DoD Study Contradicts Charges Against WikiLeaks 228
Voline writes "Last Summer, after WikiLeaks released 90,000 leaked internal US military documents in their Afghan War Log, Pentagon officials went on a media offensive against WikiLeaks, accusing it of having the 'blood on Its hands' of American soldiers and Afghan collaborators who are named in the documents. The charge has echoed through the mainstream media (and Internet comment threads) ever since. Now, CNN is reporting that after a thorough Pentagon review, 'WikiLeaks did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded.' And, according to an unnamed NATO official, 'there has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks. Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?"
Hmmmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?
Thats not how FUD & propaganda work.
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lol, I would love to see the UK try and sue the US military for libel, that would be pretty funny.
Who Cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, who cares? Assange has an agenda, and so do we. If we can point out Wikileaks' bias and colr them as they try to do to us, than all the better.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, who cares? Assange has an agenda, and so do we. If we can point out Wikileaks' bias and colr them as they try to do to us, than all the better.
Hey, wait a minute. You're not us; you're them!
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
We? Please don't include me on your team.
Yes, pretty much everyone has an agenda. Having an agenda is not bad. I'd say that having an agenda of holding governments accountable for their actions is a good agenda.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bias? You can't avoid bias. Sometimes bias is helpful, sometimes it is not. Sometimes bias is part of being human.
Biased people can be right; they can also be wrong. To attack someone on the basis of bias is to avoid confronting the substance of his argument.
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my agenda is to create a totalitariam system of grammar control on the Internet. We will have a 3-strikes law for people who use then/than incorrectly.
How many strikes for improper capitalization?
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We will have a three-strikes law for people who spell totalitarian incorrectly.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:5, Funny)
My agendum is to create an anarchist system of anonymous bad spellers on the internet. We won't make to many mistakes, just enough to piss of the grammar nazis.
It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Informative)
Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?"
No.
Rational discourse doesn't sell.
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Interesting)
And more accurately, while this will get extremely little to no press, we'll still constantly be hearing character assassinate stories. Crap like, "I would totally be behind wikileaks but I hear Assange is a total tool", as if the only way someone can support what an organization does is if the members of the organization are saints.
These kind of comments are no less trolls/flamebaits than comments like "I'd totally use OpenBSD but Theo de Raadt is a meanie.", yet I see them modded insightful every time there's a wikileaks story.
It's the nature of the beast. (Score:5, Insightful)
People wouldn't change their behaviour even if X was different. They're just using X as an easy rationalisation for their existing bias.
Re:It's the nature of the beast. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not. They don't care, and they don't have any reason to care. Until such time as they have a (personally relevant) reason to care, it will be an academic matter to them. It's like debating whether quantum uncertainty makes the universe non-deterministic in nature. It's okay to make completely bullshit comments, because almost nobody who's doing any of the commentary needs to care.
Intellectually speaking, I know that WikiLeaks is an important resource. However, as someone who's never felt like he had any control over his own life (with family and others nearby the ones who have more power, not the government or corporations), the idea of having a place to turn to when you need to expose something of world-shattering import is foreign. Because the first I've heard of it is when I had no power, I'll probably always be predisposed to say, "Yes, underdogs need protecting." If the first time I heard about it, I had power, I would probably see it as a threat to power. What it is, however, is a (non-governmental) judicial mechanism, designed to only affect people who have, in fact, done something wrong.
If the only commentary we heard on the subject was people who were actually affected by Wikileaks, it would be pretty easy to notice biases--group A was happy that plans to the Death Star leaked, group B wanted to use the existence of the leaked plans to run a smear campaign against the Empire, group C are afraid they'll lose their jobs because it got out (or worse), group D is thinking that this might be very useful for leaking many other nefarious plots which they already sense, but cannot prove, are ongoing.
But we're not hearing only those people. We're hearing a lot of myth and speculation from people who are presumed to be knowledgeable, but who are paid to be less than factual. And we're philosophizing like it doesn't matter, because to most people, it doesn't. For that reason, popular opinion shouldn't matter on the subject, but it does. I guess. For some reason.
In any case, let Wikileaks do what they're there for. If it didn't make sense, to them and the people who use them, it wouldn't be there.
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly what part of "there has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks" are you having trouble with?
This seems like a perfect example of what khasim (1285) just said in the sibling comment right above yours.
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don't bother. he wants to believe.
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People wouldn't change their behaviour even if X was different. They're just using X as an easy rationalisation for their existing bias.
Actually, it has gotten a great deal of press, but it is a bit incorrect. Wikileaks did disclose the names of several Afghanistan operatives, potentially putting them at risk of retaliation by the Taliban.
Exactly what part of "there has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks" are you having trouble with?
Maybe he is just illustrating the principle.
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Exactly what part of "there has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks" are you having trouble with?
I don't know about him, but I'm having trouble with the "written August 16" part. Seeing as how that was roughly a month after the leak, and it's now 3 months later, it would be nice to see some up-to-date info on the situation.
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Insightful)
here has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks
The word that was left out was "yet".
On the other hand the Pentagon killed half a million civilians (collateral damage) in war based on false premises. Sorry, Assange wins.
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand the Pentagon killed half a million civilians (collateral damage) in war based on false premises. Sorry, Assange wins.
War on false premises? We are are talking about Afghanistan here, right?
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's referring to the war in Iraq I believe. It's not totally irrelevant if his point is that the Pentagon/DoD/US government/whatever you call it has done much worse than what Assange/Wikileaks are accused of. It doesn't make endangering people's lives justified, but the irony of the Pentagon talking about morality is just unbelievable. It really sends the message that it's OK if the Pentagon do something, but if someone else does a fraction of what they do then it's a scandal.
Also, the actual number of dead civilians is 100k I believe, not half a million. Note also that this number includes all civilians who died as a consequence of the war regardless of who directly killed them. All these 100k civilians were not shot/bombed by US troops, they may have been killed by Talibans. I'm not sure if this number includes people who died as an indirect consequence of the war, for example people who died of illness/hunger because the war may have made medication/food unavailable. If not, then the total number of civilian war casualties is higher and may in fact reach half a million.
And by the way, it's not entirely unfair to pin these 100k deaths on the Pentagon/US gov. since it doesn't take a genius to realize that a war like that one is going to cause so many deaths one way or another (they knew Talibans would not mind shooting in crowds and hiding among civilians), and of course it's common sense that a war will cause a shortage of medical supplies, especially in a third-world country. I remember quite a few European countries (the one that comes first to mind is France) were warning the Bush administration that such a high death toll would result from this war.
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It's difficult to make a decent point if that point is underlined by false information and a clear lack of understanding of the subject. Isn't that one of the criticisms of the US Military and Government?
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the actual number of dead civilians is 100k I believe, not half a million. Note also that this number includes all civilians who died as a consequence of the war regardless of who directly killed them. All these 100k civilians were not shot/bombed by US troops, they may have been killed by Talibans. I'm not sure if this number includes people who died as an indirect consequence of the war, for example people who died of illness/hunger because the war may have made medication/food unavailable. If not, then the total number of civilian war casualties is higher and may in fact reach half a million.
The Wiki has a good summary [wikipedia.org]: There are 100k direct violent deaths from the war that were reported in the press; the indirect deaths (from hunger/illness/war-induced anarchy) are 150k, 600k or 1,000k depending on the survey.
And it is entirely fair to pin the deaths on the US government. You are begging the question - you assume that the invasion had to take place at all. (And even apart from that, Cheney and the Pentagon promised it would be a cakewalk and that the 'liberated' Iraqis would greet them with flowers...)
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Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_laden#Criminal_charges [wikipedia.org]
It wasn't until after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the US ending the bombing and providing evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This offer was rejected by George W Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable with Bush responding that "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
If it were Pakistan... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this training had been happening in Waziristan, would you still support going to war over failure of extradition?
We destroyed Afghanistan to make us feel better about 9/11, plain and simple. Afghanistan was an easy scapegoat for our own intelligence failures and bullshit foreign policy that contributed to 9/11 in the first place. It's a country that hasn't had a strong central government in decades, because every time one forms, a foreign power invades and dismantles it.
That's why Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Pakistan is home to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as well, but so far no American government has been dumb enough to consider invading a nuclear power that borders two other nuclear powers. North Korea's government is batshit insane but we don't invade because they have nukes, as well as their proximity to China. Pakistan's government is enormously corrupt and has close ties with terrorist organizations, but we don't invade because they have a nuke. Now, on two of Iran's borders, America has unilaterally invaded simply because we could without fear of repercussions. If you were an Iranian, what would you rather have? Nukes or a foreign army occupying your homeland?
If American planners are dumb enough to pursue terrorist organizations into third world nations that barely have electricity or running water every time there's a successful terror attack, then the War of the Flea tactic will destroy our economy within two decades. We're already spending one trillion a year on warfare and weapons research. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interest, will cost well over two trillion dollars according to the CBO by 2014.
If we're serious about ending the use of terrorism as a military tactic, the first thing we should do is stop using terrorism as a military tactic. Stop threatening sovereign nations with invasion if they don't capitulate to our demands. Use international law to address international issues through peaceful and diplomatic means as outlined in the UN charter we signed. Stop giving money and weapons to Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia until they all sit down and settle their diplomatic relations. That will involve denying all aid to Israel until they formally agree to stop colonizing Palestinian land with settlements, and sign a treaty to accept the 1967 borders in exchange for full diplomatic relations with the Arab nations. Then we should push Israel and India and Pakistan to sign the NPT and open themselves up to international inspections.
Anything else is just pissing in the wind.
Re:If it were Pakistan... (Score:4, Insightful)
If this training had been happening in Waziristan, would you still support going to war over failure of extradition?
I didn't say I supported it. I said it wasn't on false pretexts. I saw the spokesman for the Taliban on TV refusing to hand over Bin Ladin. If the Taliban hadn't done that, they would still be the main power in Afghanistan right now. Pakistan would have handed Bin Ladin over if the training had happened in Waziristan, otherwise there would be a new regime there, too. Nukes wouldn't have protected them. I fully believe Bush would have invaded anyway.
North Korea's government is batshit insane but we don't invade because they have nukes, as well as their proximity to China.
What do you think happened in all the time before they got nukes? We don't invade because they will destroy Seoul with conventional weapons before we have time to stop them. Their military is not weak. There is also some question as to whether they could deliver a nuclear weapon. It's one thing to make a big explosion, it's another thing to stick it on a plane.
If American planners are dumb enough to pursue terrorist organizations into third world nations that barely have electricity or running water every time there's a successful terror attack, then the War of the Flea tactic will destroy our economy within two decades.
I'm not in favor of military spending, but this is either a joke, or you can't do math. Even if you put the cost of the of both wars at $500 billion a year, that is still less than 5% of GDP, certainly manageable for any developed country. The only reason we would go bankrupt is if we try to finance the war AND try to buy all the stuff at home that we want (healthcare, etc). Choices, choices. But you're being dishonest if you say that the war will destroy our economy.
That will involve denying all aid to Israel until they formally agree to stop colonizing Palestinian land with settlements, and sign a treaty to accept the 1967 borders in exchange for full diplomatic relations with the Arab nations.
I love how people always have these simple solutions that involve only Israel. Really? Suppose Israel did accept the 1967 borders, and stopped colonizing Palestinian land. How exactly are you going to stop the Palestinians from launching rockets across the border? That's the key to the entire problem.
Then we should push Israel and India and Pakistan to sign the NPT and open themselves up to international inspections.
India will never get rid of their nuclear weapons as long as they feel threatened by China. You need to solve that problem first.
Re:If it were Pakistan... (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, I love your handle. You're like a jar of peanut butter labeled "A Jar of Peanut Butter."
Second, you fail at understanding the first goal of geopolitics: maintain order. No one is afraid of Pakistan or North Korea getting a nuke to the United States. That's as likely as you running across a clue and knowing what to do with it. What they are afraid of is destabilizing nations that have nuclear weapons. If you greenlighted India to run over Pakistan, what's the likelihood of a hardline Muslim in the Pakistani army getting a couple of nukes across the border? What are the chances that could make it's way to Chechnya? What's the likelihood that China would make a deal with OPEC to buy all of their oil, if OPEC decided to stop selling to any Western allied nation? Would Russia side with China? Would China rush more troops to the border and accidentally provoke India into war? That's a dangerous game no one wants to play. Well, except for people like you; maybe Sarah Palin, or some other vapid soccer moms who dabble in politics.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interest, will cost well over two stimulous packages that don't seem to be doing much of what was claimed when they were passes. The economy will not be ruined as war spending doesn't destroy the economy when they don't seem to be using it to stop other spending.
You'll have to translate that into a coherent statement if you expect me to respond.
The only countries we threatened with invasion in the last 40 years have been invaded (with the exception of Libya that was simply bombed into submission) so it's not like we A: threaten them often, or B: have any success in threatening them seeing how we had to go to war each time it's happened.
US CIA and military interventions and deployments since 1970
1970: Vietnam, Cambodia
1973: Afghanistan, Iraq
1976: Argentina
1978: Afghanistan
1980: Iran, El Salvador, Cambodia, Angola, Iraq
1981: Nicaragua
1983: Grenada, Honduras
1986: Phillippines, Libya
1988: Panama
1989: Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Philippines
1990: Iraq
1992: Somalia
1993: Guatemala, Bosnia-Herzegovina
1994: Haiti
1998: Afghanistan, Sudan
1999: Serbia
2001: Afghanistan
2002: Philippines
2003: Iraq, Georgia, Djibouti
2004: Pakistan
I don't have time to go through all of the threats made during that period, but you can look through White House briefings to find most of them. If you don't consider military action as a successful threat, I'm not quite sure how to explain to you what the word "terrorism" means.
And you are severely stupid if you think the US should give up it's sovereignty to the UN and have foreign nations create US law concerning our national interest.
And if you think that all other nations should give up their sovereignty and have the United States determine their national interests, what does that make you?
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Insightful)
I notice that it also doesn't mention that the Wikileaks posting hasn't caused the entire male population of the United States Army to become sexually impotent...yet.
"Yet" is such an important word. It's too dangerous for you to be using so irresponsibly, Pharmboy.
I also notice that you haven't ridden a unicorn naked through downtown Metropolis...yet.
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What is irresponsible to accept the "fact" that no Afghans have, or ever will be hurt, by the release of their names. I'm fine with the idea of releasing information, I'm just saying they shouldn't release any names of operatives in the field, AND to give the Afghans the same respect you give the American soldiers, by not releasing names. It doesn't add context to what is going on anyway. It was a mistake on their part, no matter how innocent, but it shouldn't be repeated.
There are two other points that
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, if only Wikileaks had asked the Pentagon for help in redacting the names. I'm sure they would have agreed to do it, because after all saving people's lives is far more important than political ass-covering, right?
Oh wait except Wikileaks did ask the Pentagon for help, and the Pentagon refused. I guess we know what their priorities are, right?
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Funny)
As long as no photos were leaked then the Afghani operatives are in no danger. YOU try finding "Ahmed" and "Mohammed" in Afghanistan. They're perfectly safe.
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I live in Israel, while staying at the university dorms in Jerusalem some of the local kids were playing on the lawn, this is word for word how they introduced themselves: "This is Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad, Hamza, Muhammad".
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"Someone like that" should be running every organization. One must be careful not to dismiss the truth because it's delivered by an "ass".
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and even in this report Gates says both of these things:
and...
Wait so which is it? If nothing was compromised so far, why is this risk likely to cause significant harm or damage? Haven't they heard of Bayesian statistics?
It sounds like he's just covering ass, but is compelled to tell the truth. After all, they were out in the media saying that Assange has "blood on his hands" - apparently, it was imaginary blood.
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Insightful)
Gates doesn't have a crystal ball. He's saying his assessment is that the probability of damage from the leaks is high.
He shouldn't be using one. Crystal balls are the stuff of myth and fantasy. What he should have is enough controls on the classification regime to understand exactly why a particular piece off information is classified, and what damage will result from improper disclosure of that bit of information. And no, political embarrassment doesn't count.
Re:It doesn't sell. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, please. Everyone line-up here:
-
to apologize for claiming patriotism and being a tool by shouting on previous threads here that Wikileaks had got people killed in Afghanistan.
Writing a hundred times: "I will not watch FOX anymore" should do it.
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I think it's telling that no one has replied to your request. I don't expect anyone to do it any point either.
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If FOX is already on 24/7, then they can't watch it any more.
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You know, I've never seen that claim used to back up a rational position. Maybe that has happened somewhere out there, but I've never once seen it. The primary use of loaded words like "patriotism" is to create emotional fervor that shuts down things like dispassionate inquiry and critical thinking.
Therefore, the people who use "patriotism" in the media don't have the same definition of it that I do. My own preference is for that definition that "a patriot supports
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But it certainly didn't hurt.
I'll line up (Score:4, Informative)
I'll be the first to admit that I was misinformed about the actual damage caused by wikileaks' first batch of leaked Afghanistan documents, and now that I know the truth it does change my opinion somewhat.
I was initially supportive of wikileaks, as I am of responsible whistle blower groups in general. When the government and Fox news attacked wikileaks, it didn't phase me a bit - that was expected, and provided zero credible information. However, when Amnesty International and others rights groups came out and criticized wikileaks [wsj.com] for not doing a good job protecting Afghan informants, that caught my attention. Those are groups that I trust to put the well being of the Afghans above politics, and I assumed that they had done their homework. That was followed by other wikileaks members publicly distancing themselves from Assange because they felt he was not doing enough to redact the documents before publishing them.
Even if I wasn't working or going to school I wouldn't have had time to personally review 700,000 pages of documents for myself. We are all dependent on others to provide information to us, and have to be careful who we trust. Given these independent sources it seemed reasonable to me to conclude that Assange wasn't being responsible in disclosing the documents the way he did. Now that report has been leaked, however, I am more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt that he will do the right thing with the next batch of documents.
But go ahead and assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a "patriotic tool" who only gets their news from FOX. Calling people names is a great way to change people's mind and strengthen support for your cause.
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Thanks for restoring a bit of faith in humanity. I would argue though that due to how you arrived at your conclusion, you weren't the target of the OP. Instead, he was targeting the crowd that was screaming treason - and those do seem to get their talking points from Fox News a lot.
Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
to note seemingly half of ./ comments were dead set against Wikileaks for exactly this reason...
Re:Hilarious (Score:4, Funny)
to note seemingly half of ./ comments were dead set against Wikileaks for exactly this reason...
And the other half were /. comments.
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And I'm sure Fox News will apologize, just like they did after they helped frame Acorn.
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Let me guess...mouse wheel, right? Happens to me all the time. No worries.
Re:Hilarious (Score:4, Informative)
If you are in there accusing wikileaks of killing people, you have now been officially documented as an idiot and an easy target of propaganda.
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, it's no skin off my back whether any afghans were hit by the Taliban as a result of the wikileaks disclosure. I'm just against wikileaks on general, but that's because I hate snitches and they basically take snitching to an absurd extreme.
You don't care either way whether people have been killed but you do have it in for snitches??? What are you, a twelve year old sociopath?
Re:Hilarious (Score:4, Insightful)
It's shocking to me that it took the press nearly 6 years to get interested in why President Bush was keeping so many secrets when it's really their job to ask those sorts of questions.
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The Bush administration was notorious for keeping things secret whether or not there was a legitimate reason.
At least the Obama administration is fixing all that now. Good thing we got their guy out before it was too late.
Re:Hilarious (Score:4, Informative)
People complained about Bush AGGRESSIVELY taking away rights and degrading our situation at a scary rate.
It is best illustrated by the wars. People whine that Obama isn't leaving fast enough or that he is continuing in Afghanistan for some time. Whereas people complained about Bush because he started two wars without real provocation.
There is a pretty damn big difference. Try to keep that in mind.
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Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
Why yes ... in fact, it's almost as though both government AND media have a lot of the same interests and agendas in common, are very friendly with each other, and feel it is in their mutual interests not to rock each other's boats too much. But if you took a moment to consider that, why, you'd be a conspiracy nutter like the ones they always show on the media...
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And both are working for the biggest corporations, which set the agenda and sign the checks.
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The press' job is to sell advertising space. Controversial topics that are inconvenient to rich people are not welcome in this world.
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The press' job is to sell advertising space. Controversial topics that are inconvenient to rich people are not welcome in this world.
Right, that's why the old standby of "gays in the military" is suddenly an issue again. They pull that one out whenever the American people start getting tired of the latest pointless war. Oddly I haven't seen them mention "flag burning" in a long while. That's another favorite they like to play up when a distraction is needed. Maybe "flag burning" has outlived its usefulness and stem-cell controversies have replaced it.
The pattern is obvious once you consider that we have much bigger problems we sho
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No, that's the job of the people who publish the papers or own the stations. The "job" of the Press hasn't changed since the founding of the country. The thing that's changed is who owns the outlets.
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Funny)
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I think he's denuded, too.
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, it's no skin off my back whether any afghans were hit by the Taliban as a result of the wikileaks disclosure.
Thanks for establishing your low ethical boundaries.
But strangely, you're still trying to imply that there's a basis to the claim that the leak endangered innocent people. I hope people can see through your bullshit.
I'm just against wikileaks on general, but that's because I hate snitches
Riiight. How noble of you. You support torture, brutal military killings of foreign civilians, and spying on American civilians, but you nobly oppose "snitches" who disclose the torture, killings, and spying.
But on the other hand what this means is that they basically released a bunch of primary source material that wasnt news to anyone ...
You now regurgitate the other military propaganda line against the leak, immediately after the "innocents endangered" one was admitted to be a fraud.
It sounds a little silly, you have to admit. All you war supporters stridently vocal, railing against wikileaks due to the leak's "unimportance" and "lack of new information." One would think that, if this were actually the case, you wouldn't even care about the leak.
I.e.: your words pronounce themselves a lie.
NO (Score:5, Informative)
It'll barely get mentioned. Every smear against wikileaks gets maximum exposure but retractions are barely heard.
Re:NO (Score:5, Insightful)
As it is with pretty much every news article. Retractions are on page 43, or a 3 second clip at 4 AM.
It sells. (Score:5, Insightful)
Evil person gives sacred information to our enemies. Holy troops threatened! Tune in at 11.
vs
Some guy posts some stuff and people don't die.
Which do you think will get more eyes and sell more ads?
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There might be a tiny note at the bottom of the third page of the paper.
"Wikileaks, the spy platform led by accused rapist Julian Assange, may not have put the forces operating in Afghanistan at serious risk yet."
Re:NO (Score:5, Insightful)
All people involved acted like asses on 'both' sides.
Congratulations on your gymnastic equivocation, but from where I sit lying is worse than having an abrasive personality.
Re:NO (Score:4, Insightful)
But you see, if you can say "everybody's a luser", then you don't feel so bad about supporting "your" fuckwits.
Happens to me all the time elsewhere when I bitch about the Republicans: one or two people will always come up and say how awful "both sides" are... never mind that there are more than the two sides, and that the person saying so is conservative, i.e. it's a polite form of "shut up".
Wikileaks download (Score:4, Interesting)
A bit off topic but... anyone knows if there is a way to download all wikileaks documents? I would really like to save that locally
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wget -r should be a starting point.
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Try Getleft.
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
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Because it's not about the truth (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about getting people with the first impression that hits them in their emotional, not rational center.
Once you control somebody's emotions, they'll change their thinking to justify it.
Answer: follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us get the word out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah they will... (Score:4, Insightful)
Newsflash: The suspected pedophile rapist Assange's terrorist spy network has once again come under the scrutiny of our glorious leaders. While no direct threats were reported, there remains a high level of suspicion about this egotistaical selfish showoff who's only agenda is to hate our freedom. More at 11.
What about? (Score:3, Interesting)
the financial and legal measures taken against him/them.
Oh! Gee, sorry about the muck you got drug through........
Pentagon Reaction Was Self Preservation Mode (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pentagon Reaction Was Self Preservation Mode (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also fascinating how they managed to entirely blame wikileaks.
The new york times and the guardian mirrored a lot of the material too and took part in organizing the data before the public release yet everything was wikileaks fault.
They military couldn't keep it's secrets secret but it was the fault of whoever the documents were sent to, not whoever was supposed to keep them secret.
I wonder how it would have gone had he anonymously posted a USB stick to the guardian or another big name newspaper directly rather than going through wikileaks.
They might have silenced it but they might not.
would we be seeing the newspapers vilified in the same way.
Re:Pentagon Reaction Was Self Preservation Mode (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a military veteran and I may have authored some of the documents that were leaked. But pretty much all of the information was already publicly available in some form or another. We all knew Pakistan was playing a double game. We all knew that the CIA was operating secret drones along the boarder - who else could it be, the Mongolians? If you drop a bomb on somebody, you can keep it secret from the press, but everybody on the ground will know about it. It just takes a little investigative journalism to get at the truth.
A lot of this was already in the press as well. Which leads me to wonder what the smoking gun was supposed to be. Exactly what was the big story that justified publishing this material? It could have been more corroborating evidence to back up speculation and other sources on these stories. And if so - why not limit the information to specifically those topics?
The fact that these events were taking place isn't going to be a secret - as you've noted. However, the details to how things are done might be. Some of those reports look like they contain operational details that may or may not be gleened by opposing forces. In which case, Wikileaks did present intelligence and the US Military should be upset.
The main problem the Pentagon has is one of credibility. The fact that a low level intelligence clerk could smuggle out many GBs of classified documents while lip syncing to Lady Gaga makes the military and the entire chain of command look like a bunch of incompetent boobs. It just goes to show that WallMart has better protection against shoplifters than the military has against internal leaks. So the initial reaction is one of self-preservation. "If you leak this, people will die." Which is another way of saying, we royally screwed up and we're placing the blame on you because we don't want to be the ones getting busted over this. I am no longer in the military, so I can speak my mind on this. I still think Julian Assange is an idiot, but that's another topic.
The blame game rears its ugly head in almost any bureaucracy. The military is a bureaucractic force in to itself. To be sure - that's part of the story. But Manning (if he is the sole source) wasn't just some soldier from the motor pool wandering off with a book of military secrets. Manning was an intelligence analyst with access and a need to know. Although, if the story is to be believed, the huge question is why this system had a CD burner installed when supposedly these systems already have USB ports disabled to prevent data being transferred via thumbdrives.
There's certainly some blame to go around in this case. However, I don't believe the entire story is simply smoke and mirrors to cover up someone's ineptitude. There is still intelligence value in the raw data. And Wikileaks' goal is to publish that data.
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Exactly what was the big story that justified publishing this material?
That the DoD would respond as your parent said, with self-preservation in mind. This revealed them to be idiots when the facts revealed themselves as facts. The DoD didn't care what was in it, they just responded like a priestly sexual abuse victim: with pure anger and vengeance. Turns out they're really just a bunch of crybabies who fly off half-cocked. What a wonderful tradition of discipline and honor you have there, Eisenhower.
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So by this statement I take it you would claim that they are not? I'd say that'll be a hard argument to prove. In fact I reckon it'd be easier to prove charges of treason against the vast overwhelming majority of them, than prove they were fit fir duty and competent for the position they hold.
Sure hindsight is 20/20, but how often can you consistently get it completely wrong and make things *worse* for your country before someone calls you out on it?
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...makes the military and the entire chain of command look like a bunch of incompetent boobs.
I'm pretty convinced of already they don't just play the fool, but they actualy are. Probably because they played it for too long (under Bush).
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We've got gunpowder already, so city walls are obsolete.
Fortify mech.inf. in the city instead.
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Not only that but the system restricts writing data to a file in the first place and compartmentalizes what you can access according need-to-know.
But nobody is suggesting Manning was any smarter than though. He merely had broader access to the system than we assume a normal user would.
If you look at the data and see it as just a flat-life database its quite easy to see a reason for its initial creation and many applications for it; you can draw time lines with it, categorize events according to action,
Will the pentagon apologise ... (Score:3)
I somehow doubt it. They make great words about being on the ''right'' side and then lie through their teeth when it suits them.
Nothing new. (Score:2)
This is nothing new. This happens dozens (hundreds?) of times a year. A story surfaces, whether it was a mistake or actual disinformation, and is exploited by those stand to gain from spreading. It's beaten to death those first couple of weeks, repeated to the point that people believe it as fact. Then once it's been forgotten details come to light that completely refute the original claims or sometimes simply strips the blatant sensationalism of the original reporting. The correction is always released qui
gives me an idea (Score:2)
You Must Be New Here (Score:2)
But, to answer your question:
Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?
The answer is the same answer for the question "Does publicizing the contradiction of the charges INCREASE the levels of fear and/or paranoia amongst the general population?"
Seriously folks, the only terrorists are The Government, The Department of Homeland Security (theater) and The Media. All of whom have a blatantly obvious interest in Keeping The Fear Alive.
As a tax payer... (Score:5, Interesting)
,,,I want the option to write off any contribution I make to Wikileaks to be tax deductable.
My rational is quite simple and direct. For the people, by the people....... So damn't it... I want to know what I'm paying for as its bad enough that I don't have a choice what the taxes I pay are used for.
As to the idea of harm being done, the fact of teh matter is of course there is harm being done by the massive waring mindset budgets of which the funds could most certainly be better spend on removing reasons for war, instead of creating reasons.
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that was a camera tripod watch it more carefully.
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Wikileaks has yet to admit that the troops in Afghanistan are fighting a decent war.
Wikileaks hasn't claimed any of the conspiracy nut theories you refer to. They just release intel. Nor do they have to admit to anything for this reason: anyone can look at the intel and make up their minds themselves about how well the 'war' is going.
As for own sad delusion about "news crew teaming up with insurgent RPG team" (for which even the military themselves dont believe in)...
" People won't change their thinking even if X turns out to be different. Because they're just using X as an easy ratio
Re:No free pass for being irresponsible (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you're trolling, but give me a break, the DoD is the last organization that should be commenting on another organization's bloody hands.
Re:No free pass for being irresponsible (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on who you are. George Bush was extremely irresponsible, yet he walked away totally free.
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If no one got hurt because the actions taken were designed to get no one hurt, I'd say that that is the definition of acting responsibly.
Or are you the kind of person that likes to tell people what to do just because you think you know everything?
Re:Wikileaks is preparing half a million page rele (Score:4, Insightful)
Beyond that it really doesn't mean anything at all.
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OK then, where did you obtain this mystical viewpoint into reality that tells you far more than is being reported? That's right - you made this bullshit up!