WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets

A number of readers submitted word on the massive WikiLeaks release of Afghanistan war documents. "The data is provided in CSV and SQL formats, sorted by months, and also was rendered into KML mapping data." WikiLeaks provided the documents in advance to the New York Times, Der Spiegel, and the UK's Guardian — the latter also has up a video tutorial on how to read the logs. From the Times: "A six-year archive of classified military documents... offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal. The secret documents... are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year. The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian, and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday. The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001."

Comments

US abuse

[SquarePixel]

Wikileaks is doing great work for the world. It sickens me that the country that is supposedly so open and about democracy abuses rest of the world like this and tries to hide it. I remember that last year the German and French population support for the war started dropping, so US started a project where they tried to think how to manipulate them. They made specific, independent plans for both countries how to give the war better PR so the general population would support it again.

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies. You know, the exact same thing that US considers as helping terrorists. Funny thing is that because of this, US put itself into this war.

What about ACTA and other laws US tries to push to the rest of the world? No one comes to US and tries to tell them what to do. So leave rest of the world alone too.

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

Re:US abuse

[blackraven14250]

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

I pretty much agree with your point, but would like to point out that no other country is or has been involved in as many large scale, outright wars as we are, at the frequency we are.

Re:US abuse

[ColdWetDog]

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst.

Heinlein, Starship troopers, 1959

Re:US abuse

[ColdWetDog]

I pretty much agree with your point, but would like to point out that no other country is or has been involved in as many large scale, outright wars as we are, at the frequency we are.

Huh? Your view of history is pretty narrow. Perhaps in the 20th Century the US has been involved in more wars that others (often as a defensive position, ie, WWI, WW2, Korea) but the history of mankind has been that of war for thousands and thousands of years.

This is reality, not the Federation of Planets. Get used to it.

Re:US abuse

[sbates]

Scale is relative. The British and Roman empires were waging at least as many as we are, and were just as ruthless. Granted, that shows you where we're headed, but your statement is still wrong.

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

This is reality, not the Federation of Planets. Get used to it.

Even the Federation seemed to average a small war every decade or so......

Re:US abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

Not Tibet.

Re:US abuse

[loshwomp]

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

And (even if that were true) you realize that that's not a very good excuse, right?

Re:US abuse

[jrumney]

Perhaps in the 20th Century the US has been involved in more wars that others (often as a defensive position, ie, WWI, WW2, Korea)

This must be some new right-wing definition of the word defensive, since in those three wars combined only one single attack was ever made on the US.

Re:US abuse

[JohnFluxx]

How would you even start to approach to proving that?

You'd need to consider all the conflicts that could have been, but weren't because the issue disappeared due to diplomacy early on, no?

Re:US abuse

[ElrondHubbard]

Yes, but the U.S. is the first country in the history of balance-of-power politics to think that the failure of its main enemy (the USSR) entitles it to something like control of the entire world, forever. That was the goal of the Project for a New American Century that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice tried to enact for eight years, at a price that may yet cost the U.S. its pre-eminent position. And yet neoconservatives like William Kristol continue to promote this as though it were a good idea and facts recognized by the 'reality-based community' simply don't matter.

Re:US abuse

[WrongSizeGlass]

Mutually Assured Destruction should never be confused with 'Diplomacy'.

Re:US abuse

[digitalunity]

Strangely enough, I'm pretty sure the US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons made the world safer overall. I can't say the same regarding North Korea or Iran having nukes. They might actually use them without fear of retaliation.

Re:US abuse

[tacarat]

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

Not Tibet.

Tibet was a bunch of separate entities way back in the day. If and when it gets free of the Chinese government, do they get to redivide into those smaller countries? Obviously Songtsän Gampo, the guy who founded the Tibetan EMPIRE, wasn't a true Tibetan. He was just some random, outside oppressor engaged in acts of aggression against his neighbors. The earth was made and Tibet was there immediately with monks and quaint makers of handcrafted goodies for celebrity photo op types to pose with. Damn him for messing with that.

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

big big difference. many (most?) of us never believed those liars and bush/co NEVER spoke for us.

Almost half of the Democrats in the House and more than half in the Senate believed them......

Re:US abuse

[hairyfeet]

The problem is we have this thing known as the military industrial complex that needs shit to kept stirred to give it a reason to exist and enjoy massive profits.

Old Ike warned us about it in the 50s saying "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. " but nobody listened.

You look at our history pre WWII and we pretty much tried to stay out of everyone else's business for the most part. After all those corps got a taste of the government teat they sure as hell wasn't about to give it up, hence where we are now. Sadly the MIC has become a self perpetuating monster, with plants and projects across every district, and more than enough cash to buy anything they want passed. Short of a total economic collapse I just don't see anything changing with regards to the USA and the MIC.

Re:US abuse

[BLKMGK]

In order for that to actually work we'd all have to do it - all at once. By all means go ahead and try to convince the Chinese, the Russians, the Koreans, the Taliban etc. to all sing along and be friends with one another. Don't forget the Palestinians and Israelis too. Go over there and try to talk this sense to them, we'll be seeing you on TV shortly after I'm betting and not in the good way either. What exactly different is it that you propose?

If you think that somehow leading by example and becoming pacifists is going to get it done be prepared to be crushed as every other country rolls over you. What you're looking for is a fantasy and it's the sort of fantasy that's dreamed up by folks who have a warm bed, enough food, plenty of water, education, and free time to have have such thoughts. Many places in this world have very little of any of that and you had better believe they aren't going to get it overnight.

Want to win in places like Afghanistan? Start by raising their standard of living to something akin to ours. School them, build roads, develop their industries and resources, maybe give them something worthwhile to lose! When they have the luxuries that the "developed" worlds do then and only then will we begin to see progress. The Taliban and other tyrants know that an educated populace is their worst enemy. If we give Iran enough time I bet we will see this happen, trying badly to strangle them with by withholding needed supplies will work as well for us as it's working in Palestine I fear...

Re:US abuse

[Rakarra]

Please drop the "9/11 was an inside job" bullshit. Try to keep the discussion here meaningful. :P

Re:US abuse

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Except in Europe WWI and WWII happened and we kinda grew up. Imperialism and aggression suddenly didn't seem so fun anymore.

For the US, it was the golden era. The time they were the best of the best. With the taste of blood on their teeth, look at the past 65 years.

Re:US abuse

[Snarky McButtface]

Really? What sort of things do you think are done to create an empire?

Re:US abuse

[Zeinfeld]

You don't think that maybe the US and Russian nuclear stockpiles have encouraged the proliferation by other states? Now certainly from the US point of view, the US is safer if other countries do not have nuclear weapons. But is the same true of Iran? We can be pretty sure that the US would not have attacked Iraq if it genuinely believed that Saddam had acquired WMD for the simple reason that he would have been able to retaliate. Iran's nuclear program began in the days of the Shah and was a joint program between Israel, Iran and South Africa. Israeli nukes are made with uranium from Iran. The deal was that Israel would provide the technology (stolen from the US), Iran the uranium, South Africa the test facility. After the Iranian revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeni shuttered the nuclear program. The main reason that it is now believed Iran is building a nuclear bomb is that they would be utter fools not to after George W. Bush's 'Axis of evil' speech, a speech that was widely considered tantamount to a declaration of an intent to attack Iran. One of the predictable consequences of the invasion of Iraq was that it would almost certainly result in Iran restoring its nuclear program. It was also fairly predictable that Iran would emerge stronger with the elimination of its main Shi'ia rival in the region as an effective military force. The Bush administration took a similar line with North Korea. Clinton's approach was deemed to have been 'too soft'. So trash talk took the place of diplomacy and the carefully negotiated deal in which the US paid North Korea not to finish its bomb was reneged on. But only after the US had parted with most of the cash. As a means of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons by unfriendly powers, the Bush administration could hardly have acted more disastrously.

Re:US abuse

[jd2112]

From the movie 'The Peacemaker'

"I'm not afraid of the man who wants ten nuclear weapons. I'm terrified of the man who only wants one."

Re:US abuse

[Conzar]

Pre WWII, what was the USA responsible for? Genocide on the Native Americans, taking land from the Mexicans, fighting the Canadians, invades Hawaii, kidnapping and enslaving people from another content, and the list goes on. I hardly think this qualifies as "staying out of everyone else's business". Please stop with the propaganda that the USA was once great bullshit.

Re:US abuse

[Luckyo]

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

But very few have been so smugly two-faced and hypocritical about it, claiming their acts are done "in the name of safety and freedom" "to help free the local populace from horrible dictators", etc.
This is what being revealed here, yet again - that cute and shiny pretences are lies, and the reality on the ground is that we Westerners kill more children then we save.

Re:US abuse

[Kell Bengal]

You know, I agree with you. I suspect the most dangerous thing you can teach kids in an American classroom is the true history of their forefathers.

Re:US abuse

[DAldredge]

"how we're less ruthless today than 60 years ago" Dresden

Re:US abuse

[ckedge]

The Romans killed one third of all Frenchmen. LITERALLY enslaved another third. And left the final third grovelling for mercy in a destroyed country.

After destroying tyrannical governments (ones that murdered their citizens openly and wantonly with disregard for any defensible "justice") -- the Americans said "form a government that allows all your citizens to openly participate" -- and then stick around trying to make sure a genocide doesn't break out between the squabbling factions.

Re:US abuse

[Dravik]

Read up on the fall of Carthage. The US did not go from house to house raping every woman we could find. The US did not sell 50,000 Afghans into slavery. The Afghan cities were not razed to the ground so that no building was left standing.

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

Our weaponry and style of war is far more ruthless today than the Romans could've ever dreamed of

It doesn't get much more ruthless than hand to hand combat in the pre-firearms era. Here's your weapon. Have fun!

Re:US abuse

[Shakrai]

They all believed them. Clinton made a habit out of bombing Iraq. The Iraqi Liberation Act was voted for by most Democrats in the House and all of them in the Senate.

Most of the World believed them too for that matter....

Re:US abuse

[betterunixthanunix]

In fact, those nuclear weapons have made the world far less safe, for the simple reason that retaliation in the event of a nuclear strike is not only absolutely certain, but would also carry with it extremely destructive consequences for the entire planet. We have come right to the brink of destruction multiple times now, because of human or computer error, or poor diplomacy.

What have we gained from this precarious position? Only peace between a handful of countries who keep their fingers on the trigger. The rest of the world still has war, with all the brutality, violence, and war crimes that come with it, and in several cases those wars are with (or were with, in the case of wars that occurred in the past) the very countries that have nuclear stockpiles.

It is absurd to claim that humanity is safer now than we were before the arms race. We live on the brink of destruction, and while we all go about our lives feeling safe, there are people who spend their time ensuring that at any moment, any country in the world could be completely destroyed, and others whose jobs involve planning how the entire world could be destroyed if some other country decides to execute a nuclear strike.

None of that makes me feel very safe.

Re:US abuse

[pcolaman]

US is also the only country in the world that is constantly in war with other countries, bullies them and has a history of supporting enemies of its enemies

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

I pretty much agree with your point, but would like to point out that no other country is or has been involved in as many large scale, outright wars as we are, at the frequency we are.

No other country has the ability to wage the large scale wars that the US has. I don't doubt that there are many countries that, given the technology and logistics that the US currently possesses, would do the same if not worse. Not taking one side or another on the debate, just saying, it's a matter of capability, not desire.

Re:US abuse

[X.25]

You need to do a little research on the British Empire, the Roman empire, The Mongols, etc. Pretty much ANY empire in recorded history. Most involved outright genocide of millions and ongoing conflicts on multiple fronts. We're a bunch of candy-ass pacifists by comparison.

Oh, another one. Right, I see. Thank God for your logical explanation, because I was on the edge of thinking that maybe what US was doing might not be right.

But now that you pointed out that other have done it before, then it MUST be right.

Right?

Re:US abuse

[betterunixthanunix]

Take a look at the collateral murder video before making statements like this:

Our weaponry and style of war is far more ruthless today than the Romans could've ever dreamed of.

Note that the helicopter pilots had to radio in for permission to kill the people on the ground (they did get that permission, of course) -- the Romans would not have had to radio in. A group of Roman soldiers would have slaughtered the people with weapons, and probably the "historians" (i.e. reporters) that were there with them, without first asking a higher level commander for permission. The "rules of engagement" in Roman times were not quite what they are today: the Romans won many battles by simply laying siege and letting people starve to death (can you find an instance of the United States Army laying siege and waiting for people to starve to death?).

Yes, the weapons are more deadly. The tactics and rules, however, are a lot less brutal. Yes, warfare is still brutal, but we really do hold back our armies. If you want to see what less restraint looks like, take a look at what is happening along the Congo-Rwanda border, and you will see the kind of restrain the US army is showing in Iraq.

Re:US abuse

[X.25]

No, they were far more ruthless than we are. The Romans would have conquered Afghanistan a long time ago -- it's much easier to pacify a population when you are willing to kill anyone capable of offering resistance and sell the survivors into slavery.

We aren't even as ruthless as we were just sixty years ago. Read up on how we conducted ourselves in the Pacific War against Japan. They refused to abide by the laws of war and we responded in kind.

Thank God that you guys are so nice and kind.

For a moment there, I though you were the country that killed the most civilians in past decade...

Re:US abuse

[B1oodAnge1]

At least Heinlein didn't start a religion...

Re:US abuse

[Cyberax]

"Want to win in places like Afghanistan? Start by raising their standard of living to something akin to ours. School them, build roads, develop their industries and resources, maybe give them something worthwhile to lose! When they have the luxuries that the "developed" worlds do then and only then will we begin to see progress."

USSR did exactly this in Afghanistan (and at a grand scale). Hadn't worked back then. Religion and ideology trumps schools and roads every time.

Re:US abuse

[Cassius Corodes]

Well the issue was the Germany had issued orders for unrestricted submarine warfare, which at the time, was unheard of an considered an illegal act. Basically its the equivalent of the US going to a busy highway in Iraq and shooting up anyone who comes their way because it is also used for smuggling weapons to the insurgency. While they might advertise and all, they will still be blamed for any civilian casualties that occur and rightly so.

Re:US abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I'll grant you WW1 and WW2, and even Korea. How about all the wars and CIA-sponsored coups in southeast Asia, central and south America and the middle east?

Re:US abuse

[laddiebuck]

The British tried the pacifism by example thing after the First World War. The result was the Second World War, which could well have been avoided by keeping the balance of power as it stood in 1918. Instead they gutted their army and navy and only protested feebly at Germany building hers right up again.

Re:US abuse

[linhares]

Prison is for convicted felons. Indecent exposure is a misdemeanor. Furthermore, you would have to be caught urinating in a public area, such as a park, to be cited for it. But keep up the FUD.

Are you insane, trolling, or just misinformed? http://www.eagletribune.com/nhnews/x1876416971/Lawmakers-Public-urination-shouldnt-lead-to-sex-offender-status

Lawmakers: Public urination shouldn't lead to sex offender status By Gordon Fraser , Staff writer KINGSTON - Starting next year, urinating in public could land you on the sex offender registry.

http://www.bakelblog.com/nobodys_business/2007/03/florida_banishe.html

There's lot more if you look for it. The economist had a huge report on the whole sex-offender hysteria. Feel free to change your mind.

Re:US abuse

[daveime]

the history of mankind has been that of war for thousands and thousands of years.

This is true ... but other countries throughout history tended to either WIN or LOSE ... not fuck around for 10 years, spending billions of dollars you don't have, taking out many civilian targets then trying to hide it in the name of "national security", only to find the enemy as strong or even stronger than when you started.

Re:US abuse

[martin-boundary]

You realize that every country in the history of humanity has done the exact same things, right?

Uh, I'm Swiss, you insensitive clod!

Re:US abuse

[quenda]

I'm just mocking your "kindness" statement)

He said they responded "in kind", ie in the same way. Quite the opposite of kindness.

Re:US abuse

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh - no system is infallible. Sonar is remarkable. On sonar that would be around 40 years old today, one could actually listen to fish doing fishy things, miles away. You could hear a man sneeze underwater, again, miles away. Even the most stealthy of submarines make noise as it passes through the water - mostly from the propellor of course, but the steam plant makes noise, and the crew makes noise. Machinery inside the sub makes noise. You can hear all of it, if you have very good ears, proper training, and good equipment. A good sonar tech can hear a scuba diver long before the diver gets close enough to plant a limpet mine. But, NONE of it is infallible.

You can potentially take a noisy 1800's steam ship out to run a blockade, and succeed. Because nothing works like it's supposed to all the time.

If you think that S. Korean or any other sonar arrays are impenetrable, you have almost no understanding of sonar, or people, or of complex systems in general. NOTHING WORKS CORRECTLY ALL THE TIME! Repeat that a few thousand times - then go out and preach it to the people around you who fail to understand it.

Re:US abuse

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Did the Romans plant devices that could chop off the limbs of a playing child years or even decades after the conflict has ended, devices specifically intended to maim and kill indiscriminately ? And did they in fact spread this disease all over the world by exporting the stuff to every two bit warlord with the cash to buy them ?

Re:US abuse

[icenode]

Somewhat of a generalisation there. The Romans absolutely conquered, killed and enslaved, but they just as frequently realised that the key to maintaining an empire was to convince the foreign citizens it was worthwhile. As such, they offered many benefits such as roads, aqueducts, commerce links and so on (I'm sure we're all familiar with the Life of Brian scene).

They also dangled the carrot of potentially earning citizenship which brought with it benefits such as legal protection and the opportunity for social and economic self advancement.

So, to draw this back to the Afghanistan parallel, what are the US offering the people of Afghanistan? A government the US is happy with? The odd food parcel? Freedom from violence (hardly)? What am I missing here?

Re:US abuse

[Runaway1956]

"Our weaponry and style of war is far more ruthless today "

Bullshit. Every combat action is subject to public scrutiny, and the commanders have to answer to a Congress that watches the news, right along with reading full reports from the front line.

We do not wage a "ruthless" war. We haven't done so since about 1950. We fight "humane" wars. We bend over backwards to avoid inflicting civilian casualties and civilian damage. We have very strict rules of engagement. If you think our troops are "ruthless", you have no concept of what ruthless really is.

A ruthless military would identify a village from which some combatants came, surround that village, destroy all the structures with air strikes and artillery, then they would roll through it with armor, and follow up with infantry. A sign would be erected, "This village destroyed as penalty for supplying 10 soldiers to fight against America." And, the bodies would be left lying in the road when everyone left. That is ruthlessness.

Re:US abuse

[dave420]

You missed some US flaws:

1. Paid huge amounts of money to the taliban, allowing them to do what they are currently doing
2. Frequently undermined democracy, installed dictators, for its own gain

Re:US abuse

[Urkki]

Did the Romans plant devices that could chop off the limbs of a playing child years or even decades after the conflict has ended, devices specifically intended to maim and kill indiscriminately ? And did they in fact spread this disease all over the world by exporting the stuff to every two bit warlord with the cash to buy them ?

The Romans were ruthless enough to chop limbs off children personally (sort of a "hands off"-approach ;-). It takes quite a different level of ruthlessness to personally skewer a kid with a sword, than selling a mine to somebody who may use it in a way that results in kids getting maimed and killed. Any coward can quiet their conscience in the hopes of quick profits (for an arms merchant) or not think very far into the future when securing their position in a war (for a soldier in a war zone). Very very few individuals (today, in developed countries) are ruthless enough to personally off a kid.

Re:US abuse

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Maybe you're right about me being a bit too positive about the US. Still it's a FAR cry from stooping to the muslim students' moral abominations (that's "taliban" translated to English)

So in the end you're making the point "the US isn't 100% perfect, so it's as bad as Hitler/taliban/Chavez/North Korea/...".

The stupidity and discrimination that argument makes frankly baffles me, it even applies to you and me. Do you even really think it's true, when applied to you, me or the US ? But you don't get to apply that argument just to the US, of course.

Re:US abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because they made every effort to make sure Germany got a fair treatment after the first one, and made *really* sure there was no fertile ground for people trying to get even, right??

Re:US abuse

[dave420]

Where did I make that point? Oh, that's right, I didn't. Awesome work!

Re:US abuse

[couchslug]

Good points. The only way to win (some) wars is to not have the post-Nuremburg rules of engagement.

War in modern times is often a choice between "rules" and "victory", which is why unconventional war works so well with an appropriate (Vietnamese, Taliban) level of persistence.

Re:US abuse

[amiga3D]

Oh yeah. WWII, that was the USA's fault too. We were picking on poor old hitler and hirohito. All they wanted was peace just like the fanatical elements of the muslim religion like the taliban who only want the right to kill anyone who disagrees with them. You know...I didn't think much of W when he was president and I don't like Obama much either but compared to these guys running places like Iran...they're saintly good people. It's a matter of degree you know.

Re:US abuse

[gdy]

And the people who hanged teachers were supported by the USA because they were against the Soviets. If not for that support the teacher-hanging radical Muslims would have been squashed by the marxist Afghani government without even involving Russian military.

Re:US abuse

[MikeBabcock]

the Romans won many battles by simply laying siege and letting people starve to death (can you find an instance of the United States Army laying siege and waiting for people to starve to death?).

North Korea? It hasn't worked yet but that's the basic attempt.

uh oh

[u4ya]

Sure hope no one finds out that war is an ugly business that squanders trillions of taxpayer dollars and wastes countless human lives in order to reap huge rewards for a few special interests. That would be a shame (to the few special interests).

Re:Oil...

[MichaelSmith]

There is a lot of money in those poppies...

Re:Killing other people does not solve problems.

[Cassius Corodes]

It merely removes them...

Re:One thing I don't understand...

[gmhowell]

...is how did someone manage to download, store and transfer 90,000 classified documents and not be noticed?

Easier than you think. Even easier, when, according to TFS, several newspapers have had 'access' to them for a while. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Pretty pathetic

[horza]

I am surprised to see the Guardian plunge to the depths of New of the World. I personally am shocked at soldiers killing other soldiers without trial, the use of 'deadly' surface to air missiles rather than the fluffy kind, and the carnage that is being caused by the Taliban to... er 2000 civilians (eh, I thought they were stronger than any time since 2001 so why target civilians, and why is it the fault of the US?). As for the supposedly massive collateral damage by the Allies, 195 people over 10 years is tragic but not huge. Even then it's a mix of French, Polish, British, etc that are at fault so it's not a targetted campaign. Worth quoting a paragraph not unsurprisingly near the end:

"Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers."

Phillip.

Conflicted

[cappp]

I'm finding myself more and more conflicted in my thoughts regarding wiki-leaks. On the one hand a democracy can only thrive when an informed populace can make choices grounded in reliable facts. The increase in secrecy and the rush to classify and obscure data therefore undermines the functioning of democracy. This isn’t good, we can all agree on that but I’m just not sure if wikileaks is going about things in the right way. Worse, I don’t know what better way there is. Over at Gawker there’s a quick reminder of the media-savvy that underpins the way wiki-leaks works – as they point out,

Assange has a long history of making vague conspiratorial claims of harassment that don't stand up to scrutiny

Similarly a New Yorker piece commented on the leaked video and noted that

These pieces of missing information are not just inherent limitations in video. The producers themselves have chosen not to provide them. There appears to be a purpose to the omissions, which is underlined by the Orwell quote at the start, the prefatory explanation, the quotes and dedication at the end, even the way the helicopter crew’s cruel remarks are edited in a few places for effect. Although the producers identify the camera of the Reuters journalist who, along with his assistant, will be killed by Apache cannon fire, they don’t point to the AK-47 or the RPG launcher carried by other men with whom the journalists are walking in a group. Stripped of much context and weighted with commentary, this video is both an important document of the war, courageously leaked after the military had steadily refused to release it, and, in its way, a propaganda film

Another article

Last year, for example, WikiLeaks published the “secret ritual” of a college women’s sorority called Alpha Sigma Tau. Now Alpha Sigma Tau (like several other sororities “exposed” by WikiLeaks) is not known to have engaged in any form of misconduct, and WikiLeaks does not allege that it has. Rather, WikiLeaks chose to publish the group’s confidential ritual just because it could. This is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism. In fact, WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. It has published private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members. Most or all of these groups are defenseless against WikiLeaks’ intrusions. The only weapon they have is public contempt for WikiLeaks’ ruthless violation of their freedom of association, and even that has mostly been swept away in a wave of uncritical and even adulatory reporting about the brave “open government,” “whistleblower” site. On occasion, WikiLeaks has engaged in overtly unethical behavior. Last year, without permission, it published the full text of the highly regarded 2009 book about corruption in Kenya called “It’s Our Turn to Eat” by investigative reporter Michela Wrong (as first reported by Chris McGreal in The Guardian on April 9). By posting a pirated version of the book and making it freely available, WikiLeaks almost certainly disrupted sales of the book and made it harder for Ms. Wrong and other anti-corruption reporters to perform their important work and to get it published. Repeated protests and pleas from the author were required before WikiLeaks (to its credit) finally took the book offline. “Soon enough,” observed Raffi Khatchadourian in a long profile of WikiLeaks

Re:Conflicted

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to end in disaster for us all. Civilization simply cannot survive without secrets. Sure, whistle-blowers are a good thing. There are secrets that must be exposed. That's not what we're dealing with here.

Re:Conflicted

[QuantumG]

Yes, because without secrets the populous might have to face up to the mayhem their elected officials cause.

Re:Conflicted

[stalkedlongtime]

Assange and his staff are probably experiencing COINTELPRO style conspicuous surveillance and harassment campaigns (sometimes misleadingly called "organized stalking"). The agents would be going out of the way to let Assange's people know that they were being followed and surveilled, using techniques such as public messages that conveyed highly personal information from their lives. The highly personal and embarrasing information revealed in the conspicuous surveillance would be of such a nature that the target(s) would not want to talk about the details.

That would explain why they were being 'vague' and 'conspiratorial' in their explanations.

Re:Conflicted

[Virak]

"Herp derp you're posting anonymously" isn't a good argument. It's not even a bad argument. It's just throwing out some retarded insult completely unrelated to anything he said. It's especially ridiculous seeing it come from someone posting under a pseudonym.

"sycodon" doesn't tell me anything more about who you are than "Anonymous Coward" does. All it says is that you're (probably) the same guy who made the other posts under the "sycodon" account. You aren't bravely putting forth personal information based on some sincere belief that one should be public about one's opinions on such matters if they truly believe them or anything like that. All you are doing is using your own personal Silly Internet Name instead of using Slashdot's publicly available Silly Internet Name and feeling smugly superior about yourself like there's any real difference.

One wonders...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Y'know what really puts the 300 billion figure in perspective? That the GDP of Afghanistan is ~13 billion. If you can't crush an adversary like a bug for almost a quarter-century's worth of its GDP(and that is comparing your military expenditures vs. their entire economy) there is some part of you technique that you really need to take a hard look at...

Worse, even if we were having it all our way in military terms, our best case scenario seems to be installing our ridiculously corrupt and dubiously competent puppet leader sufficiently securely that we can leave before he gets overthrown. Given what happened in Iran when our ridiculously corrupt and dubiously competent puppet leader fell, this strategy seems to have a strong structural weakness.

Re:One wonders...

[0123456]

Y'know what really puts the 300 billion figure in perspective? That the GDP of Afghanistan is ~13 billion. If you can't crush an adversary like a bug for almost a quarter-century's worth of its GDP(and that is comparing your military expenditures vs. their entire economy) there is some part of you technique that you really need to take a hard look at..

To be fair, the US military could trivially crush Afghanistan by pattern-bombing it with nukes. The trouble is that 'destroying the country in order to save it' would be a little difficult to justify to American voters and Afghanistan's neighbours.

The real issue is that Americans really don't care about Afghanistan, but no politico is yet willing to say 'this was a stupid idea and we're leaving'. If 'crushing' the country really mattered they'd have done it long ago, but it doesn't.

Re:One wonders...

[Shakrai]

The trouble is that 'destroying the country in order to save it' would be a little difficult to justify to American voters

Something tells me you could have sold it to the American voter on September 12th 2001.

Re:One wonders...

[cptdondo]

I spent 21 years in the US military. It's the best military in the world, bar none.

But... It's a tool. To put it in perspective, a B787 is far advanced compared to the Titanic... But a fleet of them could not have influenced the disaster when the Titanic sank.

Like a 787, the US military is a tool finely honed to a specific purpose, which was to win a European theater mass war. To apply this tool to the one-on-one guerrilla fighting that is Afghanistan means to retrain and requip every troop, and to rewrite every manual of war the military has.

Or, just simply to say that the US military is the wrong tool for that job, and that someone like Greg Mortenson is far better suited to the effort than George Bush.

Re:One wonders...

[Matt Perry]

I spent 21 years in the US military. It's the best military in the world, bar none.

How do you know that? What other militaries have you served in to which you can compare your experience and declare one to be the best?

Re:One wonders...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know that? What other militaries have you served in ....

He doesn't need to. It's a belief, not a fact.

A belief that is systematically incorporated in your brain as part of the training process.

I've interacted with military personnel from India and they say the same thing about their army.

"We are the best". Well, sir.... do you think you can win a fight against the US ? Forget US, can you win a direct, non-nuclear fight against China ? NO REPLY.... But yeah, we ARE the best.

All army-training is indoctrination. Its quite similar to patriotism...... My country is best because i was born in it. Not that i'm saying i don't love my country :)

Re:One thing I don't understand...

[the_other_chewey]

several newspapers have had 'access' to them for a while. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

You got that backwards: The newspapers were given access to the material by wikileaks.
The newspapers are not the source of the documents.

Re:Killing other people does not solve problems.

[jav1231]

Other people are often the problem. Therefore, it in fact does solve the problem.

PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Wikileaks now part of the PR machine? The feeling you're obviously supposed to take away with you from this is: Americans are fighting an uphill battle and are lost against the steadily increasing forces of terrorism it tried to root out.

an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

When in reality Americans rolled in there ridiculously outnumbering and, more importantly, ridiculously out-being-equipped the mostly half-civilian rabble that dared stand up against them. There is no Afghan War. A war implies two sides fighting, not one waltzing in with vastly superior technomagic, while the other one is hiding, showing their heads, getting beat to a pulp, running for cover and getting shot in the back, until the next round of civilians gets fed up with sights like that and picks up their weapons to meet a similar fate.

Much more importantly, this isn't the right question at all. It shouldn't be "Why is this so difficult?" but "Why are we over there, taking their stuff and murdering everyone who so much as raises his voice against us? And shouldn't we be stopping that?" We demanded it. We were promised it. Success. We did our thing and now we don't care anymore. So it doesn't happen. Yay us, yay humanity. We make me sick.

Fuck me and fuck every single one of you. If I had three wishes I'd wish for a plague on all our houses, then a deluge, and a rinse-repeat.

Re:PR

[X.25]

I only wish that that was the case because the side you are talking about (taliban, al-qaeda and other jihadist forces) are representing a savage medieval ideology that, if not challenged with force, presents the greatest single threat to the survival of human civilization. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going as well as you say.

Strange. You'll find that majority of Earth's population sees US as a bigger threat than Al-Qaeda or Talibans.

But, please, keep living in a dreamworld.

Re:PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the US is a bigger threat. The US has thousands of nuclear weapons mounted on ICBMs, a dozen or more aircraft carriers, stealth bombers and now the US even has a large force of satellite-controlled assassin drones.

If God had not intended for the US to feast on little brown-skinned babies, he would not have made them so tasty.

Re:PR

[jbssm]

Only because the majority of the world's population live under dictatorships of one form or another

Ok, let me rephrase the parent comment.

"Strange. You'll find that majority of European Union population sees US as a bigger threat than Al-Qaeda or Talibans."

So, do we all live in dictatorships here in Europe as well? In fact if you check the various indexes of "freedom" (like the World Associated Press freedom of speech index and similar), all EU countries come on top of the USA. And guess what ... we still think that USA is basically just fuck%& up the world for the profit of their corporations and ex-secretaries/ex-ministers.

Look away, citizens!

[MindlessAutomata]

Citizens and proud patriots of America, look away! Such things are not for your eyes. It is not for you to know how our war (done on your behalf, my steadfast Americans!) is going. Such things will only hurt the morale of our troops--and recruitment numbers! We beseech you, our countrypeople, you have no right to any of this information, for we do not belong to you--you belong to us.

Re:300 billion dollars is chump change...

[rudy_wayne]

those "newly" discovered mineral resources could be worth trillions to the right corporation to exploit them. What, you thought our presence there was to fight the Taliban and spread "democracy"?

Nobody with half a brain ever believed that the war in Afghanistan was "to fight the Taliban and spread democracy". But that's beside the point.

Nobody is going to be getting any of that trillion dollars worth of minerals any time soon. Maybe never. Afghanistan has absolutely no infrastructure and even the most optimistic estimates say it would take decades. Of course, before you can even start doing that you have the problem of the inane lunatics who couldn't care less about about minerals, peace, prosperity, democracy or anything else, and only care about killing anyone who doesn't share their insane lunatic ideology. After 9 years and $300 Billion the U.S. has made no progress in changing this. In other words, if you're hoping to open a big Lithium mine, don't hold your breath.

Re:re Triple GDP

[Shakrai]

The real way to fight a war of ideology is with ideology, not money or guns.

No, the real way to fight a war is to kill enough of the enemy that the remainder realizes the fight is not worth it.

Personally I don't like them

[Sycraft-fu]

Secrets are sometimes necessary, and yes that includes to the government. As a simple example: Would you want a criminal getting a hold of information relating to an active investigation against them? How about the locations and identities of people in witness protection?

If you think any of that should be kept secret, then you agree that secrets can be necessary, including for the government. In that case the question is when should they be allowed to keep a secret. Then you have to start exercising discretion about what you release. You need to weigh the public's need to know versus the damage it could do.

Wikileaks just wants to release any and everything. They don't seem to give any consideration as to public good or need, they just want to leak everything. That I cannot agree with, be it for public or private entities. Anyone who says "There should be no secrets," is just the other side of the "If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide," coin.

Also, as noted, they seem to have a political agenda. The helicopter video is a great example. It is possible that you could feel the public needed to know about it. Fine, but then the unaltered, uncommented video would be what to release. If you really believe the public needs to see what happened then that is what to show them. The unedited truth. When you edit and comment on it, you are trying to use it as a tool to present a point of view. You aren't interested in telling the truth, you are interested in pushing an agenda.

Using facts to do that doesn't make it any better. Bill Orielly is nearly always factual in his presentation. He rarely fabricates stuff. However it isn't true. What he does is pick and choose the facts he likes, and choose how to frame them to push a point of view. So while it isn't lying per se, it is still misleading. Wikileaks seems to be willing to do the same.

So between those two things, I really can't support them. They try to pretend to be the good guys but to me their actions do not show them in that light.

Re:One thing I don't understand...

[flyingfsck]

How? Ever heard of CDs or USB memory sticks? One is enough.

Re:15,000 reports held back but will be release la

[Luckyo]

Actually, if you watch the video on guardian, Assange specifically addresses the problem of "safety" that is being lauded here, noting how wikileaks take great care not to endanger people, other then politicians and military making the decisions leading to these occurrences of course. He points out why "this endangers the safety" argument is beating on a dead horse - the data here is so old, that the real meat that could in fact endanger lives of NATO soldiers, namely positional info is long beyond any reasonable secrecy requirements, while names are being redacted.

Anyone parroting the "endangers lives of out troops" is doing nothing but repeating drivel meant to discredit wikileaks at this point. Sensitive negotiations on the other hand usually imply "crimes behind them", which brings us to judicial responsibility - i.e. how many children are you willing to have raped, mutilated and killed in the name of Aghanistan, before it gets to be too many? Perhaps it's time to note that NATO has quite a few sociopaths installed in positions of power, and they need to be replaced rather then be taking part in "sensitive negotioations"?
On the other hand, the people dead because of what NATO is doing in Afghanistan are actually dying, in droves. And as these documents show, NATO sweeps many of them under the rug, and who are the people responsible for that accountable for, and who are people covering them accountable for?

And mind you, he's not American. He's Australian, and he claims to speak for no one least of all Americans. He simply offers facts, and allows everyone to formulate their opinion on their own. This is quite different from most modern mass media, that tends to be opinionated to no end nowadays rather then offer facts and let people think for themselves.

US revolutionary war, anyone?

[SuperBanana]

They refused to abide by the laws of war and we responded in kind.

I find that statement pretty funny given that I grew up about 15 minutes away from where a bunch of colonial farmers basically engaged in guerrilla warfare and pretty well obliterated almost a thousand British troops. What did those wild heathens do? Why, they didn't respect the proper rules of war by moving around in proper tidy columns and shooting in volleys (the procedure is truly hilarious to watch.) The bastards...they fired from spread out positions! And from behind rock walls! Cowards! And then, as the British retreated, they were picked off militia hiding in the woods all along the road back to Boston.

So. The standards of war are rewritten by whoever wins...and it's not like we went into Iraq and Afghanistan not knowing what we were getting ourselves into. The Soviets did a pretty good job of discovering that a decade or two prior.

Re:US revolutionary war, anyone?

[shutdown -p now]

I just find it absurd that we force our military to fight with one hand behind it's back. Our enemies aren't doing the same.

It all depends on what you're trying to achieve. If it's suppressing all resistance, then, yes, "shoot on sight" is the way to do that - though there are more efficient ways still, such as carpet bombing.

But if you want to take over an area and maintain control, not by keeping population at the barrel of your guns (and showing that it's loaded by shooting one or another periodically), but more or less willingly, then you have to do PR. Be better than the other guys.

And PR has its costs, including soldiers' lives.

But then Soviet Union tried to go without back in 80s, and you might recall how well that went.

Re:15,000 reports held back but will be release la

[naasking]

I'd be inclined to blame the governments and the media that make a service like Wikileaks necessary.

Ethics of leaks

[Bruce Perens]

Nobody elected him. And I don't have the information necessary to represent his ethical position. However, in general a democracy only really works when the people have visibility regarding the activities of its leaders and military. So, I can guess that he believes he has an ethical position. Can we trust him? No. But we can do our best to verify the data. Can we trust our own leaders? Same answer, unfortunately. This much is clear from history.

Next, is our country better off or not for this release? If there really is some care being taken regarding names and the age of data, it may well be better off for the people to have another look at the war.

Re:Ethics of leaks

[sycodon]

Can we trust our own leaders? Same answer, unfortunately.

If you can't trust our elected officials to do the right thing when it comes to the essential job of the government, then it's Game Over.

There no difference then between Wikileaks and just shooting some random politician that you don't think you trust.

That's because you forsake the system to which we all agreed: a Representative Government. You don't like the war? Get your ass elected and do something about it.

Re:Ethics of leaks

[Bruce Perens]

If you can't trust our elected officials to do the right thing when it comes to the essential job of the government, then it's Game Over.

Well, it's game over then, by your rules.

I have considered running for office, and may consider it again. However, I'm not terribly electable. Not Christian, for one thing. If you look at who is in office, it's clear that this is a Christian nation.

Who modded this troll?

[betterunixthanunix]

This is not a "troll" post, it is a post that basically reiterates what Wikileaks said about the collateral murder video. Information about a war in a foreign country is not secret from the people living in that country, but for some reason our government wants to keep it secret from us.

Re:So what *is* there?

[Sabriel]

Since it is clear that he let his original source in US military down (essentially letting him be a fall guy who will probably be charged with various offenses),

Please correct me if I've lost track of this whole snafu, but if your source blabs to someone else that he's leaking military secrets, and that someone else turns your source over to the military, how are you the guy who let him down?

Re:special interests

[cpt kangarooski]

I don't know. I don't think that Afghanistan is capable of invading and conquering the United States. They pose no great threat to us. Given that, I'd really rather have the $300 billion.

What's the statute of limitation on information?

[iceperson]

So an enemy knowing what our countermeasures are doesn't risk lives? I call BS. These documents in many cases detail how our troops are trained to respond and if you don't think that kind of information "endangers lives" then I have a bridge to sell you.

By reading the documents and watching the videos you can learn a great deal about how our military reacts, thresholds that have to be met before engaging the enemy, and basic rules of engagement. All of these things can be used to plan attacks on our forces.

If you know how we deploy our troops you don't have to be told exact locations, you can deduce that information based on historical information. The more historical information you have the better you can model it.

Re:15,000 reports held back but will be release la

[dbIII]

OK, so you got Kennedy, but wasn't Reagan shot in Washington?

Re:What's the statute of limitation on information

[Luckyo]

All of this information is long known to taleban though their massive contact network and extensive history of skirmishes. This is news to us, sitting in living rooms and never having taken part in combat there. Taliban know US SOP probably better then many US servicemen.

Remember, the data here is OLD. We're talking 2004-2009, which means that SOP from those times is well known, documented and trained to counter by vast majority of taleban foces. And those still not trained are not going to be people with access to internet to get those documents, nor language skills to study them.

Really, this is a dead animal. Don't beat on it.

US had warnings. They WANT to be involved.

[Anonymous Coward]

US is known to put civilians into dangerous territory just to get innocent people killed and US involved in the war. Think about it: you have a towering giant that, by law, is forced to be neutral as two neighboring midgets fight over some range. US gets involvement by impelling *collateral* into harms way while providing cover of any error in it's doing, so as to prove it's inclusion into the war to recompense the damages allegedly incurred.

War is much more profitable than any domestic economy or Free Market(tm) would ever provide: it being both fiscal, expansive to land rights and jurisdiction increases, supposedly *necessary* population-control, documents/domesticates freemen if not foreigners (say goodbye to Several States since the United States killed non-incorportated American towns), and especially the echo of war reverberating over time will provide all kinds of incentives for infrastructure to erect their butthurt cultural integration schemes.

inB4 jews, Little Saigon, Koreatown, Chinatown, Elohym City, Jamestown, Father Abraham had many Sons, Jamaican Bobsled team, derp.

ABSOLUTLY NOTHING

[SmallFurryCreature]

The US lives in a dream, it starts with the "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." and deteriorates from there.

If you don't get what is wrong with the above sentence written by slave-owners, then you are an American. Congrats, stop reading, you will never get the rest of this post.

Americans believe at their core that everyone wants to be an American. They must because if they didn't, then they might have to look to other countries and perhaps ask, why are they doing better? Why are there fewer child deaths in Cuba? Why can the EU afford free universal healthcare, why are other car companies not on a government bailout?

Dangerous thoughts that could all to easily lead to, is working 80 hours a week to afford to suvs and a 50 inch TV really all that life is about?

Vietnam is not just a strategy lesson, learning from it would involve questioning the "American Dream". 8 million civilians killed by US soldiers, when you know the inefficiency of bombing vs gas chambers comes dangerously close to the Holocaust. That doesn't fit with the "American Dream".

The US can never learn from these wars because it would have to stop being the US, and start being a regular country.

Re:ABSOLUTLY NOTHING

[meadowsp]

Yep, we're all living in squalour in europe. Nothing like the glorious luxury that you have over there http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/ann-curry-focuses-on-hidd_n_657320.html

Re:ABSOLUTLY NOTHING

[Anonymous Coward]

I love those limited metrics of "better" you throw out like "fewer child deaths" or "free universal healthcare." I love the strawmen like "working 80 hours a week" and "50 inch TV" that you throw out so effortlessly - yes, all Americans work 80 hours a week to go out and spend their money on useless consumer products.

It is glaringly obvious that you have never been to America, set foot on American soil, or even encountered a real American (hint: the Americans who you meet while they are traveling overseas aren't likely to be your "average American;" going overseas is an expense that not everyone can afford).

But please, continue throwing out the strawmen you learned at your liberal arts school and Michael Moore films. Keep repeating to yourself that America is evil and it isn't your fault (when you are pretty obviously part of the same Western European colonial project that helped America come to dominance), and keep talking about how "the world would be a better place" if it weren't for the country that is helping your limping European ass along.

Re:ABSOLUTLY NOTHING

[lordlod]

Yes. When times are good you don't need welfare.

Now imagine you badly break your hand sailing. Your medical insurer points out a clause you didn't see before exempting claims from non-standard sports activities or some such. The initial medical costs take your savings and force you to sell your car. No longer able to work you sell the awesome condo and move into a small house in the suburbs, you are trying to rebuild your career but become really depressed. Due to your moodiness and the negative change in lifestyle your fiancée leaves you. No longer able drive and living so far out your social life takes a nose dive, you end up cut off from most of your friends and support network. You are now one of life's losers.

The above scenario is just a general pattern and there are lots of outs, most require someone external to inject a large amount of funds. The central concept though is that when something bad happens you are relying on a medical insurer to fix it all for you, an insurer who's company model requires them where possible to avoid doing just that. Having a government based safety net that doesn't have that motivation means you get fixed, it may take a few months but it doesn't end your life.

Also note that living in a condo with a good career means you and everyone around you is in this lucky situation. Someone who is failed by the system will fall out of that circle. Just because you and your friends haven't needed welfare doesn't mean you won't in the future.

Re:Criminal

[TubeSteak]

Regardless of the politics involved, this information was classified and it was marked as such. It was disclosed illegally and the newspapers (at least NYT) have a legal obligation to not print it.

You don't know what you're talking about.
Newspapers have, in the past, published classified documents which were "disclosed illegally".
FFS, the NY Times went front page with the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
The Government tried to silence them and it went all the way to the Supreme Court
Since I'm telling you that you don't know what you're talking about, it should be obvious how the case was decided..

The only reason the NYT is "interpreting the content and publishing summaries" is due to the enormous volume of information.

There are guidelines for classifying data that determine the classification level based upon how much damage (often in terms of lives lost) that the disclosure would cause.

What we've seen time and time again (the Pentagon Papers are only one of the more famous examples) is that the US Government will break the law and/or lie to its citizens, then classify the evidence and punish any attempts at whistleblowing.

Or have you forgotten about things like the retroactive legalization of otherwise unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping?
Legalization which only came about after the whistle was blown and the public was outraged.

Re:Criminal

[ledow]

Having "classified" information being completely unable to be reported makes for a more dangerous society. This isn't an "open source" vs "closed source" thing - of course we don't want people to know exactly where our troops are, what they are armed with, what they are targeting and how they are doing. But there's a difference between "classified for operational reasons" and "classified because it would make us look bad / stupid / illegal".

The press has a single purpose - to get the truth onto paper in front of your eyes. 99% of what the papers print is complete bollocks. 99% of the stuff that is true is completely uninteresting. But they exist because, at some point, someone has to publish something that other people won't like. Classified or not, freedom of the press ensures that if they are acting in the interests of the populous, they won't get into (too much) trouble in any civilised country. I'd rather live in a country where the press can break the rules occasionally on the big stuff, than one where they get shot/imprisoned for revealing something critical to my knowledge of what my country's up to.

Otherwise you WOULD NOT KNOW what went on in Guantanamo Bay. You WOULD NOT KNOW what happened in Vietnam - you would live in blinkered ignorance about the whole thing and think it was actually worthwhile. You WOULD NOT KNOW that Clinton slept with Lewinsky. You WOULD NOT KNOW about any of the big policital scandals of the last hundreds years. This is why the majority of the young population of China DO NOT KNOW what happened in Tiananmen Square, can't talk about it, are in fear of their lives if they mention it. Because the government doesn't want them to know and refuses to let it be published at all, ever, anywhere and the press has zero legal protection if they do it.

If the US did something stupid, illegal, immoral or downright disgusting, you WANT to know about that. If you don't, it's hard to call yourself a patriot. I'm British and I *WANT* to know when my country is doing something downright stupid (like blindly following another country into a war they can't win), so I can know about it, help stop it, and even apologise for it. Historically my country has a god-damn terrible record of invading countries for not-much-reason and trying to take over the world. We did some horrible things (we basically abandoned Singapore in WW2 to be taken over by the Japanese, for instance, knowing it would get overrun in seconds and knowing that a small British presence would save it... I didn't even know that myself until I heard a whisper of it and went to look it up). And I know about that because people were able to tell the stories.

There should be, in any civilised country, a law and process to deal with people who classify things that the public should know about. If your military has broken its own laws, you should damn well know about it - FFS your country is claiming to be "righting" another country and showing them the way and you can't even keep your highly-trained, supposedly disciplined professional soldiers on the right side of your OWN laws. But just because they put a little classified stamp on the documents, that means they stay secret forever, or at least until nobody can do anything about it? Don't be silly. That's just a way to rubber-stamp approval of any war-crime ever committed.

This is what happens when you deny things are going wrong. Someone, somewhere, has the moral balls to say "it isn't right and people should know" despite every rule and every colleague stopping them doing so. That's about the most powerful thought a person can ever have - much more dangerous, effective and damaging than anything else they can do. The question is: What's in the Wikileaks material that you DIDN'T know about but SHOULD have?

Re:special interests

[copponex]

The special interest group I represent is my daughters, who will be chattel (that's "slave" for the illiterate) if we lose this war

You may or may not be a coward, but you're a fucking credulous idiot. Or did you not know that Saudi Arabia is a theocracy, the financial foundation of Al Qeada, and home of 80% of the hijackers? And for some reason you think you're defending democracy by imposing your worldview on some tribal civilization halfway around the globe who can barely afford to make ends meet, much less launch an assault on the soil of the US.

I hope you reap what you sow.

Re:15,000 reports held back but will be release la

[tehcyder]

Your conscious will do worse things to you than any other person ever can.

You mean conscience, and the difference is important because not everybody has one.

Re:Criminal

[daffmeister]

"They hate us because we are free"

I've never understood this sentiment. On what evidence do you base this?

Re:Criminal

[Tejin]

They hate us because we are free.

What is wrong with the people who keep saying this? Why would anyone hate someone else for being 'free'? What does that even mean? I thought people only ever said that to be ironic these days.

The Afghans hate you because you have systematically interfered with their lives for the past 50 years at least.

Re:special interests

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be dumb if you think Afghanistan has any chance of going to the US and imposing their will on the entire populace. Jesus fucking christ, do you even have higher brain function.

You've been deceived

[fyngyrz]

Actually they did. At the very least they are of the opinion that violence against people who stone women and rape children is not allowed.

The thing is, that's not what is going on. If that were the goal, the US would be at war simultaneously with many African and Middle Eastern countries. But we're not. We're at war only where we have current or potential future strategic interests - oil, mineral resources, etc.

In every case, you will see that we go to war where it benefits us financially. Even war itself has been tuned to benefit us financially -- just look at how our government allots funds. We have built a huge military-industrial complex that depends on continuing conflict, and coincidentally, we are continuously involved in conflict that keeps those funds flowing.

The naive -- like you -- are easily deceived by tales of what the bad guys do in places like Afghanistan; but these things are done just as enthusiastically (or more so) in countries with no strategic value to us, and we roundly ignore them at the government level. Sudan, for instance, has recently engaged in wholesale internal violence of a nature completely unknown in Afghanistan. And we, the USA, the "world's policeman", did what? Not a damned thing. Why? Simple: Sudan has minimal strategic value to us.

Follow the money. It's that simple. It's been that simple for many decades. All talk of "child rape" is cover designed to satisfy the majority of citizens, who pay very little attention to anything but the surface issues they are presented with.

Re:You've been deceived

[Unequivocal]

Why do we profit in Afghanistan? And why didn't we profit in the Sudan (where we didn't invade, but which seems to have similar if not worse issues than Afghanistan)?

Seems like there was more to this than money (though I agree that this is usually the case). Seems like it was also about revenge, political theater ("doing something"), etc.. An unusual case, but that's b/c the 9/11 attack was unusual too.

Re:special interests

[cpt kangarooski]

And?

There's no constructive point in trying to get revenge (nor is it good for the soul), that method of terrorism stopped working 3/4 of the way through that particular attack, and it didn't actually pose any sort of existential threat to us.

The real harm caused by the attack wasn't crashed planes or collapsed buildings; the real harm was that it goaded us into doing stupid, self-destructive things, like pissing away a lot of money that we really need for other projects, or systematically tearing down our own carefully built, hard won civil liberties.

Afghanistan can't really hurt us, and neither can Al Qaeda. But we can hurt ourselves, and that's just what we've been doing.