Wikileaks releases 92,000 classified documents on Afghanistan

[ParanoiA]

Again, I think this falls under "if the government want it done safely, then the government should do it".

 

Otherwize, we're left with no-one doing it and us not knowing what's going on.

 

tbh, I think that to agree with you i'd either have to accept that the government safely being more open isn't an option (which I don't), or that if the government don't want to be open then we have to just accept that, and no-one should force transparency upon them (which I also don't accept).

 

Basically, I'm happy to see this done over and over again until our governments learn that it's going to get out anyway so they may as well release it themselves, even if some people die in the process.

 

But that's a false dilemma. Why do you keep arguing this as an either/or? There is no binary limitation here. We can release all of this goodie info, AND black out the names on the list. Tada! Done. Now we have exposed our nasty government and didn't betray informants and get them killed.

 

I'm not happy to see anyone die because someone else unilaterally decided they were expendable for their cause, for no better reason than the limitations of their own intelligence. It would be particularly sad to watch someone run over a child simply because they didn't know a brake pedal existed. It's going to be sad if anyone dies over this, simply because Assange didn't possess knowledge of the proverbial brake pedal.

 

And hey, I might introduce this thread in my trial when I go drinking and driving this weekend and fail to kill anyone. It's almost like the ends justify the means anymore. We had an american president like that recently too...what was his name...hmm...

Edited August 11, 2010 by ParanoiA

[jackson33]

Having said that; YES, in my opinion most every previous administration, likely on many issues this one, anything seen as adverse to the goals or agenda of Government/Country, WILL be addressed.[/Quote]

 

swansont; That was a general statement, on addressing potential leakage of information.

 

I'm curious. Which administrations do you think would have said it's OK to publish some of the classified documents? [/Quote]

 

Every administration, IMO allows information to go public, when maybe it should not have been and for any number of reasons. I'm afraid political agenda and power, will always trump/corrupt common sense, whether from the head of or some members of any administration.

 

An interesting link, I've used elsewhere and somewhat related to this thread, is the history of 'Friendly Fire' incidents, some of which if information (cause and effect) had been leaked, would have literally changed history, IMO.

 

Cap Arcona incident - Although it did not involve troops in combat, this incident has been referred to as "the worst friendly-fire incident in history"[22] On May 3, 1945, the three ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and the SS Deutschland in Lübeck Harbour were sunk in four separate, but synchronized attacks with bombs, rockets, and cannons by the Royal Air Force, resulting in the death of over 7,000 Jewish concentration camp survivors and Russian prisoners of war, along with POWs from several other allies.[22][23] The British pilots were unaware that these ships carried POW's and concentration camp survivors,[24] although British documents were released in the 1970s that state the Swedish government had informed the RAF command of the risk prior to the attack.[25][26] [/Quote]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire

 

Another form of harmful leakage, falls under 'Contingency Planning" which every administration better practice. Currently the 'Memorandum' on how to bypass Congress to permit certain illegal's, legal status is an example of a leakage of such an item. Then "Operations Northwoods" (declassified 1997) is interesting, never used or is there any indication it would have been, but if it had become public, it could have been devastating to American Public Relations.

 

While it is not certain that President Kennedy was appraised of the full Northwoods details, a White House meeting on March 16 which included Kennedy did refer to the plans. General Lemnitzer said the U.S. had contingency plans for invasion and "plans for creating plausible pretexts to use force." Lansdale's memo of the meeting records Kennedy's reply: "The President said bluntly that we were not discussing the use of U.S. military force."

 

It should be noted that only one copy of the Northwoods documents has been located, though there were certainly several in existence at one point in time [/Quote]

 

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Operation_Northwoods

[Pangloss]

See, this is what I meant when I said maybe we should actually wait to see whether anyone actually dies before condemning him. We don't know that anyone's at risk, and we don't know whether Assuage does or doesn't.

 

But how is Julian Assange qualified to make that determination? His stated motivation is opposition to the war in Afghanistan. How is that different from someone who's motivation is that they don't like socialized medicine? Or illegal immigration? Or abortion? Doesn't it make more logical sense to say "do not touch" and "applies to everyone, period"? How does this guy -- this guy in particular -- become qualified to look at classified documents and decide which ones are dangerous and which ones are safe?

 

And here's something I keep wondering: What if the information he released tied in with other information that was already out there that he simply wasn't aware of? For example, what if the documents he released called informants "Number 37", "Number 38" and so forth. But another document, released earlier that he either forgot about or wasn't aware of, listed all the numbers and linked them to names and addresses? That's the sort of thing that secret organizations do, and they're also designed to keep track of that sort of thing and prevent accidental releases of information. They don't always succeed, but they're designed to do the job, and more importantly, they don't have a stated political agenda. They're objective, at least in so far as they are designed.

 

But it doesn't even matter because we know there are names in there. He can't know one way or another that those people are safe, so he blew it, and he blew it big time.

 

 

--------------------

 

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels Assange went too far. International human rights organizations are now piling on, urging Assange to censor the documents that have already been released. (I guess they don't think Al Qaeda knows how to copy and paste.)

 

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100811wikileaks_urged_to_censor_leaked_files/

 

Human rights groups said yesterday they’ve asked WikiLeaks to censor secret files on the Afghanistan war to protect civilians who’ve worked with the United States from reprisals.

 

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and other groups repeatedly have e-mailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calling for names to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published online last month.

 

“There was no consideration about civilian lives,” Nader Nadery of the commission said, noting a rise in assassinations of Afghan civilians seen as government collaborators. He said the group had not yet received any response to its requests.

[ParanoiA]

I'll even entertain the idea that he changed the names to fake ones, and can't confirm it since that would defeat the purpose. In that case, we still have to bash him about it to maintain appearances.

[swansont]

swansont; That was a general statement, on addressing potential leakage of information.

 

It was seemingly in response to a general question I asked: Would any WH have responded, other than to tell Wikileaks to pound sand?

 

Are you saying yes to this, or no?

 

 

Every administration, IMO allows information to go public, when maybe it should not have been and for any number of reasons. I'm afraid political agenda and power, will always trump/corrupt common sense, whether from the head of or some members of any administration.

 

But that's not the issue at hand, which is information that is classified (the leak does not change the status; government employees have been instructed not to go to wikileaks for fear of the problems involved in having classified material on unclassified computers).

[Pangloss]

I'll even entertain the idea that he changed the names to fake ones, and can't confirm it since that would defeat the purpose. In that case, we still have to bash him about it to maintain appearances.

 

I'm no expert here (so it's not like I'd release any documents, because, you know, I'm not qualified), but all they'd know in that case is that the names were fake; it wouldn't tell them what the real names were, right?

[Mr Skeptic]

But how is Julian Assange qualified to make that determination?

 

He's an unpaid volunteer working a dangerous job to whom people go to when they want documents leaked. His qualification, as far as I can tell, is "the best there is".

 

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels Assange went too far. International human rights organizations are now piling on, urging Assange to censor the documents that have already been released. (I guess they don't think Al Qaeda knows how to copy and paste.)

 

To me this just shows how dumb some people are.

[Dak]

But that's a false dilemma. Why do you keep arguing this as an either/or? There is no binary limitation here. We can release all of this goodie info, AND black out the names on the list. Tada! Done. Now we have exposed our nasty government and didn't betray informants and get them killed.

 

Look at what I was replying to: I was acting under the assumption that any names being left in was a mistake. If, with the gov' not releasing this data, someone else leaks it and does the best they can to protect people on the front line and accidentally leave some names in, and they die, I'd place the blame on the gov' for not doing it themselves and still say WL was justified in leaking the document.

 

I'll admit that if nothing was done and people die, then that'd be dickish; but:

 

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/afghan+leak+wikileaks+julian+assange+tells+all/3723392

 

There is an awful amount of material here that you couldn't have looked through personally. Could it cost lives? Is it putting people in danger publishing this?

We've gone through the material and reviewed it and looked for cases where innocent informers, ie an old man saying next door there is a Taliban, or what he believes is Taliban, so we've looked for those cases and there's a particular type of report that frequently has that - those have been withheld and also the source says they have done some work in doing this as well. So I think it's unlikely that that will happen. We've worked hard to make sure there's not a significant chance of anybody coming to harm.

 

But you can't guarantee it?

Any information can be abused for another purpose so we can't guarantee it. But our understanding of the material is that it's vastly more likely to save lives than cost lives.

 

So you've actually removed stuff from this leak?

Yes.

 

Is that a first for Wikileaks?

Sources know when they submit material that we go through a "harm minimisation" process.

 

That harm minimisation process is not about removing material it's about minimising harm. We have a number of ways to do that. The way we have done it in the past and it's always been effective - notify and delay. Notify the people concerned, and delay the publication as a result. So we have retained some of this material for the harm minimisation process. No, because it's really impossible for us to notify the Afghanis in their villages about this material - we will have to do a redaction of some of it.

 

But how is Julian Assange qualified to make that determination? His stated motivation is opposition to the war in Afghanistan. How is that different from someone who's motivation is that they don't like socialized medicine? Or illegal immigration? Or abortion? Doesn't it make more logical sense to say "do not touch" and "applies to everyone, period"? How does this guy -- this guy in particular -- become qualified to look at classified documents and decide which ones are dangerous and which ones are safe?

 

Nothing? But we only have three choices here: either no-one can look at these documents, or everyone can look at these documents, or someone can look at these documents and release only those bits that they think are in our best interest to know, whilst holding back the rest.

 

I'd actually prefer that the governments of the world released only the relevent bits (pretty much for the reasons you've given), but as they're not, I guess someone has to (unless we're going to accept just not knowing), and... well, why not him?

 

As long as the gov' refuse to be open, it's got to be someone outside of government. Who would you prefer?

 

And here's something I keep wondering: What if the information he released tied in with other information that was already out there that he simply wasn't aware of? For example, what if the documents he released called informants "Number 37", "Number 38" and so forth. But another document, released earlier that he either forgot about or wasn't aware of, listed all the numbers and linked them to names and addresses?

 

Then, whoops, he made a mistake. Again, the US government should have handled the release of this information to avoid that happening.

 

I guess what i'm saying is a perfectly safe public-release > an unsafe public release > no public release.

 

JA isn't capable of making a perfectly safe release? then he should make an unsafe release, until someone better qualified can take over *coff* the government *coff*

 

That's the sort of thing that secret organizations do, and they're also designed to keep track of that sort of thing and prevent accidental releases of information. They don't always succeed, but they're designed to do the job, and more importantly, they don't have a stated political agenda. They're objective, at least in so far as they are designed.

 

(emphasis mine)

 

really??? You think secret (government?) organizations are objective and without a political agenda?

 

Their political agenda will be to present the Afghan war favorably, especially within Afghan'. You can't trust them to report the bad stuff. Example: they didn't report the bad stuff.

[jackson33]

It was seemingly in response to a general question I asked: Would any WH have responded, other than to tell Wikileaks to pound sand?

 

Are you saying yes to this, or no? [/Quote]

 

 

swansont; I believe so, or yes in any number of different ways. What I don't think is many if any other would have simply ignored, if indeed this one did so.....

 

But that's not the issue at hand, which is information that is classified (the leak does not change the status; government employees have been instructed not to go to wikileaks for fear of the problems involved in having classified material on unclassified computers). [/Quote]

 

I have absolutely no idea, what your trying to say; If wikileaks, has anything the Federal Government, considered Classified and has been divulged, how can you then claim it to be classified or what difference would it make to any computers data base in the first place. If your saying people without a correct authorization (security clearance) to whatever the classifications are, which anyone else can do a simple google search and receive, where is the problem.

[swansont]

swansont; I believe so, or yes in any number of different ways. What I don't think is many if any other would have simply ignored, if indeed this one did so.....

 

So you have the option of saying no, you can't release the documents, which is the default position. Your only other options are some version of saying it's OK to do so. I'll ask again, since you've singled out this administration as having bungled this — what administrations do you think would have approved releasing any of the classified material?

 

 

I have absolutely no idea, what your trying to say; If wikileaks, has anything the Federal Government, considered Classified and has been divulged, how can you then claim it to be classified or what difference would it make to any computers data base in the first place. If your saying people without a correct authorization (security clearance) to whatever the classifications are, which anyone else can do a simple google search and receive, where is the problem.

 

It's not my claim, it's the government's claim. I was merely repeating it.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/05/us-military-banned-from-v_n_671967.html

 

"There has been rumor that the information is no longer classified since it resides in the public domain. This is NOT true."

 

Computers/networks that are not designated for classified material cannot store or transmit classified material. It's a serious violation to breach that.

 

 

 

As long as the gov' refuse to be open, it's got to be someone outside of government. Who would you prefer?

 

 

 

It's not really a binary condition. Having secrets is not a refusal to be open. There is a spectrum of openness.

[jackson33]

So you have the option of saying no, you can't release the documents, which is the default position. Your only other options are some version of saying it's OK to do so. [b[]I'll ask again, since you've singled out this administration as having bungled this — what administrations do you think would have approved releasing any of the classified material?[/b][/Quote]

 

swansont; What I've said, is that I would believe "Assange", Wikileaks founder, over the Administrations flat denial of knowledge, before the leaks occurred. No launch of an investigation to investigate, simply a denial. This opinion, is based on my well defined (several post) that this Administration SEEMS to me to be dysfunctional. I have no idea or do you or anyone else at this time, whom actually leaked the information to Assange and that person or those persons, if not taken via hackers, IMO came from the Government. It may well have come from 'Bradley Manning', a 22yo Army Private alone (I seriously doubt), but if so this in my opinion takes the inefficiency to the Military and I'd rather not think that....

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/04/bradley.manning.wikileaks/index.html

I have no idea what any other Administration, would have done on this particular leak, but I seriously doubt any would have commented on the accusation, at all once released.

 

It's not my claim, it's the government's claim. I was merely repeating it.[/Quote]

 

How was I to know this, the original comment was not linked, I replied to the author of that comment as addressed...

 

Fine, then I have no idea what their talking about, it simply correlates with my personal opinion, this Administration, shows signs of being dysfunctional....

 

Computers/networks that are not designated for classified material cannot store or transmit classified material. It's a serious violation to breach that.[/Quote]

 

If Classified Material, has been released and yet possession or distribution of that material remains "a serious violation or breach", there are a whole lot people in trouble. I wonder under which law, they might try to prosecute me for admitting I've read and forwarded known PREVIOUSLY classified material, this by the way IMO includes Assange...

[Pangloss]

He's an unpaid volunteer working a dangerous job to whom people go to when they want documents leaked. His qualification, as far as I can tell, is "the best there is".

 

Because of his stated ideological motivation I would actually call him the WORST choice to make this call. But okay, why do you feel he's more qualified to release classified documents to the public than, say, Rush Limbaugh?

 

 

we only have three choices here: either no-one can look at these documents, or everyone can look at these documents, or someone can look at these documents and release only those bits that they think are in our best interest to know, whilst holding back the rest.

 

I agree that those are the choices.

 

I'd actually prefer that the governments of the world released only the relevent bits (pretty much for the reasons you've given), but as they're not, I guess someone has to (unless we're going to accept just not knowing), and... well, why not him?

 

As long as the gov' refuse to be open, it's got to be someone outside of government. Who would you prefer?

 

I challenge the premise -- that documents need to be released. Note that not one single case of malfeasance is alleged here -- the accusation is IDEOLOGICAL -- that it's bad policy.

 

In short, he's refusing to accept the decision of society (made through a valid election and appropriate representative actions), and taking matters into his own hands. This is why I made the comparison with terrorism earlier in the thread, though in hindsight I agree that he may not have INTENDED there to be human consequences. But it's still taking policy into his own hands.

 

That doesn't strike me as a sound, rational course of action that should be pursued on a regular basis.

 

 

Again, the US government should have handled the release of this information to avoid that happening.

 

They did. They assigned it secret status, restricted its access to personnel who were required by law not to reveal it to the public, and someone broke the law and did it anyway. Not because of fraud or illegality or other malfeasance, but because they disagreed with this policy.

 

 

JA isn't capable of making a perfectly safe release? then he should make an unsafe release, until someone better qualified can take over *coff* the government *coff*

 

Why? Because the war in Afghanistan is unpopular? Great, so now I'll ask you again: What happens when someone objects to abortion, or the new health care plan, or illegal immigration, and decides to act on that belief by releasing secret documents that put people's lives in jeopardy? Would you still support that action then?

 

 

Their political agenda will be to present the Afghan war favorably, especially within Afghan'. You can't trust them to report the bad stuff. Example: they didn't report the bad stuff.

 

Please provide evidence that our intelligence organizations are spinning the facts about Afghanistan and not showing the truth to the White House. (Or re-read what I wrote.)

[Mr Skeptic]

Because of his stated ideological motivation I would actually call him the WORST choice to make this call. But okay, why do you feel he's more qualified to release classified documents to the public than, say, Rush Limbaugh?

 

Rush has no practice, no reputation for reliability, and most importantly, no information to leak.

[Pangloss]

Rush has no practice, no reputation for reliability, and most importantly, no information to leak.

 

Julian Assange's stated motivation was ending the war in Afghanistan, so objective reliability is not applicable to either he or Limbaugh.

[Mr Skeptic]

I didn't say objective reliability. How long do you think that Rush can hide from the authorities? He'd get dragged to jail in no time, and fail to release the info.

[Pangloss]

Yeah not a real fast runner, I'm guessing. (Not that I'm one to talk.)

[swansont]

 

How was I to know this, the original comment was not linked, I replied to the author of that comment as addressed...

 

Not a problem. You weren't sure if I was stating opinion or fact, or if I had my facts right, and I provided a link. That's how it's supposed to work.

 

 

Fine, then I have no idea what their talking about, it simply correlates with my personal opinion, this Administration, shows signs of being dysfunctional....

 

 

The problem I have with this and your previous declaration of dysfunctionality is that the response has little if anything to do with the administration. This is boilerplate. It does not change from administration to administration, which is true of most of the bureaucracy of government — it has nothing to do with administration policy. So I think you're just using as an excuse to bash the administration. It's a complete non-sequitur. Unless you can explain how following the rules and laws is a sign of being dysfunctional.

[Dak]

I challenge the premise -- that documents need to be released. Note that not one single case of malfeasance is alleged here -- the accusation is IDEOLOGICAL -- that it's bad policy.

 

In short, he's refusing to accept the decision of society (made through a valid election and appropriate representative actions), and taking matters into his own hands. This is why I made the comparison with terrorism earlier in the thread, though in hindsight I agree that he may not have INTENDED there to be human consequences. But it's still taking policy into his own hands.

 

That doesn't strike me as a sound, rational course of action that should be pursued on a regular basis.

 

Well, there's the argument that an uninformed decision made by anyone (including society) is an invalid decision, which would necessitate a degree of openess.

 

Also, you're looking at this from an American perspective, dispite the fact that you're trying to persuade an English person that what an Australian told all that us the Americans are doing to Afghans is wrong. Why should I, Assuange, WL, the Afghans, or the majority of the world prioritize what the American society alledgedly want, as revealed through a system that is called valid by it's supporters?

 

iow, if a few US soldiers and Afghan informers die as a result of this leak, but it also results in the US population putting pressure on the US gov' to make the Army take greater care and thus saves hundreds of Afghan lives, then how is the leak unjustified (remembering that most people aren't American)? Espescially as the US gov' has an easy way out of this happening in future, which is to keep the US population as well-informed as it can, resulting in no accidental 'dangerous' leaks plus a more scrutinized US army, which would save many lives as far as i can tell.

 

They did. They assigned it secret status, restricted its access to personnel who were required by law not to reveal it to the public, and someone broke the law and did it anyway. Not because of fraud or illegality or other malfeasance, but because they disagreed with this policy.

 

that's not 'handling the release', that's 'not releasing'

 

Why? Because the war in Afghanistan is unpopular?

 

No, because you Americans should know what you're doing so that you can make an informed, democratic decision as to whether to continue or not.

 

Next war you guys consider having, atrocities and losses in this war will be deciding factor. It might help you guys make an appropriate decision, rather than stumbling along in a government-induced state of ignorance.

 

Great, so now I'll ask you again: What happens when someone objects to abortion, or the new health care plan, or illegal immigration, and decides to act on that belief by releasing secret documents that put people's lives in jeopardy? Would you still support that action then?

 

If data about abortion, health care, or illegal immigration was released, then I'd be ok with that. If the gov tried to push doctors towards suggesting abortions for poor people 'cos that was cheaper than giving child benifit, or if there was an advertizing campaign trying to promote abortions amongst blacks to try to keep their numbers down, or if a hospital had an official, but hush-hush, policy of trying to persuade people to get abortions because abortions are a more profitable operation than child-birth, and someone leaked that, then great! Their reasons for leaking (anti-abortion) are irrelevent tbh.

 

If the actual names of people who had gotten abortions was released, i'd be a bit iffy about that. If a few names make it out, then i'd probably feel that was justified in order to get the problem out in the open.

 

Please provide evidence that our intelligence organizations are spinning the facts about Afghanistan and not showing the truth to the White House. (Or re-read what I wrote.)

 

To the white house? I was talking about to the public. The US gov' spin the Afghan war to the people, espescially to the Afghans. WL isn't trying to inform the white house.

[Pangloss]

Why should I, Assuange, WL, the Afghans, or the majority of the world prioritize what the American society alledgedly want, as revealed through a system that is called valid by it's supporters?

 

You're not being asked to.

 

 

No, because you Americans should know what you're doing so that you can make an informed, democratic decision as to whether to continue or not.

 

We already made an informed, democratic decision whether to continue. Mistaken civilian casualties (when such were already known to exist) hasn't change this, and would not have, under any realistic political environment in this country. The documents have had no impact on government policy nor public perception, nor will they.

 

That's the thing that really bugs people like Julian Assange -- the fact that people aren't as stupid as he thinks they must be. We made an intelligent decision with eyes open and nothing about that has changed. The ONLY reasons public sentiment has turned against the war is longevity and expense. It's been a long time since 9/11, soldier deaths have affected people we know (affecting stamina), and the economy sucks. Pretty much anything the government supports is going to get a low approval rating today. But even if he'd found another Mai Lai Massacre, it wouldn't have made any difference, for reasons that I doubt Julian Assange will ever understand. The American people simply aren't as prone to that kind of simplistic reasoning (like saying that an event like the Mai Lai Massacre is a valid reason for departing a conflict) as the world's True Believers would like for them to be. Not from the left OR the right.

 

 

If the actual names of people who had gotten abortions was released, i'd be a bit iffy about that.

 

Julian Assange didn't give me that choice, and I'm not giving it to you either. In this hypothetical, Rush Limbaugh says you're uninformed, and he's decided that you need to know this information and that's that. You're out of luck, because Rush Limbaugh says so.

 

 

To the white house? I was talking about to the public. The US gov' spin the Afghan war to the people, espescially to the Afghans. WL isn't trying to inform the white house.

 

I said that the intelligence operations don't have a political agenda, and are tasked with objectively reporting truth to those in charge. You responded (in post #83, right at the end) by saying:

 

really??? You think secret (government?) organizations are objective and without a political agenda?

 

Perhaps it was just a misunderstanding? There's a paragraph change in there as well; sometimes such things can be unclear.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/08/12/afghanistan.wikileaks/

 

(CNN) -- The founder of WikiLeaks says the whistle-blower website is preparing to release another roughly 15,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan. "We are about halfway through them," Julian Assange told reporters in London, England, on Thursday. "This is a very expensive process."

 

 

[Moontanman]

Can you access wikileaks and find out what they have leaked on various subjects?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

They have a list on their front page:

 

http://wikileaks.org/

 

There's loads more, though; here's everything they have on Scientology, for instance:

 

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Scientology

[jackson33]

The problem I have with this and your previous declaration of dysfunctional is that the response has little if anything to do with the administration. This is boilerplate. It does not change from administration to administration, which is true of most of the bureaucracy of government — it has nothing to do with administration policy.[/Quote]

 

swansont; Even though, I've stated that I can not show where in Government to place the blame for my accusation "dysfunctional", the point is the Administration has picked the leaders to administer each department. Additionally, I've been very careful in maintaining an open attitude toward the President on any of these issues, since I don't personally believe the President has the slightest idea how to MANAGE, my corner C-Store, much less the Federal Bureaucracy.

 

Now, since your indicating "it's the bureaucracy", that's giving the appearance of being inefficient and I most certainly agree, how does adding the tens of thousand of Employees and nobody knows how many new departments, going to solve the problems?

 

So I think you're just using as an excuse to bash the administration. It's a complete non-sequitur. Unless you can explain how following the rules and laws is a sign of being dysfunctional. [/Quote]

 

I don't think I NEED an excuse to bash this administrations POLICY, nor did I when I personally felt, either Bush, Clinton, Reagan, CARTER or any Presidents Policy, in my lifetime went off track, that's called politics, and I don't believe my opinions are absurd, in any way....

As for following rules and law, specifically adding the Constitution and Tradition, I don't know of any Administration or Government (Congress) in the History of this Republic, that has gone so far track, in so many way, in such a short period, as this one. I'll try to come up with a thread on this or you or anyone else is welcome to and I'll be glad to offer my thoughts.

[Dak]

You're not being asked to.

 

Then, really, whether or not it's against the decision of American society is completely irrelevant?

 

We already made an informed, democratic decision whether to continue. Mistaken civilian casualties (when such were already known to exist) hasn't change this, and would not have, under any realistic political environment in this country. The documents have had no impact on government policy nor public perception, nor will they.

 

That's the thing that really bugs people like Julian Assange -- the fact that people aren't as stupid as he thinks they must be. We made an intelligent decision with eyes open and nothing about that has changed. The ONLY reasons public sentiment has turned against the war is longevity and expense. It's been a long time since 9/11, soldier deaths have affected people we know (affecting stamina), and the economy sucks. Pretty much anything the government supports is going to get a low approval rating today. But even if he'd found another Mai Lai Massacre, it wouldn't have made any difference, for reasons that I doubt Julian Assange will ever understand. The American people simply aren't as prone to that kind of simplistic reasoning (like saying that an event like the Mai Lai Massacre is a valid reason for departing a conflict) as the world's True Believers would like for them to be. Not from the left OR the right.

 

I didn't mean 'continue this war', I meant 'continue waging war as you currently are' (should've been clearer, sorry).

 

If the 'atrocities' are really that bad... well, you should know about them is all I'm really saying. Because maybe, in this war or the next, you'll be more careful. Or maybe not. Or maybe you won't even wage the next war. Or maybe you will. But at least, if it's really all that bad, you won't continue as-is due to ignorance induced by your government not telling you what's going on out there.

 

You'll continue because you're incredibly huge dicks. Or because, even knowing exactly what's happening, you still feel it's neccesary. Or you'll continue more-or-less as-is, but a bit more carefully. Or whatever, at least your decision will be informed.

 

Included with this leak is the allegation that your government toned-down (and outright lied) about the nastier aspects of this war. If that's true, then you inherently haven't yet made an informed democratic decision. You've made an ill-informed decision. This leak could be part of changing that.

 

This is the part that I feel is worth a slight (mitigated) risk to informers lives; this is the bit that I'd blame the US government for not doing themselves; this is the bit where, compared to the hundreds of thousands of (avoidable?) Afghan civilian deaths, I'm disinclined to instead focus on a few hundred potential US troop/informers' lives.

 

Julian Assange didn't give me that choice, and I'm not giving it to you either. In this hypothetical, Rush Limbaugh says you're uninformed, and he's decided that you need to know this information and that's that. You're out of luck, because Rush Limbaugh says so.

 

I don't follow? Assange didn't give us the choice of not receiving names? He says they looked through and removed informers, but seems to have possibly missed a few. Is that what you're reffering to?

 

I said that the intelligence operations don't have a political agenda, and are tasked with objectively reporting truth to those in charge.

 

WL isn't trying to inform those in charge, so 'WL should let the intelligence services do it' doesn't make sense.

[ParanoiA]

I'm no expert here (so it's not like I'd release any documents, because, you know, I'm not qualified), but all they'd know in that case is that the names were fake; it wouldn't tell them what the real names were, right?

 

Well here's an example where tone-font would be useful; I can't tell if your parenthetical statement is a dig or a nod. But anyways, yeah of course you're right. The only consequence being that if they don't know the names are fake, then perhaps, it may be a stretch, but maybe that gets them looking for people that don't exist, rather than knowing the names are fake and then invoking some kind of terror torture campaign to discover the real ones.

 

Yeah I seriously need to watch a little less TV....

 

Look at what I was replying to: I was acting under the assumption that any names being left in was a mistake. If, with the gov' not releasing this data, someone else leaks it and does the best they can to protect people on the front line and accidentally leave some names in, and they die, I'd place the blame on the gov' for not doing it themselves and still say WL was justified in leaking the document.

 

Ah, fair enough. I don't know how much I agree with your reasoning here either, but clearly you weren't presenting the false dichotomy.

 

To be honest, I share the somewhat natural impulse to support and encourage exposing government secrets and such, particularly in a free society that participates in its governing. But I equally challenge the auto-magic notion that it surely must always = good.

 

Just like hypocrisy, there's a difference between function and form. I think we just jump on the bandwagon to expose everything with a false righteous assumption. "Secrets" are not iniquitous.

 

At the same time, trusting the government to do it, even when they "appear" to be, is even more naive. I don't care how open the government appears to be, they are not to be trusted. It can not be afforded.

 

I find it easy to navigate between those two points. "Old media" knows how to do this. The gravity of these documents requires particular care. I don't believe the results of how this was leaked lend evidence that he fully appreciates that care. It also doesn't suggest he was as careless as I made him out to be. But nevertheless...

 

I guess I see it similar to trusting me with my own nuclear reactor in my backyard. No matter how much education, or how much I have in the way of resources, no one is really going to be comfortable with me running my own nuclear show no matter how insistent I am that I can do it without hurting anyone.

Edited August 13, 2010 by ParanoiA