I’m beginning to grow hostile at people who just blindly lash out at Wikileaks or treat this like it is just some radical anarchist with a vengeance to bring down America. The records the DOJ subpoenaed today were in regards to an attempt to prosecute people for the crime of informing us that our government was overtly lying to us about the gleefully conducted murder of innocents:
Those were real people, you assholes. Maybe I feel more strongly about this because I advocated for this war and carry a helluva lot more guilt than some of you. This isn’t about Assange, who may or may not be the world’s biggest asshole and a rapist. It’s about our government lying to us about their conduct, and then launching campaigns against the people who exposed those lies. It’s also about the future of journalism and whistleblowing.
cleek
if Assange was Chinese, and had embarrassed the Chinese govt, he’d be in line for a Nobel.
Maude
It is an investigation. No one has been charged with a crime, as far as I know.
I do think that Assange has an agenda and I am not sure of what it is. I am not saying he is right or wrong because I don’t know all the facts.
This isn’t the Bush DoJ.
It is proper for the DoJ to investigate the leak situation. DoJ announced in public that it would investigate.
General Stuck
I fully supported the leak of the “collateral murder” video. I think it was important for Americans to see first hand. And if you had not gone off half cocked in the previous thread, you might have noticed I am not a fan of The Espionage Act of 1917, and despite my knee jerk spiteful recanting of my original statement. I do not want Assange prosecuted for anything whatsoever, I do not want him bothered in any way by the US government. Period. Besides, he is doing a splendid job of self destructing on his own.
Antonius
…and, possibly, a firing squad or long prison term. Sometimes i wonder what country I live in.
John Cole
@General Stuck: I didn’t go off half-cocked. I was fully locked and loaded, because your statement was and is completely wrong. And you’ve not even bothered to defend yourself. They simply are not leaking documents “carte blanche.”
GregB
I hope the people who get outraged when they watch the old Waco videos can someday understand that there are many people who watch this and fume and rage just as they do.
I don’t think most Americans can put two and two together and deduce that this is what is seen as tyranny. A monstrously large government callous to what it does to actual human beings.
This is what tyranny looks like.
But some of those guys had guns or falafels wrapped in foil so it’s all good.
Omnes Omnibus
Actually, I think there are a number of issues here that tend to get conflated whenever WikiLeaks is discussed:
1) Did the Government lie about Iraq and Afghanistan? If so, in what way?
2) Were war crimes committed by US troops?
3) What is WL actually trying to accomplish? Exposing lies and crimes? Harming the US? Both? Bringing on a new paradigm of openness and freedom? Or is it something else?
4) Did WL conspire with Manning and/or others to acquire classified information? Or did they simply receive information and publish it?
5) Does the fact that Assange seems to be a world class egotist have any effect on the goals and achievements of WL as an organization?
6) [insert other issues here]
Conflation of these issues tends to make reasonable discussion of WL virtually impossible.
Odie Hugh Manatee
It’s the weekend John, drink some NyQuil and veg out for a bit. ;)
Nope, not really all that hopped up about this issue. I might be if Assange had handled the Afghanistan stuff better but that didn’t happen. I think his releasing everything from Afghanistan hurt his ’cause’ quite a bit.
Sorry John, he gets no sympathy from me.
FeFiFo
As an American I’m perfectly comfortable with the lumbering behemoth war machine of my homeland being fully owned and operated by the military industrial complex and the financial sector, but you see, this weirdo rapist thinks maybe a decade of war and millions of people murdered isn’t excused by our God-given exceptionalism! I mean, have you ever heard such a ridiculous notion?
burnspbesq
John, noting that Assange is a non-state political actor with an agenda isn’t “lashing out.” it’s the only conclusion that is supported by a reasoned analysis of his writings. Chill the fuck out.
Russ
Wikileaks didn’t get in trouble over this, as much as the later acts, of disclosing diplomatic cables.
“A lawyer who defended The New York Times over publication of the “Pentagon Papers” during the Vietnam War has condemned Wikileaks for recklessness and assaulting “the very notion of Diplomacy”….”
kdaug
What is Assange doing other than publishing information other people give him?
It appears that he makes a good faith attempt to verify it, and appears to take reasonable steps to redact things that could put people’s lives directly in jeopardy.
But in the end, it’s the whistle-blowers who are giving him the information in the first place.
He’s not an investigator, detective, or spy.
He’s a journalist.
maye
“. . .the Founding Generation intended that no American should ever need permission to read or write anything.” [Juan Cole]
Russ
I remember when Greenwald first wrote about the incident, and how he emphasized again and again how common this was.
FeFiFo
New definitions for the American decline: “Agenda” is now defined as the inability to refrain from taking any sort of moral or ethical stand against the world’s superpower spending trillions of dollars to bomb people because that superpower happens to feel like it that day.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@kdaug: “He’s a journalist. “
Now that’s funny! Got any more good ones?
Omnes Omnibus
@kdaug:
If WL did not induce the whistleblowers to provide the info, I would say that you are correct. I think that this is what is being investigated. Further, it is not unreasonable that, following the loss of a massive amount of classified data, a government wold conduct a thorough investigation and analysis. One would hope that the investigation and analysis will consider the issues of what is going on in the Middle East, whether all that data really needed to be classified, and similar issues as well as who leaked what to whom under what circumstances.
General Stuck
@John Cole:
They may not be right now, and maybe I should have stipulated that, and maybe you should have qualified your carte blanche of
accusation but they have in the recent past, and you know it. So Assange has changed tactics, good for him, I say mostly because he was forced to, but no matter, I still bitterly oppose targeting the State Department, and if he is going to call himself a journalist, then maybe he should do the vetting of info he receives. And good gawd almighty, The State Department is likely the only thing that keeps the neo cons and Pentagon war mongers from launching WW3. They are mostly the good guys, and if anyone is going to leak their confidential info, they had better make damn sure it’s for a good reason, as far as I and a lot of other people are concerned.
So you think I generally don’t have a clue what i’m talking about? Good to know this, thanks.
AAA Bonds
John Cole, you may or may not be a plant by Pakistani intelligence services.
Who’s to say? I’ve read the accusation before. No evidence or anything, so I’m quite sure it either is or is not true.
I’d similarly withhold judgment on the accusation that you can only reach orgasm with underage Chinese prostitutes.
That’s completely irrelevant!
Maude
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
So, if I release someone’s emails to the public, I’m a journalist?
Is that what was being claimed?
A reporter at least writes stuff.
Bill E Pilgrim
Uh, not to mention can people stop using “carte blanche” if they don’t actually have any idea what the phrase means or is usually used for?
Yes, in the scheme of things it’s probably the last thing to care about, but I’m a puzzle that way, what can I say.
AAA Bonds
It means “white cart”, right? That thing where Russian skinheads beat up all the Caucasians they find in a metro car?
HRA
Yes, it’s really devastating to know innocents get killed in wars. Name me a war when this didn’t happen.
Am I being heartless? No, that could never be true for I had very close relatives killed in war who were not participants of it. I went to the Iraqi blogs daily when this war began and it was heart rendering to read them.
I have no mercy for Assange.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: If they used “willy-nilly,” would it work for you?
Dave von Ebers
Mr. Cole,
I absolutely sympathize with your point of view, but I think the situation is far more complicated than saying Wikileaks is “good” or “bad.” The biggest problem I have with Wikileaks is its methodology, not the fact that it seeks to expose embarrassing facts about our government. Because Wikileaks functions as a conduit for whistleblowers – who may or may not have access to complete information, and who may or may not elect to disclose information in a selective fashion – Wikileaks has little control over the completeness and accuracy of the information disclosed. Releasing huge volumes of information under those circumstances can be reckless, quite frankly. So, it seems to me, we really have to look at each document dump or release of information on its own.
As far as the subpoenas are concerned, I tend to agree with Maude’s comment, above (no. 2). I don’t think we can expect the government not to investigate the leaks, because it’s apparent that some of those leaks probably violated the law. Of course, those leaks, even if illegal, may have been legitimate acts of civil disobedience; so I’m not demonizing the leakers. But we have an adversarial judicial system and the government is a part of it. It’s going to seek to protect its rights through the judicial system, and I don’t think we should expect it not to. It’s up to the judicial system to judge the actions of both the government and whomever the government ultimately seeks to prosecute, if anyone.
The broader, and, I think, more important, questions are: Under what circumstances should the government be able to classify information and keep it from the public, at least temporarily; who gets to make those decisions; and how can those decisions be reviewed. I hope that the Wikileaks scandals lead to serious discussions about the whole process of classifying information and what checks there are on making the decision to classify it. Unfortunately, the discussion seems to focus mostly on whether Assange is a hero or a scumbag.
benjoya
@Omnes Omnibus:
those are good questions, except
4) Did WL conspire with Manning and/or others to acquire classified information? Or did they simply receive information and publish it?
IANAL, but this doesn’t seem to matter legally. journalists ask sources for information all the time. and the question of whether wikileaks is a journalistic organization is also besides the point. freedom of expression is not reserved for journalists.
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: The US State Department is mostly the good guys? To whom? Americans or the rest of the globe that’s pretty much sick of us bombing them and/or taking their resources?
AAA Bonds
@Maude:
Julian Assange and Wikileaks have always written a number of stories on their findings, and you can find a bunch of those pieces at any site that mirrors the old page.
The current page is very stripped down and also doesn’t have direct links to previous leaks that the American press cheered on or at least presented neutrally – the Scientology ones being the biggest loss, in my opinion.
Russ
The image Assange and Grennwald wish to implant is that the troops are murderers. It is not true, in large part though.
“I started hanging out with American troops and I realized these guys weren’t this massive American war machine in uniform. They were kids, like me, and I really related to them,”
On one occasion, he says, he crossed the line and he’s still regretting his decision. He was determined to get a shot of a foreign fighter who’d been killed in a minaret in Fallujah.
“It’s only a hundred yards away, I’ll run up the street get the picture and come back,” he recalls telling the captain, but he insisted on sending a squad. “I said yes.”
Inside the pitch black minaret, he heard a shot and felt something wet. It was the blood of one of the squad members, Lance Cpl. William Miller.
“As soon as I got out the door of the minaret staircase, I saw what was all over me was actually, was actually Miller’s blood. The first time I broke my rule about non-interventionist photography, my absolute worst nightmare had taken place,” Gilbertson says.
Miller died on his way to the first aid station.
“At that moment I wanted to die,” he says. “You know I wanted to take one of those machine gun bullets in my back … I didn’t know how I could continue to live feeling the responsibility of another man’s death.”
Gilbertson says he believes that most people who work or live in Iraq have a “minaret moment” which “haunts them for the rest of their life.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15840103
FeFiFo
@HRA: How quickly you gloss over the fact that the war itself was utterly without merit or cause. But hey that’s ok cause people die in wars, right? That’s just how it goes!
John Cole
Good, because I never said that nor made that argument.
magurakurin
I dreaded the Iraq war because I felt it would become a cluster fuck. I don’t want to harp on the host (and in all honesty I respect the host greatly and as far as I can tell he is nothing but a stand up guy), but unlike him I didn’t think the war was a good idea…at all. But the video just posted was pretty roundly discussed when it was first released and as fucked up as it is, that’s war. The men in those helicopters weren’t just flying around aimlessly when they happened onto that crowd of men carrying guns. There were US soldiers on the next block involved in a fire fight and they had called in the air support. It was a battle. People died. Some of the wrong people died. 40 some thousand of the wrong people died one night in Dresden and 100,000+ over three nights in Tokyo in another war in another time. War is a very, very bad deal for everyone involved.
That’s why I personally was so hopelessly depressed when nearly 90% of the United States was behind the Iraq War at the start. I knew that something just like that video was going to happen…many times. And I blame that 90% more than I ever would the men in the helicopter doing what they were asked to do.
And if that video really was some sort of revelation about the horrors of war to the American public, I don’t think Wikileaks is really going to be much help. Lost causes and all…
Walker
@Dave von Ebers:
Which is exactly what happens. WL cooperates with traditional media, they help choose material and redact names, and that determines what gets released.
John Cole
Oh Jesus Christ. Dick Cheney, is that you?
How did you write that comment without mentioning “with us or against us” or “blame America first?”
I’m done with this fucking blog today.
amk
While I support assange’s “we open governments” mission, in reality, I don’t expect any gobinment to just sit there and take it. And they have laws and legal precedences to do it. Don’t like it ? Then change the law.
AhabTRuler
@Bill E Pilgrim: Yeah, I think the en masse is the “cheese-eating surrender-monkey-ism” that people were grasping after.
Omnes Omnibus
@benjoya: whether or not it affect WL’s legal posture, I think it is a valid question wrt how WL operates. I have fewer issues with releasing info leaked to them by people who have decided that civil disobedience is a route they want to take than I have with them inducing a (potentially) pliable person to place himself in legal jeopardy. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
General Stuck
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Well, I am no grammar whiz, and it might well have been the wrong term. But actual events of these releases speak for themselves, especially the Afghan one. How about “wreckless leaking of every motherfucking document handed to wikileaks regarding the Afghan docs” Does that clear it up?
FeFiFo
@Russ:
Regardless of if the soldier in question was raised on Iowa corn or not, they were still trained to kill human beings on command and no amount of innate American aw-shucksness will inoculate them from the psychological fallout, which can and does include incidents such as the Apache helicopter incident, Mai Lai, etc.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Wow, now that’s some A-grade hyperbole right there. It couldn’t be that the DoJ is doing its due diligence in investigating whether or not a crime occurred in the releasing of sensitive and classified information, information that… well.. only proved what we’ve known since General Sherman entered Georgia.
Yes, the world can be a better place with the ‘collateral murder’ video released. But in that same universe Assange can also be a jet-setting infowar Nestor Makhno and that the government does have the right to keep information classified. And that no matter how much you want to finally have your Ta-Da moment, there are no Pentagon Papers here. Just a whole lot of ‘d’oh’ and ‘no duh’.
AAA Bonds
@General Stuck:
The standard you present doesn’t make any sense. The story is the views and claims themselves, not the objective truth of Yemen’s assessment that Iran is a threat or whatever.
Obviously, no reporter in history has adhered to such a ludicrous standard, and obviously, nobody is arguing that these documents are counterfeits.
FeFiFo
New definitions for the American decline: “murder” is now defined as the act of killing someone unless said act is performed by a US soldier.
Dave von Ebers
@John Cole: I understand that, and that comment wasn’t meant to be critical of you. It was just a general observation. Most of the discussion I’ve seen about the issue (not here) assumes it’s an all-or-nothing proposition.
Russ
Sorry, if that offended you, it is I who should leave.
FeFiFo
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: So you’re aware of everything Wikileaks has yet to release that’s included in the State Department cables? Wow, will you share with the rest of the class that’s actually been reading them and learning new things then?
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole: Oh bullshit, Cole. You started the conversation. There are people who are trying to have a reasonable and reasoned discussion. The fucking issue is not black and white. Someone says something that, while hyperbolic, is not completely unsupportable and you decide to walk away. You just might be overemotional on this topic.
FeFiFo
@Omnes Omnibus: Actually Cole is correct, this implication that its not murder when WE do it is completely unsupportable and dangerously myopic. And shame on him for getting emotional over such a little thing as state-sanctioned massacres!
General Stuck
@AAA Bonds:
What standard? wikileaks has had no standard since it began, and only now because they had no other real choice other than to go a little better route of letting media outlets review the docs on the State Department. Before now, about the only standard was how fast they could publish everything that was handed to them, albeit doing a little PR prep first.
Bill E Pilgrim
@General Stuck:
Fair enough. “Wreckless” sort of further makes the case. But points for admitting it without a big debate.
For the record I think you’re completely off the mark. And one of the reasons people get particularly exercised about the “wholesale” “mass” “dumping” and especially “indiscriminate” charges is that every idiotic brain-dead right wing asshole pundit and journalist repeats those claims even though they’re lies, and easily proven to be lies.
But hey, have at it, you’re in good company.
AAA Bonds
@Russ:
Now, y’see, this is a good learning example for the folks who skipped a couple logic classes and think you have to manufacture a quote out of whole cloth to attack a straw man.
If I was to headline a response to Assange’s critics with this and draw a wide-ranging conclusion about the justifiable response to those critics from it, that would be a straw man argument.
Clear?
AAA Bonds
@General Stuck:
Okay, you can just go ahead and not address what I just said, but I’m going to assume that means you’re floundering.
To repeat: the story is the documents. Any reporter would treat it that way, and they all are, in fact.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@FeFiFo: What sort of bombshells are you expecting in there, then? Why would Wikileaks be holding on to it instead of unloading it as soon as they could for maximum exposure?
General Stuck
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Thank you, yes I am. I am in the responsible company. You keep eating that french cheese, and say hi to the french très belle femme for me.
Omnes Omnibus
@FeFiFo: Which issue? I think there are a bunch here.
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: You should read more and listen to the Pentagon less. Wikileaks did redact the Afghanistan war logs. The Pentagon refused to even look at them prior to release, ignoring Wikileaks’ request that they do so.
El Cid
I think that the items so far revealed on Wikileaks — and often I’m most interested in Latin American affairs — have been quite significant, and definitely should have been released.
They are not significant enough to overthrow governments or have officials to resign; but they have often verified the accounts of journalists and activists, such as that the US’ understood that under Honduran law and the OAS, the coup was flatly illegal, but the US would not publicly use the term “coup d’etat” that they would use for any non-allies.
And in the end, it was Jim DeMint who determined US policy in reversing what the State Department had said it would do, in State’s nonsense declaration of how it would facilitate particular negotiations.
Maude
@AAA Bonds:
Thank you, I stand corrected and I will look for the articles.
Oh, oops.
I wasn’t paying attention to the WL before this.
I know better, there is no excuse for ignorance.
Russ
AAA,
Well, maybe, but when one reads the title of this wikileak video, “Collateral Murder,” and when GG emphasis that this is common, logic would say to me, they want to implant said images.
FeFiFo
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Because the amount of the information they have would be completely overwhelming to release at once, for starters, and secondly a single massive info dump is the precisely opposite tactic to take if you want to maximize exposure. Releasing new information weekly and spreading it out over the course of months actually keeps the info dump in the news longer. I’m a little surprised I have to explain that. If you’d actually like to, you know, read up on what’s been released, there’s plenty of sites (Guardian UK is one) that’s covering the most interesting in detail.
@Omnes Omnibus – the issue Cole was referring to in the line he quoted, to wit, that some journalists are trying to make US soldiers out to be murderers.
General Stuck
@AAA Bonds:
Not hardly. Actual news media has a process for evaluating classified documents it receives from sources. It is always weighed with the public service value of releasing these docs, with whatever harm they might cause. It also involves informing the government every step of the way and receiving their counsel about releasing such info. Only then do they fgo public. Good that most of the State Department docs seem to be going through this process. It doesn’t excuse the past bullshit of releasing them unvetted en masse/
FeFiFo
@Russ: Oh gosh, we can’t have journalists implanting the concept that US soldiers murder people!
General Stuck
@FeFiFo:
Oh bullshit, it is not up to the Pentagon to vet stolen secrets for wikileaks. And you need to stop hanging out at FDL or DKos, because the Afghan docs were released names of Afghans assisting the US, unredacted. Now go fumb yerself.
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: Again, Wikileaks did vet the Afghanistan logs. You’re continually stating a falsehood.
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: That’s funny, because I have sourced proof that they did.
http://wlcentral.org/node/
Thanks for your offer, but its much more amusing watching you fuck yourself in real time in this thread.
Kane
The government lied to us about the war? Who knew?
Sorry to hear about all that guilt you are caring around with you. How burdensome it must be for you. But what are you actually doing about it? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You’re blogging about it! I suppose blogging about the guilt is much better than actually doing something about the guilt.
AAA Bonds
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
They’re working the press cycle like any other media outlet. How would it be “maximum exposure” if they released everything at once? They know damn well the press in any country can’t handle more than a couple world-politics stories at a time.
Omnes Omnibus
@FeFiFo: Fair enough. But the commenter was saying that he believed that there was an attempt to insinuate that, because some soldiers had committed murder, all soldiers were murderers. One might disagree with the commenter, but that does not mean that the commenter did not get that impression.
Edited for clarity
Neil Sagan
This is a well worn canard. How many documents do you claim were released unvetted en masse? Source please.
General Stuck
@FeFiFo:
What a clown. First you argue it was the Pentagons fault for not vetting their own stolen documents, and now you claim, well wikileaks vetted them. There were many names of Afghans left unredacted on the version wikileaks itself released.
FeFiFo
@Omnes Omnibus: Its clear enough from the rest of the commentator’s comments that the concept of US soldiers being murderers is unfamiliar to them. That concept is uncomfortably intimate to the people in the countries we’re occupying. The commentator would do well to consider deeply exactly what we train our soldiers (brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, friends and all) to do and to what purpose we ask them to do it, and then reflect on if his previous definition of murder applies.
Phoenix Woman
@John Cole:
Exactly. Only about one percent of the 250,000-plus docs in their possession have actually been leaked. Furthermore, as Marcy Wheeler points out, the Wikileaks people have actually been better at redacting than has, say, the New York Times.
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: So a vetting that wasn’t 100% complete in hindsight is exactly the same as no vetting at all? By the way, in case you missed it, you were incorrect in your constant assertion that you knew what you were talking about and apparently don’t want to admit it, which unfortunately makes you very clownish indeed.
AAA Bonds
@General Stuck:
For a third time: nope. You’re confusing two stories here:
1) The controversial views and claims of officials, foreign and domestic, contained in the documents, that have been kept secret from the rest of America and the rest of the world.
2) The veracity of the views and claims themselves (some of which can’t even be proven, as they’re opinions).
Number one, by itself, is clearly a story, and an important one. It’s been treated as such by all media outlets. This is Journalism 101. When one of the mayor’s e-mails leaks out, and it accuses the city manager of diddling kids, that’s a story. You don’t have to prove that the city manager is or is not a pedophile first.
Number two, the actual truth of the controversial and secret claim by an official, is also a story – a different story. It’s just not the story Wikileaks reports on, which makes sense considering their limited resources.
Russ
@FeFiFo:
I had no problem with the Abu Graib story. As someone said, it is good for Americans to know what war is like, or to keep an eye on how we run it. All those things are fine. I guess, I come into this debate with a different past, in that I was a blogger at Salon, and debated about how common this was then. The impression I got, was GG wanted this incident to be reason for not being in Afghanistan, like it was the thing we do there. It was his opinion, stated plainly, that this incident was not uncommon.
FeFiFo
@Phoenix Woman: Please don’t post links that prove General Stuck doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He might be forced to call us DKosers, or French, or even clowns!
Phoenix Woman
@Kane: Actually, he is doing something about it by blogging — that’s why the Cons don’t like him any more.
Lord knows I disagree with Tunch’s keeper on a lot of things, but his public change of heart is very much like that of Walter Jones’ and Jack Murtha’s.
roshan
@Russ: I believe you’re talking about something like this, right?
__
General Stuck
@AAA Bonds:
We are talking about state secrets here, not ordinary crimes. Newpapers take this much more seriously, the decision to publish such information. You simply do not know what you are talking about.
FeFiFo
@Russ: Thanks for your background clarification. My point is simply that given our false reasons for being in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place, any action by a US soldier lacks the weight of justification, regardless of how comparatively horrific or benign the incident in question is to other incidents.
Omnes Omnibus
@FeFiFo: I am not defending the comment. I just thought that Cole rolled a grenade into the room and then complained that it made a mess. It was either weaselly or disingenuous.
I have a mixed view on WL. I think they do some good, but I am not sure that I am down with what I perceive as their ultimate goal. Also, I am uncomfortable with some of their tactical decisions.
Phoenix Woman
@FeFiFo: Oh, you mean like the fact that Adrian Lamo can’t keep his stories straight?
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: Please refrain from telling anyone else in this comment thread that they don’t know what they’re talking about, I don’t think I can handle that much mirth at my current level of sobriety.
General Stuck
@FeFiFo:
LOL, retreat under the pedant flag. You didn’t claim Assange vetted some of the docs, you just said wikileaks vetted the afghan docs, with no qualification. I said, and have been saying what I was referring to unvetted and unredacted names of Afghans now possibly put in danger. Which is fully true.
roshan
Also, watch this documentary about Wikileaks: WikiRebels.
General Stuck
@FeFiFo:
you’ll live, you will still be stupid, but you will survive.
FeFiFo
@GeneralStuck:
Except…
Maybe you should check what you’ve written before you deny ever writing it.
Stillwater
@General Stuck: Actual news media has a process for evaluating classified documents it receives from sources. It is always weighed with the public service value of releasing these docs, with whatever harm they might cause. It also involves informing the government every step of the way and receiving their counsel about releasing such info.
Stuck, you change your tune quicker than pop-radio. The standard you suggest here is the one that ‘confirmed’ all of Judith Miller’s tripe about WMD in Iraq and the other demostrably false claims made in the buildup to Iraq (just one example), but it’s also the standard you conveniently reject anytime the sourced material doesn’t suit your prejudices.
Also, too: aren’t you one of the harpies that continually criticizes ‘actual news media’ for not reporting information that has ‘public service value’? And now you’re holding them up as some sort of unbiased, impartial conveyors of the truth, but only the truth that they deem is fit to print?
You’re a fucking joke, man.
anon
The issue is black and white, america. People who say “it’s not black and white” are on the side of blackness, and they’re trying to make ordinary people excuse or be disinterested in the creeping advance of the blackness evident in the hearts and minds of dictators, murderers and thieves.
People on the side of right, of morality and decency and common human compassion, they’ll gladly tell you it is black and white. On the black side is lauhging with your mates as you machinegun civillians and children. On the black side is breathing down the phone and stalking people who “get in your way.” On the black, evil side is “if you aint fer us, your agint’ us.” mentailities and attitudes of hate and violence.
There is NOTHING BUT good and evil. There are no shades of gray. It’s at a point where we all, as individuals, must choose our side then stand and a fight. I’m on the side of truth, honesty, openness and equality. Who’s side are you on? Are you my enemy? For I am legion. I am many. I do not forgive. I do not forget. Expect me.
Doug
@General Stuck:
Redactions in the Afghan docs were too sparse, but as far as we know there has been no casualties or torture as a result, and WikiLeaks turned much more careful, involving a number of journalists at reputable news papers to help avoid disclosing information that would put individuals at risk.
Also, to whom it might concern, can we try to to have civil discourse here?
MikeMc
I would like to see an investigation of Wikileaks for my own curiosity. I would like to know how they get their info. Mostly, I want to know if they pay their informants. If the whistleblower is getting paid then he ain’t a whistleblower. He’s a thief. If Assange is paying for stolen information he ain’t running a website. He’s a fence.
General Stuck
@FeFiFo:
you assume I actually agree with your premise that some of the docs were vetted, that is simply a claim by the anarchist Assange, and some of his conspirators, and supporters, like you. and I don’t believe a word he says, nor they, nor you. And you can’t prove even one doc was vetted, and still the names of Afghans are found throughout the docs released.
And even if a few docs were vetted, the bulk of being right is mine, as compared to a tiny sliver of you being right.
aimai
@John Cole:
John,
I really admire you for your willingness to take on your own past, and the country’s actions, with the same honesty. Don’t let the various commenters get you down. People have to vent in the comment threads and they don’t always take the same high level of responsibility that you do for what they say here. Keep saying what you want. I agree with you and I know others do too. And even people fighting with you in the comments may come around at some later point.
aimai
FeFiFo
@MikeMc: Their submission process is listed right on their website, and its completely anonymous.
water balloon
This video doesn’t show a gleeful murder of innocents. It shows a military helicopter firing on an armed group, then firing on an unmarked van that was trying to get them out of the area.
They turned out to be wrong about the intentions of the group, but yes, this kind of thing happens when you advocate for attacking a country for no reason.
Joseph Nobles
@General Stuck: It really is time to drop the “Afghans in danger” line. The fear is unfounded. No one has died because of the leaks.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
The quote of mine is absolutely true, and the rest of your pathetic putting words in my mouth is complete bullshit. I simply stated that there is a process for media to deal with classified info. nothing more with that quote, concerning their overall evilness or virtue. That is your made up garbage.
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus: Conflation of these issues tends to make reasonable discussion of WL virtually impossible.
I agree. But that doesn’t mean that the issues themselves aren’t clear. Questions about Assange’s megalomania exist entirely independently of the actual functioning purpose of WL. Only someone who was incapable of clearly arguing their view, or conversely didn’t like where those arguments led, would conflate those two things.
FeFiFo
@General Stuck: Ahahahahahahahaha christ on a cracker. They’re all lying except for the good guys in the Pentagon, huh? Wikileaks, Newsweek, Greenwald, journalists who held your view and publicly retracted their position due to actual evidence, they’re all lying and you don’t believe any of them? But hey, as long as you feel that you’re still correct regardless of being proven demonstrably wrong, that’s what’s important. Hell, that’s practically American!
Might I suggest for your next witty retort calling me an anarchist communist fudgehead? That’s an automatic argument winner.
General Stuck
@Joseph Nobles:
no it isn’t, and it is as much the principle we are arguing about as to confirmation that someone actually gets killed from it, which may not ever find out. The Taliban says they are studying the released docs and will take action when they feel like it.
MikeMc
@FeFiFo: I saw that. I just wonder if it’s true.
Joseph Nobles
@water balloon: I agree with you except for the helicopter being wrong about the intentions of the group (not the van, the initial group). Walking around with a rocket launcher isn’t SOP for any street in Baghdad. And I’m pretty sure I see the reporters helping the insurgent group by taking pictures of the Army vehicle down the road so the group can aim better.
But I agree 100% with John (and Greenwald) on the total inappropriateness of the government’s harassment of Wikileaks here.
General Stuck
Hey Cole, I will take a break now, but will back/ at some point, Enjoy the time for having a smarter commentariat in my clueless absence, one that knows what it’s talking about. I will study some and try to measure up to the FeFiFo standard/
Joseph Nobles
@General Stuck: Yes, it is. The line’s use as a legitimate argument is finished. No one has died. I myself had reservations about the names being released, but as time went on and no one died, I saw my fears were unfounded. Since I didn’t need the fears to ward off any possible acknowledgement of Greenwald et al. being correct about something, I’ve dropped it. You should, too.
FeFiFo
@MikeMc: You could try eliminating unlikely possibilities, like that Wikileaks has enough independent funding to offer cash rewards for information, or that it offers cash rewards but has never once advertised those rewards anywhere at any time, so how would anyone submitting information know they would get a cash reward at all?
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater: And yet it happens here. the biggest problem I see is that all of these issues tend to be discussed at once. One commenter may state that he distrusts Assange meaning that he believes that Assange has a goal of harming the US. Another commenter may then say that Assange is correct while meaning that the information leaked by WL is factually accurate. Then we get a flame war from people talking past one another. It gets frustrating; there are important questions that are worthy of discussion, but the background noise gets awfully loud. Then the whole issue of Greenwald, genius truth-teller or evil lying Obama hater comes in. Ah, fuck it, it’s Balloon Juice.
Neil Sagan
These materials are classified but not top secret.
Publishers are not bound by the same Federal law handling classified material that government officials with security clearance are.
The video above shows an engagement between US military gunship and Iraqi’s in New Baghdad, two of whom we’ve come to learn were cameramen working for Reuters. They were gunned down.
The man driving his kids to school who stopped to help was gunned down. His son shot and killed. I don’t know if his daughter survived.
The men on patrol that day, the first on the scene, recognized the horror or what happened and spoke about it when they were redeployed to the US. One in particular has trouble living with it.
Listen to the voices of the men in the gunship.
What is clear is that from the gunship, our soldiers could not possibly determine whether these men who it fired upon were engaged in armed insurrection. If they were not, then they are classified as civilians. It is a war crime to fire upon civilians.
There is a prima facie case Bradley Manning broke the law releasing this video.
His defense can only be mounted on moral grounds, that keeping it secret permits war crimes to continue.
No publisher of this material can be prosecuted under current US law. I assume Assange is exactly that, a publisher, and that Assange has broken no laws by publishing it just as CBS or NBC would not have either.
MikeMc
@Joseph Nobles: I feel bad for Assange and Manning to a point, but come on, what did they think was going to happen? Did they honestly think that they could steal and disseminate State secrets all over the world and the US government would just, what, shrug it off?
ornery curmudgeon
Amazing to watch so many morally re-incriminate themselves. The war’s over, souls have been lost and doom haunts the perpetrators; why throw yourselves on the pyre?
The truth always comes out, and agreeing with evil is not an innocent’s pursuit.
MikeMc
@FeFiFo: How is Wikileaks funded?
FeFiFo
@MikeMc: A state entity overstepping the rule of law to protect itself might be a forseeable situation, but it doesn’t mean its a defensible or just situation.
FeFiFo
@MikeMc: They’re funded via private individual donations, not exactly a font of endless wealth under the best circumstances.
Omnes Omnibus
@ornery curmudgeon: I don’t see anyone saying that the Iraq war was a good thing, nor do I see anyone arguing in favor of war crimes.
HRA
@FeFiFo:
I was against the war from day 1. I am against any war.
I was focusing on the subject of collateral damage per the thread.
General Stuck
One last comment to make clear that I have and will always support specific releases of secret info targeted to cases of government wrongdoing or like the Collateral Murder video that the American public should see the scenes of war. When wikileaks does this, I will be with them, when they don’t, not so much. fumbstuck over and out.
Joseph Nobles
@Neil Sagan: You didn’t include the information about the weaponry the first group was carrying, which went a long way toward helping the helicopter determine their actions.
ornery curmudgeon
@MikeMc:
The Government used my tax money to do this: it is my business. Government by the People, etc.
You are using lies to try to keep the truth from me.
ornery curmudgeon
@Omnes Omnibus:
See what you wish. I am tired of lies.
Neil Sagan
@MikeMc: Interesting observation but a false choice. Bona fide news agencies like ABC have been known to pay sources. Enterprise between information source and publisher is not a criminal act.
Using your line of argument Manning is the alleged thief. There is no evidence he was compensated. The evidence says he was acting on his conscience.
Regarding the concept of bona fide news agencies, our Constitution and laws do not distinguish 1st amendment rights between the 1st amendment rights of the New York Times or you and me. In other words, those protections to publish exist for the bona fide news agency, the citizen blogger, you, me, etc etc equally.
BombIranForChrist
Ugh, this is so freakin’ disappointing.
I don’t really think I am being some kind of whacked out hippie freak freak by being absolutely disgusted by the DOJ / Obama administration course of action in this entire affair.
But, you know, still have to vote for him, because Palin! Teatards!
*sigh*
I am moving to Mexico, where hopefully I can find some good hookers.
MikeMc
@FeFiFo: I’m not sure what the rule of law on this would be, so I can’t say they overstepped it, but they may have. Also, would this be international law? All I’m saying is the US can’t have it look like they tolerate people stealing from them.
Omnes Omnibus
@ornery curmudgeon: I was just not sure what you meant by “morally re-incriminating themselves.” Who are you suggesting was lying?
MikeMc
@Neil Sagan: I completely understand what your saying. I’m just wondering where you draw the line. Maybe Manning did this because he felt it was his civic duty. However, what about the next guy. Not everyones motivations are noble.
Sad But True
@MikeMc:
I feel bad for the Obama and Bush administrations to a point, but come on, what did they think was going to happen? Did they honestly think that they could commit horrifying, illegal acts all over the world and people who, you know, give two shits about the lost lives and rights of helpless civilians would just, what, shrug it off?
Neil Sagan
@Joseph Nobles: You didn;t defend the slaughter of two school age kids and their father.
When I look at the video, I don’t see the weapons. I hear the a soldier say he sees it. It’s been suggested that what he thinks are weapons are the camerman’s cameras but I don’t know. What seems clear to me is that some civilians were slaughtered. I believe Manning drew the same conclusion. He broke the law by releasing the video Nobody broker the law by publishing it.
Invading Iraq War was a war crime. I don’t think that matters with regard to Manning and Assange’s role in publishing the video but I will say that the US military needs to take responsibility for killing civilians, and there is no question that the two children killed were civilians.
FeFiFo
@Omnes Omnibus: If I could be so bold as to answer in ornery’s stead, mainly because I sympathize completely with his statement:
Yes, on Balloon Juice it’ll be very difficult to find someone still in favor of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, and impossible to find someone willing to say that they support war crimes, in so many words.
However its obviously not difficult to find commentators who are willing to cut hairs about specific situations, hypothetical or no, in order to save some type of face on behalf of their country. Its not surprising, people don’t want to believe that their neighbor’s kid that they’ve always liked is directly complicit in an illegal war and everything that entails. How could he be? It just doesn’t process.
And so excuses are made for helicopter pilots gunning down civilians, and the harsh overriding fact of the matter that everyone else except America sees first and foremost – that helicopter was ethically and morally wrong to be there in the first place – gets put aside. Because no one supports war crimes, but that’s mostly because we have the luxury of ignoring the massive war crimes we’re committing in favor of concentrating on and dissecting and ultimately dismissing the little ones. Its everyone else not in our privileged position that doesn’t need it patiently and repeatedly explained to them. We haven’t lost over a million of our countrymen and our infrastructure due to foreign invasion.
Sad But True
@MikeMc:
Both international law and U.S. law. Unless you think, for example, that solitary confinement for 7 straight months with no actual charges constitutes due process.
I think you’re right that some of this has to do with the U.S. caring so much about appearances, but it’s less the notion that someone _stole_ from them that bothers them, than it’s the notion that someone revealed all the horrible shit (e.g., the U.S. role in torture, the Pentagon’s lies about progress in Afghanistan, the large number of Afghan civilians that our military has murdered, etc.) they’ve been up to.
Susan
Good on you, John. This is the issue in a nutshell. And thanks for being profane; war crimes are worth some profanity.
water balloon
To be clear, I’ve always been opposed to the war. The video shows urban warfare, which is the worst kind, and the kind most likely to result in massive civilian deaths. But it isn’t deliberate, let alone gleeful, murder.
Neil Sagan
@MikeMc:
I think Bradley Manning is less likely to get a fair trial than Daniel Ellsburg.
After WW2 we held German commanders accountable for obeying illegal orders. In a court of law, we sentenced them to severe puishment for not disobeying illegal orders. Moral standards superseded the conventions of military discipline.
Now we hold soldiers accountable for disobeying illegal orders. Gen Karpinsky who objected to torture in Abu Grhaib was the fall guy, while those who ordered it remain free and unprosecuted.
Manning will be tried. He will be held accountable for releasing the information. I understand the need to hold him accountable to the law and yet based on what I know, I believe he was acting on his conscience and revealing war crimes.
There is something wrong however (there is no justice) when Manning will be held accountable to the rule of law but Bush, who ordered wateboarding and admits it, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al will not be held accountable for ordering war crimes.
Going after Assange for publishing this stuff is no better than Soviet control of the free press or Hungary’s current attempt to stifle press press.
Russ
Susan,
I think it is about something els. It is not good to have our diplomatic cables shown to everyone.
Thomas Jefferson, as played by Clay S. Jenkinson said in his radio broadcast that Jefferson created a cypher machine, for keeping some messages to diplomats secret, and he said, Wikipeaks is bad because governments elected officials that are given a trust, to do the will of the people and to look after them, and would be hindered by wikileaks type techo terrorism.
NPR Show 851 Perilous Liberty @ 24:00 mark
First Amendment says you can say whatever you like, but not unlimited right to know all things your government is doing on your behalf. Every 2 or 4 years we grant trust to a legislature, not that everything they say and so will be shown to government.
“Our government is the most transparent in the world.”
Government and diplomacy need a level of privacy and discretion.
FeFiFo
@water balloon: I’m pretty sure the family gunned down feels otherwise. They probably also feel that the illegal US invasion and murder of their countrymen was actually illegal, an invasion, and murder of their countrymen.
Omnes Omnibus
@FeFiFo: I see what you are saying. I think international law has settled some of this; those who ordered a war under false pretenses have committed war crimes. The individual soldiers who fought in the war have not unless they commit some individual act that qualifies. Look at how Nuremburg was handled. One of my objections to the Iraq war from the start was that I knew that things like the video above are an inevitable consequence of a decision fight a war. Since we didn’t have a clear and overwhelming just cause for the war, I believed that causing these types of harms, among others, was unjustified.
water balloon
I agree the invasion was illegal. Mistakes happen in war, that’s why wars should be avoided at almost all costs.
FeFiFo
@Russ: When that government uses the wealth of its citizens to illegally invade and occupy a foreign country for almost a decade, murdering a million people in the process, what makes you think that they’ve shown they deserve privacy?
The US Government’s actions and the actions of its State Department – and other countries complicit in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan as well – fully illustrate that its beyond time for them to stop acting behind a veil of secrecy. That you imply its for our own good might be true if you’re an American who prefers to not think about what’s being done in your name. For the rest of us, especially the people left behind after their families and friends were murdered by an illegally invading military, that’s insulting.
FeFiFo
@Omnes Omnibus and @water balloon: thank you both for your clarifications, but they both illustrate the point I was trying to make – that we all absolutely agree that The War Was Wrong, But.
The War Was Wrong, But that those helicopter pilots weren’t committing murder, really.
The War Was Wrong, But the government hides things for good reasons so the people that show us those things are the real problem.
The War Was Wrong, But these things happen in wartime.
The War Was Wrong, But those people showing us documents and videos of how utterly ghastly the government acts in our name might actually not think we’re swell people, or appreciate capitalism/mom/apple pie, and that’s the real problem.
The War Was Wrong, But even though it killed over a million people the real problem is that these documents may yet prove to put hypothetical people in danger. Not the actual, proven danger of being invaded and occupied by the United States, just the hypothetical situation that would make it easier for me to dismiss the entire affair with me on the right and proper side of things, is the problem.
I’m tired of The War Was Wrong, But. That’s all.
MikeMc
@Sad But True: I opposed both wars. The video is horrific and I can’t justify how Manning is being treated. Mostly, because I don’t know. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Manning stole. Now, maybe, he committed a crime for his own justifiable reasons, but it is a crime none the less. It can’t be okay to steal because you agree with what was stolen.
Gene in Princeton
@AAA Bonds: Hey, can I add “trope” to your list of prohibited words and phrases? Because no one knows what the f it means, but everyone’s using it. Thanks!
Omnes Omnibus
@FeFiFo: I get what you are saying. In my view, there should be prosecutions for war crimes that occurred a various levels. Outside of that, we are in those places and should be looking for the best way to disengage without causing further harm. This might mean that it takes a while to disentangle since simply picking up and bugging out may cause more harm than careful withdrawal. I am open as to suggestions as to how to do it.
FeFiFo
@MikeMc: The War Was Wrong, But whistleblowing information that illustrates the workings of the machine that directed it is stealing and that is Wrong, by implication just as Wrong as invading a nation illegally and murdering their citizens.
How quickly Americans turn into little Javerts when we need something, anything, to counteract the immense and overwhelming wrongdoing done in our name.
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus: Since we didn’t have a clear and overwhelming just cause for the war, I believed that causing these types of harms, among others, was unjustified.
That’s an understatement. Remember, our primary (stated) justification for invading Afg. was that they refused to round up AQ members residing in their borders (a request for police action, which they couldn’t have honored even if they agreed to it). WRT Iraq, the (stated) rationale for the invasion was that Hussein refused to let the UN inspectors into the Presidential Palace because the US knew (this was one of Rumsfeld’s known knowns) WMD were buried in the basement vaults.
So yeah, we failed to make a ‘clear and overwhelming’ case for engaging in a just war. Just on the merits of the language used (with no other considerations included) a case could be made that the invasions were illegal.
FeFiFo
@Omnes Omnibus: Concerns that things will get worse if we leave too early or incorrectly is yet another pretense we allow ourselves – ignoring that we’ve done such a bang-up job of fucking everything else over while we’ve been there, imagining we must have some element of nobility in being there in the first place that we can draw on, not taking into consideration the amount of money we spend on a daily basis just being there and how much fortune has been funneled into or stolen outright by DoD contractors and State Department flunkies explicitly by design.
The only people we help by being in either country one more day are military-industrial complex CEOs and heads of industries that rely on their continual business. We should be diverting any remaining military action in Iraq towards infrastructure building and then withdrawing completely, and leave Afghanistan yesterday.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@FeFiFo: And how quickly other Americans apparently turn into Madame Defarge.
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater: I think Iraq was full-on illegal. Afghanistan is another case. I think there was a self-defense argument, albeit a thin one.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@anon:
Only Sith deal in absolutes.
bago
@General Stuck: Because obviously the only way for an illiterate afghan to find out who has been co-operating with the occupiers is to go grab a net connection, download the documents in english, have them translated to pashto, and read out loud to them.
I mean just walking up to a village and pointing a gun into someone’s face would be so gauche.
MikeMc
@FeFiFo: Your right. They were both wrong. I love how in America we change the names of crimes to make them more palpable if we agree with them. It’s not torture. It’s enhanced interrogation. It’s not stealing. It’s whistle blowing. I’m not drunk. I’m alcoholically enhanced. It bothers me that we can feel that much better about shit by calling something different
FeFiFo
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Convinced yourself that over a million dead isn’t anything to get worked up about, have you?
FeFiFo
@MikeMc: Except there is a legal and substantiative difference between stealing and whistleblowing.
Omnes Omnibus
@FeFiFo: We went in and fucked the place up. It would be nice if we could leave with breaking more shit. What I have in mind is reconstruction of infrastructure in conjunction with an orderly withdrawal. it does take time to safely pull out of places. In addition, anyone who cooperated with us and is in danger should be protected or evacuated. You and I probably disagree on the timeframe and methodology, but I don’t think we disagree on the necessity of getting out.
bago
@MikeMc: “United States Soldiers Kill Afghans” is a State Secret? To whom, exactly?
I’m fairly certain that despite the classified nature of the film, that the Afghani friends and family of those killed found out they were killed. So it’s not a state secret to the Afghanis. So which state is this being kept secret from?
El Cid
@aimai: In fairness, as you’ve no doubt read, the theories of the solar system / universe being set in cosmic spheres was not actually a bad one in terms of explaining planetary movements — overall at least. It even allowed for quite a good degree of prediction. The ‘clockwork’ heavens, or mechanisms in those days.
The models were ‘refined’ and all sorts of additions and modifications and funky placed spheres were needed to try and address things like the apparent retrogression of Mars. (Ptolemaic.)
But it wasn’t just a joke. At least, not until they were retained over rival theories by authority and power rather than free debate. The Islamic astronomers may have accepted the Ptolemaic clockwork fundamentals, but without their incredibly thorough observations, the later European natural philosophers would have had no evidence with which to arrive at different views. (Not to say that there weren’t consistent hints at dissent from the Islamic astronomers and philosophers themselves, just that they were never prominent and never pushed.)
What it and successor theories had in common, even after the spheres and firmaments were mostly or entirely abandoned, is the core notion that the heavens were perfectly set and that movements in the heavens were perfectly circular and/or spherical.
Skipping ahead a lot, there are those who argue that it was truly Kepler who broke away from the perfect circularity which even Copernicus retained in his revolutionary (in terms of public advocacy and depth of argument, not that it hadn’t been advocated and accepted by some predecessors, including the earliest of ancient Greek intellectuals) heliocentrism, which the Catholic Church helped out so much by declaring as, well, you know. Galileo and all.
Kepler’s willingness to push for elliptical orbits as the one successful mathematical explanations for orbits wasn’t something people were too happy with.
And then Newton had to go and screw things up even more by re-introducing mystical, invisible forces: i.e., gravity. With the sort of aether / particle collision / flow that such as Descartes used to explain all motion, including gravity, everything could be explained by comprehensible physics — things collide, things move around in a universal fluid and sweep things backwards and thus gravity.
And we’re still basically where Newton was with regard to gravity.
So I try not to look at any of the predecessors as foolish except when they’re being fools, such as the Church.
MikeMc
@bago: The United States Government. They classified it. Was that a real question?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@FeFiFo: What’s done is done. Tell us how playing Captain Holier-Than-Thou will prevent the next war.
Nutella
@FeFiFo:
It’s not just the neighbor’s kid who joined the Army who is directly complicit in an illegal war and everything that entails. It’s all of us, in the US and coalition countries, who are directly complicit. We are the citizens and taxpayers of the US, UK, etc. We are complicit in this war because the politicians we voted for and the armed forces whose salaries we pay and the arms dealers whose much larger salaries we pay are the ones conducting this illegal war.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Jay in Oregon
Fuck.
Between this video and the Giffords shooting, I think I’m done with politics for a few hours.
Lee
The key point for me is how unconcerned the public is about investigating/prosecuting the war crimes and ending the reign of our imperial wars of aggression in favor of focusing on wikileaks. The former is just a little too abstract for our collective brain I guess. Target one dude, villainize one group, that’s all we know how to do.
FeFiFo
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: maybe by not letting people forget that we killed a million people in an illegal war? Think that might help prevent the next decade-long nightmare we export from this country that everyone in it sleeps through?
@Nutella: completely agree. And it seems the truth of that – that we’re all complicit and responsible – isn’t something that some BJ commentators want to face up to. Apparently its “holier-than-thou” to refuse to turn your head away from that fact.
Apnea
Great comments FeFiFo (and others). Some here really should try to countenance the scenario of a protracted, bloody occupation of US soil by Iraki or Afghani military forces. The scenario is fictitious, but its purpose is straightforwardly pedagogical : who’s willing to bet the coterie of hard-nosed pragmatists around here would suddenly rediscover their sense of moral outrage?
bago
@MikeMc: I am certain that the Afghani friends and families of these dead people knew and understood this “state secret”. So which state is this fact being kept secret from, exactly?
x7o
There is surprisingly little respect for properly investigating the facts of the case, even on this comment stream. To General Stuck, and whoever else has peddled that blatant falsehood that WL has not until recently engaged in any harm minimization measures whatsoever, please read this:
Debunked: “Wikileaks Did Not Redact The Afghanistan War Logs”
Pococurante
I see war, ugly and cruel. But it is war.
Did we not think war is bloody?
They do ugly every day because it is the job WE MADE THEM DO – help their PTSD.
Because which ever you voted we ALL put them there.
ardmoth
yes, yes omnibus. you speak sense.
as do many on this forum. thank god. it is a relief to see people concerned by what the collateral video and cable releases show, which is that there is something very rotten at the core of US government. regardless of how this message got out (an endlessly distracting issue) can we now address what the content reveals? instead of devoting all our energies to persecuting assange and wikileaks, can we be adult about this and say “this is not good, this is not the democracy we want, our state has got out of control. clearly we have gone too far in the direction of secrecy and it has allowed major crimes to occur. how can we change?”
Josh
You are all tools to be used by your favorite media organization. Does no one understand what’s going on?
There was a targeting error. Imagine flying around in an attack helicopter in an open warzone and seeing what even looks like a gun in a person’s hand. Would you not be more inclined to shoot and ask questions later when you know being caught off guard could have you killed? They were not ordered to fire, they asked for clearance. It was only later that they realized these were civilians.
As for the “that guy just ran over a body (giggle),” you have no freaking idea about the psychology of war. In any war, you gain, first of all, a desensitization to death and respect for the dead. Some make jokes that would make a normal civilian cringe, but that’s the way it is. Add to that the national inclination to be trained to hate the enemy and the gunner thinking the corpse was an enemy corpse and it all makes perfect sense. Think, next time. I recommend reading a book from someone who experienced firsthand the Vietnam war, or WWII or the War on Terror. It helps you to understand things more before you judge.
Josh
You are all tools to be used by your favorite media organization. Does no one understand what’s going on?
There was a targeting error. Imagine flying around in an attack helicopter in an open warzone and seeing what even looks like a gun in a person’s hand. Would you not be more inclined to shoot and ask questions later when you know being caught off guard could have you killed? They were not ordered to fire, they asked for clearance. It was only later that they realized these were civilians.
As for the “that guy just ran over a body (giggle),” you have no freaking idea about the psychology of war. In any war, you gain, first of all, a desensitization to death and respect for the dead. Some make jokes that would make a normal civilian cringe, but that’s the way it is. Add to that the national inclination to be trained to hate the enemy and the gunner thinking the corpse was an enemy corpse and it all makes perfect sense. Think, next time. I recommend reading a book from someone who experienced firsthand the Vietnam war, or WWII or the War on Terror. It helps you to understand things more before you judge.
opit
This is a discussion ? There is some ‘reasonable doubt’ that the USA engages in global travesty as a matter of routine ?
What would be reasonable evidence, people ?
http://wikihoax.com/index.php/articles/15-gordon-duff/798-clinton-bastin-nuclear-iran-a-falsehood
“The United States makes false claims of nuclear weapon threats in other nations because US government officials and others do not understand nuclear materials’ and weapons’ production technology and are unwilling to rely on information from those who do.”
“They also do not appreciate the importance of nuclear power to reduce use of fossil fuels.”
“Virtually all information about nuclear weapons from US officials, news media and others is wrong.”
my.opera.com/oldephartte/links/
opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/08/uranium-mining-and-depleted.html
http://www.transcend.org/tms/2010/05/the-npt-and-the-nuclear-power-trap/
economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/India-has-fallen-into-NPT-trap-BJP/articleshow/3453134.cms
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/
opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/11/21-november-security-theatre.html
opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/11/22-november-nato-summit-priorities-of.html
http://www.leadingtowar.com/
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3402300123.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2004/800-mp-bde.htm
Porlock Junior
@Russ:
‘“A lawyer who defended The New York Times over publication of the “Pentagon Papers” during the Vietnam War has condemned Wikileaks for recklessness and assaulting “the very notion of Diplomacy”….”’
OTOH the fellow who gave the Papers to the NYT thinks quite the opposite. Daniel Elsberg says that Assange perfectly well understands Diplomacy and the need for some things to be done in secret — but not all. And what he doesn’t know about anybody in the whistle-blowing business is hardly worth knowing.
Then again, maybe Elsberg was lying when he said that to us last night. You may place your bets on truthfulness where you like.
(Oh, who’s this “us”? The standing-room-only crowd at the public library in the major city I live in: population almost 14,000. He is worth hearing. And worth booking for an appearance some months before the next big-time scandal comes out, as our Lucky Ducky librarians did.)
Brian
@cleek:
thats absolutely true… and the Chinese government’s reaction would look much like Eric Holder’s.