Wiki leak

[denuseri]

A massive set of 90,000 leaked US military records have provided one of the most revealing insights into the US-led war in Afghanistan, including unreported civilian killings by coalition forces and raids by a special force to hunt down Taliban leaders.

The leaked documents called the "The War Logs," posted on Sunday, map the US war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2009, and with it WikiLeaks has pulled the biggest leaks in intelligence history.

The documents include plans of US operations, threat reports from intelligence sources, descriptions of meeting between politicians, military officials and insurgents and plans hatched by the militants.

Of particular importance are detailed descriptions of covert raids carried out by a secretive US special operations unit called 'Task Force 373' to hunt down 'high-value' Taliban targets in "kill or capture" operations without trial.

It also reveals that the special forces have targeted civilians in hundreds of incidents and some of the covert operations resulted in the killings of Afghan civilians, including children.

The current documents were made public in advance to three publications -- The New York Times, Guardian, and the German weekly Der Spiegel -— several weeks ago by the whistleblower's website.

These publications sifted through troves of documents to reveal several secrets about the war, including indications that intelligence agencies in Pakistan and Iran may be fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan.

The leaked papers document assessments by military officers that the ISI, considered an ally, may actually be supporting the Afghan insurgency.

The White House condemned the disclosures, and contended that they "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk". It also defended Pakistan's role and lauded its contribution in the war in Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks Australian founder Julian Assange told The NYT that an additional 15,000 documents would also be revealed until WikiLeaks could redact names of individuals in the reports whose safety could be jeopardised.

WikiLeaks.org, the online organisation, which was founded in 2006, says that "transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies".

"If journalism is good it is controversial by its nature," Assange told the Guardian.

He said it was the role of good journalism to take on "powerful abuses," a move that always prompts a back reaction.

He especially pointed out the existence of "Task Force 373", a US-based assassination squad that goes around killing people in a 'kill or capture list'.

In April, another video called "Collateral Murder" made in 2007 was published by WikiLeaks.

It showed American soldiers in Iraq firing on a group of people comprising Iraqi children and journalists.

The appearance of the video led to a federal probe and last month, 22-year-old military analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested by US authorities for leaking the tape and is being held in a US military detention facility in Kuwait.

James Jones, US National Security Advisor, issued a statement noting that WikiLeaks did not inform the US government about the leak, which learnt about it from the media.

"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," Jones said.

The Pentagon Papers, released in the seventies exposed how the US was conducting the war in Vietnam, were around 10,000 pages.

"In this case it will show the true nature of this war and then the public from Afghanistan and other nations can see what is really going on and take steps to address the problem," he said.

Assange pointed out that this leak is unprecedented not only because of the much greater volume of material compared to the Pentagon Papers but also due to the possibility that many more people around the world will be able to access it and comment on it because of the Internet.

Comments?

[MMI]

Who remembers the chant back in the sixties, "Hey, hey, LBJ. How many kids have you killed today?"

I'm no poet, but what about, "Hey, hey, BHO. There's nobody left, so it's time to go."

[denuseri]

Oh I see a lot of simularities between Vietnam and Afganastan from a historical perspective MMI.
.

[IAN 2411]

90,000 leaked documents what a fuck up on the US Governments part, pure blatant stupidity. Don’t think for one minute that I am running down the USA because I am not, I am running down their security.

If you have been living in the land of [we don’t do that] then wake up. Get in the real world and get a life and with it knowledge. If you think that the west don’t commit atrocities then i have news for you? The only reason the UK and the USA and Russia were not in the war trials after WW11 for atrocities is because we won the war. Viet Nam well we all know about the war crimes there, killing children, and throwing live personnel out of helicopters at 1000 feet up in the air [FACT].

Northern Ireland, the crimes are still being looked at now, [Bloody Sunday] one of them. Aden [RadFan]. Cyprus, i don’t know the name but UK Army in the Pan Handle, EOKA civilians, [Firing squad].

I am afraid that the Afghan people don’t get my sympathy and never will, if civilians were shot then there is more than likely a reason. One other point, just who are the civilians and who are the Taliban? They are a nation of fighting people that can’t get on with themselves, and the ones we train to look after their country kill our troops, and i can understand both USA and UK troop’s anger at being betrayed by them. Killing for the sake of killing i think that there is more to the story than that, but no doubt that this website will twist all the words.

I am stunned that an Australian person can simply divulge this information to the world, and I believe that WikiLeak.org is www trash.

My thoughts on this, The USA have got to go to print and piss on the WikaLeak.org fireworks before they light the fuse.

Words fail me.

Regards ian 2411

[Thorne]

I'm of two minds about this whole mess.

On the one hand, tearing away the veils of secrecy which have protected the politicians, high-ranking military and businessmen from having to account for their stupidity, greed and outright lies, can't be anything but a good thing in the long run. Far too many things are declared Top Secret not to protect sources or pending actions but to cover up the mistakes and bad choices made by our leaders.

On the other hand, such a massive leak is bound to cause serious problems for the soldiers on the ground trying to stay alive while fighting this stupid war. Sometimes, revealing information can point directly at how and when that information was obtained, which can point to agents in place, risking their lives and any future information they might gain.

Balancing these two points is tricky, but wholesale leaks are bound to cause far more damage to the soldiers than to their leaders. As for the deaths of innocent civilians and children, it's a sad fact of war that such deaths are going to happen. When the civilians are aiding our enemies they become valid targets. But even if they are not, it's impossible to fight a war without some mistakes being made.

The type of war being fought here, as in Viet Nam, is primarily a guerrilla war, where the enemy strikes and fades back into the civilian population. Like a surgeon facing a gangrenous wound, it's sometimes necessary to lop off a leg in order to save the body. It's brutal, it's unfair, but it's necessary. One of the horrors of war.

[denuseri]

According to L.C. Baldor of the Associated Press:

When it comes to war, killing the enemy is an accepted fact. Even amid the sensation of the WikiLeaks.org revelations, that stark reality lies at the core of new charges that some American military commando operations may have amounted to war crimes.

Among the thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents released Sunday by the whistle-blower website are nearly 200 incidents that involve Task Force 373, an elite military special operations unit tasked with hunting down and killing enemy combatants in Afghanistan.

Denouncing suggestions that U.S. troops are engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, military officials and even war crimes experts said Monday that enemy hit lists, while ugly and uncomfortable, are an enduring and sometimes unavoidable staple of war.

Some, however, cautioned that without proper controls that mandate the protection of innocent civilians, such targeted hits could veer into criminal activities.

Buried in the documents are descriptions of Task Force 373's missions, laying bare graphic violence as well as mistakes, questionable judgments and deadly consequences — sometimes under fire, other times not.

In June 2007, the unit went in search of Taliban commander Qari Ur-Rahman. According to the files, U.S. forces, under the cover of night, engaged in a firefight with suspected insurgents and called in an AC-130 gunship to take out the enemy.

Only later did they realize that seven of those killed and four of those wounded were Afghan National Police. The incident was labeled a misunderstanding, due in part to problems with the Afghan forces conducting night operations.

In another mission, members of Task Force 373 conducted a secret raid, hoping to snag al-Qaida commander Abu Laith al-Libi, who was believed to be running terrorist training camps in Pakistan's border region. Five rockets were launched into a group of buildings, and when forces moved into the destroyed area they found six dead insurgents and seven dead children. Al-Libi was not among the dead.

The summary of the incident says initial checks showed no indications that children would be there. And it quotes an Afghan governor later saying that while the residents there were in shock, they "understand it was caused ultimately by the presence of hoodlums — the people think it is good that bad men were killed."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who organized the release of the classified documents, said he believes these are among "thousands" of U.S. attacks in Afghanistan that could be investigated for evidence of war crimes, although he acknowledged such claims would have to be tested in court.

But even activists well versed in the realm of investigating war crimes would not go that far.

"I don't think this incident rises to the level of a war crime, but it disturbs me greatly that seven children were killed," said Tom Parker, policy director at Amnesty International USA.

The Afghanistan war, with its terrorist hit lists, counterinsurgency battles and high-tech battle gear, presents difficult questions. "It is really hard to know where assassination ends and war starts," said Parker.

Targeted military strikes, he said, are on the fringe of accepted military practice during an armed conflict.

"This is a relatively new form of warfare that we're seeing now," he said. "The technology takes you to a different place and raises questions that just weren't there 20 years ago. A lot of these questions don't have answers — they have a test of acceptability."

Parker voiced concerns that have hounded the military, the administration and members of Congress over the past two years as the war has escalated: How can the U.S. avoid civilian casualties that alienate the very population coalition forces are trying to win over in order to defeat the insurgency?

"This is a war. The enemy is shooting at us, and we're shooting at them," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. "Are we really suggesting that while the Taliban plant suicide bombs, we shouldn't try to kill anybody?"

Smith said U.S. troops are "aggressively targeting" the Taliban and al-Qaida but any "condemnation of our troops is completely wrong and brutally unfair." Congress and the military, he said, have already identified civilian casualties as a problem that must be corrected, and military leaders have adjusted their war tactics to try and minimize the killing of innocents.

Parker added that Americans may accept the idea of a military team going after an enemy general, but when it's reduced to a hit list of individuals' names, it becomes less palatable.

"Personalization makes people uncomfortable," said Parker.

Still, trying to kill or capture enemy leaders "is precisely what countries do when they are at war," argued Juan Zarate, former senior counterterrorism official in the Bush administration.

As the war in Afghanistan has dragged on, public support in the U.S. and abroad has begun to waver. And the counterinsurgency — which pits U.S. forces against bands of militants rather than another nation's army — blurs the classic battle lines.

There also may be public confusion about the U.S. government's secret hit lists targeting militants.

The military's target list is different from a separate list run by the CIA. The two lists may contain some of the same names — Osama bin Laden, for instance — but they differ because the military and CIA operate under different rules.

While the military can only operate in a war zone, the CIA is allowed to carry out covert actions in countries where the U.S. is not at war.

The CIA's target list came under scrutiny recently when it was revealed that it now includes radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen believed to be hiding in Yemen. Al-Awlaki, who has emerged as a prominent al-Qaida recruiter, was added to the list after U.S. officials determined that he had shifted from encouraging attacks on the U.S. to planning and participating in them.

Also, the CIA uses unmanned aircraft to hunt down and kill terrorists in Pakistan's lawless border regions where the U.S. military does not operate.

The issue becomes murkier when elite military members participate in joint operations with CIA units. In those cases, the military members are assigned to the civilian paramilitary units and operate under the CIA rules, which allow them to take on missions outside of a war zone.

Last December, Gen. David Petraeus, now the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, made it clear the military was going to increase its efforts to kill or capture enemy combatants considered irreconcilable.

Petraeus, who was then the head of U.S. Central Command, said more "national mission force elements" would be sent to Afghanistan this spring. He appeared to be referring to such elite clandestine units as the Delta Force.

"There's no question you've got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable," he told Congress.

[TantricSoul]

I almost always am on the side of the whistleblowers and underdogs.

"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," Jones said.

That quote is insanity at its finest. The entire concept of a "War on Terror" puts "the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten(s)our national security," far more so than any leak of past operations could ever.

"In this case it will show the true nature of this war and then the public from Afghanistan and other nations can see what is really going on and take steps to address the problem," he said.

Perhaps a noble goal, one wonders how effective this action will be?

How many more deaths are needed to assuage our fear?

Respectfully,
Tantric

[MMI]

OK, we have to do very bad things too. I can live with that. Sometimes innocent lives have to be sacrificed "for the greater good" - an awful judgement I am not prepared to make, but the necessity of which I do accept.

Sometimes civilian deaths are not the result of some cold-blooded calculation - acceptable "collateral damage" - but are the result of accident or negligence. There is a difference between accidental civilian deaths and not caring whether they are killed. Deaths caused through recklessness or indifference are culpable criminal acts and must be treated as such.

And there is a world of difference between accident or negligence compared with deliberate killings of civilians as acts of vengeance or simple blood-lust. Those are war crimes of the worst kind, and it is those we fear have happened when we hear of the Wikileaks report.

We would not approve of leaks that simply "show up" our forces' incompetence or bad behaviour, because that would simply be propaganda put out by the enemy or the "peace brigade", neither of whom need be considered underdogs; while whistle-blowing is simply the reporting unlawful acts (as opposed to promoting an opposing agenda). To my mind, leaks of information that are not true whistle-blowing disclosures are utterly reprehensible and should be suppressed and/or appropriately penalised where possible, but leaks about deliberate criminal activities or the wanton flouting of the rules of war must be acted upon.

On another matter, does anyone, like me, fear that the soldiers embroiled in this war could face the same kind of rejection and repudiation that the vets of the Viet Nam War encountered, if the war is not brought to an end soon?

[denuseri]

I would hope that the blame for this war and what happens during it be laid soley at the feet of the politicians and our enemies who started it.

[TantricSoul]

I am unclear as to the "greater good" being served by waging these two wars.

If an automobile accident occurs and a civilians' life ends, that seems like "negligent/accidental" death.
When non combatants are killed through mistake, that seems like "negligent/accidental" homicide.
Purposely killing non combatants is murder.

So which is acceptable?
I'm not OK with any of the three examples.

According to Merriam/Webster; Whistle blowing is the act of revealing something covert. That is what happened and the definition I had in mind in my previous post.
I am confused by the notion of "good" and "bad" leaks specifically related to past events. What happened - happened and I would like to know the bad news as well as the good.

I hope returning soldiers aren't treated the same as after Viet Nam. I haven't picked up on that sentiment so far. That treatment should "be laid solely at the feet of the politicians and our enemies who started it."

Respectfully,
Tantric

[DuncanONeil]

Who remembers the chant back in the sixties, "Hey, hey, LBJ. How many kids have you killed today?"

I'm no poet, but what about, "Hey, hey, BHO. There's nobody left, so it's time to go."


I have a reaction to your post. But I am going to self censor. Mostly because I have visceral reactions to standard comments about Vietnam, but additionally because I think it would be a waste to try to inform a fixated civilian of realities.

[DuncanONeil]

Not even close!!


Oh I see a lot of simularities between Vietnam and Afganastan from a historical perspective MMI.
.

[DuncanONeil]

90,000 leaked documents what a fuck up on the US Governments part, pure blatant stupidity. Don’t think for one minute that I am running down the USA because I am not, I am running down their security.


It is hard to run down security when a person with access takes it upon themselves to purloin stuff. May not occur, or we may not hear but it would be interesting to hear the reasons the material was stolen.


If you have been living in the land of [we don’t do that] then wake up. Get in the real world and get a life and with it knowledge. If you think that the west don’t commit atrocities then i have news for you? The only reason the UK and the USA and Russia were not in the war trials after WW11 for atrocities is because we won the war. Viet Nam well we all know about the war crimes there, killing children, and throwing live personnel out of helicopters at 1000 feet up in the air [FACT].


There is still a lot of room for misunderstanding about Vietnam. However the issue of children is one that should be touched on. It is also a know fact of Vietnam that children were used as actives in that war. One instance that was reported to me was of a child of about 12 that approached a check point. Directed to stop and raise hands, did not stop and only raised hands by bending arms at elbow. Redirected to stop and raise hands a number of times. When close enough the child finally raised their arms, dropping two live grenades from their armpits. You see this what do you do the next time?


I am afraid that the Afghan people don’t get my sympathy and never will, if civilians were shot then there is more than likely a reason. One other point, just who are the civilians and who are the Taliban? They are a nation of fighting people that can’t get on with themselves, and the ones we train to look after their country kill our troops, and i can understand both USA and UK troop’s anger at being betrayed by them. Killing for the sake of killing i think that there is more to the story than that, but no doubt that this website will twist all the words.


Then you turn around and recognize the very kind of behaviour as seen in Vietnam as acceptable reasons for "civilian" casualties? Makes for a confusing understanding of your position. Even angry the troops mentioned take great risk to avoid true collateral damage.


I am stunned that an Australian person can simply divulge this information to the world, and I believe that WikiLeak.org is www trash.

My thoughts on this, The USA have got to go to print and piss on the WikaLeak.org fireworks before they light the fuse.

Words fail me.

Regards ian 2411

For this I can agree with you. The real problem lies in the mixed message from our Government. The White House says "no big deal" the Joint Chief says "big deal". Were you the enemy how would you react?

[DuncanONeil]

This second article is more reasoned and fair than the first one you posted!!


According to L.C. Baldor of the Associated Press:

When it comes to war, killing the enemy is an accepted fact. Even amid the sensation of the WikiLeaks.org revelations, that stark reality lies at the core of new charges that some American military commando operations may have amounted to war crimes.

Among the thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents released Sunday by the whistle-blower website are nearly 200 incidents that involve Task Force 373, an elite military special operations unit tasked with hunting down and killing enemy combatants in Afghanistan.

Denouncing suggestions that U.S. troops are engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, military officials and even war crimes experts said Monday that enemy hit lists, while ugly and uncomfortable, are an enduring and sometimes unavoidable staple of war.

Some, however, cautioned that without proper controls that mandate the protection of innocent civilians, such targeted hits could veer into criminal activities.

Buried in the documents are descriptions of Task Force 373's missions, laying bare graphic violence as well as mistakes, questionable judgments and deadly consequences — sometimes under fire, other times not.

In June 2007, the unit went in search of Taliban commander Qari Ur-Rahman. According to the files, U.S. forces, under the cover of night, engaged in a firefight with suspected insurgents and called in an AC-130 gunship to take out the enemy.

Only later did they realize that seven of those killed and four of those wounded were Afghan National Police. The incident was labeled a misunderstanding, due in part to problems with the Afghan forces conducting night operations.

In another mission, members of Task Force 373 conducted a secret raid, hoping to snag al-Qaida commander Abu Laith al-Libi, who was believed to be running terrorist training camps in Pakistan's border region. Five rockets were launched into a group of buildings, and when forces moved into the destroyed area they found six dead insurgents and seven dead children. Al-Libi was not among the dead.

The summary of the incident says initial checks showed no indications that children would be there. And it quotes an Afghan governor later saying that while the residents there were in shock, they "understand it was caused ultimately by the presence of hoodlums — the people think it is good that bad men were killed."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who organized the release of the classified documents, said he believes these are among "thousands" of U.S. attacks in Afghanistan that could be investigated for evidence of war crimes, although he acknowledged such claims would have to be tested in court.

But even activists well versed in the realm of investigating war crimes would not go that far.

"I don't think this incident rises to the level of a war crime, but it disturbs me greatly that seven children were killed," said Tom Parker, policy director at Amnesty International USA.

The Afghanistan war, with its terrorist hit lists, counterinsurgency battles and high-tech battle gear, presents difficult questions. "It is really hard to know where assassination ends and war starts," said Parker.

Targeted military strikes, he said, are on the fringe of accepted military practice during an armed conflict.

"This is a relatively new form of warfare that we're seeing now," he said. "The technology takes you to a different place and raises questions that just weren't there 20 years ago. A lot of these questions don't have answers — they have a test of acceptability."

Parker voiced concerns that have hounded the military, the administration and members of Congress over the past two years as the war has escalated: How can the U.S. avoid civilian casualties that alienate the very population coalition forces are trying to win over in order to defeat the insurgency?

"This is a war. The enemy is shooting at us, and we're shooting at them," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. "Are we really suggesting that while the Taliban plant suicide bombs, we shouldn't try to kill anybody?"

Smith said U.S. troops are "aggressively targeting" the Taliban and al-Qaida but any "condemnation of our troops is completely wrong and brutally unfair." Congress and the military, he said, have already identified civilian casualties as a problem that must be corrected, and military leaders have adjusted their war tactics to try and minimize the killing of innocents.

Parker added that Americans may accept the idea of a military team going after an enemy general, but when it's reduced to a hit list of individuals' names, it becomes less palatable.

"Personalization makes people uncomfortable," said Parker.

Still, trying to kill or capture enemy leaders "is precisely what countries do when they are at war," argued Juan Zarate, former senior counterterrorism official in the Bush administration.

As the war in Afghanistan has dragged on, public support in the U.S. and abroad has begun to waver. And the counterinsurgency — which pits U.S. forces against bands of militants rather than another nation's army — blurs the classic battle lines.

There also may be public confusion about the U.S. government's secret hit lists targeting militants.

The military's target list is different from a separate list run by the CIA. The two lists may contain some of the same names — Osama bin Laden, for instance — but they differ because the military and CIA operate under different rules.

While the military can only operate in a war zone, the CIA is allowed to carry out covert actions in countries where the U.S. is not at war.

The CIA's target list came under scrutiny recently when it was revealed that it now includes radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen believed to be hiding in Yemen. Al-Awlaki, who has emerged as a prominent al-Qaida recruiter, was added to the list after U.S. officials determined that he had shifted from encouraging attacks on the U.S. to planning and participating in them.

Also, the CIA uses unmanned aircraft to hunt down and kill terrorists in Pakistan's lawless border regions where the U.S. military does not operate.

The issue becomes murkier when elite military members participate in joint operations with CIA units. In those cases, the military members are assigned to the civilian paramilitary units and operate under the CIA rules, which allow them to take on missions outside of a war zone.

Last December, Gen. David Petraeus, now the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, made it clear the military was going to increase its efforts to kill or capture enemy combatants considered irreconcilable.

Petraeus, who was then the head of U.S. Central Command, said more "national mission force elements" would be sent to Afghanistan this spring. He appeared to be referring to such elite clandestine units as the Delta Force.

"There's no question you've got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable," he told Congress.

[MMI]

I think I've just been insulted! By a statistician! (But at leat you got a reply this time.)

[IAN 2411]

A whistleblowing group has insisted its decision to publish secret US military documents was to reveal the truth about the war in Iraq despite criticism it could put the lives of British armed forces in danger.
WikiLeaks posted nearly 400,000 leaked classified reports on the internet which contain accounts of abuse and misconduct by Iraqi authorities and US forces. There are also some allegations of abuse by UK soldiers, the website said.
The reports relate to 109,000 deaths - including 66,000 civilians, of which 15,000 were previously undocumented, it claimed.
WikiLeak's founder Julian Assange told a news conference in central London: "This disclosure is about the truth. We hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued on since the war officially concluded."
The Ministry of Defence said the website had been reckless and was putting the lives of British military personnel in danger.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki condemned the leak as a political stunt and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also suggested the leaks put lives at risk.
................


I think something serious is going to happen to this guy [Julian Assange] and i would think very soon, he seems to be ratling a lot of the wrong cages. In the face of the evidence it is not just the British forces that are in danger it is all forces that are involved out there and that is mostly Americans. I have always been a believer that wars are not won without some sort of atrosities being involved, and anyone that does believe that are very naive.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[Thorne]

I have always been a believer that wars are not won without some sort of atrosities being involved, and anyone that does believe that are very naive.
Sadly, this is all too often true. As citizens of reputedly free, civilized nations, though, we would hope those atrocities were aberrations committed by bad individuals rather than policies implemented by our leaders. Unfortunately this is not always the case. I think it's important that such policies be brought out into the light, for all the world to see what has happened. Hopefully, intelligent people in our governments will understand that having something happen to Julian Assange would only reflect badly upon those governments at this point. They would do far better to tighten up their security leaks than to worry about vengeance.

As for putting soldiers at risk, while always a concern, we have to remember that it's those leaders who started these wars who are putting them at risk, while taking little or no risk themselves. And since the war in Iraq has been declared to be over, I wonder just what risk there could be? (Yes, I know it's not REALLY over. Only in the minds of politicians trying to soothe angry voters.) I believe it is the reputation of the politicians and government drones which is endangered by these leaks, much more than the welfare of the soldiers. If the release of these documents somehow manages to get our troops recalled from those sinkholes in the deserts, I wonder how many of them would be grateful.

As an aside, these leaks, and others, point out the absurdity of thinking that our government can actually keep secrets. Those who still cling to the absurd notion that the US Government, among others, has information regarding 9/11, UFO's, the Kennedy Assassination and other conspiracies, should see just how ridiculous it is to believe that such information could be kept secret!

[gagged_Louise]

I loved the comment on Berlusconi, saying his "constant partying" means he is rarely in good shape at important meetings. LMAO, I know that's how many Italians feel about him too:a real emperor Nero character.

With regard to secrecy, in extremis WL do run a risk of throwing people on the ground to the wolves: people who have been cooperating with the CIA for instance. But we've seen enough lying and trumped-up storytelling by the US and UK authorities and media already and it's not more acceptable just because they're "our boys".


As for putting soldiers at risk, while always a concern, we have to remember that it's those leaders who started these wars who are putting them at risk, while taking little or no risk themselves. And since the war in Iraq has been declared to be over, I wonder just what risk there could be? (Yes, I know it's not REALLY over. Only in the minds of politicians trying to soothe angry voters.) I believe it is the reputation of the politicians and government drones which is endangered by these leaks...

On the whole I agree. Risks mostly can't be avoided all the time during a war, even if some operations are turkey shoots because one side is so superior - in airpower or the like. But having thousands of your own soldiers killed in a short time is much more touchy now than fifty or eighty years ago. Especially if it's far away in another continent.

In the old days, let's say during WW1, a general could throw a hundred thousand men into a desperate or misguided pitch, forget about those who were killed and hang medals on those who came out alive - even if they hadn't gained any substantial victory. The media in those days didn't put any effort into finding out how people had died on the battlefield and didn't follow up widows, refugees or sons who seemed to show an "unpatriotic" attitude. Running operations that way is not really possible anymore, unless there seems to be a decent reason for making the assault at that place and time it isn't readily accepted by the public when theyu get to hear of it. That's progress, I'd say, not lack of civic spirit, and Wikileaks help bringing out information on how and why wars are conducted that's quite welcome.

[gagged_Louise]

By the way, the charges of sexual assault, intrusion or rape that were filed against Assange after he visited Sweden some weeks back, and which are now going around the block, look really flimsy. There was a lot of changing and back-and-forth from the women filing and the prosecutors in the first days, and the laws and legal praxis around here are not 100% clear on what it takes for an act to be recognized as rape or sexual assault. The statutes were retouched a few years ago but both before and after that, some cases that would count as rock solid rape in many countries have ended in acquittal, while in other cases where the sense of being forced or non-consent was so much less clear, have led to verdicts of rape, incestual rape or child abuse. For some years, there was a wave of incest accusations and verdicts without much in the way of solid evidence at all. Stories were reconstructed and cooked from the kid's drawings and oblique remarks at kindergarten or school. It's recently been compared to witchcraft trials, and for a reason.

The whole issue is heavily ideologized and polarized, even among legal professionals and scholars here, and of course, that makes it an excellent tool if one would want to commit a "justice murder" against a controversial man.

[IAN 2411]

Nothing will ever happen to Assange, get rid of one nasty boil premiturely and another will take its place. I believe it was on the UK news the other night that he is holed up somewhere in the UK, but i dont know how true that is. There is an international warrent out for his arrest and even if he gets sent to Sweden i doubt very much that anything will come from it. No, i think all the dammage has been done to the west, and if anything happens to him, it will be by a middle east country because they dont like their business being broadcasted. I think this is all going to be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[gagged_Louise]

If he's arrested and goes on trial here in Sweden it will make big news, there will be major coverage both by Swedish and international news media. I'm not that sure there would be a big risk of his being sentenced for rape or assault, that just looks too thin and lawyers here are not corrupt. Hopefully a trial on this would help put the laws on sexual violence here under the spotlight and make people realize they are much too easy to manipulate while they don't really protect women/victims either.

Last year a faculty professor of law here suggested that any sexual encounter that was made without, like, explicit (written?) formal words of consent should be possible to prosecute as rape, even a long time afterwards (this would have required a rewrite of the present law, but it's in line with how a vociferous part of the public opinion wants it). When people date or meet socially and get turned on, or even when teenagers are rubbing elbows, how often do they stop, suddenly look the other part in the eye and say, "Well. do you want to get fucked now? is it okay if I pump you, hun? Is that a deal?" That doesn't sound like what you would do, does it? Rape mostly isn't a 'smoking gun' crime such as robbery, where the proof that it happened resides simply in the material facts, the raw act itself: you can have two encounters where almost exactly the same things happen physically, even much of what's spoken is the same, and one is good and the other one is (to at least one of the involved people) rape or assault. The intentions, the understanding, the attention to what they want is what really decides it in their minds, but that isn't all piece of cake to show and decide many months afterwards in a courtroom. If it's defined as "rape is when the woman says it felt like rape, and the man should be seen as a priori guilty" it's anything but judicially secure, and that's how some circles here want to have it, want to tweak the law.

[Lion]

I'm on the fence about the leaked documents. Every government has confidential reports for a reason. If this was an expose of documents that belonged to a state that we weren't to particularly friendly with in all matters like China, would we be making such a fuss? At the same time, if some documents reveal information that would lead to death and destruction, was knowing that information worth it?

Secondly, whoever attained that information (I'm assuming is American, should be tried for treason).

Lastly, this interpol sexual assault thing? Please don't tell me that wasn't politically motivated. That was the sorryist response ever.

[IAN 2411]

I'm on the fence about the leaked documents. Every government has confidential reports for a reason. If this was an expose of documents that belonged to a state that we weren't to particularly friendly with in all matters like China, would we be making such a fuss? At the same time, if some documents reveal information that would lead to death and destruction, was knowing that information worth it?
The thing is it, although some of the leaks were about the British government, Parliament personal have thick skins. They are used to being dragged through the mire, and let’s face it there isn’t a government in the world that you can’t pick holes in. There were also the remarks about the British Forces in the Helmond Province in 2006; our Generals have said the criticism was correct and the UK forces were not up to scratch. It is the Middle East countries that have been betrayed, and dare I say by the Americans themselves. They wrote the damning reports and sent the gossip that was said in confidence, and ok it should not have been spoken if you don’t want others to know your thoughts. Then this begs belief, the American Embassies send the secret reports back to a main computer and allow three Million American Patriots to have access. In that amount of people there has to be at least one disgruntled, twisted, greedy or traitorous person. This farce lays squarely on the American security services for being complacent in their work.

Secondly, whoever attained that information (I'm assuming is American, should be tried for treason).
The whistle blower has I think been arrested and he was a corporal in the forces, but I will stand to being corrected on that if wrong.

Lastly, this interpol sexual assault thing? Please don't tell me that wasn't politically motivated. That was the sorryist response ever.
I think that is a feeble attempt to ridicule and bring his character into disrepute, but it is the heart of the org they should be attacking not the head.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[Stealth694]

I am Ex-Military, and I agree with you denuseri, There are to many comparisons between Vietnam and Afgahnistan. There have been alot of things exposed that should be exposed, but alot of these ops are either over or were discontinued when the leaks started. Task Force 373 is just an upgrade of The Pheonix force Operation. Both are whats called Double (or black on black) ops that while WRONG are effective. Plus I like how Wiki is revealing just how big a bunch of hypocrites are running this and other countries. Personally I doubt a 22 yr old could hack through the govt security but I bet someone was lazy and left his computer open to the archives and thats how the downloads happened. As for the owner of Wiki Leaks, putting him is prison is just like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. I wonder how many copies of this intel are on disk or on portable hard drives? Nah imprisoning him just makes him a maytr and enhances his image while tarnishing ours.

[IAN 2411]

I am Ex-Military, and I agree with you denuseri, There are to many comparisons between Vietnam and Afgahnistan.
There is only one comparison that can be done between Vietnam and Afghanistan. It is the fact that the Americans waged a war in both countries that were imposable to win. Both countries had been at war with other countries forces before and had defeated them, or at least brought them to their knees.

There have been alot of things exposed that should be exposed,
The wika leaks have exposed nothing that was no in the minds of the ordinary people on the street, and I would also like to point out that it is mostly hear say.

Plus I like how Wiki is revealing just how big a bunch of hypocrites are running this and other countries.
Be careful who you are calling hypocrites as it is the Americans that are coming out of this far worse than any other country. It is Americas Diplomatic relations that are being hurt by the fall out. It will be America that won’t be privy to informal information from Middle East countries. I read a article the other day where a someone was asking why does every country pick faults in America. He should have been asking why do we keep getting ourselves in the shit up to our necks.

Personally I doubt a 22 yr old could hack through the govt security but I bet someone was lazy and left his computer open to the archives and that’s how the downloads happened.
No not quite, he never had to hack; he had access to the information legally along with the other three million Americans. I think the whole of the security services had left their computers open, or it could have been your next door neighbour, who knows? But at the end of the day don’t blame Wika Leaks for American security services complacency.

As for the owner of Wiki Leaks, putting him is prison is just like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. I wonder how many copies of this intel are on disk or on portable hard drives? Nah imprisoning him just makes him a maytr and enhances his image while tarnishing ours.
Let’s get something straight, he has been released from his British Prison yesterday on £250.000 surety. It was not the British that imprisoned him because we have nothing to hold him for. He was imprisoned because of an international warrant out for him, and he was not perused by the British police. He surrendered himself to them of his own accord. Don’t think for one minute that this is a rant at the American people or their country, it is the way the rest of the world and I see the way things are.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[denuseri]

Nice to know that you speak for the whole rest of the world Ian....smh lol.

Some people see the leak as good journalism, some see it as treason.

Ass-ange...isnt an American Citizen is he? So no treason charge right?. Spying maby but not treason. The people who gave him the information to leak now...they may be a different story. What he did or didnt do in sweden I leve to the swedes.

Why do people pick on America? First thing that cums to my mind is what Mommy used to tell me to explain why some children pick on other children, and incedentally why some doms and subs pick on each other as well sometimes. Jealousy is soooo unbecoming, but it is also very common when there is any kind of disparity real or imagined between any individuals or set of groups in any social/cultural exchange or interaction.

PS: And the ones who are the most jealous will be the ones who bitch the loudest btw.

As for Afganistan comparing to Vietnam:

Both conflicts are televised.

Both conflicts were being fought primaraly over ideological differences between two parties as opposed to monetary or territorial gain.

Both confilicts saw America support what obviously could be called "puppet governmentss" or figurheads with no real power in governemnt at various times throughout the conflict.

The general public in America has become generally disullusioned with both conflicts due to their lengths.

Both conflicts involved the use of force within the boarders of their nieghboring countires outside of the theater of opperations and high levels of indegionous casualities compared to our own.

Both comficts take place in enviroments that are considered to be extreme.

In both conflicts it is allmost next to impossible to distinguish between enemy combatants and "law abiding civilians" until actual shooting starts.

Civilians have been used by the enemy in both conflicts as shields by the indegenous forces.

I could go on and on and on...but that would turn this from a little sidebar into a seperate thread.

[IAN 2411]

Nice to know that you speak for the whole rest of the world Ian....smh lol.

Now that was a little picky denu, but i haven't been doing it long and i've not quite got the hang of it yet.lol

Jealousy is soooo unbecoming, but it is also very common when there is any kind of disparity real or imagined between any individuals or set of groups in any social/cultural exchange or interaction.

Nope, at this present time I can’t think of any reason why I should be jealous of America. Over half your debt is owned by the Chinese and they are having a few problems at the moment, if their bubble bursts America will get some of the fallout. The UK is in the deep sea of debt but we are slowly swimming to safe banks.

I could go on and on and on...but that would turn this from a little sidebar into a seperate thread.
You’ve just done it lol.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[denuseri]

All I did was scratch the surface on the vietnam/afgan war simularities, there are oodles more.

And like I said...who bitches most ...lol.

[lucy]

Some people see the leak as good journalism, some see it as treason.
Leaking those documents might be good or it might not, it might be the right thing to do or not, but it certainly isn't journalism. It's ... well, just publishing unconfirmed raw data. Journalism should be different.


Why do people pick on America?
I know it's hard to know about that, given the American media's focus on internal affairs and the American habit of more or less not caring about the rest of the world, with the exception of a few, but let me reassure you: Everybody else gets picked on too. And America is meddling almost everywhere, so you should expect flak from almost everywhere.


Both conflicts were being fought primaraly over ideological differences between two parties as opposed to monetary or territorial gain.
I think you guys still got it wrong: For the Vietnamese it was a nationalist struggle. A war for independence.

[denuseri]

A brief note on Vietnam/Afgan thingy purely as a clairification: When I said it was mainly a war between oppossites of ideaology I mean of course between comunist and democratic/capitalist systems....which is the only reason the USA even bothered picking up after the French there, ( to oppose the spread of communisim in east asia) which if we had intervened sooner on the vietmanese peoples behalf against the french occupation their whole country might have came out a lot differently...especially since old Ho Chi Min (like the Afgans) was once upon a time one of our best of buddies.

In 1941, Hồ returned to Vietnam from living in France and the United States (He based his revolution on our own and that of the French btw) to lead the Việt Minh independence movement.

From wiki:
"The "men in black" were a 10,000 member guerilla force that operated with the Viet Minh. He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy French and Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II, supported closely but clandestinely by the United States ( wow who would have thought...this is just like in afganistan btw) Office of Strategic Services, and also later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946–1954). He was also jailed in China for many months by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities. After his release in 1943, he again returned to Vietnam. He was treated for malaria and dysentery by American OSS doctors. In the highlands in 1944, he lived with Do Thi Lac, a woman of Tay ethnicity.[13] Lac had a son in 1956.

After the August Revolution (1945) organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and issued a Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that borrowed much from the French and American declarations.] Though he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned American President Harry Truman for support for Vietnamese independence, citing the Atlantic Charter, but Truman never responded."

Just think of it...if America had acted differently the Vietnam war could have been perhaps avoided.

And I agree "journalisim" should be more than just posting whatever may come one's way.

Yet also...I see very little actual journalism being practiced anywhere and lots and lots of propaganda everywhere instead.

And I allready said all I need to say about the whole green eyed monster picking on America thingy.

[lucy]

New leak!!!!

[gagged_Louise]

As Lucky Luciano put it after he had engineered the assassination of the old Don Giuseppe Masseria in an NYC Italian restaurant (where else? - Masseria's head fell down onto a plate of Spaghetti Bolognese): "I was out in the men's room taking a leak; I always take a long leak".

That line gave him a good alibi, and it was actually true, though he had hired the killers, but of course it was censored by the police.

[denuseri]

omg too funny and ironic lucy lol. I know someone in the anon group too. Some of them may even yet still be members of this site who knows.

[IAN 2411]

Back to Mr wiki leak, he was released from his cell again yesterday, and in the interview with sky. He told reporters that his extradition to Sweedon was not a big deal, as he was more worried about being extradited to America. He is under the impression that the Americans are after him, I cant think why? lol

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[leo9]

Back to Mr wiki leak, he was released from his cell again yesterday, and in the interview with sky. He told reporters that his extradition to Sweedon was not a big deal, as he was more worried about being extradited to America. He is under the impression that the Americans are after him, I cant think why? lol
His best chance there is that the US authorities have shown their hand by saying they want to charge him with espionage, which can carry the death penalty. As a general rule, we don't extradite European citizens to courts that might send them to be executed, and there would be outcry across the continent if the Swedish government made an exception for Assange.

[denuseri]

<< Wonders if the Swede's will have Assange in a posh jail or a more practical one or hail him a hero before this is all done.

[thir]

A massive set of 90,000 leaked US military records have provided one of the most revealing insights into the US-led war in Afghanistan, including unreported civilian killings by coalition forces and raids by a special force to hunt down Taliban leaders.

The leaked documents called the "The War Logs," posted on Sunday, map the US war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2009, and with it WikiLeaks has pulled the biggest leaks in intelligence history.

Comments?

Sorry to come in so late. A very interesting thread!

I think generally the more knowledge to voters, the more democracy.

[thir]

According to L.C. Baldor of the Associated Press:



Some, however, cautioned that without proper controls that mandate the protection of innocent civilians, such targeted hits could veer into criminal activities.

The Afghanistan war, with its terrorist hit lists, counterinsurgency battles and high-tech battle gear, presents difficult questions. "It is really hard to know where assassination ends and war starts," said Parker.

Targeted military strikes, he said, are on the fringe of accepted military practice during an armed conflict.

"This is a relatively new form of warfare that we're seeing now," he said. "The technology takes you to a different place and raises questions that just weren't there 20 years ago. A lot of these questions don't have answers — they have a test of acceptability."



Seems to me there is no test of acceptability without anyone knowing. That goes for all wars. Important questions raised here.

[thir]

OK, we have to do very bad things too. I can live with that. Sometimes innocent lives have to be sacrificed "for the greater good" - an awful judgement I am not prepared to make, but the necessity of which I do accept.



To me the acid test is if you are willing to sacrifice your own for the greater good.

[thir]

Sadly, this is all too often true. As citizens of reputedly free, civilized nations, though, we would hope those atrocities were aberrations committed by bad individuals rather than policies implemented by our leaders.


Well said!



As for putting soldiers at risk, while always a concern, we have to remember that it's those leaders who started these wars who are putting them at risk, while taking little or no risk themselves.

If the release of these documents somehow manages to get our troops recalled from those sinkholes in the deserts, I wonder how many of them would be grateful.


That too.

[thir]

[B][COLOR="pink"]

Why do people pick on America?


What is meant here by 'pick on'???

[IAN 2411]

His best chance there is that the US authorities have shown their hand by saying they want to charge him with espionage, which can carry the death penalty. As a general rule, we don't extradite European citizens to courts that might send them to be executed, and there would be outcry across the continent if the Swedish government made an exception for Assange.

How can the Americans charge him with espionage, if three million Americans already had privi to the same secrets? That has to be a bluff.

[IAN 2411]

Why do people pick on America?

Why not? Europe have been picking on the UK ever since we have been part of it, and I am a great believer in everyone getting their fair share.

[Lion]

Why do people pick on America?

I wouldn't call it picking. Picking on someone is when they are being abused for simply existing. US on the other hand doesn't simply exist. More then any other country in the world today, US has it's head in a lot of foreign issues. It's not all bad, some of US's work is quite good.

But then there are dark spots that people aren't willing to let go. Think 9/11 for them, and you get their mind set.

[leo9]

How can the Americans charge him with espionage, if three million Americans already had privi to the same secrets? That has to be a bluff.

My mistake, not espionage, treason. Which is worse, in terms of the sentences available.

You might think that a Swedish citizen can't be charged with treason to America. But as I understand it, the guy who passed the files to him is in jail awaiting trial for treason (and being seriously abused there, but that's to be expected.) If there is a prima facie case that Assange invited him to do so, rather than simply being given the disc out of the blue, he can be charged as an accessory.

[thir]

I wouldn't call it picking. Picking on someone is when they are being abused for simply existing.


That is what I thought..?



US on the other hand doesn't simply exist. More then any other country in the world today, US has it's head in a lot of foreign issues. It's not all bad, some of US's work is quite good.


No country simply exists - every country has it involvment to a smaller or larger extent, good and bad. US is a very big country, therefore with lots of involvment, good and bad, and therefore with lots of comments. To complain about that is illogical.