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Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia
James Hardine writes "Wikileaks reports that US armed forces personnel at Guantanamo have conducted propaganda attacks over the Internet. (The story has been picked up by the NYTimes, The Inquirer, the New York Daily News, and the AP.) The activities documented by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as 'an admitted transsexual' (misspelling the word 'transsexual'). Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one 'mass communications officer' by name, who has since received death threats for 'simply doing his job — posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo.'"
I would be hard pressed to call editing wikipedia articles to favor oneself "conducting a propaganda campaign", much in the same way that I would feel awkward referring to updating my blog as a press release.
Government employees have the same right to free expression as I do!
I can't stand it when people have a different world view than I do, and then go out there modifying a website designed to be modifiable by anyone.
How dare they!
Actually, the guys at Gitmo are probably the ones with the most information that goes on there. I'd rather have their input in the articles than every random jackass from Daily Kos, who exist simply to fan flames and spread rumors.
And, for the record, I think it's very, very wrong to house these guys at Gitmo. This "new kind of enemy stuff" is pure bullshit. Enemy combatants, who disguise themselves as civilians, are spies. Spies are supposed to be *executed*, not detained.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
No, that was the CIA. Apparently every time some organization some people don't like edits Wikipedia, it's news, and grounds for a conspiracy theory. I'm not sure why.
This is not mentioned in the article, nor appears on the actual wikipedia edit history.
The incompetence of government is our only real chance at safely. These people are the reason I don't believe the government has covered up UFO's or a massive 9/11 conspiracy. They aren't competent. They can't find their own ass using both hands, much less scratch it without getting caught. The fixed ratio of stupidity to malice being constant means the damage these people can do will be sort term. (Short term being years though.) Much the same way the malice/stupidity ratio lead to the Nazi's being responsible for the very mistakes that lead to their defeat.
So the edit, changed the title of link to the article "War in Afghanistan (2001-present)" to say 'War in Afghanistan' instead of 'Invasion of Afghanistan' and I'm supposed to get worked up over it?
Just may be me, but calling it Invasion of Afghanistan is just a clever way of trying to spin it the other direction.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Yeah, it's not the military's fault that they are employing military personal to vandalize non-profit organization's websites with biased propaganda. It's wikipedia's fault! *eyeroll*
But Guatanemo is being used outside of normal military usage which is probably why they also need spin meisters to make their case.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
What is that supposed to mean? Fidel Castro is trying to pass as the bearded lady?
All of these "freedom" organizations turn quite orwellian themselves whenever someone disagrees with them.
There's a huge difference between covertly intruding on private communications and parsing a changelog on a wiki. It's not as if there are packet sniffers listening to what the military is doing, and I'm not even sure that that would count as "orwellian" if it were the case.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
A. Yes (to both.)
As a Briton, caught between the two I am becoming seriously worried, both by Putin's increasingly strident attacks on anyone who opposes him and the USA's seeming inability to elect anyone other than a clown as president.
Anybody working at the Guantanamo prison deserves death threats.
Fuck 'em.
They deserve to be arrested, charged with war crimes, and sentenced to significant time in a military prison.
The US is torturing prisoners who have not been formally and legally charged with any crime. That is a war crime. The responsibility goes right up to the Commander in Chief George W. Bush and he needs to be arrested and sent to The Hague for trial as a war criminal along with the complete chain of command down to the prison guards executing the orders.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Even if we didn't elect a clown, the person would still kowtow to the enterprises that finance their political party. Until the average American's lifestyle declines to the point where the most important thing to them is the size of their widescreen television the election cycles at every level of government will only alter a subset of whose pole is shined by the government.
It's funny in a way how much blather goes on about the power of the government, when it's mostly just a tool to legitimize the tyranny of powerful trade organizations. I just want to move out of this country. It's full of crazies and idiots that I am tired of being associated with. It's like being trapped in the middle of Disneyland.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Feel free to look it up for yourself.
That patriotic civilian could be held for the duration of hostilities -- but not under the conditions the Guantanamo captives were held.
But, what should be said here is, the allegations the DoD has released against the captives largely don't support the claim that they were combatants.
The DoD has released Summary of Evidence memos listing the allegations against 572 of the 777 captives. If you read some of those allegation memos for yourself you will find that very few of them support the allegation that they were "captured on a battlefield."
In the eighteen months since the memos were first released I have read those 572 memos. Not only do a small fraction of them support this allegation. My assessment is that of the small fraction of those allegation memos that support the "captured on the battlefield" claim more that half of those captives were poor saps who were just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real shooters in these skirmishes fled, and got away scot free.
Let me tell you two of the most memorable cases, that of two brothers: Naqeebyllah Shaheen Shahwali Zair Mohammed and Rasool Shahwali Zair Mohammed Mohammed. transcript at pages 64-76 and 22-28 of this .pdf and transcript at pages 13-28 of this .pdf.
Like a couple of million other Afghans their family fled the decades of warfare in Afghanistan. The brothers grew up as refugees, in Pakistan. They went to school there. They went to medical technician college. The more ambitious, or academically gifted brother worked his way through medical school.
When the Taliban was ousted, and Hamid Karzai took over, one of the problems his country faced was a terrible lack of professionals and literate men. Karzai broadcast a request for educated Afghan refugees to return home. And these two brother decided to heed his request.
So far this is a good news story. This is exactly what everyone hoping for Afghanistan becoming a peaceful, prosperous country would wish for.
The brothers returned the region where their family was from. They borrowed money to equip their medical clinic with modern lab equipment, so the clinic could supply modern medical care, take X-rays, do standard blood tests.
So far this is a good news story. This would almost certainly be the first modern medical care this area ever had. This would save the lives of dozens of babies, old folks, etc.
The Americans established a small firebase nearby.
Okay. Good news. Provide some security.
The first American CO was sensible. He sought out the doctor -- a respected local, who spoke English, and asked him to go around with him, and introduce him to the elders at the various local village councils, and help explain to them that the American intentions were to help the Afghan people, help provide security, help rebuild the country's infrastructure.
So far this is a good news story.
Our doctor agreed. And consequently the elders on these local village councils saw the doctor as the intermediary through whom they could direct requests to the American firebase commander. I imagine these were requests like: "could you allocate some of that discretionary reconstruction fund you control to put our idle young men to work rebuilding the irrigation canal east of here?"
And, so far this is a good news story.
The doctor was a busy guy. So, when the other locals made these kinds of requests he wrot
Perhaps Wikipedia's motto should be something like, "By the people for the people." --After all, the various secret services of the world already own the rest of the media, so to heck with them. They don't play fair so they shouldn't be invited to join.
Anyway, psychopaths are not people. They are sharks who feed on people, they infest government, and they cannot be reformed. Only a fool would invite a shark to a pool party. --The charming psychopath is a master of manipulation, and typically seeds chaos under the guise of reason, and in the confusion, torments you while eating you alive.
Psychopaths make up an estimated 4% to 6% of the population, they are drawn to positions of power, and are far better equipped than normal humans to succeed in attaining those positions.
-FL