Slashdot Mirror
Claimed US Military Wikileaks Source Arrested
svelemor writes "A 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst was ratted out by a fellow hacker, accused of providing the Collateral Murder video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to Wikileaks. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait."
Yeah, give him a medal for potentially putting US citizens lives in danger. Of course!
Apparently there are several versions of this video, at least one having been edited by this guy. I also understand that the edits removed a lot of what could be considered vital context.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
There was never any doubt about the authenticity of the videos - the military admitted they were real. What they argued was that the videos didn't show the context in which there had been combat nearby.
Now, how nearby combat affects whether you can shoot at people retrieving the wounded without violating the Geneva Conventions is a different question. What is very clear, though, is that this is a small taste of what the Iraq War really looks like, and that some soldiers under the sort of combat pressure end up thinking along the lines of "Anyone who runs is an insurgent. Anyone who doesn't run is a well-disciplined insurgent."
Don't you remember? Lord High Glorious Leader King Bush the 2nd decreed that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to "t'err'sts", and by definition, anyone we're at war with is a "t'err'st". Therefore, there were no violations of the human rights given in the Geneva Conventions, as our targets aren't humans.
Even though they later turned out to not be t'err'sts, upon firing upon them they became t'err'sts, at least temporarily, and that makes everything A-OK!
No, I don't believe this for a second either. In sane, rational times we could put the "Saddam" check on it -- "If Saddam Hussein tried to say this, would we use it as evidence against his administration to help justify an embargo / invasion?" Well, yes, we probably would.
But we do not live in sane, rational times -- in sane, rational times, George Bush Jr and a host of treasonous war criminals in his administration would be in the Hague right now undergoing war crimes trials. Instead, we have to be "bipartisan", which is bubblespeek for "let the Republicans do what they want".
If you demand perfection from troops, as in they never make a mistake, never harm an innocent, never cause collateral damage, well you are an idiot. That has never been the case in any conflict with any country. War is messy business. That is one of the many reasons why it should be a last resort. That is also why the rules of engagement and laws are different in the case of war. The question is not if civilians will die, they will. It is to try and minimize it, and to ensure that soldier aren't killing civilians for fun or the like.
So, if the helicopter crew made a legit mistake, well then it is just that: A tragic mistake, one of very many that happen in a war. If they were instead trying to kill civilians, that is entirely different.
Also in a conflict like Iraq in particular, it is extremely difficult. The Geneva Conventions exist not only to protect combatants, but in particular to protect non-combatants. You'll notice that they specify things like that soldier must wear a clear uniform, hospitals are not to be used as bases of operation and so on and so forth. Those rules are to protect civilians. Well the combatants in Iraq don't obey those rules. In fact they go out of their way to try and blend in as civilians, they do things like use ambulances for strikes.
That makes target identification much, much harder. It will lead to more mistakes, more civilian casualties.
Now while you can argue that this (and many other good reasons) means we should stop waging a war in Iraq, you should not vilify soldiers who make mistakes. Demanding perfect from them is no more realistic than demanding perfection anywhere else. You are not perfect, I am not perfect, they are not perfect.
Part of a consideration of war has to be the collateral damage, the lives lost that are not military. You can't say "They need to avoid that," because it isn't possible. They should attempt to minimize it, but it cannot be avoided entirely.
Goes double if he leaked the amount of information he claims. He claims to have leaked "260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables." Ok well sorry, but I cannot believe that he read each and every one, determined that the public's need to know outweighed the need to keep it secret and his oath to do so. Sounds to me like he just dumped data out there without really thinking. Some of it may be quite damaging and in no way helpful.
I can understand when someone leaks something because it is truly important and there's no other option. Government is doing something it shouldn't. The agencies who would investigate this are at best apathetic to it or at worst complicit. There is no official mechanism for rectifying the problem. The only option then is to get the public involved. Leak the information, bring the heat, etc.
However leaking something just for the sake of leaking it is a bad idea. Suppose someone leaked a document of the names and addresses of everyone in witness protection. All the people who had stood up and testified against criminals who were so powerful and dangerous, that to take a stand against them was to endanger your life. What good would that do? The public would gain nothing from this, and people would be put in danger.
So I can respect people with access to secret information who evaluate it and release it if it is absolutely necessary. I can respect when their conscience guides them and they say "Well I took an oath to protect this information, but this is just too important. The public good from its release outweighs any harm it causes and there just isn't another way to get it dealt with." I can't respect someone who betrays their oath just because they can, or because they want to get back at the government or something. When they simply release information en masse without considering the impact or importance.
As an analogy if I found out my neighbours were abusing their children, and I couldn't get anything done about it, I think I would be justified in sneaking a camera in their house and releasing the video to the world. The need to protect the children from harm would outweigh my invading their privacy and breaking the law, though I'd still probably get charged with a crime. However if I found out my neighbour had a weird, but legal and harmless, sexual fetish they liked to act out by themselves, I'd be scum if I snuck a camera in their house and released it to the world. That would invade their privacy and damage their reputation and for no good at all.
No.
It never has been.
You fail basic elementary school and high school understanding of your own government.
The good news is, it is a representational democracy which means that ignorant fucks who don't know what they are talking about such as yourself aren't the ones in charge.
The ones in charge actually DO have SOME sort of idea about how to govern people, the only problem is ... going back to the stupidest of you and yours, we end up electing people who govern us into slavery rather than helping us.
The first step in fixing our government is for you to get a fucking clue about how it works rather than comparing it to completely unrelated forms of government, which you also probably don't know shit about other than what you've been spoon fed by whichever political warcry you're backing this week.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It also deepens the mystery of Wikileak's military source: Who is so disgruntled as to not only leak the video, but also edit out the slightest bit of redeeming footage?
TFA in Wired seems to provide an answer:
From the chat logs provided by Lamo, and examined by Wired.com, it appears Manning sensed a kindred spirit in the ex-hacker. He discussed personal issues that got him into trouble with his superiors and left him socially isolated, and said he had been demoted and was headed for an early discharge from the Army.
Hardly an unbiased source.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I can tell you what people in a warzone should be doing, they should be fighting. If a foreign power has invaded your land and you disagree with them, fight them. If you agree with the invading power, fight with them. If your own government is attacking its people, fight back. I'm tired of all these refugees from so called war torn areas of the world. Take a stand for what you believe, and if you believe you should be a pacifist, well I don't know what to tell you because you are saying there is nothing worth fighting for, and you're beyond hope or my caring.