Originally Posted by Moloch

I won't argue with you on the most of what you've written, but concerning corruption in Europe...do you really think that a member of the parliament or government can make his/her decisions without bias if he/she is, at the same time, a part of the corporate management in a major enterprise? I don't know about Sweden/Scandinavia in general (though I imagine it isn't all that different from our country), but here in Germany most of the ministers (and many members of the parliament) have jobs in multiple enterprises, they are either part of the management or of a supervisory board.
From what I know, in the UK it's even worse, not to mention Italy and the like...
Corruption is everywhere, and there's little that can be done about it.

Do you really believe that a member of parliament or the government will make decisions favorable to him or the company where he is on the board without someone in the parliamentary system would wonder why he took such a decision?

In addition to legislating, the members of the Danish parliament have the task of controlling the government. This happens primarily by members of parliament and committees who ask questions to ministers. It is inherently particular the opposition in parliament, who see it as an important task to monitor the government.

In Denmark, citizens have the opportunity to complain to the Parliamentary Ombudsman if they consider that an authority has violated the law or made other mistakes in the handling of a case. The Ombudsman is elected by parliament, but is not subject to the parliament, and has the task of controlling state, municipal and other public authorities. The Ombudsman can also initiate a case on its own initiative and make a study of an authority's decisions.

You also have the free press as public watchdogs that are not accustomed to failing to pursue a case if they believe that there is something that stinks.

I suspect that there is also a parliamentary monitoring of the Bundestag.

I'm not naive; I know corruption is taking place. But it divides on whether there is one rotten egg in the basket or whole chicken farm is contaminated. Fact is that corruption at the level LeMask claim does not take place in our part of the world.

I don’t agree with you there's little that can be done about it

More openness, transparency procedures, monitoring mechanisms, evaluation and revision of our politicians are the key words behind the fight against corruption. And it works in most countries in Europe.

But I am no oracle. I have studied politics in college so that is why I believe that this is so.

//Micha

LeMask; your statements in bold.

First, information has a value. Some information have a ridiculous value, like if I told you that tomorrow the sun will rise. This is useless information...

Yes, all information has a value. If you now tell me that the sun raises on Christmas Island at 6:06 no value? And if I take a walk on the beach and I meet one of the locals who tells me that there are almost always many people on the beach until about 3:00 pm tomorrow. It may well be said to be harmless information? But if I pass these two innocent information’s to my intelligence service, Then I know now that if I want to insert a seal team at Christmas Island it's best after 3:00 pm and before 6:06 pm. Oops! Information of no value was put together and suddenly the information got intelligence value.

Maybe that he sent them everything he could leak, and that some useless/classified materials got out... but the journalists are professionals, they know their job and they know what have value for the public they are trying to inform.

The intelligence officers are professionals, they know their job and they know what have value for the soldiers' safety in the Field.

And yes, everybody in the US army is a volunteer. But the will of a human being rises and drops with time... After a tour or two, I'm not sure if it's always true.

Just ask them to volunteer before every mission... Is it too much to ask for?

So if there's a fire in your house and you call the fire brigade then the Fireman is allowed to say there are too many flames in the fire so I will not help you? You still don’t get it; do you? For the third time the military is not a democracy. You do what you have been told. It’s either their way or the highway. You can not just pick the cherries and then just leave when it suits you.

I admit taht I dont know much about Europe and Eastern Europe...

Self-knowledge is a good thing. Then you should probably not make such statements as..

And Western countries are well aware of this situation, in fact, they built it. They give money to these governments to fight "fundamentalists"... And these governments jail the people who ask for more justice and less corruption...

And then finally…

There is a communication problem somewhere...

It must be damn shame since you have a four years education in information and communication.

//Micha

Well Micha,
I spoke about the value of information for a reason. What you said is absolutely true, but it's not the point I was heading to.

I said that the journalists have a right to know... Maybe not everything, but A LOT. Because they have an important role in a democracy. Their role is to inform the people.

Now, the journalists will have access to a lot of information. Some of this data have a value for the public and a value for the enemies of the concerned parties.

The good thing is that the value the public gives to this data is often not the same value the "enemies" (let's say the Taliban) give...

So, in a few words... The public dont need or want the information the Taliban wants/needs...
Example: These "mission templates" whatever they are... I dont think that this kind of information have any value to the public in his mission to preserve democracy... Even if it's very valuable to the terrorists...
So, the journalists should have destroyed this data... As their mission is to inform the public and not inform the public and the Taliban.

The government is hiding some facts to preserve moral etc... And this is wrong. If there is 1000dead soldiers, dont report 25... If civilians are killed, dont say that every body is happy enjoying ice cream... etc...

Because if you do that, you treat the public as just taxpayers... Cows giving milk to the man...

The government have to care about the public, his money, safety, his informed decisions too... Everything...

The will of the government is the will of the public. If it's the will of the government controling the information to not let the public develop his own will... We have a name for this, it's called a dictatorship...

Wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Indeed on your last call, though I am glad Wikileaks exists as organisation.

Rattler

I'm reading now an article where they say that Wikileaks leaked the names of some informers in Afghanistan (local afghans collaborating with the Coalition)...

And this is a good example of information with no value to the public and endangering the war effort.

I hope they are working on this... It's bad journalism work here, I know that the amount of data is huge, but this is wrong...

LeMask, my old friend.

This article was published in one of the major Danish newspapers some years ago. It was written by a journalist who had interviewed the Danish soldiers in Iraq.

I quote from the newspaper.

“The Danish politician sends us to Iraq to perform a task without giving us the equipment which we need to do our job; says the soldier. Among other things, we lack some electronic equipment. The soldiers will soon be equipped with a sort of radio transmitters in their vehicles, known as jammers that can block radio waves around the vehicles. These jammers will cost the Danish taxpayers 40 million. which the military would not use if there wasn’t a need for the equipment.”

If we now imagine that you are sitting at home in your armchair and reading this article in the newspaper, what do you think? Do you understand what is written and if you have to evaluate the text, then what is your conclusion?


To all of you, who read this post, please do not respond. I only wish LeMask's comments.

//Micha.

Originally I was on the fence about the Wikileak situation. I was originally angry at the pentagon for trying to hide or cover up many of the not-so-nice things that goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan concerning US forces and the Wiki leaks was their comeuppance for keeping for its policy of CYA.

I feel I was wrong and I have since changed my mind.

While I still think the DOD still plays the country for a bunch of idiots, the release of names of Afghan informants was a serious breach of military protocol. It puts people trying to help us at very severe risk and makes others who might be willing to help much more reluctant to do so.

And sure enough, today the Taliban threatened to behead anyone they caught on that list. A direct result of the irresponsible behavior of both the leaker and the website operators.

Originally Posted by mmarsh

And sure enough, today the Taliban threatened to behead anyone they caught on that list. A direct result of the irresponsible behavior of both the leaker and the website operators.

And that´s why classified information is classified

Originally Posted by Micha

And that´s why classified information is classified

Not always. Sometimes things are classified because its embarrassing or politically damaging, not because they pose any real security risk. The previous administration was infamous for classifying its dirty secrets.

But in this case, while some of the information was hardly a big secret (like Pakistani ISI actually helping the Taliban...like duh!) other bits like specific US tactics, and the names of informants etc, had no business in the public eye.


The founder of Wikileaks is a radical left-wing crackpot crusader who views his anti-establishment war as a crusade, and he its Messiah. He actually has a good point on many issues including Afghanistan but like all radicals he thinks the ends justify the means and if that means putting people into extreme danger then he thinks its absolutely justified to do so as long as it serves "the cause". Like all megolmanics that have power, He's very cavalier with other people's lives, but very protective of his own. This guy optimizes the word "megalomaniac".

In this guys's head posting the Normandy Invasion plans a few days before D-DAY would be justifiable.