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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."
... when 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"? You must be new here.
Propaganda is emanating from the Whitehouse again. They should just own up and end the war on terror by admitting that it's a hoax. War with Iran soon: there'll probably be a new 9/11 to justify it and the price of oil will go up, resulting in the destruction of economies.
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?
Not recently, and there have been a push to make the world a non-corrupt and peaceful place. There is many countries that haven't had war in many many years now. It was different in the pre-modern times.
Besides, the issue is the hypocrisy and hiding it from the public. US has done over and over again the exact same things that they accuse the current terrorists and countries that support them doing.
and there have been a push to make the world a non-corrupt and peaceful place.
Dude, stop bogarting that shit and pass it.....
US has done over and over again the exact same things that they accuse the current terrorists and countries that support them doing.
Yey, moral equivalency. Spare me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
First, fuck Wikileaks. Second, almost NO one stoking the Wikileak golden locks here on /. will ever read a single word of anything leaked. But they'll cheer for them like the "live in their parent's basement, eating Hot Pockets, wacking off to the gigs of pr0n on their home-built servers" dorks they are.
Given the suspicions regarding the "ample provocation" of the 9/11 attacks as being an inside job to be used as a pretext to enter into a massive war of conquest and resource theft, I'd say that the idea that the US fights defensive wars is not a claim that can be taken at face value.
The "American soldiers killing Afghan civilians" video turned out to be deceptive, so why should anybody trust THIS leak? Wikileaks' credibility isn't what it used to be. And one of their leakers is being prosecuted. Do they have an axe to grind? Of course they do.
"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"
I doubt you can conceive of how utterly pathetic it is for you to offer a quote from a sci-fi author
who was himself more than slightly wacko as any sort of worthwhile knowledge.
Heinlein was a nutjob. Your worship of him is pathetic.
Really? Every single country that has ever existed?
Clearly you have very little knowledge of the world beyond present day "first world" countries... And judging by the mods, this must be common. Sad.
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.
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.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Not a Troll. The hole in the Pentagon is symmetrical all the way through. One pentagon official at the scene said "I could smell cordite." Not that I think the Bush kakistocracy had the skill to pull it off which means something else was at work.
Please drop the "9/11 was not an inside job" bullshit. Try to keep the discussion here meaningful.
Sorry but you're the only one making this conversation less meaningful. The AC above was completely on topic and meaningful, and the fact that 9/11 was an inside job only strengthens his argument.
Your uncertainty on the subject is the only thing keeping this discussion away from meaningful.
if only
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2001/09/19perkal.html
http://911review.com/attack/pentagon/witnesses.html
There is no cordite on airliners.
So once again Mr. Assange decided that he speaks for Americans. He will decide what to leak, when to leak it and what to redact. He is the one who gets to make decisions that could put lives in danger or derail sensitive negotiations, etc.
Funny, because I don't recall anyone electing him, or appointing him to anything. What if something he releases gets someone killed? Who is he accountable to?
All for the greater good you say? Maybe if you or someone you know is the one who is killed, you'd change your mind.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material
How can this asshat know what is harmful and what is not? Who elected him everyone's "conscience"?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If you are so gung ho on publishing secrets, why are you such a pussy that you are post as an AC?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Assange also explained the decision not to include commentary on the RPG, which was that in their opinion, the supposed RPG may have been a camera tripod.
Right - the opinion of people who are not trained AT ALL to analyze and identify weapons from poor quality video.
That goes to the heart of the problem, is that these untrained people are the ones who are deciding what is sensitive and what is not. Apart from the glaringly obvious they have no idea.
Wikileaks is going to get a lot of people killed if they have not done so already.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Please drop the "9/11 was an inside job" bullshit. Try to keep the discussion here meaningful. :P
I also use FoxNews as my only source of information. Works great.
The USA once was great and still is. Like pretty much every other country, there are moments in history where mistakes were made and atrocities were committed. You weren't alive then, so it isn't that you haven't moved on. The issue is you are such a hypocrite, you would blame others for spreading propaganda, when you spread your own with similar posts like this one. Some of this was said before to which you didn't have an answer, but I'll feed the troll again.
About Hawaii you are completely spreading misinformation. "During the Hawaiian Revolution, a few American troops landed to protect American life and property. They did not engage in fighting and did not occupy any government buildings. However, this action has lead many historical revisionists to falsely claim that the United States invaded Hawaii and deposed the Queen." -http://www.conservapedia.com/Hawaii
Regarding Native Americans... "It is a firmly established fact that a mere 250,000 native Americans were still alive in the territory of the United States at the end of the 19th century." -http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html White people definitely killed a number of them but disease was a huge factor. Even if there was enough evidence to prove the occurrence of genocide, which there is not, it does not serve the interests of anyone to make such accusations.
Enslaving people on another content? I suppose you meant continent. You can discredit the USA based on their past for ever owning slaves, but the American Civil War was fought mainly on issue of slavery. Many of our forefathers lost their lives fighting for the freedom of slaves. Slavery was abolished as a result of their sacrifice and today our country is led by an African American. There is not much to dispute the greatness in that.
Fighting Canadians? You realize that was to attack a British colony like over 200 years ago right? That was a little before WWII... in the the beginning of the revolutionary war.
So in summary, please stop with the propaganda that the USA was not once great bull crap. It was a great country and still is.
For the last few years, the Guardian has had the journalistic integrity of a Michael Moore film. It makes me ashamed to vote liberal democrat that the champion newspaper is so blatantly biased and full of loaded phrases and poor practices.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
What the fuck does that have to do with prison? There is no link between sex offender registration and incarceration. It's still a misdemeanor. If you're caught doing it multiple times, then you're a retard and probably deserve it anyway.
You should analyse what these people are saying more closely.
The US has it's flaws. ... capitalist (meaning mainly that most things that happen in the US are not decided by corrupt politicians, like mostly everywhere else).
-> It's abused a few prisoners
-> It's violated a few (totally unrealistic) human rights during extremely high-stress situations, mostly convicting the individuals responsible
-> It's that most horrible of things
The taliban.
-> stone women slowly to death for mostly imaginary offences, totally in violation of every human right (even the ones they signed a treaty for)
-> execute minor children in the same manner
-> rape the female minor children (and quite frankly, who here believes they don't rape the boys as well ?)
-> rape female prisoners as a matter of policy ("to prevent them going to heaven" - right)
-> kill gays as a matter of policy, by throwing them off high buildings (given how backwards they are, they generally have to throw them off the building at least twice until they're dead)
-> kill dissidents
-> kill anyone of different faith as a matter of policy
-> destroy everything even remotely looking like it might have something to do with another religion, mostly with people inside
These facts are not disputed. Between these 2 actors, can there really be any argument which is the moral actor ? Personally I think on the whole, if the US simply exterminated the entirety of Afghanistan, it would still be able to claim the moral high ground over the Taliban. The Soviets were, undoubtedly, better people than the Afghans.
So let's not pretend these people have an actual, valid, beef with the moral attitude of the US. They don't. They're just haters who want a bit of attention and/or political power.
To the idiots defending the taliban :
Wouldn't it be fair to say your pro-stoning ? Pro-raping children ? Pro-raping prisoners ? Pro-religious persecution ?
Because that's
1) what it looks like
2) the effect your "dangerous" (but obviously totally risk-free) idiocy has in the real world
So why do you support stoning women, killing gays, lesbians and anyone even slightly different ?
Because that's what your choice means, in the real world.
And yes, if the choice between the choice of warring over oil, and the total racist abomination that is islam(ic law), warring over oil is without any doubt the moral choice.
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.
If that isn't support, then I don't know what is. Trust me, if I see you going to court and demand that someone be set free who raped 1% as many children as these "muslim students" (taliban in english) did, would you seriously claim that's not support ?
You hide behind all sorts of subtle technicalities. However the only thing that matters is what you actually accomplish in the real world.
I understand that impressing the nearest set of boobs with your "tough guy pacifist" is much more important to you than tens of thousands of raped and murdered women, but let's not pretend it's anything else.
Your actions, in real life, have consequences for others. Being against the war, if it has any effect, will have the effect of advancing the causes of raping and stoning women, and religious persecution. That's a simple fact you can't deny.
The US (and everyone else just has the US do it for them (for free)) has to secure the seas around the middle eastern nations.
(and yes that means that all regimes with a coastline there are either friendly or at least what you might call "contained")
Read up on your history to see extensive documentation on what happens with those seas unsecured (and don't forget the mediterranean is one of those seas). Really. It's even plain in American history : google barbary wars.
Example, from America's own congressional record for the answer to Thomas Jefferson's question on why it cannot work peacefully to mutual benefit :
In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France, and John Adams, then US Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote of funding. To the US Congress these two future Presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
“that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
This was 1786, and nothing has changed.