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."
I can understand this dude getting in trouble for leaking information and such, but kudos to him for getting the collateral murder video out there in the wild.
Living With a Nerd
Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love...Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women...women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my essence.
Honestly. For standing up for what is right instead of doing what he's told. If there isn't a medal for that, there fucking should be.
I know I would choose to keep quiet, but I'm a coward (even if not anonymous).
It must have taken a lot of courage to leak all that info.
Kudos for him, I wish I had that kind of self sacrificing will.
This lad deserves a medal just for outting the Collateral Murder video alone. Let alone all the other "hundreds of thousands" of classified records (which im very skeptical of. I fail to see how one man can just handover this much info on his own)
I can see leaking select diplomatic cables, but leaking all of them seems horribly irresponsible.
I'm really sad though, because that guy could've been a great source. Our country, and most countries around the world have gotten away with hiding any number of things from the public that they shouldn't be. It would be really nice for those things to be made public.
Governments (ours most definitely included) do horrible ugly things, and I really want more people to be forced to confront that in a way they can't deny.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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
So despite the fact that he's a genuine hero, both in a moral and practical sense, and did the entire world a service with his actions, you still feel a need to pay lip service to authority and the rules they designed to oppress exactly this kind of information from reaching the public?
I never said I agreed with it, I said I can understand why it happend. Understanding something and agreeing with something are two different concepts.
Living With a Nerd
Honestly. For standing up for what is right instead of doing what he's told. If there isn't a medal for that, there fucking should be.
He gambled with his access to this data and, in hindsight, I think it was a very imprudent thing to do that might result in espionage or treason charges. The documents he released would have to have had such a profound impact on the American people, the American press and the rest of the world that his imprisonment could only be seen as an Imperial action committed by a war hungry country. This, however, would require that politicians become involved and pardon him from any persecution instead of a military level court decision. And for that, I think we would have to be talking about more than a few accidental killings in a war zone. We would have to be talking about an unacknowledged war crime. The Garani video listed in the article might be a war crime but it sounds like the United States has admitted to it in the press, thereby removing the blunt effect it might have or the super valuable phrase "cover up".
Unfortunately for Manning, none of this went down to the degree he needed it to. I don't mean to sound apologetic or like lives are trivial things to be dispatched with at the push of a button but the American people seem to be okay with the fact that hell is visited upon two other nations by way of their tax dollar. If they want to, they can watch journalists being killed in Iraq. It's been available for several months with little impact. The justifications of these wars range from 9/11 to 'they got our oil' but it seems that anything Manning leaked has failed to leave the impact it needed to in order to ensure his freedom. That's my opinion from watching the media circus so far anyway--his only hope seems to be that the Garani video has much more of an impact. The 260,000 diplomatic cables are not going to have the impact he'll need them to. I can understand selected videos of unacknowledged journalist killings but why the cables? I don't think the politicians will appreciate that at all and it will do nothing for his case.
My work here is dung.
See, I disagree, if he was a civilian and somehow got ahold of those videos then he could do what ever he wanted with them, and it would be fine by me, but he was part of the militay, and when you join you take a oath to protect the people of the US, and that includes the others serveing with you. This stuff is confidential for a reason, good or bad it need to stay that way for a while, this is no diffrent that getting the plans to say build weapons and post them on the internet. Yes I know that some one could take those plans and make the wepons and hurt our guys out there, but what do you think our enemies think when they see videos like this. It defenitly isn't feer, it anger and thyat will make them more hostile to our guys out in the field. I'm not one for censorship of free speech but this is in NO way free speech. I think this guy should spend YEARS in jail, and no I don't think that is too harsh. In 10 years when this stuff would be declassified and if it went public then, that would have been fine, because everything would have died down, and hopefully we wouldn't still be at war, but not when our guys are still out there every day, risking their lives.
A lot of the material he leaked was Top Secret. To be classified as Top Secret, the release of that information must cause imminent, serious harm to the United States and/or its allies and assets. Would he have the stones to take personal responsibility when the insurgents find US and Iraqi Government collaborators through that data and start murdering them and their families?
Of course not. Guys like this virtually never want to be judged by the entire scope of the consequences of their actions. He'll feel smug that he exposed data like that helicopter footage, but when some collaborator's children are raped and murdered because of him, he'll deny that he's culpable for that.
Shame on our democratic government for trying to keep things like this a secret.
If you're going to do something illegal that you don't want anyone to know you did, perhaps you shouldn't tell people about it on the internet. Whether it was the morally right thing to do or not, leaking it anonymously then bragging you were the source makes no sense and is stupid.
He's putting US Citizen's lives in danger by exposing a cover up by the US Military? Now there's some Dubya bush logic!
From a BBC article with more details from the person who turned him in:
I gave them conversation logs that implicated Special Agent Manning. They were particularly interested in a code word for a major operation.
So you know, in addition to the videos and diplomatic cables he was out and about bragging about this and discussing major operations and their code words. While you might be able to justify the videos, I don't know how you could justify bragging to people about it and discussing current military operations on the internet. That could probably be construed as putting the lives of many soldiers in danger.
My work here is dung.
I mean, this is a democracy with a transparent government, not North Korea, right? *sigh*
I have a hard time believing that there isn't some kind of law against this kind of thing given the sensitivity of intelligence information, but I still concur with the person you were responding to: why is this kind of information being suppressed at all by a (small d) democratic government?
"Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect." http://twitter.com/wikileaks
War-crimes are okay if you commit them for your country. Or if an old, fat man with lots of shiny things tells you it's okay. I'm reminded of a psychological experiment involving shocking test-takers.
The military all too often makes things secret not because it is sensitive, but because it would generate bad PR. This is not how a democratic government is supposed to function. If you don't like living in a country with a transparent government, you can always move to places like North Korea.
If this person was the only person who helped people murdered make their last testament, then is he not a hero?
Did he not rise to a greater challenge, to truth and integrity?
I say. if he can be imprisoned, so can we.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Lamo says he felt he had no choice but to turn in Manning, but that he's now concerned about the soldier's status and well-being.
Sure, Manning broke some security regulations. Naughty, but there are extenuating circumstances such as exposing a cover up of war crimes and multiple counts of second degree murder and multiple counts of attempted murder. Lamo admits he is cooperating with a conspiracy to commit murder and is apparently a supporter of war crime activities. But Lamo is worried about Manning's situation? I wonder about Lamo's judgment. Supporting murder and war crimes is perfectly OK if you're at a high level in the US Govt, in fact "we" expect that kind of behavior from our leaders, but Lamo is not at such a level, he's just a punk whom got busted. I'd think Lamo's in a much more precarious legal situation than Manning is in... One thing to violate some paper handling regulations, another to be a quisling.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The first scandal is the usual shit the government does, make a mistake and then cover it up. We've seen a lot of those in this war. We know this stuff happens all the time but the proof of it always hits me in the gut.
The second scandal is that the government is so poor at covering this stuff up that a junior guy like this is able to find the info and disseminate it without any difficulty. Absolutely piss-poor security. Perversely, I expect and demand a modicum of competence to go along with the amoral and evil. I feel insulted when I find out I'm getting screwed over by Mayberry Machiavellis.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Bullshit.
First, there was a story on /. not long ago how *everything* is confidential now - and it's a major problem. Secondly, there are no "safety reasons" why this should be confidential - at most, it was to protect them from their own incompetence.
Exactly - the people of the US, not only the military. In this case, the people of the US have the right to be protected from their own army (yes, I know they weren't shooting US civilians, but to me an innocent's life is worth the same, no matter when they're from).
Dilbert RSS feed
No, you take an oath to defend the Constitution. *BIG* difference.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
From TFA:
Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online
now that wasn't very smart either :P
He is lucky it made it in the news, because he would be MIA pretty quick for leaking that much information. Treason is nothing to mess with! not saying the info shouldent have gotten out, but I cant imagine all of it needed to be leaked and probably contained information on missions that could have jeopardized people ACTUALLY in the field. The video was pretty powerful though, and I can imagine it represents almost any military footage you would find by any country throughout the world. Sadly.
Im ok..
End of story. Yeah what happens sucks, but guess what, wars suck. Introducing yourself to a war zone is an the same as introducing yourself to death.
Why some reporters think they are immune to events is beyond me, enough to them die across the world while photographing fights. In some places they are willing accomplices to local banditry in staging photo shoots (see Lebanon for a great number of these). In Iraq I would bet they are valuable while they are making sure the American side looks bad, because out in the streets would be a bad place to have been walking a pro liberation line.
Good to see the leak source arrested, who knows that idiot would have released next and put hundreds if not thousands at risk. I am quite sure he isn't always aware of the impact of his releases. Yeah, I know, some have it in for "the man" but damn, between him and wikileaks they damaged the impact of the documents by purposely editing the video to paint the picture they wanted.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
If you demand perfection from engineers you're an idiot too, but when one makes a mistake that kills somebody, he *still* goes to jail.
I'll let you deduce the reasons why for yourself.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
the upside is that a healthy ego can help you navigate the missteps, crises and setbacks we experience in life
the downside is that an overly healthy ego can help create those same missteps, crises and setbacks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Because with the 2006 military commission act, there is ZERO need to charge him. The US government, since 2006, can now arrest any US citizen, without charge, on the president (or his agent's) order simply by saying that you are an unlawful enemy combatant (or similar). You have no right to trial, no right to a lawyer, and can expect to be tortured.
This is the government you are currently living with.
It's time to wake up.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
have to gain for telling all the stuff to Lamo?
He was actually asking for getting arrested when talking to unknown guy and telling him all the illegal stuff he did, but more importantly, the stuff he wanted to do.
I feel very sorry for his naivity, but I still respect him for having courage to do what he did.
Wish there could be some help to him...
Because they're doing a proper investigation first. This isn't a civilian under the jurisdiction of normal criminal laws.
Would you not agree that given the nature of the actions he is believed to have committed it was important to get him out of circulation ASAP?
Seriously though- what do you expect to happen to a traitor guilty of espionage while in uniform? We're not talking about prison sentences here- shouldn't caution be the word?
With an S, they can throw you in prison. With a TS they can shoot you.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
If you think there has ever been a war where civilians didn't get killed, you are kidding only yourself. So if you say that no civilian deaths are every ok at all, then that is to say that no war is ever ok at all, including a war of defense. If you are ever ok with a war, well then civilian deaths WILL be a part of it. The military can and should (and does) work to minimize it but mistakes happen, collateral damage happens.
This is clearly true, but in the terms of the 'collateral murder' video, it is totally off-topic. Nothing in that video is collateral, it is direct and intentional. To stay on topic you'd need to say...
If you think there has ever been a war where civilians didn't get murdered, you are kidding only yourself.
If you were confused as to what all the controversy was up until now, that ought to clear it up.
Also remember the issue of the war being just and the actions of soldiers are separate matters. If you feel this unjust and the costs are not worth it, your beef is with the civilian government. They set the mission for the military, the military just carries it out.
This is almost completely true. However, citizen soldiers are expected to retain a shred of humanity at all times. Others in the past have claimed that they were 'just following orders' and it didn't work out so well for them either. And I'm not just talking about the obvious, but also the rape camps in Bosnia, Japanese internment, torture, abductions, and dozens of other examples of shameful behavior and even atrocities committed by sanctioned military personnel. The point here isn't that all soldiers are monsters. Clearly this is not the case. The point is that when monsters are discovered amongst the ranks they need to be removed before (more) senseless violence occurs. The men in the 'collateral murder' video are (or were) an example of this. They lost their ability to evaluate targets and gave in to the urge to get a higher score than the other helicopters in the unit.
This is never acceptable.
Now, you are correct in that it is and will always be a failure of command. And as members of a democracy, this discourse actually is a function of the civilian government. We're congregating and discussing our political views.
If you feel this unjust and the costs are not worth it, your beef is with the civilian government.
One final point, there is only ONE government, and it is entirely civilian. The military is not some sort of aristocracy that is immune to the will of the people. It answers to the executive branch, which answers to us. So telling civilians that they aren't in a position of authority to deal with issues like this is a symptom of the problem, rather than any actual fact.
There's the difference between civilians being killed when the enemy tanks near their house draw fire, and civilians being killed because a helicopter gunner is woefully under-trained. Can't you tell the difference?
The guy had a classified job and a duty to perform that job. His actions jeopardized and continues to jeopardize the lives of American and Nato soldiers so there isn't a hole in the ground deep enough for him to be sent to. The videos he provided have been edited down and turned into propaganda to be used against the United States. The US Military needs to use some common sense security so that crap doesn't happen again.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
I assume you will be happy to provide your tax ${CURRENCY} to help those who "get the hell out" (or "refugees" as they are commonly known) to get the hell out of there and claim benefits (a they don't speak English they won't be able to work) in your country if you are part of the coalition that invaded their territory, then?
I am pretty sure that's the worst twist of logic I have ever seen... You were one step away from saying "how can you be OK with war and not be OK with me shooting you in the chest 3 times? You are a civilian and you have to be fine with dying needlessly! Prove it! Prove that you are OK with me shooting you!!!"
You talk about transparency and democracy, but you blithely dismiss the fact that the asshole who "declassified" this data violated the laws and policies established by his own democratically elected government and the bureaucracy that the same democratically elected government put in place to prosecute this war. Furthermore, when he thought he found criminal conduct, he had an alphabet soup of agencies that could independently investigate and prosecute the people he turned in. The FBI, Army CID and DoD Inspector General, to name a few.
Did he contact agents from any of them? No. Did he even contact a member of Congress to try to hold an official investigation? No.
He decided that he and he alone was the authority to make that call.
Of course civilians have been killed in every war, but only recently have they been able to get the videos out on YouTube.
"Bringing the War Home" was something that started with the nightly news footage of the Viet Nam war, and news organizations routinely cleaned up the footage before showing it over the air. The ubiquitous video culture (what Bruce Sterling calls "everyware") is going to "bring the war home" in an even more immediate way. It may not be enough to end wars unfortunately, but it's going to change the way the military does business. You can bet on that.
No army has been able to wage war without the financial support of the population "back home". When the support dries up or even comes under serious scrutiny, wars tend to fizzle out, as Viet Nam did. If nothing else, it might force governments to make goddamn sure they can portray what they're doing as right and necessary before they send out the armies. But of course, with ubiquitous video come even more ubiquitous marketing, and the war machine's ability to "sell" their war back home has never been greater.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I would sooner believe that every member of Congress memorized Obamacare from top to bottom than believe that a typical 22 year old enlistee would read 250,000 documents before pulling a stunt like this...
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.
I can't quite figure out if you're a good troll, or a drooling retard.
Help, please.
And sadly for him I don't think this kid is an Col. Edwards either. He went to presidents with counsel to object, then left detailed CYA memos, then tipped off Congress. Sen. Frank Church is the one that went on the hunt. Edwards died after testifying. He knew he was in ill health but was insistent his memos get the weight of his presence before he died. I've never met a more politically cynical person. This young kid looks like a fresh-faced idealist. It's going to cost him, even if Lamos story also seems a little fishy. We'll see if he went to counsel and left CYA memos too. I doubt it.
Col. Edwards had a lot to do with why we know as much about the Bay of Pigs and Castro assassination attempts as we do.
I know my current state Senator, on the armed services committee is a useless ass. Meh.
It's a lot easier to be an armchair general from the comfort of your home or work desk. It's quite another to be prone with your face ground into the dirt and bullets wizzing over your head. Mistakes happen and people die and the means is not always just or well thought out. I really think it's telling of U.S. society in that we are so eager to condemn based on evidence taken out of context. I think if there's any judging to do, it should be done by war vets, or their peers. People who have been through the experience of legalized murder; people who have been in conflict and forced to kill on command rather than value or principle.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
That was when we were still respecting the Nuremberg trials. These days we're scared shitless and are willing to overlook the obvious war crimes because all of a sudden it's convenient to do so. Never mind that the people giving the criminal orders have never been tried.
How did this get an "insightful" mod? The hele-gunner was not "woefully under-trained" - simply "under trained." Proper training would have upped the body count to 90% kill rate.
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
Then don't sell it as a clean war. The whole "smart weapons make a war clean" drivel is bullshit. That's the beef I have with this whole crappot that's cooking down in the middle east now. We get told that our boys are there to make the place safer, we go there to protect and bring them peace and justice, we don't shoot civilians and we only defend ourselves when those bad, bad terr'ists want to keep us from bringing those poor people freedom and democracy.
Right? Ain't that what we're being told time and again? And that these people are so incredibly happy that we're there, that we kicked that madman Saddam out and that we're now protecting them from becoming the next terrorist slaves?
Take a moment to ponder this: You're living in a country with a loonie as the dictator. He's far from a benevolent dictator and you're kinda suffering from his quirks and whims, but you adjust to it, somehow. Then suddenly people come from some sort of promised land, where everything is wonderful. You don't know really a lot about this country, but everyone who talks about it (hushed, of course, since, well, they once were your buddies back when you had that war with your neighbor, but since they became some sort of enemy for your dictator... but most people still consider them pretty cool guys and they know that they're insanely strong and well armed) knows that these people know what they do. They have gone to other places too and usually it went well for them. And somehow also for the places they went to, so they gotta be really cool. Somehow. Ok, they invaded your country, but, be honest, the people from the promised land just kicked the loonie from his seat, what side would you root for.
But somehow these guys ain't what you expected. You know, you kinda expected them to come, put a cool government like their own in charge and go again. Just like they did before. But they don't go. And you're far from having that sort of 'free' government they enjoy. Instead, their awsome firepower circles above you and drives through your streets, they stop you for no appearant reason and search you, treat you like some sort of criminal. Ok, there are some people who still fight them, so it's kinda understandable... but you never did anything against them! Hey, you really liked the idea that they come and kick out that dictator. But now, everything took a turn for the worse. Instead of knowing that you can't do or say this or that, you could now suddenly get shot! Suddenly one of their awsome firepower machines opens fire at you and you're dead. It happened to your uncle Franky. Your cousin Bill is missing now, they said those guys took him 'cause he happened to hang with the wrong people. He was just there to smoke some pot, but they didn't believe him.
How long 'til you stop thinking these people are really cool?
How long 'til you start fighting them?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
FFS This isn't "Informative" it's being a "Troll."
This perp is in the military- there is absolutely no need for the "2006 military commission act." He VOLUNTARILY put himself under the UCMJ.
"[I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history. Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis... a perfect storm.
"Everywhere there's a U.S. post, there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. It's open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format.
"It's Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It's beautiful, and horrifying." - SPC Bradley Manning
with prose like that i can't wait for the book. seriously.
- js.
If you think there has ever been a war where civilians didn't get murdered, you are kidding only yourself.
As an aside, I believe that the above is also literally true, unfortunately. One of the reasons that war should be avoided unless absolutely required is that murder, rape, and other terrible crimes will almost certainly occur on both sides, no matter how much you hope they wouldn't.
C//
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.
You could argue this, but it would be off-topic. The video doesn't depict accidental 'collateral damage'. It demonstrates a will to fire on those people and a number of falsehoods being relayed to command to get clearance. They wanted to kill those people, more than they wanted to do the right thing, and the video depicts the result.
The topic can't be used to hang every soldier everywhere, as you're suggesting it might. But this was clearly an example of what not to do. Apologizing for it by cloaking it in a fog of war is basically requesting that it happen in the future.
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.
All of this makes the job harder, but it doesn't make the excuses flow more easily. Not in a civilized society.
We're supposed to be over there making their lives better, remember? How can we do that if we make a game out of killing them?
While I like the idea on a visceral level, the "only veterans can judge" thing could never work in practice. There would be far too much room for abuse and collusion, just like the "blue line of silence" shown by police officials towards internal corruption. This is the real world, and not Starship Troopers. A jury of randomly selected ordinary citizens is shown the evidence, and determine if a supposed crime was an accident, negligence, or willful action. That's the system, and it needs to be applied here.
"Kudos for him, I wish I had that kind of self sacrificing will."
No kudos for the method, and the attention whoring that got him busted. There may have been no wish to self-sacrifice at all.
It is possible to do a thing that is considered good yet not have noble or entirely noble motives. The opinion of his actions seems predicated on one's opinion of the war itself (which is where much of the discussion is going) and not on why he did what he did.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
“I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga’, erase the music then write a compressed split file,” he wrote. “No one suspected a thing and, odds are, they never will.” “[I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history,” he added later. ”Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis a perfect storm.”
!??!?!?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The advent of "smart weapons" don't make a war squeaky clean, but they sure as hell help.
At least we no longer have to carpet bomb an area to destroy our intended target.
What I don't understand, is how did this analyst have access to 260,000 classified US Embassy Cables?
The entire story sounds like a System Administrator browsing the directories of a Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft Exchange Email Server. With full administrative privileges, it is straightforward to find embarrassing documents, even on corporate servers. Can the U.S. Military be storing highly secret information on a regular servers viewable by everyone with Administrative privileges?
Oh, wait! EDS (HP) provides computers to the Department of Defense under an outsourcing agreement, and requires everyone to use Microsoft Windows. Maybe cracking US military command really is as easy as finding a young officer with Administrative privileges ...
Whether or not the guy deserves punishment is debatable, but he didn't deserve to be ratted out by the likes of Adrian Lamo. If Adrian felt a danger by possessing the information, he should have told him to shut up and burned the logs. Keep a naughty file and printing it out for the Feds is slimy business. It would have been better to remain neutral in this case. It isn't as if Lamo came onto this knowledge naturally. The guy sought him out for counsel/advice. Instead of that, he kept a recorder going and turned him in. What a sleezeball. He could have at LEAST told him to run for it first.
That's really the problem. See, a lot of people in the USA were against going to war in Iraq. Not only is it NOT a defensive war (something I would be okay with in any circumstance except where my own govt. was as psychotic as North Korea, say) but it was sold on a total lie (WMDs). Well, when that didn't pan out, the justification for the war morphed into, "well, he was a really bad guy. Plus we'll be welcomed as liberators!" And when that didn't pan out, because surprisingly enough not everyone welcomes having their country decimated and thrown into near civil war, it morphed again into "We'll only kill the bad guys, so it's fine."
Everyone who was against the war anyway still knew this was false, but it's enough to shift the tone of the national debate. If you've got a military leader on one side of the table saying, "we have high technology, and will only kill bad guys," it's hard to say you think they should stop anyway. Either you're questioning the effectiveness of the military, which will automatically bias some people against you, or you're saying they shouldn't even kill bad guys, which will bias even more.
This kind of documentation is vital simply to remind each and every person in the country that, as you said, there is never a war where civilians don't get killed. Not just because we forget, but because our leaders were, for a while, actively trying to convince us otherwise.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Please cite your own relative level of training and experience, and how you would have done a better job than the gunner in discerning the difference between civilians and insurgents dressed as civilians. Bear in mind that a) some members of the group were visibly armed with small arms, and b) they were approaching a US position on the ground.
For extra credit, discuss the gunner's proven unwillingness to fire on targets which he could positively discern were civilians. (credit for finding this goes to kidgenius)
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Unless you are very sophisticated with proxies you will leave tracks the FBI/NSA can easily discover. Like those guys arrestd at Kennedy Airport yesterday for watching terror promotion videos on the web. Like the NSA is not keeping track those who download that stuff. So naive.
He couldn't even tell the difference between a tripod and an AK-47. He didn't even know that Iraqi citizens were allowed to have AK-47s (without being shot at). You can hear the difference between what they can see on the camera, and what they report. One AK-47 instantly becomes 6, and an indistinguishable shape becomes an RPG. So yeah, he was woefully under-trained. None of those folks should have been killed. They weren't firing on anyone, and didn't appear to have anything illegal on them. The call for clearance came before any RPG was ever seen (if there was one), so basically your lovely "hele-gunner" wanted to attack people who were doing nothing illegal. I somehow doubt you'd be fine if a local policeman shot one of your loved ones in the face for doing nothing. Double standards, much?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I supported the Iraq war, and I was kidding myself. This video made me realize the kind of horrific things that 'normally' happen to civilians in war. Now I am absolutely against anything but a truly defensive war.
It may not be enough to end wars unfortunately, but it's going to change the way the military does business.
It already has. Now the military routinely classifies things that would reduce the public's desire to go to war, such as the bodies of dead soldiers returning from Iraq. It also ensures that embedded reporters report only the stories they want (anything else would endanger operational security).
See, the lesson that a lot of military guys learned from Vietnam wasn't "Never get involved in a land war in Asia.", but instead learned "Never let the public know what's actually involved in fighting a war."
I am officially gone from
For the last fifty years the only "wars" we've been involved with were to line the pockets of oligarchs and/or push the agendas of lawmakers in their pockets. who gives a shit what the grunts bleeding and dying to do their bidding think?
It doesn't even help a bit if the human firing it is the same scared shitless guy who sees in every tube of more than two feet length an RPG. He only hits the guy carrying home his new toilet pipes far more exactly.
Besides, there are no "intended targets" in an asymmetric war. There are no fixed installations, no enemy factories, no enemy gas refineries, not even fixed enemy SAM sites in a war where your enemy is fighting with low tech equipment and has no identifyable "own" infrastructure. What do you want to precision bomb? The home of your terrorist? Let's assume for a brief moment that you can even find out where a terrorist lives. What now? Bomb the house he's in? You'd maybe hit him (provided he's home), plus everyone else living there. And probably a few people around that place too. Which will serve nothing but to piss off everyone who liked those people and instead of one terrorist (which you may or may not have hit in the first place) you have probably created a dozen more that had friends who died pointlessly in your attack and now want revenge.
Your weapons can be as smart as they can be, unless they can distinguish between terrorists and "normal" people (and if they can, they're heaps smarter than the soldiers and the politicians that stuffed them into the crap in the first place together) all their smartness is pointless. You are not fighting an enemy that you can precision bomb.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The whole "smart weapons make a war clean" drivel is bullshit.
There's clean, and then there's clean. You'll never have a truly clean war, but smart weapons get it close. And close does in fact count in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear warfare.
It's easy to tell the difference between a tripod and an assault rifle from your desk when you can freeze the image and look at it closely.
Now do that in a moving helicopter when you are dealing with a dozen other things, lights flashing around you, noises, the ever present danger of being shot out of the sky.
"The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently—like the effect of a fog or moonshine—gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance."
Have you read what treasonous is? Manning's work is NOT treason. The activities shown by that video is treason. Government for the people by the people, and protecting against enemies foreign and domestic are REQUIREMENTS of someone signing up to military or government life. therefore releasing it is the PATRIOTIC thing to do.
"he continued on, planning to give an outsider unfettered access to potentially sensitive information "
given the amount of information that is set to Top Secret (ACTA negotiations, WMD documents, et al) that should never had been, the TS designation is bullshit. That something released is "potentially sensitive" shows that even you think it's BS. If it's Top Secret, there should be NO "potentially" about it.
I wish that I could Mod you more than +5.
how about (+10 the goddamn truth)?
"Also remember the issue of the war being just and the actions of soldiers are separate matters. If you feel this unjust and the costs are not worth it, your beef is with the civilian government. They set the mission for the military, the military just carries it out."
Part of "setting the mission" is being a party to and bound by the terms of the geneva (and others) convention.
If the boy's in the helicopter or the brass higher up can show me an order from the civilian government that states "kill everyone, let god sort them out" I would be happy to see the creator set to prison TOO. It does not forgive their actions. Not even a little.
-- Sig under construction...
In my opinion this man is a hero in the true spirit of our country and the freedom and promise that it used to represent.
In response to bl8n8r - This wasn't that sort of scenario, where they were under fire - I would never second guess a solider on the battlefield who is under fire; mistakes happen, civilians die unfortunately, that is part of war and something we've gotten better at avoiding. This was not that sort of situation, had it been, I am quite sure nobody would have risked their career and freedom to leak it.
It was definitely unprofessional conduct, and at worst murder. Those soliders were sloppy and trigger happy and they killed children, good samaritans, and a reporter as a result - and if it had happened to you, your family, or friends the people who think it's no big deal would feel a lot differently.
The other thing is that we shouldn't even have gone over there in the first place. It wasn't legal, it wasn't right, and our soliders deserve far better than to risk their lives for such bullshit.
If WW2 showed us anything, it was people are capable of atrocities if ordered to do so. Read the book "Ordinary Men" (I think that was what it was called). Almost to a man, the excuse will be "I was ordered to do so, I was doing my duty".
If we took anything away from that war that was positive it was even within a strict command structure, one does not have to follow orders he believes to be illegal. I think you can also extend that to information. If you know of something that went on that you felt was illegal, I think you are OBLIGATED to report that information. I have no idea if this guy tried to use the usual channels of communication to report this incident, but I don't think it is a bit stretch that if he did, that the proof would "disappear" and he would be "reassigned". He may have felt he had NO choice but take the action he did, in good conscience.
Now, it is also reasonable to say if you refuse what you think is an illegal order, or release information in the way he did, there will be a price to pay. There would certainly be an military court decision, that would say one way or another, if you made the right choice. Likely regardless your life as a military professional would be over no matter what, a sad, but likely true outcome.
However even with that, years later when shit might be going down, you can say with some self respect, that you did no follow that order you believed to be wrong, or that you tried to let people know the truth at your own personal cost. "I was just following orders" is a horrible thing to say, though even I can have some empathy when the outcome was they would be shot for not following orders.
Anyway as someone who isn't in the military, I am glad someone like that was in it, and I think he thought he was doing the right thing. He will be judged one way or another, and likely we don't have all the facts, but I would hope that if nothing untoward complicates the issue that the military court will absolve him, maybe even give him a medal (and then likely discharge him). I also think that as much as this is bad PR for the Army, it is also potential good PR. As I don't think anyone is too surprised that this sort illegal action or accident took place, however I know I would feel more comfortable, and confident knowing that there are good people within the Army that are also trying to do the right thing.
The video clearly showed an RPG. The cameras/tripods were also misidentified as RPGs.
Of course, if they were not militants, one has to wonder what a bunch of armed Iraqi civilians are doing loitering down the street from where US troops are battling or just recently battled insurgents (which is why the reporters were there).
The kids, they are dead because their parents brought them to war.
The kids survived, which is even mentioned in the video. Also I would like to see that video where the van is dropping off the the men, as that neither happens in the commented version nor in the unedited one.
The group in the van were grabbing bodies AND weapons, they are part of the conflict.
Except of course that this is a simple lie, they never did pick up weapons, they weren't even near them (weapons where by the dead dudes at the corner, not the guy crawling to the left.).
The lives of those civilians are just as valuable as those of the soldiers. As not an American citizen, I get disgusted every time someone wants to put a soldier's life over a civilian's life. Or an American's life over any other person's life. They're all people.
In fact, soldiers put themselves in harms way voluntarily. They have a choice. Civilians caught in the middle don't, and they need to be protected as much as possible. Soldiers of an occupation force that want to protect themselves, can go home.
If the coverage wasn't fair, then someone needs to release the unedited, full context videos.
We are all God's parents.
No one is selling this as a perfectly clean war. It is orders of magnitude cleaner than previous wars thanks to smart munitions. It wasn't long ago that we were firebombing civilian cities in large scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II). Think about those civilian casualties against the meager casualty rates today. Other examples: Operation Linebacker 1 and 2 Hanoi Nagasaki Hiroshima etc
Rarely considered is the relationship between the armed Iraqi civilians and the photogs. Did the photogs embed themselves into an insurgent unit moving into position, or did these armed men decide to follow the photogs towards the sound of gun fire just for fun? IMHO, I think the photogs had good sources in the insurgency that allowed them to get close the action in order to get good photos and were caught in the middle, IMHO, a risk of the job.
peace to the allies of democracy. in any command structure, order is necessary to properly execute strategy in an efficient and timely matter. anyone who disturbs that time-structure must be assessed and transferred to an appropriate post immediately. when lives are at stake we must take our tradecraft seriously. if the young man wanted to vent his frustration, give him a punching bag, some scotch and a lay for the night. why must he put the trade of intelligence at risk for petty ignorances? perhaps it is a sign of the times; maybe the old guard isn't as quick and nimble as they purport. i don't know. what i do know is, the industry of intelligence is not to be taken lightly. p.s. i thought taco retired? i'm out of the loop.
I've only seen reports that an RPG was recovered from the scene, I've yet to see a single video frame showing one. As for why would armed Iraqis be in their streets? Probably trying to protect themselves from the looters the US army flatly refused to do anything about, forcing the average Iraqi to either defend themselves, or simply watch their hard-earned lives be stolen from right in front of them.
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.
If you demand perfection from engineers you're an idiot too, but when one makes a mistake that kills somebody, he *still* goes to jail.
I'll let you deduce the reasons why for yourself.
Not for mistakes, but for carelessness or negligence. In other words, 'you should have caught that error' instead of 'you made an error'.
I'll give you a hint as to why: humans are fallible. The best we can expect is to do the best possible. It's only criminal when you take dangerous shortcuts. While I can't think of any incidents off the top of my head that were caused by a mistake without negligence, it is still the negligence that is the crime, not the mistake.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
The reticle an Apache gunner has appears a lot larger than a PC display. It fills up the pilot's entire eye. And the guy is TRAINED to do this. If the idiot can't tell the difference between a tripod and a gun, what the fuck is he doing in a helicopter trying to tell the difference between a tripod and a gun? He's useless. As I said, the guy is woefully under-trained. You seem to agree with me. You are saying the very conditions he's expected to operate in are enough to throw him off track. That's about as pure a definition of "woefully under-trained" as you can hope for.
Having served, all I can say is that this young man is either an idiot, or his beliefs were strong enough he felt the consequences were worth it. Regardless what right and wrong are on in the videos and documents he disclosed, this young man will bear the full consequences for his actions. One can only hope he is comfortable with trading his freedom or even his life for disclosing what he did, because it was a federal felony, a violation of the UCMJ and likely will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
-- $G
The men in the 'collateral murder' video are (or were) an example of this. They lost their ability to evaluate targets and gave in to the urge to get a higher score than the other helicopters in the unit.
First of all, the use of the word, "murder". here seems to make the users sound very unintelligent. Given the use of the word, EVERY deployed military personal who has pulled a trigger is a murdered. That's bullshit as its use has very specific connotations. Thusly, users as such scream to the world they are unable to properly filter facts or employ logic. In other words, idiots.
As for their "loss of ability to evaluate targets", that too sounds extremely unintelligent. The reality is, you've lost the ability (assuming you ever had the ability - which is extremely unlikely given the surrounding remarks) to make judgment calls about military targets. Likely because you're parroting ignorance rather than attempt to make use of things known as facts.
The reality is:
o Most enemy targets (almost all) do not wear uniforms - this means the G.V. doesn't actually protect them. In fact, it condemns them.
o Most enemy targets in theater, immediately attempt to insert/remove targets and/or weaponry from an engagement before they can be captured so they can they claim massive civilian causalities.
o The original "targets" acted EXACTLY like local insurgents - which are not provided protection by the G.V..
o Contrary to the massive amounts of misinformation put forward put massive level of ignorance, they did appear to be a legitimate threat. At best, they were blending in with those were absolutely did satisfy the requirements for legitimate targets. And as such, are legitimate collator targets.
o Contrary to the ignorance spewed forth, you may take military targets from the scene for medical assistance - assuming you are properly marked. These people were not and in fact matched the M.O. of other illegal insurgents. So we have an established pattern set forth by seemingly legitimate targets.
o The various doctrines and conventions allow for the death of these people. They are actually allowed to be summarily executed on the spot. Meaning, we have legitimate targets being targeted and people coming to the rescue of legitimate targets who follow stardard operating procedures of those who have established M.O.s of other legitimate targets - none of whom are protected by the G.C..
In short, the uproar is by a large group of ignorant people who don't know their asshole from their elbow. Does that make what happened any better? NO! Does that suddenly make the cries for the heads of people doing their legal job legitimate?! No, absolutely not! It only means those crying for heads are all the more ignorant and disassociated from not only reality in general, but from the reality of modern war in general. Thusly validating they are fools at best.
At worst, this the the tragedy of war. At best, it soldiers doing their job who absolutely understand the realities of the world their country is demanding they operate. To condemn them is to condemn war and especially the piece of shits they fight. Nothing more, nothing less. And anyone who says otherwise, is an ignorant fool - unless they have proof the soldiers knowing were not engaging legitimate targets; aka willing committing murder.
Mistakes/Accidents can happen and should be forgiven.
Intentional actions are criminal and should be punished.
War is always intentional, caused by political mistakes.
The Soldiers mistake should always be forgiven.
The intentional action should not be forgiven, forgotten, or punish the next generation.
Forgiving yourself is always impossible and unnecessary, but....
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
What exactly is an Ex-Hacker? That's not exactly a legit way making it into the workforce so doing or not doing just becomes something he decides to say or what? I'm I also assuming By saying Ex-Hacker we're assuming Hacking the a malicious context?
Jeeze, you're a douche. I'll tell you, if I was a psychotic asshole looking to pick people off for shits and giggles the very last people I would fsck with would be reporters, it's kind of the same thing with serial killers targeting hookers, you're not trying to get caught. This was an accident, a tragedy, but not intentional as far as I can tell.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
And where identified, dealt with through criminal prosecution.
I've never heard of collateral rape. Sure, murder's a little harder to prove, but that video demonstrates a fairly explicit lack of effort to minimise civilian casualties.
Only on /. can one seriously answer an AC's question and be modded a troll.
Then don't sell it as a clean war. The whole "smart weapons make a war clean" drivel is bullshit.
Ahhh...no....
It actually underscores the stupidity of people in general who don't understand what, "smart weapon", means. Furthermore, I didn't see a single "smart weapon" deployed in the video so the use of the phrase only further underscores how inept many are, despite their willingness to comment and condemn.
If you MUST have someone to blame, blame our education system, but most importantly blame the media. The military is in no way, shape, or form, culpable for misunderstandings of the use of "smart weapons." Why? Because their introduction into the media was by means of statistical comparison and in general showing their accuracy. What now takes one or two bombs traditionally took hundreds. Heck, it wasn't even uncommon for the *wrong city to be entirely leveled - literally* before the use of smart weapons. So please, spare us your ignorance.
As you don't seem to understand the use, please refer back to WII statistics vs modern statistics of dropped bombs. Heck, consider for a moment that cities still stand in the country. Had it not been for "smart weapons", there literally would not be a single standing structure (at least not one with a roof) in the entire country. Literally. That's the difference smart weapons make. In fact, almost without fail, the majority of damage to buildings which no longer stand have been brought about by weapons which absolutely do NOT satisfy the moniker of, "smart weapon."
you're kinda suffering from his quirks
Oh please - yet more ignorance. Under his former rule, what has been killed to date, would be killed annually. That's far, far, far from "suffering from his quirks". Not to mention rape, pillage, and general plunder was the rule of the day. So please, spare us your general ignorance.
Is there anything you "know" which is at all reflective of reality in these wars? Thus far, you don't seem to know anything which is at all accurate.
The senors provide 640x480 pixels of resolution and optical sensors are monochrome.
So I'm not sure what "PC display" you use, but I'm running 1280x800 and 32 bit color right now.
Try driving a car this way with both hands active while people are either shooting at you or are about to and see how well you do at picking out things 304 feet long, like what is the bumper of the car a half km away is made out of.
I didn't say that anyone was under-trained, I simply repeated the now centuries old reality, there is a fog in war because of the nature of war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CollateralMurder.ogv
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
The war was over, the US military were in charge (so claimed their president). The US military were now the law and the government. The US military declared, killing innocent people is a whoops. Well that isn't the way it works. Once the US military had control they were bound by honour and justice to apply the law as it would be done within the US, not just shooting people because they maybe possibly could be a threat.
The US military were operating amongst civilians, they had no right to choose to sacrifice civilians in order to make it easier and safer for their operations in region, that makes them dishonourable cowards. That the choose to hide their errors, to destroy evidence of their crimes and failed to gather evidence when required to do so, demonstrate the guilt of the officers in charge, who were far more concerned about the careers and hiding their incompetence than adhering to the rule of law.
That they arrested the person who served justice, who freed the truth, just further demonstrate the corruption within the US military, the abandonment of honour, the loss of integrity, the absence of courage and the loss of mercy for anyone not even the innocent. The public accepted use of torture has stained and corrupted the US military, the politicisation of senior ranks is turning it into a work of evil and a threat to democracy.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
a) some members of the group were visibly armed with small arms
I've heard this is extremely common in Iraq, and is no reason to assume someone is an insurgent.
b) they were approaching a US position on the ground.
I've also heard that this was several blocks over. The people in the video are walking along as usual, clearly not in the middle of a firefight, nor are they running toward anything as if to participate.
For extra credit, discuss the gunner's proven unwillingness to fire on targets which he could positively discern were civilians
To play devil's advocate, maybe he just knew he couldn't get away with it in that case.
You know what endangers the lives of American and Nato soldiers? Murdering the very people we're supposed to be protecting.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Actually for espionage, jail, yes. However, the penalty can be death.
I wonder if they can charge him for the release of the video, which was one breach and then the release of the 250,000 memos... or will they charge him with 250,001 charges? Or just the stuff that is actually listed as classified and higher?
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Yes, the invasion and removal of the regime were over. Then an insurgency started, similar things happened in the US after the American Civil War and after the Indian Wars. That doesn't mean a military force has to put away rifles and walk around with batons and mace cans.
They arrested someone who broke their chain of command and edited evidence to fit his point of view. People who volunteer for the military give up rights during their term of service.
I'm sure that when the US military is moving hundreds of thousands of tons of materials during humanitarian disasters like Haiti, Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, or Somali you are calling them out for "the abandonment of honour, the loss of integrity, the absence of courage and the loss of mercy for anyone not even the innocent."
I hope enough reasonable, intelligent people have Mod points today to give you the +5 you deserve for this post.
Thank you.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
"War means fighting, and fighting means killing." — Nathan Bedford Forrest
There can be no such thing as "a truly defensive war". Even if there was, people would still die in it - both combatants and civilians alike. Nice pipedream, though.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
This video wasn't Top Secret. It was merelyy CLASSIFIED as TS so that it could be hidden. There was no other reason for its classification.
The reason for classification is immaterial. If it was classified TS, then it is TS, and there are proper channels to deal with it. Wikileaks/mass dissemination is not one of those channels.
I agree. Firm internal policing is essential.
Part of the problem is that soldiers in an environment where killing is a regular thing get numbed to death rather quickly. The "other side" gets dehumanized. If you think about it, this process of dehumanization is almost essential psychologically for the soldier. It should therefore be no surprise that certain limits are transgressed once it happens.
I think the citizenry need to understand this better, both the essential need of the soldiers to detach themselves as well as the consequences. I think citizens would be a bit less rabid in demanding military outcomes were they more aware, for one. A second part of the problem is that when the citizens are really pissed, as they were after 9/11, they themselves have already dehumanized the situation to a degree.
C//
Here's my pipedream: http://slashdot.org/~TheLink/journal/208853
In my pipedream if a country goes to war, most of the civilians would be behind it, so if the other country nukes or gases them to bits, that's fair.
Makes it easier to kill the other side when you are very sure most of them want you and your family etc dead.
And if turns out nobody except Great Leader wants the war, Great Leader stands a chance of dying. Which keeps even sociopaths/psychopaths thinking twice about crying crocodile tears about sending our young soldiers to die and all that bullshit.
Dang. Where's that "Idiot" moderation option when you need it?
I'll just have to post instead.
-If you can't see or understand the problems with your argument, then you are an Idiot.
I'll define idiot for you, (though I doubt you'll understand it, so really consider yourself a bug under glass and that I'm offering the following for other readers to note). . .
Idiot: Noun. 1. A person without sufficient imagination to see beyond a narrow world view. 2. Somebody who would be much happier if the world were in fact confined to this narrow understanding because shades of gray require the expenditure of Effort in order to formulate a viable plan of Action. 3. Somebody who has realized that, "Thinking is hard. You can make mistakes and hurt yourself or others. Pain is scary! I am a tool. Give me orders I can follow and assure me that doing so will make this feeling of unrest inside me go away.", and rather than face up to that reality like a man, instead PRETENDS that reality can be shoved into a simple set of on-off switches wherein there is always a single best answer to any given problem, and that this answer is always the right one. 4. Somebody who is either intellectually lazy, or just plain stupid.
In other words, grow up or shut up you damned retard. The world is burning because lazy twerps like you don't THINK.
And because most idiots are also religious, I'll put it this way:
God is infinite; trying to jam reality into a simple set of finite, easy answers is like going to war with God. Only and idiot thinks he can win that fight. And look around at the world. Only an idiot would think he is currently winning.
Wise men don't fight the wind and ocean. They learn to sail.
-FL
I don't think carpet bombing was used because we knew "the target" was somewhere in "this general area" but didn't know *exactly* where, so we just had to cover the whole area to make sure we got it, and sorry about all the other people that were killed. It was intended to do maximal harm to a *lot* of people, civilian or otherwise, because that would pressure the bombed country's government to surrender or something like that. - at least in some cases (e.g. Dresden)
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
The soldiers are just the "guns". Sometimes the gun hits the wrong target[1]. The leaders are the ones pulling the trigger.
When you "unleash" soldiers to kill people, they often kill the wrong people. That's why you should never start wars lightly[2].
[1] Of course if a gun keeps hitting the wrong targets...
[2] http://slashdot.org/~TheLink/journal/208853
Most enemy targets (almost all) do not wear uniforms - this means the G.V. doesn't actually protect them. In fact, it condemns them.
True, but this does not in any way affect the protections that civilians enjoy. If you capture an insurgent who's dressed in civilian clothes, you can put him against the nearest wall right there and then. But until you capture him, or otherwise clearly identify him as an insurgent, you have to assume that he is a civilian, with everything that entails.
Most enemy targets in theater, immediately attempt to insert/remove targets and/or weaponry from an engagement before they can be captured so they can they claim massive civilian causalities.
True, but see above. What it boils down to is that Geneva Convention are still binding on you even if the other side does not adhere to them. You can engage in reprisals (which are "permitted violations"), but they have to be targeted against those violating the Convention in the first place. You can't just grab a random civilian in the area from the street and shoot him to "show them".
The original "targets" acted EXACTLY like local insurgents
Riding in the car on the streets of their own city, with children inside, is "acting EXACTLY like local insurgents"?
Well, if it's true - which I doubt - then you clearly cannot use this as a way to identify insurgents, as the false positive rate is insane.
Contrary to the massive amounts of misinformation put forward put massive level of ignorance, they did appear to be a legitimate threat. At best, they were blending in with those were absolutely did satisfy the requirements for legitimate targets. And as such, are legitimate collator targets.
A person incapacitated by fighting to the point where they are unable to either fight back or retreat is not a legitimate target under the Geneva convention. So, by the time the civilian van arrived to the scene, there were no legitimate targets. In particular, the wounded man that they were trying to help was not a legitimate target.
I didn't see any "blending in" (what does this even mean?) in the video. I've seen attempts to render first aid to the wounded.
Contrary to the ignorance spewed forth, you may take military targets from the scene for medical assistance - assuming you are properly marked. These people were not and in fact matched the M.O. of other illegal insurgents. So we have an established pattern set forth by seemingly legitimate targets.
Geneva Convention gives special protection to marked medical transports and such, but this doesn't mean that everyone else is fair game. In particular, civilians never are, unless 1) they stop being civilians by engaging in hostile acts (which rendering aid to wounded is not), or 2) their deaths are inevitable during an attack on a legitimate military target - e.g. bombings, shellings etc - but where any such casualties are minimized to any extent possible. Note that #2 still does not allow you to directly and intentionally target a civilian even if he is near a legitimate target.
The various doctrines and conventions allow for the death of these people. They are actually allowed to be summarily executed on the spot.
Most certainly not. You can only execute someone you've captured to begin with, and you can only do that if a person really is engaging in hostilities without identification etc, i.e. an illegal combatant. But people in the video weren't illegal combatants - they were a neutral party that got (arguably, reasonably) confused for such because of carrying arms etc. If captured, you still have to do an investigation, and only if that determines that captive is an illegal combatant, he is outside of the protection of the Convention. As those guys weren't combatants at all, but civilians, they would be protected as such.
smash crack bammm BOOM laying on the ground almost dead and bleeding everywhere the guy looks up. BUT its the context you need to understand
Yeah, since the release of that documents many soldiers have been killed, undoubtedly because of all that top secret information in those documents. Or were they just present when a IED went off? Come on, everybody knows 90% of these documents were just classified "secret" just in case and the other 10% were classified secret to cover up.
You think some Iraqi insurgent is going over 250K documents (think about it, all marked secret?) just to find Joe Jarhead to blow him up? It's not like they are impossible to find or anything.
Troll or not, there's probably a reason he's being detained in Kuwait instead of one of our fine Federal cities in the U.S. I'll give you a hint - it isn't the great sand and sun they want him in Kuwait for.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Except now everybody's got a video camera and is a one-person news agency. It's gotten a lot harder to keep people back home in the dark.
As we've recently learned from the prosecution of military involved in leaking to Wikileaks, the eyes and ears of the public are everywhere, too.
Maybe government can put up cameras everywhere and snoop, but two can play at that game.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There are two major Army regulations and one DOD directive that cover this sort of thing (use of media, access control, etc) and local SOPs built on those regulations. any IA office can tell you what they are off the top of their heads because they are basically the Army IA bible.
there are multiple and INCREDIBLY COMPREHENSIVE inspections and accreditations that must be passed and signed off on for a network to be operational (i was involved in a particular one that was the SECOND of FOURTY to have passed on the first try).
let me tell you, the Army is way TOO secure in a lot of ways; ways that make people's jobs more difficult for absolutely no benefit in security posture. incidents like this and the afganistan thumb drive spillage drive the higher-ups to shove aside well thought-out policies that some people fail to enforce and implement simple and draconian quick-fix policies like "no external media whatsoever" that some people will STILL fail to enforce.
the problem is people, and while we do our best to make sure only the most trustworthy ones have access to sensitive or greater information, it can never be perfect.
I use murder to describe an illegal and/or immoral killing, period.
Then you fail to understand the situation. What they did was unfortunate but legit.
Again you are among the many hoping to extend the cloak of non-responsibility to any service person under deployment, anywhere. In your world the 9/11 killers are innocents, too, because they were fighting a war.
No. This simply proves your bias and/or ignorance. He was very specific about the circumstances in which killing is acceptable, especially regarding the Geneva Convention. You are going way overboard in your attack on him, putting words in his mouth that he clearly did not intend. Intentionally targeting civilians (9/11) is far different from accidentally targeting them (helo crew).
If you work for an entity, you cannot illegally kill, yes?
No. See above.
So without any convention protecting them, they're fair game? Because we didn't sign an agreement with terrorists to behave morally and ethically, we no longer have to? How far does this extend?
As the enemy, the Geneva Convention does not protect insurgents from helicopter attack. It means that by masquerading as civilians, the insurgents are in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Since the GC seems important to indignant, righteous folks such as yourself, you might want to spread the blame where it belongs, ie, on the insurgents.
The video at hand displays zero exigent threat to anyone ...
Listen to the audio, or at least read the captions. The helo was responding to units on the ground taking small arms fire from the direction of this group. In the video, some of the group are armed, one with what appears to be an AK-47, at least one other with an RPG. Note that the man with the RPG is clearly seen early in the film, and is different than the cameraman crouching in the alley. According to the audio, ground teams found a body with a live RPG round under it. These guys were not boy scouts on a hike.
Even if you surmised all the total destructive power of the weapons that were 'vaporized' in the attack, I'm still not detecting any WMD's.
What? Are you incoherently suggesting they were attacked because they were carrying WMD's? Or were you creating a pretext to inject the term "WMD's"? If you are implying that no weapons were found, see above re: weapons found. Also, see the GP's point about insurgents removing weapons from the battlefield to create the appearance of "civilian" casualties, specifically for propaganda that people like you eat up like it's gospel. No wonder an unmarked van was targeted.
I'm not even convinced there was ever any threat here to American personnel, or anyone except those killed.
Ground troops reported taking fire from that direction. It is possible that the fire they took was from a different group. There is no doubt in my mind, after viewing the film repeatedly, that at least one of the group had an RPG. It is apparent that he was spotted by the helo crew, and it seems that when the cameraman lined up a shot, the helo crew thought that it was the guy with the RPG lining up a shot of a very different kind. On that basis they requested permission to fire, and on that basis it was granted.
Did you see the range readouts on the weapon's camera? The people
(I assume you mean the people in the van)
taking fire weren't even aware they were in jeopardy. The bodies would have been spraying blood before the sound arrived. For Christ's sake, do a tiny bit of research before you use justifications like 'properly marked'.
Your hyperbole doesn't help your cause. It merely indicates that you are not thinking clearly. If you are in a van in a war zone, and you roll up near some wounded bodies, be aware t
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
http://gawker.com/5513068/the-full-version-of-the-wikileaks-video-is-missing-30-minutes-of-footage
Take a look between 2:04 and 2:24 in that video. Sure looks like a loaded RPG in the hands of the guy by the pole. Looks like the guy next to him has an AK.
If that were the whole story, these guys might have never been killed. But the helo crew was responding to ground reports that indicated these guys were firing on them.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The looting was a problem in the beginning of the war, when Rumsfeld thought he could remove the power and authority of the country without any problems. Wrong.
By the time this footage was filmed though, looting really wasn't much of a problem. Plus, if they were worried about looting, wouldn't they be better off staying home to defend their homes, versus approaching an American patrol?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Ground troops reported taking fire from that direction. It is possible that the fire they took was from a different group.
This is salient. Extraordinarily so.
Label me however you like, but this single statement belies the truth of the situation more than any apologetic position you can muster after the fact.
If the fire was taken from a different group then it is likewise possible that the people were armed to protect themselves from that group. This would be legal under Iraqi law. Since they had not definitively fired upon anyone, sniping them from well beyond the effective range of any RPG is not within the rules of engagement.
I am certain there are a plethora of honorable military activities that a patriotic person can support. Unfortunately the events in the video are not among them.
B) They're brown people and we're simply better. Because they're Arabs, Muslims, or whatever racial handle you'd like to apply, we superior people can simply kill them until they stop resisting being killed.
Okay, so you're not even trying to conceal the fact that you're trolling. Douchebag.
I see, so you're going to purport that I'm inventing the racism angle, because I'm a troll. If it helps you sleep better, go nuts, but even the most casual google searching will show that this concept did NOT originate with me.
Please keep in mind that all "insurgents" are civilians. There is no official "insurgent army" with uniforms and command structure.
He's useless. As I said, the guy is woefully under-trained. You seem to agree with me. You are saying the very conditions he's expected to operate in are enough to throw him off track. That's about as pure a definition of "woefully under-trained" as you can hope for.
No. That is information overload. There is actually a specific military term for it in combat aviation, but for the life of me I can't recall what it is. I think it is "Task Saturation". Training can only do so much to mitigate it.
No amount of training can up the resolution on that film, and you know fuck-all about what it takes to operate a gunship.
Unless, of course, you'd like to demonstrate your credentials for all of us here on slashdot.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
For months the US military falsely insisted that they had absolutely nothing to do with the journalist's death. They repeatedly dismissed the allegation and even mocked the suggestion as silly Islamic paranoia. Only when evidence to the contrary came to light did they concede that they did kill the guy. Once the truth came out, they PR department instantly offered a new rationale for what transpired.
We see this all the time. The military spokespeople are bullshitting everybody to the maximum extent they can get away with. If a fact might reflect poorly on the USA military, then that fact is summarily covered up. The military spokespeople are hired liars whose job it is to portray our military efforts as benevolent.
One would think that with so many lies having been completely exposed over the years (their "non-involvement" in this killing being merely one of them), people would learn that the PR wing of the DoD is not a credible organization. Why is the new spin about the killing any more credible than the previous spin? It's hard to believe that, gosh, our soldiers had the best intentions when they killed that guy and the people who tried to rescue his body merely because the army said so. And yet, many people who should know better do believe the military. They bought into the false narrative that Pat Tillman was killed fighting the Taliban and that Jessica Lynch was some sort of Amazonian Rambo who was overrun by insurgents. All the lies that are casually fed to us every time a PR guy makes a statement. They believe all this shit. Are people just that gullible and stupid? Probably not. I think the USA just has legions of people who are willing (some eagerly so) to swallow the military's propaganda because they simplistically view the world as "us versus them". The US Army military represents "us". It's critics represent "them". And the fundamental truth is not important to them
To play devil's advocate, maybe he just knew he couldn't get away with it in that case.
Well, if the American military is as brutal, repressive, and vicious as they are made out to be, who says he couldn't get away with it whenever he wanted?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Thanks, but I'll have none of your madness, I've got plenty of the shit myself.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I might be the odd man out here (in fact I know it) but this guy released all of the info on our undercover agents everywhere in the world putting them in harms way, and as far as I'm concerned they should hang him.
Maybe you forget that the insurgence is perfectly unobjectionable because the United States occupy the nation. Insurgents and passive civilians are citizens of the nations while the United States troops are not. It seems natural to oppose foreign occupation.
Formally there does not seem to be a current war in Iraq. Rather a foreign occupation and violence, also against foreign occupation.
Look around. Get to know your generation. You're not cynical enough. You'll get there eventually.
If anything, we're seeing a shift from clueless sheep who care to clueless sheep who don't. Some have made the case that it wasn't invading barbarians that truly destroyed Rome, but the Colosseum. We're entertaining ourselves towards collective idiocy and eventual destruction.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
"this single statement belies the truth of the situation"
Okay, let's hear it, elaborate, put it down for realz homie cause the rest of the fucking world would like to know "The Truth" of the fucking situation you fucking fuckwit.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
You seem to be suffering from the same logic errors that allowed the pilot to justify the shooting in the first place.
As with most of everything, it's not a one sided issue where you can ascertain after the fact, the motivations or realities of the situation. From the pilot's point of view, which is supported by the audio on the tape, he didn't think the civilians were civilians at all.
So saying that there was a lack of effort to minimize civilian casualties really doesn't come close to the reality of the situation. The problem is that the civilians involved in the incident were incorrectly identified as hostile insurgents and insurgents attempting to aid their fallen comrades. That was the entire belief structure of the helicopter crew at the time the trigger was pulled so every effort to minimize innocent civilian casualties could have been in place and this could have still happened because they were not thought of as civilians at the time the events took place.
Now what you are doing here is attempting to conflate this into an impossible position with no answers resembling reality. Of course that is wrong, the answers are there and both the innocent civilians and the gun crew involved share the responsibility of what happened. The gun crew because they made the mistake and misidentified the civilians, the items they were carrying that looked like weapons, and the weapons they actually had. The civilians are just as at fault because they essentially ignored common sense, warnings, and essentially walked up to a guy pumping gasoline and then lit up a smoke. It wouldn't have been much the fault of the guy pumping gas now would it.
You had civilians that went into a war zone still engaged in combat without letting anyone know they were there. They didn't wear any sort of markings stating they were the press or neutral or not involved in the conflict while being armed (yes, the reporters escort was armed with assault riffles). They didn't let the army know they were going to be there nor did they have any communications device to alert forces of their position. They took equipment that from long distances away, could be mistaken for military weapons, especially when they attempted to conceal their positions when lining up to take a picture of the helicopters which also gave the appearance of them aiming or attempting to aim it at them and those looking at it from a distance stand a very real chance of dieing if it was a RPG. So there is the first mistake, both parties made them, the gun crew asked on the radio if anyone had units or people in the area so notifying the military before going in or periodically stating your position could have very well stopped it here.
Now the second problem, additional civilians- probably the ride the reporter took to get to the area, rushed in to help them. The gun crew rightly assumed they were rendering aid to the wrongly labeled insurgents who BTW, dress up in civilian cloths and drive civilian vehicles. Again, there was no communications, no markers indicating they were neutral or not a threat, no nothing to distinguish them from what they were incorrectly identified as. There was no red cross/crescent or other internationally recognized symbol of aid that is known to all military's around the world in which they do not shoot at. And with weapons believed to still be at the scene, this also posed a threat to the gun crew.
So you see, this isn't about civilians as much as it is about recognizing civilians. Had the gun crew knew the RPG was a camera with a long lens, had the gun crew known the press was in the area, has the gun crew seen markings indecating they were journalists of legitimate aid workers, had the gun crew not been engaged in combat operations, and all this still happened, I would be standing right beside you. But given everything that we know, this is a tragic- I repeat, tragic misunderstanding that costs the lives of civilians in a dangerous place. But all the blame cannot be placed on the gun crew for this. It was a joint fuck up, unfortunately, only one party survived to talk about it.
This is pretty clear cut per U.S law - he divulged classified information period, he could/should receive serious jail time including life in prison - he could also be executed. After reading the article it sounds like he was a troubled young man craving attention.
Ok, first, he's probably being held in Kuwait because he was stationed in Iraq at the time he was taken into custody. I really don't think it's for the reasons you think it is.
More importantly the OP asked why he was held without charge, not held in Kuwait, ok?
I've watched the video, and if not for the audio commentary dubbed in, even from the tranquility of my armchair, I would have had trouble telling if the unfortunates fired upon were hostile or neutrals. Add in the fog of war, the tactics of the insurgents and the effects of adrenalin on the mind of the crews, it's a wonder these accidents aren't much more common.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
This is salient. Extraordinarily so. ...
If the fire was taken from a different group then it is likewise possible that the people were armed to protect themselves from that group. This would be legal under Iraqi law ...
I am certain there are a plethora of honorable military activities that a patriotic person can support.
I'm pretty sure you and I have lots to agree on up to this point.
Unfortunately the events in the video are not among them.
And here's where I differ. I believe, based on the video, the audio, and what I know about Apache crews and the ROE, that the crew did their best to defend their fellow soldiers. Given the circumstances, the most plausible explanation was that the the killing of civilians was unintentional, and happened despite the best efforts of the crews in the air and on the ground to properly identify and neutralize the right target.
I see, so you're going to purport that I'm inventing the racism angle, because I'm a troll. If it helps you sleep better, go nuts, but even the most casual google searching will show that this concept did NOT originate with me.
You're playing the race card without a specific legitimate reason to do so, based on the video. Of course you didn't invent racism, and you're not the first to accuse our armed forces of racism. But even if we were to believe the (fictitious, in my mind) premise that this war was started for racist purposes, there is no, ZIP, ZERO indication that the crew on the gunship fired a single shot because of the color of anyone's skin. Instead, you're presenting a false choice between "A) ... careless and wanton ... destruction" (your words), and B) - racism.
And that's where I really get pissed off. Don't get me wrong; I love talking with people who have different opinions and perspectives (it doesn't always come across that way because I can be aggressive in conversation, sorry, my bad), but I hate race baiters. Racism is bad enough in it's real manifestations. Creating imagined racism out of thin air is wrong. Using it as a rhetorical tactic is wrong as well.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
After 17+ years on the Internet I don't have many 'firsts' anymore... This was one of them though!
How about I arrange for you to walk into a combat zone with armed escorts who aren't wearing specific uniforms, resemble the appearances of the insurgents, have you carry a long tubed device (we can make it a camera if you want) that can be confused with an RPG by a weapons crew looking through grainy video in a situation where they think it's possibly the last thought that could literally be going through their mind.
BTW, you will have no contact with the forces shooting each other, you will have no markers whatsoever at all that would indicate you are a reporter or emergency aid worker, and you will be required to crouch behind a building, peering out and aiming the camera towards the helicopter gun crew.
If you are willing to do that of your own free will (and yes, it can be arranged in Afghanistan) and live to tell about it, I would side with you. I don't think you can or will do it because when put that way, there is a high probability of you getting shot and killed. This probability is not because some soldier is incompetent, it's because in the heat of the battle, when the thoughts are about staying alive, it's natural to take actions that will keep you alive.
Yes, sometimes this leads to mistakes. However, these mistakes could be mitigated if simple precautions would be taken. Simply things like embedding yourself within a unit and getting your coverage that way, Communicating with the military and declaring where you might be or getting a patch or communications device that will alert them to your disposition if they start to target you. The military has had Friend or Foe location beacons that can be remotely activated by their weapons systems since the 1980s. These can also be programs with one time codes that will only be recognized in a certain time frame so the enemy can't use them to their advantage.
So in all this, it would help if you didn't ignore the complicity of the people killed. When you do, it make it obvious that you are attempting to inflate the situation.
What does that have to do with anything? We were talking about what acutally happened, not what "they are made out to be."
"So in all this, it would help if you didn't ignore the complicity of the people killed"
must not feed the troll...
right, those naughty civilians. how dare they walk down the street, in their home country, with out alerting the United States Military.
We could issue them some kind of banner or a flag or maybe a PATCH that we can sew onto their clothes. It would identify them as "good guys"
the "bad guys" would never imitate that. If they did we would just have to kill a few more "civilians".
If your harried soldier is so afraid of being hurt by a person who CAN'T EVEN SEE HIM, maybe he should have stayed home?
A person MURDERED from long range while trying to rescue another victim is not complicit in any way.
Damn.
-- Sig under construction...
No good deed goes unpunished. That pretty much covers it. I don't know what is worse. The slimy, repellent actions of this Lamo guy in betraying a hero to The Man or you pseudo-patriotic nationalists who believe: 1) America and its soldiers is always right. 2) In case of doubt and even in the face of direct evidence that the American Military are behaving like Nazis in WWII with a complete utter disregard for innocent human lives, please see rule one. If it weren't for this Manning guy, we would never have known about the atrocities committed in our name and you guys want to see him executed. You people disgust me. Go ahead and twist your mind like a pretzel to try to avoid the fact that there was no sign of any guns or rpgs. Those were unarmed civilians and even children that they were trying to kill with military hardware. I have seen a lot of violent nasty shit go down in movies, but I have never seen anything quite like that video. To think that those were real people. I wonder if those soldiers can sleep at night. They are no better than the gestapo. Those soldiers are the ones who should be executed. A public hanging would be nice.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Don't be coy. By "playing devil's advocate", you were throwing out unfounded speculation, (which I'm okay with; you just have to give me the same latitude) which is hardly "talking about what actually happened". Furthermore, I'd argue that stating that gunship crews regularly kill innocents because they know they can get away with it implies A) they are brutal and vicious, and B) part of an equally brutal and vicious military that covers for their actions.
A quick read of the other comments here also shows that many slashdotters have described the American military brutal, repressive, and vicious, which is where I drew my presumption from.
All I'm saying is that if I take your statement at face value, then my statement is reasonable as well. Plus, if they could get away with it in the video, what was so different about the other times?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The military never sells war as being "clean" even though modern air warfare is a hell of a lot cleaner than air wars were a few decades ago - the military purpose of precision weapons is to ensure target destruction while minimizing the expenditure of ordinance and the use of resources necessary to deliver the ordinance. A single pilot flying a single aircraft delivering a single 2,000 lb weapon to destroy a single house is much more efficient then using a squadron of aircraft delivering dozens of 2,000 lb weapons to destroy an entire neighborhood that contains the single targeted house. Minimizing collateral damage is a nice but ultimately irrelevant side benefit. Now if you see some civilian pundit or fat commentator on television saying war is "clean" now because of precision weapons and you believed him, don't blame the military - blame your choice of information sources. Anybody with a scintilla of intelligence should know that 2,000 pounds of high explosives detonating in a crowded city, whether precision guided or not, is going to be messy and dangerous. Anybody with a little bit more intelligence should also know that no matter how precise the weapons are, target selection on a hot battlefield is not as precise and there will be mistakes from time to time.
My point was "He didn't fire on other civilians at other times, suggesting he was unwilling to fire on civilians and therefore when he did it the other time it was an honest mistake" is not solid reasoning as there are other explanations.
Dude, All I'm saying is that if you dress up like a deer in the middle of deer season and go walking through the woods in a public hunting area, it's not just the hunter's fault if you get shot. That's why they wear things like orange vests and shit.
When common sense becomes a troll, we are in need of a lot more then setting idiots straight will achieve.
And yes, there are banners and patches used by different military organizations all around the world that reflect certain signals when lasers or other lights are shined on them. This isn't anything new unless it's still 1970 and I slipped into a time hole or something. These devices are called Friend or Foe identification devices and do not require batteries or anything to work. When one of these is declaring friend, you simply don't shoot unless they shoot at you. It's not perfect but it certainly would have save this reporter's life and the lives lost subsequent to his disposition.
Now, I also don't know what rock you have been hiding under, but Medical services have been using red crosses on banners attached to vehicles since the early 1900's to signify they weren't armed combatants and both sides of armed conflict are expected to not fire on them.
I'm not sure what is so hard for you to understand about something like that. Especially when it's been in use since before you were even born.
The exact same can be said to you and civilians going into a battle zone, if you don't want to get killed by mistake, stay the hell out or stay home. The big difference is that the soldier is ordered to go in under penalties that could cost him his freedom or life. You and the civilians do it by your own free will in search for fame or fortune or whatever. Sometimes it is by necessity but you cannot make that argument in this case.
Um.. Yes they are. They are complicit by their own negligence, recklessness, and ignorance and any combination thereof. Anyone rushing to the aid of someone just shot with weapons laying around who doesn't also declare their intentions is subject to be shot too. This is true in war and in peace time. All major cities around the world has had a situation just like that where someone was shot running to the aid of a criminal shot by the police because the police thought they were going for the weapon the suspect dropped. The only difference here is the range in which the shooting took place. In the case of the police, they are usually close enough to yell at the people first, whether they hear them or not is another story altogether.
Anyways, there is little difference here. They saw the people getting shot, they ran to the area where the weapons were (and the shot people), they got shot as the gun crew expected to be retaliated against. It doesn't matter if one person grabbed a body or not, the situation was created where the self preservation instincts trumped all your after the fact arm chair analysis. This doesn't make it right, but it also doesn't make it the way you are attempting to describe it. Like I said, go do the same things, I bet you won't because you know for a fact that it's dangerous and likely to get you killed.
Yeah its too bad they didn't have more data. That would prevent civilian deaths. It's like a video game. If you can pause then you will. We just need the new data of a pause button on the war. Then we can fight war perfectly, that is the goal of our nuclear silo operators and most other soldiers. They are just doing a good job. With guns. If we give them more information then they will kill less innocents.
That is how technology works and why we have had less murder the more technology we develop. Every century is less bloody than the previous. Human progress is a real science. Let's invest in it. Disney makes a great map of the world.
"The Universal Soldier, fighting for Peace"
Stupidity is its own reward.
Yes, only training will yield the appropriate moral opinions. Only experts can tell us what is wrong and right. The experts tell us that wikileaks is marginal and that objective news comes from embedded reporters. 8 years isn't long for a war, there was one that lasted 100 after all. "Blood Sweat and Iron" bring prosperity and peace to us all so we must use our Will to Power what is the best strategy and method to assess the targets...
(Or for those cultured in only the last 10 years, the appropriate sarcastic comment would be: AMERICA, FUCK YA!)
Stupidity is its own reward.
Clean up that war! Just remove some marginal "free speech" type websites. Also discredit the obvious validity of criticism with relativistic horseshit: "We are progressing to make war safer for everyone, we won't get it right until you send us more money and sons and daughters..."
What confuses me is how people like you stand up for such vile deeds without any compensation. Watched a lot of movies about the "Glory of War" have we?
Stupidity is its own reward.
Because letting it occur in a controlled environment under a dictatorial regime is obviously better.
I think you are on to something. But then I also meet a lot of people my own age and younger (I'm not so young anymore, merely wired) who are duped by all this anyway. There is also a lot of apathy among the younger "sophisticated" people who get their news from the internet.
Ultimately its about organisation and leadership. The truth is so demoralising to so many people that most political campaigns about it are only really complaining, rarely directing that shared opinion into something constructive which changes the system.
Part of it is that media machine which makes us think that speaking up in a CNN poll or some such is a substantive political act of rebellion, that rebellion will somehow intrinsically redirect the "bad guys" towards a higher moral ground etc. What we really need is to take power via direct action and only a small part of that can happen sitting in front of a flickering LCD panel. Also, we get riled up by things far away which are effectively out of our control but acquiesce on that in our front yard, like driving cars and voting with our dollars for the bargain slave labour goods.
I don't know, at least there is that truth floating around there somewhere on the internet still. Seems like as more and more of the internet is corporate-ized we see less of that badly designed webpage with important things to say and more of that selling almost nothing but really slick page...
Stupidity is its own reward.
That kind of falls under "you can't prove a negative". So, if you're looking for cold, clinical proof, you're out of luck. However, it does suggest a plausible and consistent pattern of behavior - "Kill bad guys when I can and avoid civilians when I can, based on the info I get from my fellow soldiers and this cruddy little b/w camera".
Are there other possibilities? Sure. Would I consider these other possibilities? Sure. Do I buy them? None so far. Not without better information.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Distance is the essence of modern warfare. We now have easier access to information but because it is far away we get overwhelmed and distracted by other information and also we don't know what to do about the war or what to believe.
The Sikh religion has a belief that one should fight their own battles rather than have others do it for them. Great idea anyway.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Yeah the more you say that "Seeing that might change the thoughts slightly on the pieces of video that were seen..." the more we believe it, please post it 12 more times. Oh wait, you already did?
As long as it looks like there is another "side" to the debate that is credible then our binary thinking minds will say: OK, the greay area is something in between not shooting people who aren't shooting you from a helicopter and the guy who makes excuses because of the helicopter not shooting everyone in sight.
Good point you make there, after all, the military has no ability to release video that shows them in a positive light, unlike wikileaks or people imprisoned in Kuwait.
Stupidity is its own reward.
That was an insightful piece. Thank you for writing it. Can't mod ya up, as I'm in the thread two posts up, but as the case may be.
Yes, it actually might be, depending upon one's measure of merit. USA as "World Cop" is one I adamantly oppose. I'm with the pre-WWII republicans on this one.
C//
Wikileaks released a long and a short version. I've watched both. There is no other version out there that is up front and lets you view the footage. The long version that they edited does NOT show a positive light on the actions. It's just slower and longer. If anything it is more damning because it disproves the lie that this was a "heat of the battle mistake" where they didn't have time to be more careful. They had a lot more time to decide than the edited version of the video shows and they STILL did what they did because that is what happens when you fly around in a helicopter with guns dangling out of it shooting at random dark people for cash. Add that the soldiers have no idea of their own safety and just want to survive, they might be shot by friendly fire after all - that happens a lot. And you get a situation that was very predictable murder, something that only sociopaths would excuse. Something that the individuals involved might get scapegoated for but the real culprit is untouchable.
Stupidity is its own reward.
"The Army is not in the business of "trying to not look bad."
"The military spends an *enormous* amount of time trying to gain and maintain domestic support for its activities abroad."
The point is that if the military actually had a video which made them look good they would certainly release it because their job is 90% propaganda (A gun isn't nearly as useful as the fear and obedience it inspires) They don't have a different video because there A) isn't one, or B) because they like the image conveyed by the "Collateral Murder" video. Don't discount that the military likes to appear bloodthirsty to certain parties. Obviously wikileaks hasn't inspired enough outrage to actually get the US out or Iraq.
Stupidity is its own reward.
If another country were to invade my country, resisting that invasion would be a defensive war. Of coarse civilians would die, the difference is that not fighting might have worse consequences.
"Come on. Seriously? You're acusing anti-war folks of being gullible?"
It doesn't matter how unlikely the argument is of convincing. The flak is just there to contain the debate and make it seem like the basic assumption (That we all have seen firsthand the wrongness of the American invasion of Iraq via the Collateral Murder video) is still open to question when it is not. That prevents us from moving on to action that would turn our sentiment into something useful. Like actually holding someone accountable. As it is we get caught up in the nonsense and allow the hero of the story (wikileaks guy) to get arrested and the murderer generals who orders those troops in the helicopter into that predictable civillian killing situation still walk free.
Stupidity is its own reward.
if he didn't turn him in, he would have gone to prison with him.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
I was looking for task saturation and found this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmet_fire
I read something about this from when aircraft went to jets and jammers and senors became common in the late 50s and 60s, combat aviators actually started turning systems off so they'd not get overloaded.
As for people who say these folks were undertrained or could actually see things in high resolution that were in lower res, I have the following exercise for them to try.
Drive a manual transmission car down a highway at the speed limit, then get at least two cell phones going at once and texting on another while staying in a straight line so the guy in the passenger seat can fire out the window. Then try to figure out details like what state a car beside you is from.
Oh and do all this while only seeing the road through a black and white tv.
You sycophantic fuck. You're willing to endorse anything as long as it technically absolves you of guilt.
That post was the most content-free thing since Dick Cheney last broke wind. It's absolutely wrong in most areas and pathetically stupid in others.
For instance, this shit about notifying people they were going into a war zone... Hello FUCK NUT! People live there. We took the war to their homes.
He dribbles further that they acted JUST like insurgents - which must mean walking slowly and openly down a public road. What would civilians do? Stay home forever? Perhaps now they'd nervously glance for the helicopter about to blow them apart, but that's pretty reasonable.
His frantic logical gyrations take on epic proportion when he talks about how the civilian van that tried to collect civilian wounded wasn't properly marked... because it's a civilian van dipshit. That's the fucking point - civilians trying to live their life getting cut down from afar, and people trying to render aid cut down from afar.
He concludes the clusterfuck by talking about how various "doctrines and conventions allow for the death of these people". Before addressing the monumental stupidity inherent in this, I can only ask - would you stand quiet and accepting if I was coming to kill you simply because I had a convention allowing for your death? Because unless that'd be enough for you, shut your ignorant hole. And if that would be enough, hold on, I'll make up a petition...
Yes. Our military feels they were told to do this and the orders were authentic and thus binding. And yes they probably were, but such orders aren't legitimate.
The test of this is that they led to the slaying of a large party of civilians we're theoretically trying to protect. We murdered our charges. Maybe the kid in charge of the button hit it when he was told to but the killing was wrong and it needs to stop.
When they come asking for reparations for the warcrimes I'm going to vote we give them YOU. Not the soldiers, but the ignorant fuckers at home cheering it on and making up excuses for it.
I don't think that the insurgents need to see videos like this to get angry. The oath also covers domestic enemies regardless of whether or not that enemy is the grunt in the foxhole with you or your commander in chief. In my judgement IANAJBTW the US military has its fair share of domestic enemies amongst its ranks. sadly these enemies appear to be dual nationals/owe their allegiances to other states/have high positions (take your pick)
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I believe, based on the video, the audio, and what I know about Apache crews and the ROE, that the crew did their best to defend their fellow soldiers. Given the circumstances, the most plausible explanation was that the the killing of civilians was unintentional, and happened despite the best efforts of the crews in the air and on the ground to properly identify and neutralize the right target.
Watch the entire video, and it may give you some perspective. Notice how, when they run low on rounds, they begin begging to use their rockets instead. There is a difference between the force authorized by the rules of engagement and what we saw in the video.
This, by the way, is the reason the video even exists. RTFA. It was sitting in some JAG officer's files, due to the fact that it was interesting in this way. Anyone who claims that this is clear cut, that there is zero doubt, is biased.
War creates monsters. Exposure to death and injury, as well as training to kill other human beings as efficiently as possible without feeling any revulsion or hesitating all helps to dehumanise people in the war zone, military or civilian.
Unfortunately that is the business of war. I'm not saying it is right, but rather that when we hear about these atrocities I think it is important to understand that war can make otherwise good people do bad things. It isn't a question of weeding out the "bad eggs", we need to change the training and the conditions soldiers operate under to stop them going that way.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I watched the "full" 39 minute video with the hole in the middle. Love to see the unedited version, but apparently this is all the leak wanted us to see.
They used missiles against targets in a building. Sounds logical to me.
I'm not surprised that it was in a JAG officers files. I imagine the killing of civilians, esp. civilian press corps, gets the attention of brass. Not in a good way, either. Just because we don't hear about it on the outside doesn't mean it's not being investigated.
Anyone who claims that this is clear cut, that there is zero doubt, is biased.
I hope you're not aiming that at me. My words:
"I believe ... Given the circumstances, the most plausible explanation ... "
... are a pretty clear indication that I'm taking what I believe to be a reasonable position, but I'm willing to allow for others' interpretations.
Also, that cuts both ways. Many people here and on other forums take this video as clear proof that the US guns down civilians on purpose. I'm glad to see we agree that this video is not clear proof of that.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
They used missiles against targets in a building. Sounds logical to me.
Logical, but off-topic.
Emphasis on the 'begged' to be able to do so. The crew had a distinct desire to unload their entire complement of ammo before returning home. This is central to the premise, and cannot be logically ignored, except perhaps by accident.
The only mission where using up all the ammo is important is one described as 'kill as many as possible'. This goes to motive.
Also, that cuts both ways. Many people here and on other forums take this video as clear proof that the US guns down civilians on purpose. I'm glad to see we agree that this video is not clear proof of that.
Except that it actually is proof that these soldiers believed more in the killing than they did in the mission, which leads to behaviors like gunning down civilians on purpose.
"Come on Mr Journalist, crawl a little further and I can finish killing you," wouldn't be too great a stretch from what actually happened.
"I just crushed the corpse of a civilian with my Bradley, lol!" I can actually see this on Facebook...
It is repugnant, and I'm glad we got to see it.
The point is, ignoring the tenor of their desire paints the situation in too clean of a light.
Hey, look, someone on slashdot explained something without a car analogy, or without any analogy at all.
We can sit here and argue whether the Iraq war was a good idea, but it's getting nearly impossible to argue that staying there is a good idea.
What, exactly, do we think will happen if we leave? That isn't already true?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Emphasis on the 'begged' to be able to do so.
Bull. I went back and listened to the missile engagement, and there was no "begging".
... go ahead and engage." From there on in, the dialog has to do with safely lining up the first shot, and then the follow-up shot.
The American forces were chasing insurgents , and six of them took refuge in a building. Around 31:49, the helo crew says "We can put a missile in it." No begging.
That is then relayed to someone else "If you'd like, Crazyhorse one-eight could put a missile in that building." No begging.
Bushmaster two-six is apparently coordinating the forces, and gives clearance to the helo "If you've PID'd
Nothing indicates that they were "begging" to shoot missiles.
The crew had a distinct desire to unload their entire complement of ammo before returning home.
That is fantasy and speculation. Nothing in the video indicates they are trying to unload all their ammo. If missiles are the right ordinance to take out a hardened target like a building, that's what you use.
This is central to the premise, and cannot be logically ignored, except perhaps by accident.
I'm not ignoring it; I'm disputing it. You're right that it's central to the premise, but since it is fabrication and wishful thinking, the premise is left with nothing but an anti-war fantasy. You even go on to invent dialog:
"Come on Mr Journalist, crawl a little further and I can finish killing you," wouldn't be too great a stretch from what actually happened.
Yes it would be a stretch. They didn't say that. That's like you saying "Hey, I had sex last night", and I respond by saying "Well, saying you raped her wouldn't be too great a stretch." Stick to the facts, man.
Simply put, they were ready to re-engage a person who appeared to be hostile. Nothing more, nothing less. If they did say "Mr. Journalist", that would give you your "proof", because it would actually demonstrate the prior knowledge that you so desperately want to believe was there. But they didn't.
"I just crushed the corpse of a civilian with my Bradley, lol!" I can actually see this on Facebook...
You mean that you can imagine that on Facebook. Unless of course you actually have that on the actual FB page of the actual Bradley driver involved, which of course you don't. But that brings up another point. You and many of the other slashdotters I've discussed this film with are eager to tar & feather the helo crew based on your outrage the actions of others ... like the driver who appears to have driven over a corpse. How about not confusing the actions of one person with the actions of another?
By the way, if you think that driving over a corpse either accidentally or on purpose is in any way unique or unusual in warfare, think again. As long as there has been mechanized armor and cavalry, it has been driven over corpses. And before that, the mounted cavalry did the same. Maybe it doesn't make sense to your nice, sensitive, peace and decency loving mind, but them's the facts.
The point is, ignoring the tenor of their desire paints the situation in too clean of a light.
The fact is, your bias is creating the "tenor of their desire" through creative interpretation.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The fact is, your bias is creating the "tenor of their desire" through creative interpretation.
Your own bias runs deeper than my own, but I appreciate your efforts. Again, I'm not taking issue with the driving over the corpse, but you well know that by this point. I'm clearly taking issue with laughing about it.
You're pointing out that I'm inventing dialogue, when I clearly said so myself, because you're attempting to illustrate a fabrication. My emotional reaction to what I watched is not false.
If you genuinely think that I watched the same thing you did, drew the same (and only) conclusion, and am fabricating an emotion, then just stop here. You're wasting everyone's time.
I don't want a military that thinks these things are a game, nor that thinks they are funny. I'm sorry that you do. But I don't see what's left for debate. They had a grand time killing innocents in a city. I do not like it, to the point that the people complicit in it need to be punished. The end.
We were there to protect them, not to make a turkey shoot out of them.
I'm clearly taking issue with laughing about it ... My emotional reaction to what I watched is not false.
Now this I get, and I don't dispute that your emotional reaction to it is genuine. That's what a normal reaction should be. This isn't a normal situation.
Laughter is not always about humor. People laugh in uncomfortable situations and at inappropriate times for inappropriate reasons. It can become a coping mechanism for dealing with emotions that aren't allowed any other outlet, or dealing with the cognitive dissonance that results from a person raised in civilization who finds themselves driving over dead bodies in a foreign land.
Laughter is also one of the most primal forms of human communication. It's like hearing a baby cry, in that it is understood across language and cultural barriers. When we hear it, it jumps right past the more sophisticated parts of our brain, and generates an automatic reaction. No wonder hearing it in this context is jarring and upsetting. It doesn't fit with what we're seeing.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
No wonder hearing it in this context is jarring and upsetting. It doesn't fit with what we're seeing.
Yes! Exactly, except...
I believe it DID fit with the attitude of the soldiers, and that it is evident in their behavior on the battlefield as well.
Murder, rape, and other terrible crimes happen in every country in the world every day, even when there isn't a war going on. War just changes the participants.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Okay, so we see it differently.
Different question: Do you think it is possible to fight a war and remain humane?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Yes. But what I meant was that if you go into a war with another country, you can expect that your own people will be the perpetrators. It just happens. It's part and parcel of the dehumanization aspects of military operations when it comes to the enemy. That, and an admission that event he best trained forces will always have a few sociopaths, statistically speaking. Anyway, deal is, if this happens, the locals who are the victims may begin to really hate you. So you better have a real good reason for being there.
While this matter is just my opinion, I think "World Cop" is not good enough of a reason. Frankly, I'm not even a big fan of alliances. To wit, if ever we get to where we believe it possible, I'm a fan of withdrawing from NATO. No comment about whether or not that's possible or wise right now. Not something I've analyzed, wouldn't be qualified to have an opinion...
C//
Yes, I definitely believe that it is. As I said, I'm confident there are many unsung examples of this going on all around the world.
The above sounds fine, but what ruins it is the response of the heli-crew to seeing kids in the van: "they shouldn't take kids to a warzone". They LIVE there, in that warzone, they can't help it. It's a callous lack of understanding of the entire situation people below them are living in, and it was reflected in the crews assessment and actions.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
Mine is that you should see someone about these anger issues you have. Why else would you feel such a need to publicly and vociferously insult and curse me, a complete and total stranger whom you have never met, will likely never meet? You know absolutely nothing about me at all, my hopes, fears, loves, desires, education, prejudices, whatever - yet seem to assume that in your infinite wisdom you have me all figured out, and all that I am worthy of as far as you are concerned is scorn, insult, resentment, anger, and public vilification...
I pity you, friend. I hope that you can someday find it in yourself to have compassion and understanding for people who might not think exactly as you do.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
I hope so. I think so. It's hard for an outsider like me to contemplate, though. Anyway, here's to a lasting peace coming soon [raises coffee mug].
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I'll drink to that!
Because you're a warmonger. You provide moral comfort to the killers by endorsing their words without checking them to see if they make the slightest bit of sense. You willingly believe the lies and justifications that make everything your side does safe and wonderful without question. You accept the word of someone who is clearly grasping at straws and thank him for it, encouraging others to buy the same nonsense.
Your hopes, dreams, etc are irrelevant. Nobody cares why Jeffery Dahmer killed except to stop it from happening again - nobody cares why you're willing to condemn the innocent to gory death or excuse their killers.
I don't pity you and you're no friend of mine. It's your victims I pity. I hope you get killed in the war you're so eager to support. Your tax money is being spent to guarantee someone dies, I'm just suggesting it be you... And GooberToo of course. It's apparently either that or more vans full of good samaritans.
Watch out shitstain. If you think THIS is an unacceptable level of anger - some appropriately harsh words in an anonymous online forum, just wait until someone orphaned by this nonsense delivers it in person. If not for people like you this war could be defusing things - instead your jingoism will end up winding it tighter than before with us at the center.
You had civilians that went into a war zone still engaged in combat without letting anyone know they were there.
Except that there was no war zone. You can see civilians all over the place in that video, you can even see a women and child walk right by after the heli shoot up the van (12:10, full length video). There was a bit of gunfire an hour earlier, but that didn't really seem to bother any of the civilians. Also none of the people acted like being in combat. If I'd go to war, I take a gun with me, a large number of people in that group clearly didn't.
So saying that there was a lack of effort to minimize civilian casualties really doesn't come close to the reality of the situation.
Quite the opposite, it hits the reality of the situation spot on. The video doesn't show a crazy helicopter gunner shooting random civilians, it shows a gunner that follows normal procedure and shoots up people without ever having clear indication that those people where insurgence, he even ask for permission to engage and gets it without problem. If the military has to shoot up ten civilians to keep one of its own soldiers out of danger it will do so, thats the reality of the situation.
And don't get me started on the whole issue with the US having started the war for no reason whatsoever, they are responsible for each and every civilian that they kill. I can't break into your house, kill you and then claim I did it in self defense cause you had a gun. Makes no sense in the small scale, makes even less sense in the large one, but that is exactly the bullshit justification with which the military is getting away.
Yes, everybody usually opposes us until...they need us, then they whine and clamor about how the US is sitting all tidy by itself and never helping anybody out, those stupid fat Americans should come save us from our liberal politicians that didn't spend anything on self defense.
Yes. The lionshare of Europe's ability to socialize itself came from deferred defense costs due to having the US as their umbrella defender during the Cold War era. Shitty. And how stupid we are.
C//
Please remind me of when or where the hili crew saw the kids in the van before the shooting? A simple time frame on the video where someone mentioned kids being at the scene before the shooting would suffice. As I said before, it's all about perspective, if they didn't see the kids until after, then they didn't even figure into the situation until _after_ it happened. The fact that kids were there makes it more horrific, but it doesn't change much of anything.
Yes. The lionshare of Europe's ability to socialize itself came from deferred defense costs due to having the US as their umbrella defender during the Cold War era. Shitty. And how stupid we are.
C//
Wow that is a very good point, and phrased excellently. I am going to write that down.
If you dislike the Adrian Lamo, the guy that snitched him out, and have a Facebook, this is your group. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/disliking-Adrian-Lamo/134442293236157
Consider this possibility:
The arrest in Kuwait is fake. There are no 260,000 documents. Assange is being setup for a US takedown. Lamo is a stooge. He's agreed to say whatever the US wants him to - thi swas the condition of his release when captured.
"One just can't go "rummaging through" compartmented files. Each person with access to a particular compartment would have to be individually cleared for that compartment.
Say the compartmented thing is a new spy plane that is designated with the codeword AAA. Bob works on one of the sensors that has the codeword AAA/BBB. Jim works on the avionics. That compartment is AAA/CCC. Bob, feeling bored one day, can't just go have a look at the AAA/CCC avionics data. He wouldn't have access. Jim, likewise, can't access the AAA/BBB sensor compartment."
http://cryptogon.com/?p=15843
The disinfo being generated in this story is multi-axial, and thicker than smoke...
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell