Largest leak in US military history tells the truth on the Afghanistan war

Just like the last time one must note that it is highly problematic that Wiki Leaks submit that many documents on the web. Moreover, it is difficult to verify the authenticity. They lie there without anyone made an effort to assess the individual details and their potential danger. There is no guarantee that the information is true. They can be planted by many different organizations, nations, individuals and others with a vested interest in creating disinformation. The Internet is both a gossip and documentation center for good or evil. There is no doubt that Wiki Leaks can deliver information so quickly that people can form an impression of the events as they are happening. But it's like so much else on the net without shadow of proof.

That alone makes it difficult to comprehend the motives for the leak and thus the credibility of the publication.
 
Oh sweet, we are making wild theories, okay okay, my turn...

Maybe that the US government is leaking this on purpose... I dont know why, midterms? Or maybe to put Obama into trouble? Or to pull the troops out and blame it on a political catastrophe rather than a military one?

Everything is possible...
 
Daily View: Wikileaks and the future of war

Clare Spencer | 10:12 UK time, Monday, 25 October 2010


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Commentators consider the implications to future wars of the release of 400,000 classified US files about the Iraq war by whistleblowing website Wikileaks.
Pratap Chatterjee argues in the Guardian that if the Pentagon had had to disclose details of all casualties in Iraq in real time, the public could have judged 'progress' for itself:
"houldn't the Pentagon have told us what they knew all along, instead of pretending that they didn't know and claiming that everything was going well? If, every day, they had had to tell the public what so many of us experienced of the true human cost of war, perhaps the violence would have ended sooner."
The editorial of Israeli paper Haaretz says the bigger lesson is that it is no longer possible to prevent the release of information concerning illegal activities by soldiers:
"Throughout the democratic world, not to mention other forms of government, armies do anything they can to hide embarrassing information. This is done not infrequently by limiting media coverage of wartime activities, creating a conspiracy of silence among those involved, and issuing indictments in leak cases, even when that's unnecessary. In Israel, the military censor has sometimes been used for such purposes, even if there is no real certainty that state security could be harmed.

"In the Internet age, efforts by the authorities that reflect the view that information belongs to those in power are doomed to fail."​
The Financial Times' editorial suggests [registration required] that this leak signifies a new era of warfare where the public will have to face more of the ugly side of war:
"[G]overnments should realise that the information revolution which spawned Wikileaks is not about to be rolled back. Technology makes it ever harder to shield populations from the consequences of armed conflicts. If there was a time when the horrors could be hidden, it is over.

"...Increasing transparency on the battlefield means that the public must be convinced both of the necessity for war, and of the cause being fought for, if the fight is to be sustained. The ebbing of support for Iraq was a consequence of the cavalier way that war was entered into.

"Greater transparency may ultimately make it harder to go to war. But it means the public should be willing to endure the demands of wars they do accept."​
The former chairman of the Government's Cobra Intelligence Group and head of international terrorism and Iraq for the Joint Intelligence Committee, Colonel Richard Kemp says in the Times [registration required] that the logs create a security risk:
"Careful analysis of some of the reports could very likely enable informants, who may still be vulnerable, to be identified. And recruitment and cultivation of human intelligence sources remains crucial to our operations against the Taleban in Afghanistan today. With a clear understanding of the savagery directed by insurgents against exposed informants in that country, the Wikileaks publications will give many potential informants second thoughts about forming an intelligence relationship with Isaf [the International Security Assistance Force].

"The increasing culture of military leaks is taking us towards the point where operational security is becoming nearly impossible. It might be possible to attempt to justify the publication of the Iraq war logs if they had shone the spotlight on some monumental cover-up, revelation of which was in the public interest. But they did not. Like the Afghanistan leaks in July, they revealed little that was previously unknown."​
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says in the Independent that attacks on Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, are designed to divert attention from the findings:
"Bad boy Julian Assange, the pretty, blondish founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks was hugely admired when he uncovered oppressors and political chicanery in places like China and Kenya, but now he takes on Western duplicity and crimes. Can't have that. This spawn of Beelzebub, say our masters, a traitor whose insolence is a crime against the secretive states of the US and UK. Disregard the pique and dyspepsia of officialdom. It is a distraction, smoke from fires deliberately started to stop us seeing what lies before us."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/10/daily_view_wikileaks_and_the_f.html
 
fag

1. British Cigarette
2. Homosexual
3. Short for faggot, a bundle of wood, once used to burn homosexuals at the stake in less enlightened times, which is where the insult comes from.
4. What younger boys at private/boarding school are refferred to by their seniors. 'fags' have to do stupid jobs like warming toilet seats. Roald Dahl was one.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fag
 
Media disinformation is nothing new. The truth is rarely spoken
I think that this episode clearly shows that the disinformation seen in the media, is not nearly so dangerous or expensive in terrms of money, death and human misery, as that diseminated by the government. Whether it be proactive disinformation (propaganda) or just neglecting to tell the truth.
 
Seems that after the Abu Ghraib fiasco more of the abuse was simply conducted by proxy, by giving them to Iraqi security. Turn a blind eye and they don't even need to report it, but even when a report was made these were only circulated back to the corrupt Iraqis anyway.
 
It is typical of the unfortunate development in recent years, when international humanitarian law and human rights conventions have been undermined, while the struggle against terrorism is intensified. I think it is also disturbing to see the debate that arose about the legitimacy of using rough interrogation techniques and the apparent acceptance of certain forms of torture and mistreatment.

We have been quite inventive when it comes to the development of invisible torture. But torture is not limited to dictatorships and totalitarian states: on the contrary, the major Western democracies, France, Britain and the United States has been among the pioneers in developing the so-called "clean techniques" - torture methods that leave no readily visible traces on the victim. But the Western world has not exactly had great success in our intelligence strategy by sacrificing human rights. If we had, we would see hordes of guilty terrorists behind bars. Once you have authorized torture, you have started terrible things that will propagate throughout the system. It's easy to start but hard to stop. We see this in the U.S. now. Those who have a professional approach to intelligence, is leaving the intelligence community. And those that remain are those who are corrupted by the new standards.

By using 'clean technology’ we deprive the victim’s credibility with the community that should have taken action against the assault. Without visible signs of torture the victim becomes unable to communicate pain, and it creates a cynically calculated distance between the victims and the community, a distance that gives refuge to state legitimacy. Once you introduce torture in your intelligence system you can only be sure of one thing: that it undermines the legal system. One can not distinguish true from false, and eventually the entire system is based on rumors and shadows. There is no hocus pocus by good intelligence, but it requires investment in human competence and morality.

One of the biggest mistakes is that we think democracy makes us weak. It does not. When we have public confidence and cooperation, competent intelligence practice, functioning legal systems, we are strong.
 
There is a huge moral and practical advantage if we can maintain our world image as being "The Good Guys", Yep,...it takes time,... but then again so do most winning strategies.
 
WIKILEAKS - THE SMEAR AND THE DENIAL
PART 1 - THE SMEAR


“Journalists don't like WikiLeaks”, Hugo Rifkind notes in The Times, but “the people who comment online under articles do... Maybe you've noticed, and been wondering why. I certainly have.” (Hugo Rifkind Notebook, ‘Remind me. It's the red one I mustn't press, right?,’ The Times, October 26, 2010)

Rifkind is right. The internet has revealed a chasm separating the corporate media from readers and viewers......

Rifkind describes WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as “a frighteningly amoral figure”. In truth, journalists find Assange a frighteningly +moral+ figure. Someone willing to make an enemy of the world’s leading rogue state in order to expose the truth about the horrors it has inflicted on Afghanistan and Iraq is frightening to the compromised, semi-autonomous employees of corporate power. Assange’s courage is the antidote to their poison..........

The rising level of dissent really is wonderful news. It is a sign that a public empowered by the internet is beginning to seriously challenge the propaganda, lies and smears of the “responsible” media that make mass killing possible. Life will never be the same again - the Burnses, Baronets and Rifkinds +are+ going to be challenged, tested and thwarted at every turn by ordinary readers who do not accept that truth and human life should be subordinated to privilege and power.

Part 2 will follow shortly...
 
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I believe, like Wikileaks, that good government requires accountability that there should be external checks to governmental powers. This requires freedom of information. My problem with Wikileaks is that they seek for themselves what they wish to deny others - they believe that they should have no accountability and that there should be no external checks on their "responsible leaking". Why should I trust Assange with this power?

I understand that as a very young organization who is in the role of David against many Goliaths, they may feel that they need to take certain liberties to function and that they may not have the organizational maturity to resolve the inherent contradiction of their fundamental ideology with their own organization, but I do hope that they are thinking very hard about it...
 
http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/members/seehund-15037.htmlWatch that Seehund, that's dangerous thinking... What's next? A government respecting moral values?

And seriously, can someone give me an example on why we should keep Wikileaks on a leash?
How is this information dangerous?

For me, telling the truth is a good thing. We have to deal with this truth. And how can we do that if we dont know how things are...

And we have soldiers overseas fighting in a foreign country. We have to know how is the situation there.

And all these government cover-ups are a HUGE source of trouble. When the military cover up abuses done by their soldiers... Then the enemy will use that to hire more troops and wage war on us, sometimes in our own territory.

And 14 years old little girl gets rapped by a brute disguised as a soldier in Iraq, the next day a train is blowing up in the UK or a metro station is gazed in Tokyo...

This is how the world is. It's all connected. The old way to see the world have to disappear.

We needs journalists, to tell us the truth. Not these boots with cameras they sent in the beginning of the war...

But the problem is that I think that Wikileaks is part of this "boots with cameras"... I dont trust them at all. I have more trust in a purely commercial channel like Al Jazeera than Wikileaks...
 
Professional journalists are supposed to balance the needs and rights of the readers with the needs and rights of their sources. They also are trained to consider the rights of the subject. Professional journalists will balance these needs and rights differently from case to case.

Wikileaks could have blanked out all those names of Afghani "sources" in the reports before publishing them, but they did not. They did not even consider their obligation to the Afghani sources in their stated reasons why they published those names. All their defenses had to do with the goals of Wikileaks. There was nothing like "we thought about it, but decided for XYZ reason that we needed to leave those names in". While it certainly is good that they are being more thoughtful about the relase of the next documents, no where did anyone take responsibility for their actions with the documents already released, no apology, no acknowledgement

I do believe that by publishing the names of the civilian Afghani sources, they put those people's lives in danger, and in the future this will decrease the likelihood of co-operation against the Taliban.

How is information dangerous? Some information is dangerous because of association with other information.

Al Jazeera? How do you know that they tell the absolute truth.
You know that a common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole. You need information from several sources before you can conclude what is most likely to be the truth.

Follow those who seek the truth, but stay away from those who claim to have found it ;)
 
Maybe, but I dont know if it's a good thing.

Journalists have to tell us the truth. If we make them respect their sources, if we make them think about the interests of other people... Their ability to tell us the truth will evolve. Today, they will hide some truth, the next day they will be spreading official lies knowing that they are lies...

I say that journalists shouldnt care. They have to tell us the truth, we have to know.

And I know that they have to protect their sources, but sometimes, you have to "sacrifice" your source when it's worth it. If the story is big enough, you can pull your sources out of the job. You have done enough, time to retire, this is big enough...

From a systemic point of view, journalists have to be free. And I mean completely free...

If they are the ears and eyes of the population in a democratic system, then they deserve to know. You have to remember that by definition our citizens are supposed to be wise, bright, intelligent and honest. And if you think that the population is stupid... Corrupt and criminal... Then you are not a democrat. And this definition is the same for foreign populations... We are not Nazis thinking that our people are better than the others.

I know that it's hard to believe and that reality can slap you very hard in the nose when you act like it's true... But this is the ideal we have to believe in.
 
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