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Pentagon Seeking Out Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange
clustro writes "The Pentagon is desperately seeking the 'cooperation' of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in order to stop him from releasing over 250,000 pages of confidential foreign policy documents. The documents were allegedly provided to Assange by Bradley Manning, the same solider who leaked a video showing a US Army helicopter killing unarmed civilians and international press correspondents."
Could you just provide us your GPS co-ordinates? Thanks!
Good luck finding "Julian" as if such a man would have parted ways with his real name. He is a master of 27 languages and knows the local customs as if he recited them as his daily prayers. This is a man who possesses a near chameleon like instinct and can instantly blend into the background anywhere. Only further surpassing his ability to sink into the inky blackness are the hundreds of contacts he has made from here to hoover damn. Hell, even the rocks and streams seem to offer the man comfort if so much as he breathes a heavy sigh.
I can only laugh when the Pentagon says they want to find "Julian." Just considering the sheer number of hells they'll need to climb down to find the darkest demon who might be able to guess what "Julian" had for lunch just makes me chuckle.
Either that or the Pentagon can just send him an email.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Good thing he's not a United States citizen then, or else he might be violating his social contract.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Yup. Now he's an enemy combatant. Now about those GPS coordinates...
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
In Soviet America, leaks plug you.
Why is Snark Required?
Ever hear of the Pentagon Papers?
Classification is supposed to be used to protect the American people, not protect criminals in office, or protect certain classes' privileges, or protect certain corporations' contracts, or to DECEIVE the American public.
If you are privy to misuse of the law in such a way or of such abuses, it's the patriotic and moral thing to do to expose them.
We don't know (yet) what this information is, but breaking the law is sometimes justified if the law is unjust or is being used to protect uinjust actions.
The person taking such action, choosing to break a law they see as wrong faces the consequences knowingly. History will judge whether they were right or wrong.
And in general we should be uncomfortable with the idea of our government deciding that we don;t have a right to know what its doing - pretty much goes against the ideas behind the founding of this country and is abhorrent to anyone not having an authoritarian mindset.
Somehow I'm sure our country and citizens will manage to survive the release of this information that the government feels it must protect us from.
This space available.
Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.
I don't know where you live, but I still live in a democracy. So while my opinion on what should/shouldn't be classified might not be the definitive one, an important one, or even a good one.. it's always a relevant one. You presumably live in a dictatorship, so I can see how you might have a different opinion on it. Of course, your opinion on everything is irrelevant, since you live in a dictatorship.
AccountKiller
I really hope this is a troll. If so, kudos - it is very well done.
If not, I weep that there are actually people who think this way. It is instructive to understand this kind of mindset. If the democratic will says it's ok, then it must be ok. Countless atrocities committed in the name of the majority have occurred on the basis of this mode of thinking. The Holocaust comes to mind.
I think I'm going to be sick.
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. Constitution > Webster
In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.
Really, did _you_ vote on it, will your vote be reaffirmed every generation or so to ensure its still what the people want ?
Perhaps you should have said, a previous generation let the powers that be keep secrets from everyone, and now we cant get them to give up their power.
Depends whats in the docs.
Another 5000 name death list as used in 1965 Indonesia?
The names crossed off as killed or captured?
Direct color revolution support, not washed by pro democracy foundations?
Black sights in countries where people where promised never again?
Enough for this generations Daniel Ellsberg?
or a huge list of faith based contractors doing very bad things on endless sole source contracts?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I don't generally post on Slashdot... but couldn't resist. Post them. Now. Please. No doubt it'll hurt US relations with who-knows-who... but the truth is always the best way to create the best change. One day, this man should be nominated, and win, a Nobel Peace Prize.
Treason is lying to the american public about WMDs. Perhaps you don't think the boss can commit treason. But the public is meant to be the boss - and they were lied too, and money was laundered, lives were lost and countless suffered.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"What if people die as a result" of leaking the confidential data? Many, many people *have* died due to our offensive military operations in that part of the world. I wager that obtaining the documents is an effort to examine the premises and policies surrounding those deaths, a la the Pentagon Papers. The claims of "serious damage to national security" have been seriously overblown in the past. Give the documents to someone trustworthy (outside the United States) to evaluate for their likelihood to "seriously damage" us.
Depending on what he leaked he may be considered a hero by civil libertarians if some of the allegations and rumors swirling about these cables are true. I know I consider him one, this is far less a grave offense against the law and liberty than Cheney's death squads or Bush's/Obama's/Congress's support of the Patriot Act. You seem almost gleeful he has less rights during a court martial, any reason for that?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
First of all, I think that people do need a video to realize that war, and in particular the Iraq war, is tragic and disturbing. It's one thing to hear that lots of civilians are mistakenly killed in the course of our military occupations, it's another thing altogether to see some of the exact circumstances in which that occurs.
Do you recall the story that broke soon after the video, regarding a house that special forces stormed on bad intel, in which various people were killed, including two women that the soldiers apparently arranged deceptively so that they could claim in their report that they were previously killed in an "honor killing?" The incident that the commanding general of SOCOM had to fork over a wad of cash and apologize for? If there had been a video of that, with black-clad soldiers going "Oh shit! I think these people were just civilians!" and then digging out their rounds from the bodies, tying them up, artfully arranging them, and discussing their cover story, how do you think that would have gone over? Instead of everyone forgetting in a few weeks, we'd still be watching the congressional hearings on CSPAN.
Regarding the guncam video, do you find the destruction of the van, and the attack on the building with missiles while apparent bystanders walk by to be equally unavoidable as the deaths of the journalists? I am a little surprised that the video didn't at least make you wonder at all about the wisdom of the RoE they were operating under. You don't have to demonize the pilots and gunners personally to find fault in the incident. The military's reports found that the crewmen did make the right call in every case, and summarily declared all 20+ men killed in the various attacks "AIF" (Anti-Iraq Forces), so you can't write everything off as a tragic mistake; it was tragic official policy.
Even if all of these things are rendered "unavoidable" by our political need for near-airtight force protection (like the dozens of unarmed civilians killed at Afghan road checkpoints), many people are not aware that they occur. If everyone knew exactly what went on in Iraq and Afghanistan, they might not support the military missions there (or future hypothetical invasions) so much; war reporting certainly had that effect during Vietnam. If no one ever gets outraged, what motivation is there to avoid these entanglements, or even to try harder to avoid civilian casualties in the conflicts we are already fighting?
I can only imagine that all the random milita members on the streets with rifles and RPGs that day didn't realize that the helicopters ~1km away were or could be targeting them. I agree that the Reuters stringers took a foolish risk, and that the initial incident is not indefensible. Maybe "AIF" ambushes are always that ridiculously nonchalant. Everything that happens afterward, though...
Also keep in mind that the only reason anyone (any American) ever cared about this incident was that it was subsequently discovered that two of the "AIF" were Reuters stringers. Imagine how many incidents there must have been where people who didn't work for a major Western news organization were creatively classified as insurgents. I'm sure that some of them weren't pointing giant telephoto lenses at the Bradley convoy down the block, and would be harder to blame for their own demises.
"and people die as a result of your decision?"
How about the opposite: what if people die UNLESS you publish these documents and publishing them would save lives? That's not actually far-stretched, Pentagon and the US army is known for killing people, even completely unarmed civilians.
If you go the "what if" - route then you should consider several different outcomes and not only one.
And what if You were driving your daughters somewhere through your hometown and came upon what to you looked like an explosion with dying people crawling to safety?
To Americans it's the 'warzone' but to people that live there it is 'home'.
*DrugCheese rants*
What are you talking about? Didn't you know that the war in Iraq was won in 2003? Or maybe you've forgotten Preseident Bush's speech declaring victory on a certain aircraft carrier about a certain mission whose goals were considered accomplished? He very clearly stated that is was the "end of major combat operations."
While I'm being facetious here, the point is that you claiming that "war is war" is directly contradictory to the official government stance, which is that the operations in Iraq are a police action. Does the killing of unarmed civilians sound like a valid police action to you? Does that sound like something that will win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis? I'll admit that yes, even in police actions sometimes mistakes can be made but there should be an investigation and if warranted, a trial, not a cover-up.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
And Hitler was elected in democratic elections as well.
No, he wasn't, stop spreading that BS please. Hitler was appointed by Hindenburg, then engineered the Reichstag fire, then enacted draconian laws on grounds of security, used that to rig the next election, which still didn't bring him majority. He then forced Hindenburg out, forced the new Reichstag into giving him legislative powers, effectively suspended the constitution, and then proceeded on to murder his opposition in and outside of his party, and, finally, using the "emergency" legislative powers to declare himself a Furher. Or somesuch. But he was never elected at any point of his national political career by a majority.
Uhhhh - I didn't see the same video you saw. I saw an Apache firing on a group of armed men, located in an area from which our ground troops took fire.
The thing that I find most interesting about this argument is that the predominant sides of the argument consist of the side that says, "These guys were irresponsible/criminal Rambo-types. They/we need to do better!" versus the side that says, "These were good soldiers doing the best they could in trying circumstances. Bad things happen in war."
Now, considering that the fighting in Iraq is an anti-insurgency campaign, and the U.S. military is supposed to be winning "hearts and minds," dead civilians, dead reporters, wounded/dead children foster hatred of the U.S. and undermine the mission. Therefore, the people defending those soldiers and saying that mistakes happen are essentially saying this:
"This war cannot be won."