Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

^ is this really the finger we want on the red button?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/opinion/27exum.html?_r=1&ref=global

this one's got it all really - starts off with the popular "SIMPSONS DID IT, ASSHOLE", flows nicely into putting-the-troops-in-danger fear mongering, mocks assange for not being pragmatic or subservient enough, lolsy i-actually-served-in-the-military-you-don't-understand-the-nuances-of-war butthurtedness, some tasteful minimizing of civilian casualties, then ends with assailing the 'contemptible' person who leaked the cables

By muddying the waters between journalism and activism, and by throwing his organization into the debate on Afghanistan with little apparent regard for the hard moral choices and dearth of good policy options facing decision-makers, he is being as reckless and destructive as the contemptible soldier or soldiers who leaked the documents in the first place.

lol yeah unlike the Pentagon Papers which in no way conflated journalism & activism

Does the timing of all this sound suspicious to anyone? Just a few weeks ago there was that huge story w Manning and supposedly 150,000 cables. And now Obama has suddenly announced a planned surge of 30,000, using this very recent new leak for support.

hasn't obama justified his previous surge of 30000 troops with this leak, rather than lobbied for another surge? i haven't really read through what he said, but his statement seemed to be contextualising his response so far.

I bowed out when I lost track of what you guys were arguing about, but the start of today's Times front page is basically everything I was trying to say in my posts upthread:

Hundreds of Afghan lives have been put at risk by the leaking of 90,000 intelligence documents because the files identify informants working with NATO forces.

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their father's name.

...

A senior official at the Afghan Foreign Ministry, who declined to be named(!), said "The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans. The US is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the US/international access to the uncensored views of Afghans."

Must say I'd be surprised if WL has been *that* inept - I assumed it would take a bit of detective work to unmask sources, which WL is obviously unqualified to assess, but according to this maybe not. Nevertheless, I got shouted down because WL causing harm is apparently only an issue with troop movements or once-in-seventy-years secrets like D-Day planning. But then all these guys are only Afghans I guess.

you weren't shouted down, people just disagreed that secrecy was "usually" to protect a source. the military is routinely secret and far more of these logs involve protection of military mistakes than protection of sources (ie, nyt finds "dozens" of informants, but there are hundreds of civilian casualty reports). wikileaks shouldn't be censured for hypothetical potential harm but where people can show they've put people at risk, sure, it's fair to criticise them.

But then all these guys are only Afghans I guess.

oh, please.

http://griffinarmament.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/loose-lips-sink-ships-1.jpg

I find it interesting that the Afghan official says that the US is 'morally and legally responsible' for resultant harm done, not WikiLeaks.

well, THEIR intel was compromised

If you keep shit secret, you should kind of be responsible for the fallout if it gets leaked.

Afghan official otm - it's the US ship that leaked, tighter ship means Wikileaks never gets hold of the info

Good points all.

Tim Rutten complains.

hey since these cables are from a few years ago, those afghan intel contacts might already be dead. there's always a bright side!

LMK who's responsible for the dead civilians killed in our precision attacks (then Bam can do another press dinner joke about it)

get ready for everybody to pile on your Morbz, you know that the actual war is a-ok, it's reporting on it that's unconscionable

From that NYT op-ed:

Third, the site asserts that the Pentagon employs a secret task force of highly trained commandos charged with capturing or killing insurgent leaders. I suspect that in the eyes of most Americans, using special operations teams to kill terrorists is one of the least controversial ways in which the government spends their tax dollars.

That, folks, is a flawlessly-executed triple axel, getting from "insurgent leaders" to "terrorists" in two sentences. Hey, dickhead, someone fighting to expel the US Army from his or her own country is a lot of things, but none of them is "a terrorist."

fighting to expel the US Army from his or her own country is a lot of things, but none of them is "a terrorist."

depends on their methods imo

there's no great term for 'em: pretty sure they also want to 'expel' the afghan govt as well as the US army, which *would* make them terrorists (cf deliberate attacks on civilians), but then of course it's an illegitimate govt. (kind of a qed.)

guys anybody who's against us anywhere ever is a terrorist, do keep up

It's odd how the word is diverging from 'terror' - the Japanese described the Aussie Greenpeacers who boarded one of their whaling vessels as 'terrorists', and it just sounded ludicrous

If this has been posted already, my apologies. the NYT notes its methods

the horrorists are gonna sneak in & really cause trouble while everybody's attention is diverted by the terrorists

Frankly, I'm more scared of the startleists.

hasn't obama justified his previous surge of 30000 troops with this leak, rather than lobbied for another surge?

So he has. I really should've RTFA.

mentalists are worse imo

xxxp Amis is in agreement aerosmith

i wonder what wikileaks man's pubes look like

Amis's horrorism doesn't not have enough of the Mummy lighting shit on fire with his heat vision tho

wonder what amis' pubes look like

http://rightwingnews.com/2010/07/the-cia-should-kill-julian-assange

Holy shit – I thought I'd seen it all. That site is a cloaca.

agree we should kill him, but not for any sense of "he deserves it." He has proven himself our enemy who has done damage to us, ergo, we should kill him. That's all the justification I need.

that url looks like an onion creation. er maybe collegehumor.com creation

lol that site is awesome

was there anything politically damaging yet to come out of this recent 'facebook leak'?

From Admiral Mike Mullen's Twitter:

@thejointstaff Meant what I said: Mr. Assange & his source might already have on their hands the blood of our troops or that of our Afghan partners.

ok what the fuck is going on here, with aerosmith's post?

there's an obvious case for leaking, but i think this

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/wikileaks+damage+already+done+says+human+rights+group/3727677

and what ismael posted sort of doesn't really merit a lol censorship post?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/30/wikileaks-data-suspected-army-source

So we've gone from "This is isn't anything new/This won't change anything" to "Wikileaks could have blood on its hands" in less than a week. Wonder if Wikileaks is on their way to being named an enemy combatant.

Doesn't even have to be under the targeted assassination regime iirc

xp, just pointing out the obvious but you can release information that doesn't give readers a new window into the war and still be responsible for people's deaths by including specific intel that gives away informants names and troop information, obv obv obv.

guns don't kill people, wikileaks do

I don't know if you're being facetious, but I think it's okay if people voice concern that apparently WikiLeaks did not redact all the names of sources in the WikiLeaks documents and those sources are, at least acc to Zabihullah Mujahid, going to be killed.

:) I was being a little facetious

So we've gone from "This is isn't anything new/This won't change anything" to "Wikileaks could have blood on its hands" in less than a week. Wonder if Wikileaks is on their way to being named an enemy combatant.

Ismael on this thread has always been clear about his concern for the safety of the sources.

Thanks. I did start out mostly concerned about the implications for military/policing operations there, because who'd talk on the basis of anything other than 100% confidentiality? At least you can make a coherent argument against that, or that openness is more important, even if I'd consider that naive.

It was only when I read details of a few specific leaks that I realised that actual individuals might be traceable and got gravely concerned. Whatever your position on transparency of govt activities, I don't see how you can be in favour of publishing in that sort of detail and maintain normal human sympathy.

Not for one fucking minute did I think WL would actually be publishing people's names and addresses. I'm horrified by how this is panning out.

TONY JONES: Well, not according to the Pentagon. They're accusing you of revealing the identities of Afghan informants and putting their lives at risk. Afghan's president, Karzai, agrees with that he says 'the breach is extremely irresponsible and shocking.' Your response to those comments.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well we have yet to see clear evidence of that. I mean the London Times is also making this allegation today and in a quite disingenuous way, for example they mention some informers' names they say they had found and with a headline Afghan informer already dead, but when you actually read the story what you see is in fact that individual that they're mentioning died two years ago.

So there's a little bit of media manipulation occurring here. In terms of the Afghan government, it's in their interests to sort of play up the irresponsible, irresponsibility of the United States that they say has been involved in sort of collecting and permitting this data to release, be released.

Now we contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the White House did not accept that request.

http://jotman.blogspot.com/2010/07/white-house-or-wikileaks-to-blame-for.html

We have no reason to doubt that Julian Assange was telling the truth about the request.

Really? None?

I can think of a dozen reasons why to distrust his account (motive - it passes the responsibility for any leak, his account which suggests he was himself trying to cut down on names + stuff and never mentioned collaboration with the White House before, a good reason not to want to speak to the WH; because they were considering trying him under espionage laws, etc, etc) but the primary reason to distrust it is since when would the White House give up an opportunity to censor classified information? If I believe anything about executive power, I believe that the moment someone called to say, "I have a leak, do you want to look over it and tell me what I shouldn't leak," they'll be all over that.

those really aren't reasons not to take his word on that imo - reason not to take his word on it would be "evidence that he is lying"

Well, let's say he's no more trustworthy than any other public figure (which Assage is now, whether he likes it or not).