[General Battuta]

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.

[General Battuta]

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.

[Klaustrophobia]

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?

[General Battuta]

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.

[NGTM-1R]

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.

[General Battuta]

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.

[Dilmah G]

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.

[Ravenholme]

Completely agreed with Dilmah G

[zookeeper]

Treason ought to be legalized.

[karajorma]

It is. They call it lobbying.

[Kosh]

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?

[Scotty]

You say that as if drone attacks are the only things that can possibly hurt civilians.  They aren't.

[Hellstryker]

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.

[General Battuta]

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 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?

[Hellstryker]

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 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?

[Kosh]

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.

[Hellstryker]

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.

[Aardwolf]

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.

[redsniper]

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...

[Aardwolf]

Time for a generalization which may be interpreted as "out of place" in this thread: secrets are dumb.