SECOND they infringe anyone else.
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Chill out, I'm not interested in a slugfest.
What I am interested in is how these documents compare to the Pentagon Papers. If they are analogous, then the guy has done his country a great service.
I need moar informations.
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What I am interested in is how these documents compare to the Pentagon Papers. If they are analogous, then the guy has done his country a great service.
They more or less can't be. While impressive in volume there's very little here that's of interest on the higher-level decison making of the war. (Which has been very open and transparent anyways.)
Even a cursory glance at the source pretty much proves you're not going to get groundbreaking information out of them. He wasn't cleared for it.
EDIT: Spelling
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No, no. There's no way these documents are in any way as powerful as the Pentagon Papers. Most of the documents are a rehash of information we've known since we've got there. One of the only pieces of information I hadn't heard about before was Task Force 373 or something to that effect, and several friendly fire allegations/civilian casualties. But the latter are bound to happen in any warzone, perhaps their release will motivate the Coalition to do more about stopping blue on blue incidents and acting more heavily against those who shoot civilians.
Either way, I fail to see how anyone who even contemplates giving a whistleblowing organisation the names of Afghani informants and interview transcripts could in any way be someone worthy of respect. I dunno, perhaps he downloaded everything he could to a portable hard drive and sent it all to wikileaks before checking what was in there. :P In which case, he's made just as big a blunder as Assange has.
EDIT: And you beat me to it, NGTM-1R.
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I dunno, perhaps he downloaded everything he could to a portable hard drive and sent it all to wikileaks before checking what was in there.
According to what I've heard, he had like a 2 gig thumb drive and did exactly that.
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what.
(http://www.lostrepublic.us/Graphics/DoubleFacePalm.jpg)
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Most of the documents were S.A.L.U.T.E. reports.
Size
Activity
Location
Unit
Time
Equipment
One gets filed after every patrol, and each one of those occupies a page/document.
The ONLY significant thing this leak has really done is put sympathetic Afghan civilians at risk.
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So in other words, both the source and Assange are total and complete ********s. Wonderful.
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So in other words, both the source and Assange are total and complete ********s. Wonderful.
I still don't think I buy that. Even if the execution of this leak was off, I think the fundamental drive behind it (and WikiLeaks in general) is admirable. Obviously the failure to properly redact critical information was a massive oversight, but I'm not willing to sum the moral vectors here and commit a dispositional fallacy.
In general I think the actions of Wikileaks represent patriotism at its finest. And they're emblematic of a broader shift that will (hopefully, if all goes well, in a truly optimistic scenario) prevent our country from wasting dollars and human lives.
I wish Richard Morgan would do a post about it. Two lines of dialogue in one of his novels totally reworked my perspective on the profession of soldiering, and I think he'd have something valuable to say about this too.
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For those of you not following all the reporting, the leaker had a history of, well, leak-related disciplinary issues, and:
The Army official who knew Manning at Fort Huachuca during the training says Manning was something of an outsider, who was often needled by fellow soldiers for his slight build: 5-foot-2 and 105 pounds. “He’s kind of a scrappy kid, I guess. He was always on the defense because he was such a small guy…. He didn’t seem to have a lot of friends.”
“I hope you don’t portray this as a failure of the command at Fort Huachuca,” adds the Army official. “They did everything they could, but you can’t really identify that someone’s going to do what he’s accused of at that level. You can never tell what somebody’s going to do.”
There's some very interesting stuff in the big leak that provides a ground-level glimpse of things long rumored, like Pakistani intelligence (possibly/probably?) supporting AAF. Hamid Gul here is a former Pakistani intelligence official:
HAMID GUL ENCOURAGED THE AAF LEADERS TO FOCUS THEIR OPERATION INSIDE OF AFGHANISTAN IN EXCHANGE FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN'S SECURITY FORCES TURNING A BLIND EYE TO THE PRESENCE OF AAF COMMANDERS AND FIGHTERS IN PAKISTAN (NFI). ADDITIONALLY, THE AAF LEADERS APPROVED A PLAN TO SEND 50 ARAB AND 50 WAZIRI FIGHTERS TO GHAZNI PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN IN EARLY FEBRUARY 2009. ACCORDING TO HAMID GUL, THE AERIAL THREATS IN THE AREA WERE CONTROLLED FROM THE AIRPORT IN WANA.
And I'm really getting a lot out of the ledger of civilian deaths. It's easy for us to dismiss it as collateral damage of a necessary war, but I can't help but think about how angry these incidents would make us if they happened here. Imagine if the Canadian army had been involved in, say, disaster relief in New Orleans, and - no matter how unavoidable - ended up shooting pregnant women and accidentally killing children. I can't imagine the degree of outrage we'd feel.
It's no wonder a lot of these people see us as devils.
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well personally, if it was unavoidable, i really wouldn't be outraged. saddened for sure, but i know the real world isn't all roses. what's the point of getting outraged at something that is unavoidable? who do you get outraged at? the hurricane for causing the need for canadians to be down here helping in the first place?
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well personally, if it was unavoidable, i really wouldn't be outraged. saddened for sure, but i know the real world isn't all roses. what's the point of getting outraged at something that is unavoidable? who do you get outraged at? the hurricane for causing the need for canadians to be down here helping in the first place?
If it really happened? Everyone would probably get mad at the Canadians for having the temerity to meddle in American affairs.
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And I'm really getting a lot out of the ledger of civilian deaths.
Then you haven't really been interested in the problem before as I stated earlier. There's nothing truly new in there. We've know about civilian deaths. We've known about the Pakistani intelligence problem.
So as I said before, there's no summing of the moral vectors involved in this. It's quite simple; nothing of value was released, but plenty of stuff that was dangerous was.
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And I'm really getting a lot out of the ledger of civilian deaths.
Then you haven't really been interested in the problem before as I stated earlier. There's nothing truly new in there. We've know about civilian deaths. We've known about the Pakistani intelligence problem.
As I'm increasingly getting in the habit of doing, I'm going to quote myself
There's some very interesting stuff in the big leak that provides a ground-level glimpse of things long rumored
It's a matter of degree rather than a binary.
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So in other words, both the source and Assange are total and complete ********s. Wonderful.
I still don't think I buy that. Even if the execution of this leak was off, I think the fundamental drive behind it (and WikiLeaks in general) is admirable.
I disagree with this. Usually, the drive behind what they do is positive, but this time, as evidenced by the dickheadish nature of Assange evident in the article I linked, I'm beginning to seriously doubt that they didn't just release the 'Afghanistan War Logs' in their state on release (jeez, what a bunch of ****s) for publicity, coinciding with the publicity Manning, who got famous off his leak to them was getting in that time frame.
About the only real groundbreaking thing here to some people is the level of civilian casualties listed, and the blue on blue. And it's not as if the Coalition isn't doing anything to stop these, every single enlisted member and Officer over there is acutely aware of how important minimizing civilian casualties are in COIN. Perhaps the fact that some of these issues haven't received full investigation is a little alarming to some people, but the wanker who leaked this could've done a whole lot more good by at least attempting to bring these issues up through his chain of command before acting like a f*cking Justice Warrior and copying everything to a flash drive for 'the greater good'.
And what Assange has potentially done here, is unraveled every good move Coalition soldiers have made in Afghanistan. If these informants go down, then they are going to have a very hard time trying to get them back onto their side when they see that Coalition sympathisers get it hard in the form of 7.62mm rounds through them because of 'America'.
The most important body in a counterinsurgency effort is not our people, not the enemy, but the civilian populace. And that's the mistake we made in places like Vietnam, we totally f*cking pissed them off with no thought about them. Here, we have groups like 1MRTF in there, being nice and cuddly to the guys and girls down there, trying to get them onto our side. We do that by, you know, not shooting them and all the rest of that crap.
Whatever 'good' (which I personally don't believe is present in the 'war diaries') that this release may have done is going to be nullified when Assange loses the war even more epically for us.
If this does cost us whatever possibility we had of coming home with a stable Afghanistan, I'd very much like to see Assange and the leaker tried for treason.
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Completely agreed with Dilmah G
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Treason ought to be legalized.
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It is. They call it lobbying. :p
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And it's not as if the Coalition isn't doing anything to stop these,
With increased drone attacks despite the fact that they often result in those same casualties you're claiming they want to avoid?
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You say that as if drone attacks are the only things that can possibly hurt civilians. They aren't.
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War is hell. Civvies die, **** happens.
I don't see anyone being wrong here, just a whole lot of people being right. The main thing that irks me isn't so much the casualties, but rather the fact that it seems unlikely that we're ever going to leave, which Kosh already pointed out.
What we should be concerned with isn't the civvies who've died, the information that was already out in the open if you did your homework, or the snafu with US relations with other countries that this is going to cause, but rather the fact that we haven't pulled out yet, and seem to be content with sitting back and taking ye olde 'We'll be out soon' excuse, and then still trying to glorify ourselves as some sort of bastion of justice and freedom towards the rest of the world.
But eh, nobody cares enough to well, care. Not in this day and age.
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Completely agreed with Dilmah G
But Dilmah G is agreeing with me. Let's review his post:
So in other words, both the source and Assange are total and complete ********s. Wonderful.
I still don't think I buy that. Even if the execution of this leak was off, I think the fundamental drive behind it (and WikiLeaks in general) is admirable.
I disagree with this.
o rly. But do you actually? It seems not.
Usually, the drive behind what they do is positive, but this time, as evidenced by the dickheadish nature of Assange evident in the article I linked, I'm beginning to seriously doubt that they didn't just release the 'Afghanistan War Logs' in their state on release
Why did they spend several weeks (or months, I don't remember) discussing the War Diaries with major newspapers and redacting sensitive information before releasing?
(jeez, what a bunch of ****s) for publicity, coinciding with the publicity Manning, who got famous off his leak to them was getting in that time frame.
How could they have done this to 'coincide with Manning's publicity' - the ****? - if they waited several months? Manning wasn't arrested until after the War Diaries came out. Manning was arrested in May.
About the only real groundbreaking thing here to some people is the level of civilian casualties listed, and the blue on blue.
Are you sure of that? Der Spiegel and other sources picked out some very interesting material.
To quote the blog Foreign Policy: I'd say that so far the documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan
What's important is not some kind of revelation here, but the documentation. Transparency!
And it's not as if the Coalition isn't doing anything to stop these, every single enlisted member and Officer over there is acutely aware of how important minimizing civilian casualties are in COIN. Perhaps the fact that some of these issues haven't received full investigation is a little alarming to some people, but the wanker who leaked this could've done a whole lot more good by at least attempting to bring these issues up through his chain of command before acting like a f*cking Justice Warrior and copying everything to a flash drive for 'the greater good'.
Maybe. But in fact, I think you're not paying much attention here. The War Diaries only cover the conduct of the war up to the beginning of the Obama administration. The leaker (intentionally or not) left out material more recent than '08, suggesting his motivation involved transparency more than attempts to change policy.
And what Assange has potentially done here, is unraveled every good move Coalition soldiers have made in Afghanistan. If these informants go down, then they are going to have a very hard time trying to get them back onto their side when they see that Coalition sympathisers get it hard in the form of 7.62mm rounds through them because of 'America'.
And now here's where you start agreeing with me. You'll recall that my assertion was that the intent might be good but the execution bad. And here you're just arguing for bad execution.
The most important body in a counterinsurgency effort is not our people, not the enemy, but the civilian populace. And that's the mistake we made in places like Vietnam, we totally f*cking pissed them off with no thought about them. Here, we have groups like 1MRTF in there, being nice and cuddly to the guys and girls down there, trying to get them onto our side. We do that by, you know, not shooting them and all the rest of that crap.
Wow, it's as if you never read the threads I started discussing this topic specifically. I am well area of this. Part of the remarkable nature of these papers is how they outline Afghan reaction to our policies - including rising anger at unaccountable SpecOps headhunters.
If this does cost us whatever possibility we had of coming home with a stable Afghanistan, I'd very much like to see Assange and the leaker tried for treason.
hahahahaha
ahahahahahahahaha
hahahahaha
I don't think any single point event can be causally coupled to the outcome of the war. I don't think the outcome of the war will even be fully apparent for a long time.
Bradley Manning has been under arrest and headed for court-martial since May. Assange, well, I have no idea whether he's actually done anything illegal given that he's Australian.
What we should be concerned with isn't the civvies who've died, the information that was already out in the open if you did your homework
The War Diaries present a great deal of primary source documentation (from what I've read). This is extraordinarily valuable from both a historical and policy perspective. Anyone paying attention knew most of these things in general, but specific information is critical.
So all in all I'm still not ready to plead TREASON TREASON. I think this was a botched attempt at doing something extraordinarily valuable. Actually I'm not even sure how thoroughly botched it was, though I do think the failure to redact the names and GPS coordinates of US contacts was a terrible lapse.
The Wikipedia page on the Afghan War Diaries presents a nicely balanced round-up of my feelings on the issue all in all.
This (http://zeroanthropology.net/2010/07/28/wikileaks-afghan-war-diary-problems-to-note-more-to-come-on-human-terrain-teams/) is an excellent read on both what's right with the War Diaries and what's very, very wrong with them. Obviously just one perspective, but a nicely ambiguous one.
And it raises an interesting point that I hadn't considered. For all the indiscriminate collateral damage Coalition troops might do, the Taliban does more. So why are they gaining support and strength? How does that mesh with hypotheses about COIN and not pissing people off?
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The War Diaries present a great deal of primary source documentation (from what I've read). This is extraordinarily valuable from both a historical and policy perspective. Anyone paying attention knew most of these things in general, but specific information is critical.
Only as historically valuable as the people choose to make them. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of the specifics, but anyone who thinks they shouldn't have to care and that the war is going fine and there's nothing wrong going on over there is deluding themselves. The problem is that people actually have to read this to care, and it seems like a whole lot of people are doing a whole lot of not caring.
We listen to what we hear on the news, 'oh, did you hear about that traitor Assange', or however the network they follow portrayed him, but how many people do you think will actually take the time to look at the documents and act on them accordingly? (However 'accordingly' is. Much as I don't like to admit it, I wouldn't know where to begin, just that we're fighting a war nobody can win and that the sacrifice is pointless)
So all in all I'm still not ready to plead TREASON TREASON. I think this was a botched attempt at doing something extraordinarily valuable. Actually I'm not even sure how thoroughly botched it was, though I do think the failure to redact the names and GPS coordinates of US contacts was a terrible lapse.
/signed
The Wikipedia page on the Afghan War Diaries presents a nicely balanced round-up of my feelings on the issue all in all.
This (http://zeroanthropology.net/2010/07/28/wikileaks-afghan-war-diary-problems-to-note-more-to-come-on-human-terrain-teams/) is an excellent read on both what's right with the War Diaries and what's very, very wrong with them. Obviously just one perspective, but a nicely ambiguous one.
Good read, the part about crowdsourcing caught my eye in particular. But I wonder if the specifics of it, what it was intended to say, what's the truth and what isn't, really matter in the end. Maybe we need somebody to stand up and take it into a certain context for the greater good, regardless of the various truths and lies that might be involved. I'm not really sure I see an end to the war at this point without such a thing happening, and certainly not if individuals are left to ponder these documents to their own conclusions without any sort of guidance.
And it raises an interesting point that I hadn't considered. For all the indiscriminate collateral damage Coalition troops might do, the Taliban does more. So why are they gaining support and strength? How does that mesh with hypotheses about COIN and not pissing people off?
I honestly don't know. What's your opinion on the matter?
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War is hell. Civvies die, **** happens.
I don't see anyone being wrong here, just a whole lot of people being right. The main thing that irks me isn't so much the casualties, but rather the fact that it seems unlikely that we're ever going to leave, which Kosh already pointed out.
What we should be concerned with isn't the civvies who've died, the information that was already out in the open if you did your homework, or the snafu with US relations with other countries that this is going to cause, but rather the fact that we haven't pulled out yet, and seem to be content with sitting back and taking ye olde 'We'll be out soon' excuse, and then still trying to glorify ourselves as some sort of bastion of justice and freedom towards the rest of the world.
But eh, nobody cares enough to well, care. Not in this day and age.
Everytime we foul up a bombing raid and civilians die, we make sure we become seen as the hated occupiers. I seriously foubt you'd be so carefree about civilian casualties if if were your neighbors being bombed.
You say that as if drone attacks are the only things that can possibly hurt civilians. They aren't.
They aren't, but they are a principle cause. The UN doesn't like it too much. Lots of unaccountability (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/02/eveningnews/main6541877.shtml).
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Good lord, that isn't the point. It isn't us being bombed, hence the lack of care from the only people who can really make a difference. I'd love nothing more than for people to start caring, but that doesn't just magically happen.
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What's all this talk of treason? Well, mostly from earlier in the thread, anyway. It's not treason unless we're at war, and we're not at war (hell, the US hasn't been at "war" since WWII). The peacetime alternative is sedition, and it's certainly not that either.
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The Army official who knew Manning at Fort Huachuca during the training says Manning was something of an outsider, who was often needled by fellow soldiers for his slight build: 5-foot-2 and 105 pounds. “He’s kind of a scrappy kid, I guess. He was always on the defense because he was such a small guy…. He didn’t seem to have a lot of friends.”
“I hope you don’t portray this as a failure of the command at Fort Huachuca,” adds the Army official. “They did everything they could, but you can’t really identify that someone’s going to do what he’s accused of at that level. You can never tell what somebody’s going to do.”
Hmmm... I think the lesson here is you shouldn't pick on your fellow soldiers since they might end up leaking tons of classified info, but maybe that's just because I'm short...
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Time for a generalization which may be interpreted as "out of place" in this thread: secrets are dumb.
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right. i'm sure you have none of those.
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Right. I'm sure that matters to the subject at hand.
Srsly, secrets can be dumb depending on what they are.
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my purpose was to make you think of secrets you have, and realise there is a reason for them. ergo, secrets are NOT dumb.
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Srsly, secrets can be dumb depending on what they are.
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that wasn't the statement. the statment was "Secrets are dumb."
not "SOME secrets are dumb."
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And your statement wasn't "SOME secrets are not dumb," it was "secrets are not dumb."
And NONE of this is the point, because some secrets are dumb, depending on what they are.
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You're both dumb for derailing the thread. :p
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But Dilmah G is agreeing with me. Let's review his post:
Why of course I'm agreeing with you, you clot. :P I even restated the same points you did in some instances. But the motive behind this release? Perhaps it wasn't too commendable, or perhaps they may have been trying to do the right thing.
Why did they spend several weeks (or months, I don't remember) discussing the War Diaries with major newspapers and redacting sensitive information before releasing?
On 90,000 documents? That's not a lot of time at all, really. Let's say three months, or 90 days was spent on it.
90,000/90=1000 documents a day.
Whether these are mostly SALUTE reports, 1000 a day? Really?
Why? Why do a half-assed job of it?
How could they have done this to 'coincide with Manning's publicity' - the ****? - if they waited several months? Manning wasn't arrested until after the War Diaries came out. Manning was arrested in May.
IIRC, Manning was in the spotlight again in the timeframe of the documents release, being transferred to suicide watch or some ****, nonetheless, I'll concede that they released it at the time they did to capitalize from Manning's publicity.
But I suspect they did such a half-assed job of reading through them in order to release them as soon as possible, maybe while Manning was right at the back of the world's mind? Maybe because they knew how much of a ****storm it would create?
Maybe. But in fact, I think you're not paying much attention here. The War Diaries only cover the conduct of the war up to the beginning of the Obama administration. The leaker (intentionally or not) left out material more recent than '08, suggesting his motivation involved transparency more than attempts to change policy.
Fair enough.
Wow, it's as if you never read the threads I started discussing this topic specifically. I am well area of this. Part of the remarkable nature of these papers is how they outline Afghan reaction to our policies - including rising anger at unaccountable SpecOps headhunters.
Uh, that's because I haven't. :P I don't recall at all you starting any threads about the subject.
hahahahaha
ahahahahahahahaha
hahahahaha
I don't think any single point event can be causally coupled to the outcome of the war. I don't think the outcome of the war will even be fully apparent for a long time.
Bradley Manning has been under arrest and headed for court-martial since May. Assange, well, I have no idea whether he's actually done anything illegal given that he's Australian.
Well I'll rephrase, if this is listed as one of the key contributing factors to an acknowledged defeat (ha ha. Not going to happen anyway), he should be tried for treason.
The Australian Defence Association's been fairly annoyed at Assange, I wouldn't be surprised if he was pulled in for treason sometime soon, since this could be linked to helping forces hostile to the ADF.
And it raises an interesting point that I hadn't considered. For all the indiscriminate collateral damage Coalition troops might do, the Taliban does more. So why are they gaining support and strength? How does that mesh with hypotheses about COIN and not pissing people off?
Whose to say this happens in the same district? And the strength, well, that seems to be coming from a place starting with I and ending in ran.
Like everyone whose been force-fed the John Adair action-oriented leadership model (Mostly us Commonwealth blokes), if you're going to be successful leader, you need to minimize your mistakes, and maximise the good things you do. The same applies for COIN. We made/make some fairly major screwups in the application of COIN during this war, and for people who've lost mates, family, and property, they are never going to see the light in our reconstruction efforts, and every time we screw up, we create more, and more of these people.
Every time Marines mow down civilians on a highway (or whatever it was), we make a lot of people, very, angry.
Why is the Taliban gaining support?
Because we keep ****ing up. For every family the Coalition gives shelter, an education, and food, we create even more hostile members of the community when we have people start shooting civilians. In effect, we've been losing our own war since we got there.
And then we have the other fairly major element.
Human nature. You'll recall in Vietnam, the NVA and Vietcong used strong-arm tactics on their own people. But why did the people side with the Vietcong in the end? The first reason is the same as the one above. The second reason, is that people are always, always, always, going to prefer being treated **** by their own people, their own flesh and blood that's been spilled in the name of the same flag, than foreigners who mess in other people's affairs.
People in most cases, will be far more ready to sweep aside what their own side has done in relation to cleansing their country of an invasion by a foreign power. When you have an 'invasion' going on, organisations like the Taliban/Al-Qaeda, become easier to see as a partisan force to defend the country from the 'invasion' get support much more readily.
A foreign invasion in which the invading forces have mowed down civilians gives those organisations endless belts of ammunition to use in support of their case. "These invaders kill our children and rape our women! Join us, and avenge your brothers and sisters! Rid this land of the foreigners!" Just invading a country is asking to be demonized by its people.
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Good lord, that isn't the point. It isn't us being bombed, hence the lack of care from the only people who can really make a difference. I'd love nothing more than for people to start caring, but that doesn't just magically happen.
It could always start with you.
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Good lord, that isn't the point. It isn't us being bombed, hence the lack of care from the only people who can really make a difference. I'd love nothing more than for people to start caring, but that doesn't just magically happen.
It could always start with you.
wtf
He's clearly in that camp already. He's expressed concern. Unless you're insinuating he's some kind of lying liar who lies?
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Good lord, that isn't the point. It isn't us being bombed, hence the lack of care from the only people who can really make a difference. I'd love nothing more than for people to start caring, but that doesn't just magically happen.
It could always start with you.
wtf
He's clearly in that camp already. He's expressed concern. Unless you're insinuating he's some kind of lying liar who lies?
As opposed to a lying liar who doesn't lie?
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He's clearly in that camp already. He's expressed concern. Unless you're insinuating he's some kind of lying liar who lies?
As opposed to a lying liar who doesn't lie?
Or a non-lying liar who lies about not being a lying liar who doesn't lie?
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I think I misread one of his previous remarks. Sorry.
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this thread is apparently about permutations of slight variations of sentences, cause this is the second time I've come in and that's all that has been discussed for the previous 5 posts.
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Information wants to be free yo....
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*bump*
And now the dirty tricks start (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11047025).
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Haters gonna hate.
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Huh. Well if they are substantiated they go to Mr. Assange's character, and, justly or not, will impact the credibility of his whole organization.
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And now the dirty tricks start (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11047025).
Hey, you want dirty tricks?
The reason the documents were not properly censored is because WikiLeaks needed the publicity that would come from that, as they were in desperate need of donations to continue operating.
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*bump*
And now the dirty tricks start (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11047025).
Looks like you were right, the warrant was cancelled. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316)
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Of course it was. I knew that before I posted. :p
Hey, you want dirty tricks?
The reason the documents were not properly censored is because WikiLeaks needed the publicity that would come from that, as they were in desperate need of donations to continue operating.
Unless you have actual proof of that, I'd put false accusations of rape above that to be honest. While I have no particular interest in defending Assange I think that false rape accusations have the effect of making people disbelieve the real ones.
Furthermore if you're going to claim that unethical behaviour in order to make money is a dirty trick then there is a pretty long list of people dirtier than him. Pretty much every multinational corporation in fact.
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Unless you have actual proof of that, I'd put false accusations of rape above that to be honest.
You could try checking out their own page. They actually had a big request for donations thing going on until shortly after they started posting the Afghan files. Wikipedia and other independent websites can probably confirm it.
Furthermore if you're going to claim that unethical behaviour in order to make money is a dirty trick then there is a pretty long list of people dirtier than him. Pretty much every multinational corporation in fact.
No, I'm going to claim causing people to die in order to make money is a dirty trick. It's already a known fact (for chrissakes MSN was running the article, Alessia commented on it) that what Assange has published has resulted in people dying. I think that rates a bit higher on the oh****-o-meter than merely being unethical.
Corporations will, on ocassion, release flawed products, but the death toll for Assange's mistake is already higher than the one for Toyota's much-touted and rather nebulous fiasco. I think it's time to get a wee bit excited over this.
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You could try checking out their own page. They actually had a big request for donations thing going on until shortly after they started posting the Afghan files. Wikipedia and other independent websites can probably confirm it.
Circumstantial evidence at best.
The fact that wikileaks was after donations is undeniable. In fact I was aware that they needed donations well before this story actually happened. I was asking for proof of the fact that the website deliberately included the names in order to generate more hits rather than it simply being a cock up. You haven't proved it did.
Corporations will, on ocassion, release flawed products, but the death toll for Assange's mistake is already higher than the one for Toyota's much-touted and rather nebulous fiasco. I think it's time to get a wee bit excited over this.
Again, you're quoting facts that aren't relevant to the actual point I was making. This issue of whether or not Wikileaks are guilty of a dirty trick is solely dependent on whether or not they published the document in full knowledge that they were publishing something that could get people killed. Even if they acted with criminal negligence over the issue it still wouldn't be a dirty trick.
So on one hand we have something that definitely looks malicious to me compared to something that might not have been. So yeah, in absence of evidence proving malice I'm going to go ahead and state that the fake rape accusations definitely look more like a dirty trick than anything Wikileaks did.
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Corporations will, on ocassion, release flawed products, but the death toll for Assange's mistake is already higher than the one for Toyota's much-touted and rather nebulous fiasco. I think it's time to get a wee bit excited over this.
Are you kidding? (http://www.bjreview.com.cn/nation/txt/2008-09/22/content_153891.htm)
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No, I'm going to claim causing people to die in order to make money is a dirty trick.
You say this again, even after being unable to provide evidence to support the claim that it was done in order to make money. Explain how you think you're going to change our minds when, instead of providing actual evidence to support your claim, all you've done is repeating your unsupported assertion and raised the rhetoric a little. Or better yet, provide the actual evidence. None of this "he's asking for donations therefore BAD" bull****.
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An update. (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/iran-waging-shadow-war-with-coalition-troops-in-iraq-secret-files-show/story-e6frg6so-1225942634565)
At least this one didn't seem to put civilians at risk. The publicity might deter Iran from committing more resources to Iraq, but it's probably a whole lot more complex than that.
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and wikileaks swings the other way. they are chaotic neutral, they will spill any secret they think will embarrass/piss off someone powerful, they don't care who.
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Well...looks like we in the US military knew about torture happening in Iraq...but we looked the other way.
:no: :(
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Well...looks like we in the US military knew about torture happening in Iraq...but we looked the other way.
:no: :(
Absolutely, completely shocking.
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Well, the US and most of the rest of the World.
For the last 5 years...
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Well...looks like we in the US military knew about torture happening in Iraq...but we looked the other way.
:no: :(
This is the same Army that tried to give Tillman a Silver Star for being accidently shot by friendly fire and then tried to cover it up. So with that in mind, is anyone really surprised?
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Well...looks like we in the US military knew about torture happening in Iraq...but we looked the other way.
:no: :(
This is the same Army that tried to give Tillman a Silver Star for being accidently shot by friendly fire and then tried to cover it up. So with that in mind, is anyone really surprised?
Are we still buying the "accidentally" line?
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the fascism is strong in this thread
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/me is totally not guilty of that.
Modern history classes on Nazi Germany are taking their toll. ;)
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the fascism is strong in this thread
I doubt you'd know fascism if it shot your dog. :P
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What about Theofascism? :P