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.

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[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?

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[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

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[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.

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[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.

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[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......

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[Anonymous Coward]

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

Not Tibet.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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[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.

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[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?

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[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.

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[WrongSizeGlass]

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

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[sbates]

Not recently, and there have been a push to make the world a non-corrupt and peaceful place.

Precious few, if any, governments have these goals at the top of their list or anywhere in their list -- ignore the rhetoric and watch what they do. Corruption is the nature of nearly all governments simply because it's how business is done. You'd be amazed at how much of your priviledge of owning a computer and having electricity is the result of bribes and blatantly unethical behavior. Nor is peace their goal. The only goal is economic stability. Whether that means a non-combatant posture today or a brutal attack on certain citizens the next, the goal is only stability for the economy and outside investment.

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.

I agree the US is guilty of the same atrocities they accuse terrorists of committing, but so are many countries. Your memory may be short, but history is quite long, and just because a few years have gone by without major war reporting doesn't mean they're suddenly pure and will never use weapons again.

So let's not be naive about anything here. Much of the criticism against the US is deserved, but it is not the only deserving country.

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[Shakrai]

since in those three wars combined only one single attack was ever made on the US.

So the murder of American civilians traveling on noncombatant ships doesn't count as an attack on the US? Attempting to get one of America's neighbors to join an alliance against her doesn't count as a hostile act?

The US had ample provocation to enter WW1. Ditto for WW2. Ditto for Korea. Hell, the peaceniks here should have loved the way Korea went down -- authorized by and conducted under the auspices of the UN in response to aggression against one of it's members.

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[Shakrai]

The British and Roman empires were waging at least as many as we are, and were just as ruthless.

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.

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[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.

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[Shakrai]

Yeah, and look where it got them.

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[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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this behavior can be seen in any aristocracy/republic, when you have a cultural elite that controls most of the wealth/power/resources it will naturally seek to "domesticate" the population by sending off aggressive individuals to fight remote wars. This pacifies your population in the short run and in the long run you limit their chances of passing on aggressive genes since they are less likely to breed offspring while away or dead. In most mammals you can domesticate them within 10 generations, why should humans be any different?

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[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......

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[sumdumass]

Your ideas intrigue me, could you please direct me how to sign up for your newsletter?

Actually, you're spouting nothing but "New World Order bullshit" that has been around since before either of us were born. I've been here long enough to have seed it spewed on Clinton, Bush before him, and Reagan too. It's already started with Obama and of course you already mentioned W. I'm sure if Carter could have coughed in the white house without screwing something up, he would have been on the list too.

Perhaps you need to stop looking at who is supposed to be involved and focus on what and who is saying it. It's really all just recycles shit and your disdain for Bush and company simply enforces your interpretation of it.

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[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.

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[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...

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[Rakarra]

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

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[sbates]

What a lot of people don't know is that a Soviet submarine captain actually gave an order to launch a nuclear missile during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but his second in command refused to do so.

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[Demiansmark]

Actually - researchers in 2008 uncovered that there were weapons on the Lusitania: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1098904/Secret-Lusitania-Arms-challenges-Allied-claims-solely-passenger-ship.html

Really doesn't say anything to the discussion here or the point your making. But I just read this the other day and thought it was interesting.

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[Snarky McButtface]

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

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[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.

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[SquarePixel]

Here you go: Beijing suspects false flag attack on South Korean corvette

Some snippets:

However, Baengnyeong Island hosts a joint US-South Korea military intelligence base and the US Navy SEALS operate out of the base. In addition, four U.S. Navy ships were in the area, part of the joint U.S-South Korean Exercise Foal Eagle, during the sinking of the Cheonan. An investigation of the suspect torpedo's metallic and chemical fingerprints show it to be of German manufacture. There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag attacks. Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development program with Israel.

The presence of the USNS Salvor, one of the participants in Foal Eagle, so close to Baengnyeong Island during the sinking of the South Korean corvette also raises questions.

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[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."

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[DigiShaman]

You must be referring to Okinawa and Peleliu. I'm actually in the process of reading With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge.

From Wiki.

In contrast to the European theater, Sledge's memoir gives a perspective on the Pacific campaign. His memoir is a front-line account of infantry combat in the Pacific War. It brings the reader into the island hopping, the jungle heat and rain, the "banzai attack" or full frontal assault used by his enemies. Sledge wrote starkly of the brutality displayed by American and Japanese soldiers during the battles, and of the hatred that both sides harbored for each other. In Sledge's words, "this was a brutish, primitive hatred, as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands."

Sledge describes one instance in which he and a comrade came across the mutilated bodies of three Marines, including one Marine whose genitals had been cut off and stuffed into the corpse's mouth. He also describes the behavior of some Marines towards dead Japanese, including the removal of gold teeth from Japanese corpses (and, in one case, a severely wounded but still living Japanese soldier), as well as other disturbing trophy-taking.

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[bsDaemon]

Alexander didn't conquer Afghanistan. The British didn't. The Soviets didn't. Maybe the Romans would have done a more thorough job, but all the other failures weren't exactly poofters. Then again, Julius Caesar instigated the Gallic Wars and then went on to murder over a million Celts just so his troops could sharpen their swords for civil war, and to settle the old debt from when the Gauls sacked Rome 390 b.c. They were particularly hard-assed back then.

Re:US abuse

[korean.ian]

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100708/full/news.2010.343.html

There's plenty of other information out there, such as the fact that North Korea doesn't have a submarine capable of evading South Korean sonar arrays.
There's also lots in Korean, but that doesn't help you.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[AHuxley]

Its a long list for the US, then add the black operations and support, death squads ect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_operations

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[Altima(BoB)]

Maybe the fact that the Romans and the Mongols never tried to conquer Afghanistan was the result of an intelligent reticence. Even in the Byzantine era (who still called themselves "Romans") when Heraclius more or less replicated Alexander the Great's feat of conquering the Persian Empire, he promptly turned around and went home without touching Afghanistan.

But like an earlier comment mentioned, as ruthless and (in my opinion) needlessly violent as the USA's recent conduct as been, the Romans would not have tolerated an insurgency. I once heard the journalist Seymour Hersch (I probably misspelled his name) allege that in the Project for a New American Century circles such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the Third Punic War is bandied about as lot as an example of what the USA should do (As in, after two huge wars against Carthage, one of them involving Hannibal running riot across Italy for ten years, the Romans had effectively cowed Carthage into little more than a vestige of what it once was. When there were rumblings of possibly a third major conflict, the Romans responded by simply killing everyone they wanted to, selling the few survivors into slavery, and famously sowing their land with salt so that nothing would ever grow there again.)

I'm reminded of a great quote by the grouchy Roman historian Tacitus - "The Romans make a desert and call it 'peace.'"

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[DAldredge]

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

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[Kell Bengal]

Given half a chance, Liechtenstein would kill you, and everyone you care about.

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[Tideflat]

Let me point out that in WW1 the Germans had repeatedly been sinking American ships prior to when the American's entered to war. The Germans sank at least seven U.S. merchant ships. That seams like more than one attack to me.

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[Dravik]

The British did conquer Afghanistan on their second try, put in place a friendly ruler and got 30 years of peace out of there while preventing Russian influence from spreading south. They pretty much accomplished all their strategic goals. There was quite a massacre during the first Afghan war though.

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[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.

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[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!

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[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....

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[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.

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[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.

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[linhares]

right now some kid is pissing, drunk, on a tree somewhere in the US. If he is unlucky, he will be caught by the police. If he's even more unlucky, it will be in a state where that is considered a *sexual offence*, and he'll get a nice labeling for his entire life. If he is even more unlucky and gets thrown on prison (not hard in the usa), gets regularly beaten, he will either learn to fight back and become a violent man, or get depressed into submission and become someone's bitch.

my point is, even with the selection against agressive genes that wars provide, aggression, and most importantly, the ultra-violent people, get that way through a gradual learning process of though experiences most people in this forum will never be able to imagine.

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[rve]

Right on!

I saw proof on youtube that the fire couldn't be hot enough to melt those steel girders. Sick of all these lies, I went to look for myself, and I'll be damned: the WTC is still standing! They faked the 9/11 attacks in the same studio where they faked the moon landing. The real reason why the 9/11 attacks were faked was to provide an excuse for grounding all air planes so they could be retrofitted with tanks of neurotoxins for the chemtrails program, which is needed to keep the public confused and ignorant about CIA, FBI, UN and Freemason involvement in the Kennedy assassinations. The Kennedys were assassinated because they wanted to go public about the aliens that had been captured after the Roswell incident. The Aliens were here to warn us about the imminent threat posed by the passing of the planet Nibiru, which the Freemason/CIA/FBI conspiracy is trying to keep hidden because they intend to use the confusion caused by the upcoming disaster to impose UN law on the united states. The black helicopters have nothing to do with it though, they're an extremely fancy pizza delivery service for the Skull & Bones alumni.

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[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?

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[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.

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[dbIII]

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

The Russians tried that and came back later to find dead Afgan teachers hanging from trees. I don't think the answer is going to be an easy one.

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[morari]

Does it really surprise anyone? America was conceived of in the heat of genocide and revolution.

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[Scrameustache]

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.

You gloss over the part where they put their own puppet politicians in charge and murder the citizens openly and wantonly with disregard for any defensible "justice". If the US acted the way it says it acts, rather than in the murderous way in which it does act, it wouldn't be hated as much around the world (no, it's not your freedom people hate, it's your shrapnel).

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[Burning Plastic]

The ammunition mentioned in this article was listed on the ship's manifest and has been known about since the ship sailed. This isn't a surprise and has been (as usual) been taken without the proper context and sensationalized by the Daily Mail (which specializes in doing this kind of article).

If non-small arms materiel had been found then it would have been interesting - various other cargo items do appear to potentially be war materiel but those have not yet been located.

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[B1oodAnge1]

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

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[Luckyo]

Note the PRESENT tense rather then past one used here.

Also note that if you want to go down that road, you'd have to look very hard at the actions done all across former colonies in the name of the profit and ask how would they evolve if West didn't interfere. While that kind of macro-level math would be extremely hard to do, we'd be comparing millions to millions, and it's not all that certain that we'd end in the black.

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[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.

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[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.

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[SharpFang]

If you call nuking two cities full of civilians kind, I'd rather not experience your hospitality.

(note, I am not arguing whether it was not necessary or avoidable, I'm just mocking your "kindness" statement)

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[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.

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[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.

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[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

[shutdown -p now]

A puny sword cut, compared to what flamethrowers and napalm can do to you, or those vacuum bombs which literally turn your lungs inside out (but don't always kill right away)? And that's not even to mention chemical weapons.

There are very gory ways to go even on today's battlefield. It's just that they happen more often to the "insurgents", so you don't hear much about them. Then again, the fate of a captured American soldier can be quite disturbing, as well.

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

[shutdown -p now]

Actually, you're spouting nothing but "New World Order bullshit" that has been around since before either of us were born.

See, the scary part about "Project for the New American Century" is that it's both open and serious - and if you read what it boils down to, "New World Order" is not all that far from there.

Re:US abuse

[marsu_k]

You're quoting Conservapedia? Seriously? Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia offers a different view on the events.

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

[Uberbah]

Strangely enough, I'm pretty sure the US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons made the world safer overall.

If you define "the world" as "US and Russia", maybe. Because there were no shortage of proxy wars in South America, Africa, and Asia with the communists and capitalists supplying different sides.

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

[evanspw]

Took the Romans two centuries to pacify the Iberian peninsula (present day Spain and Portugal). And that was without outside meddling (after they took it from the Carthaginians).

Re:US abuse

[Archtech]

I hesitate to intrude upon this good-natured colloquy, but I must point out that there were no "Frenchmen" (or French women) for about 1000 years after Caesar and his colleagues conquered Gaul. (The very name "France" derives from the Franks, a tribe of barbarians who invaded Gaul hundreds of years after Caesar). The main source for the Roman conquest of Gaul, of course, consists of Caesar's own books. Is it at all possible that he might have slanted them, perhaps touching up a few facts and figures, in order to impress the voters back in Rome? (Point 1: Caesar is one hell of a general, who conquers whole provinces in a matter of months and utterly destroys Rome's enemies; Point 2: You *really* do not want to anger him).

You are probably aware of the wide gap between pagan Roman (and Greek, and for that matter Gaulish) ethics and the Christian ethics with which everyone in the West is more or less permeated. Whereas Christ abjured us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek when struck, and to forgive our brother "unto seventy times seven" times, the ancients believed in returning whatever they received - with interest. A noble Roman, Greek, Gaul, or Goth would take pride in rewarding his friends and servants lavishly, heaping kindness upon his dependents, and showing the most merciless cruelty to his declared enemies. In some ways, the Nazi philosophy (if one can dignify it with that name) harked back to the days of the Romans in regarding forgiveness and mercy as signs of weakness, likely to be abused and exploited by enemies. So it's not surprising that the Romans took such a robust approach to conquering other nations and repressing rebellions. The very word "virtue" originates from the Latin "vir" (a man) and to the Romans meant the manly virtues of truth, courage, and strength. That's why it's foolish and inappropriate to compare the violence of 20th and 21st century wars with those of the pre-Christian period. One shouldn't forget, either, the appalling bloodiness of the high Christian period, from the Dark Ages through to the Enlightenment. No one who casts stones at Islam for its culture of violent intolerance should forget that Christianity, for most of its history, was very similar in that regard. It has just had an extra few hundred years to lose its sharp edges.

Nowadays, in the post-Christian epoch, everyone has been exposed to Christian ethics - even if many of us are avowed agnostics or atheists, the ethical rules that we consider self-evident and universal often derive from Christianity. So we pay abundant lip service to kindness, mercy, charity and forgiveness. Yet the people who reach the top layers of government and the armed forces cannot afford any such scruples: they have to behave very much like ancient Romans, while pretending to subscribe to Christian or humanist ethics. Hence the paradoxes expressed in the t-shirt slogan "Whom would Jesus bomb?" Clinton had it right: "It's the economy, stupid!" Every US president (and all their staff too) is fully aware that his overriding goal must be to make Americans prosperous and keep them that way. That is not done by exporting the huge amounts of wealth that would be necessary to turn a country like Afghanistan into a passable replica of Ohio (or even Egypt); instead, it is done by sucking wealth out of such countries for the enrichment of Americans. But overt looting of foreign nations is frowned upon, most of all by our own ethics. How to square the circle? (Hint: I do know that's impossible) The method adopted has been to pretend that the invasion is for the good of the invaded. The forces of Western civilisation are conquering Afghanistan - as they did Iraq - to bring freedom, security, and the American Way of Life to the benighted heathen (sorry, "impoverished tribesmen").

It won't work. And there is very good reason to believe that no one in the White House or the Pentagon ever believed it could. This is what Maximilien Robespierre, no pacifist himself, had to say on the subject in 1791:

"The most extravagant idea that c

Re:US abuse

[Library Spoff]

Somewhere in the mid west an echelon monitor alarm is blaring and flashing red...

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

[Pascal Sartoretti]

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 Switzerland (my country), which gave up expansion in 1515 and has been neutral for a few centuries. And became one of the richest countries in the world. Any causality ?

Re:US abuse

[oji-sama]

To the idiots defending the taliban

The thing is, none of the parents above defended taliban.

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

[iserlohn]

Oh no.. not this thing about Capitalism again.

Capitalism is a categorization of economic systems where the *mean of productions* is owned privately. That's all it is. The related concept of "laissez-faire" translates roughly to minimal government interference in markets (duties, price ceilings, etc). Capitalism does not necessarily equate to more individual freedom, but by definition capitalism tends towards smaller public sectors as less of the economy is handled by the state.

No single economic system solves all problems. Private ownership of the means of production works for many goods and services, but breaks down in others (notably heathcare and utilities) and the reasons for which is clear to anyone with a rudimentary education in economics. Most people don't have a problem with Capitalism per se, but only when it is practised blindingly, when people disregard the obvious non-market-based solutions to economic problems which can not be solved by the market alone.

Now back to your post, I can't speak for everybody, but from the people with who has a opinion on this, the core problem with America is that likes to proselytize its values while actively interfering with other nations contrary to said values. The issues you point out are illustrations of such cases.

Re:US abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize that you were mocking the "kindness" statement and not arguing the necessity, but a quick review of the history might enlighten a few readers here about the US approach to war and its determination to minimize civilian casualties.

By 1945, WW2 was nearing its end and everyone knew it; the Japanese were all but beaten but were refusing to surrender unconditionally. Rather than lay down their arms, they adopted a strategy to prevent an invasion of the Japanese home island by dragging out the war as long as possible and making each succeeding engagement so bloody that, hopefully, the US public would be increasingly appalled by the death toll and pressure their leaders to just quit. That strategy came to a head at the Battle of Okinawa which lasted almost three *months* (1 April - 22 June 1945) and resulted in 100,000 and 72,000 Japanese and US military casualties respectively, and 100,000 Japanese civilian casualties--a full 25% of the island's population. There was no Japanese compunction about using civilians as human shields. The Okinawan government to this day claims that the Japanese military gave a mass suicide order to the civilian population and expedited more than a few. 90% of the island's buildings and infrastructure were destroyed.

Still undeterred by those high losses, the Japanese leadership were preparing the civilian population of the home island to escalate that style of warfare even further. The military began issuing hand grenades to civilian families with orders to throw them at US soldiers when they appeared in the streets. It would have made modern day Baghdad look like a playground spat. They had decided that they would rather sacrifice the entire civilian population than surrender. Accordingly, the projected casualty count for the Allies' Operation Downfall --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

--were in the millions for the Allied forces and in the *tens of millions* for the Japanese civilian population. Faced with those numbers, Truman ordered the use of the atomic bomb. The shock of losing two entire cities in three days, with a total casualty count of 240,000 people, with no loss of Allied life finally convinced the Japanese military they were done. The math and the psychology finally became overwhelming. There would be no more bloody engagements, just one Japanese city after another vanishing in a flash of light until the military was eviscerated with no loss to the Allies, so the Japanese finally surrendered.

Terrible as it was, those numbers were still orders of magnitude smaller than the deaths that would have resulted had the Allies been forced to invade Japan. The only other alternative would have been a blockade, resulting in mass starvation of the civilian population.So by any objective measure, the Japanese refusal to surrender and determination to drag out the war in as bloody a fashion as possible justified the use of Fat Man and Little Boy. Truman made the right call. It was the most merciful option left.

The point is that the US does not kill civilians just for jollies. In fact, it bends over backwards to try to minimize civilian casualties, way past the point of endangering its own troops. The fact that the Obama Administration is considering creating a military award for "courageous restraint" is proof of that. Whether the wars should have been started in the first place is, of course, debatable; but if the US were so ruthless and brutal as some Slashdotters claim, it would have turned Afghanistan and Iraq into glass parking lots long before George Bush had wrapped up his second term.

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

[Deadstick]

but other countries throughout history tended to either WIN or LOSE ... not fuck around for 10 years

Might want to google "Thirty Years' War", "Hundred Years' War" and "Crusades"...

rj

Re:US abuse

[2obvious4u]

taking out many civilian targets then trying to hide it

What history book have you been reading? The history of war is one of marching all over civilians. What you are supposed to do is walk in and kill every man woman and child so there is no one left to oppose you. So there aren't any children left fatherless to build a grudge of hatred towards your nation. This idea of not killing civilians is a result of the televised news cycle. Hell during WWII the firebombing campaigns in Japan killed 100's of thousands of people, more than the two atomic bombs.

The reason the war is taking so long is because they are at least attempting to not kill civilians. They aren't doing a great job of it, but at least they are trying.

Re:US abuse

[Archtech]

So, we invaded Afghanistan for their opium?

From what I hear, that might well be part of it. Although they have some very nasty beliefs and rules, the Taliban - as religious fundamentalists - are absolutely opposed to drugs. While they were ruling Afghanistan, they came quite close to stamping out opium production completely. Today, it is booming again - which is odd when the Coalition is seemingly so keen to prevent it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/mercile06302010.html

Or did we send someone into the future to find out about the untapped mineral resources that were just discovered?

More like "into the past":
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/minerals_in_afghanistan_mais_oui

Just because you have a fine knowledge of history does not mean that you understand true intent.

Thanks for the compliment. But how does knowing less about history make one able to "understand true intent"? That sounds dangerously close to telepathy.

Our mission was to destroy Al Qaeda.

To destroy a shadowy organization, not certainly known to exist at all, with unknown membership, size, resources, whereabouts, and intentions. And the way to do this was to invade and subjugate a sovereign nation that had made no overt hostile act, kill or maim very large numbers of its citizens, overthrow its government, and set up a Quisling regime?
http://www.counterpunch.org/rothenberg05262010.html

Unfortunately, the second mission was the neocon ideal of "nation building" that is doomed to failure.

It seems to me that was why it was chosen. A state of war gives the executive enormous power and impunity. But most wars are so short... As Orwell pointed out in 1984, the logical solution is a permanent state of war. How better to guarantee that than to invade a country that has never been permanently conquered, in pursuit of an organization not certainly known to exist, and attempt to change that nation into a standard-issue Western democracy?

"Of all enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germs of every other. War is the parent of armies: from these proceed debt and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare".
- James Madison

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.

15,000 reports held back but will be release later

[evil9000]

Last line of http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/:
"We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits."

So this archive isnt complete, come back later for more...

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...

[SquarePixel]

But it sure is funny how they now found massive amount of mineral findings from Afghanistan that are many billions worth and would supposedly turn the area into very rich.

Sure is funny.

One thing I don't understand...

[Palestrina]

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

I know there will be a lot of finger-pointing at Wikileaks for publishing the data on their website, but for the information to have been leaked in the first place should raise even more questions.

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.

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:One thing I don't understand...

[Dr. Evil]

I bet they used a computer.

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

[flyingfsck]

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

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

[Bruce Perens]

Eventually, someone will be found guilty of treason and executed.

Well, maybe put in prison. One person has been charged with Treason since 1952, and he's a fugitive. People are charged with espionage or sedition more often, but I am not at all clear that either of those apply to this case.

Re:Oil...

[jo42]

There is no oil in Bumfuckistan. Only rocks, more rocks, even more rocks, religious nutters and poppy plants.

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 Triple GDP

[jelizondo]

According to the CIA World Fact Book:

• Population: 29,121,286
• GDP (Per capita:) $800 (2009 est.)

So now, expenditure over six years (Jan 2004 - Dec 2009) is $300,000,000,000.00 divided by six is around $50,000,000,000.00 per year

Per capita is $1,716.96 or more than double the GDP per capita of the country!

I would think that the US would get better resultsif the money was simply given to each inhabitant, the $800 they already make plus $1,700 from the US, would triple the GDP per capita, no small feat.

Just smile for the camera and show that you have not handled explosives or fired guns in the last week (paraffin test) and you get your weekly expenditure; you don't show up for a week then you lose the privilege, i.e. you knew you couldn't pàss the test.

Who said "You Can Rent an Afghan But Never Buy One"? It would rent the whole lot of them for a long time!

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.

Re:re Triple GDP

[twidarkling]

the remainder realizes the fight is not worth it.

Yeah... that's not true. Not in the slightest. You might get lucky and have the enemy become demoralized. What's more likely, when you're in their territory, is that they're going to stop caring if they live, since they know they're going to die, and then adopt more damaging tactics. Instead of getting a guy dropping off a briefcase with a pound of C4, who tries to get out of blast radius, you get a guy driving a truck with a few hundred pounds of C4 driving straight in to a target. And then you get all the other fighters doing similar, in hopes of inflicting as much damage as possible before they die at your hands. So, how do you cope when a single car-bomb can have a block-wide or greater blast area, and it's not terribly difficult to bolt on enough plating to make it possible to aim the vehicle and get it close enough to do damage?

Or an even worse-case scenario is you kill enough people that all of a sudden YOU are the evil one, and the entire country starts working against you, so literally every hand will be willing to slip a knife in your back. In that case, you're pretty much fucked. You can't pretend to be fighting to liberate the country any more, and if you leave, you're leaving a populace with a deep-seated grudge against you, and a working knowledge of your supplies and basic tactics.

No, the best way to fight a war is to not have to fight it. If you can prove that you can improve the life of the majority of the populace, without them having to give up certain things they hold dear (differs depending on country, and even individual population segments), then they're not going to want to fight you, since all they're doing in that case is hurting themselves. A small segment may resist, but if you have the majority of the people on your side, they'll even *help* against those resisters.

You really don't have even a basic understanding of large-scale warfare against a populace that doesn't include the phrase "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," do you?

Re:re Triple GDP

[jelizondo]

Thanks for the reply, but it has been done before, like the Marshall Plan or McArthur's occupantion of Japan

People with nothing to lose, become suicide bombers, people with children and a way to feed them, do not.

Re:re Triple GDP

[shutdown -p now]

Guess where the insurgents come from...

I mean, do you seriously think that some Afghanis are genetically born to be insurgents, and, as soon as you kill that bunch off, the rest will cheer democracy and religious freedom in their country?

By the way, speaking of "new order of things" - do you know that the current constitution of Afghanistan, enacted by the western-backed government, specifies Islam as a state religion, and Shari'a as the supreme law of the land, trumping any other law and article in the constitution? Meaning that e.g. apostasy and blasphemy is punished by death in Afghanistan today - not by Taliban, but by "our guys".

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.

Re:Pretty pathetic

[jelizondo]

Do you think Julian waves his hand and documents appear?

He gets documents from people inside the war machine, those sources are able to tell him what parts would be detrimental to the people on the field.

Who elected Martin Luther King? Who elected Gandhi? Who elected Mohter Theresa? They do what they think is right to make a better world.

What's your age? Like sixteen / seventeen? Grow up! Now get off my lawn!

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

[QuantumG]

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

Re:Conflicted

[betterunixthanunix]

It is fair to point out the following:

1. Wikileaks released an unedited version of the collateral murder video, which anyone else could add commentary about the weapons to. 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.
2. The leaking of secret societies' material is in line with Wikileaks guidelines: Unless otherwise specified, the document described here...Is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance. (emphasis mine).
3. As the article you quoted pointed out, Wikileaks did remove a book after being contacted about it. Yes, Wikileaks is run by humans, and humans do make mistakes, and at least they corrected that mistake when pressed on it. It is not like the Wikileaks staff went out searching for books to publish on their site; someone outside of Wikileaks thought it would be worthwhile for Wikileaks to publish the book.

Frankly, given that the US government has a plan in place to discredit Wikileaks (which was, of course, leaked on Wikileaks), any article which takes an overtly negative tone of Wikileaks is immediately suspect. Anything that criticizes Wikileaks without at least mentioning that it is an organization of loosely connected volunteers should be taken with a grain of salt. There is a lot of misinformation about Wikileaks, and we really should not be perpetuating it.

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...

[0123456]

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

Probably, but at that point there was still the prospect of walking into Afghanistan, grabbing bin Laden and getting out; the US government took a few years to realise what a disaster they'd caused by not doing just that. If they'd been willing to lose enough troops to do the job then it could all have been over in a few weeks, but by using Afghan mercenaries to take most of the casualties they pretty much guaranteed that bin Laden would be allowed to get away.

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...

[brit74]

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...

The problem is Pakistan. There's a safe haven of Islamic militants across the border. Even the Pakistani government doesn't know what to do with them. Even worse, approval ratings for the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden are in the 35-50 percent range in Pakistan - which is, no doubt, concentrated in the tribal north west. When we're the demonized "evil West trying to destroy Islam" and the Taliban is "one of them" - i.e. fanatical muslims who "just want to implement God's government on earth", even when it means throwing acid in women's faces for wearing the wrong clothing. When they're that mired in conspiracy and in-group loyalty, it can be difficult to win a war.

2007 Poll: "According to poll results, bin Laden has a 46 percent approval rating...al Qaeda has a 43 percent approval rate; the Taliban has a 38 percent approval rate; and local radical extremist groups had an approval rating between 37 percent to 49 percent." http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/11/poll.pakistanis/index.html

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...

[Aceticon]

Part of the process of making a soldier consists of inbuing them with an exceptionally strong sense of group and belonging to the group: it's well know that in the thick of it men do not fight above all for their countries they fight above all for their mates.

Thus it's not surprising that an (ex-)member of a military outfit will belief that "(we) are the best".

I've seen the same thing in some ex-high-school colleagues of mine, years later when we had a reunion, after they had been in the Portuguese special forces.

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

[Gaygirlie]

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

Surprisingly, I actually have to agree; while Al-Qaeda, Talibans etc are indeed dangerous, willing to use any means necessary and so on atleast they fight for their ideologies and rights whereas the US seems to fight for money and power. I find the latter much more disturbing.

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.

America got played..

[Anonymous Coward]

..and played itself. These documents show that the Pakistani's have been playing both sides and helping the Taliban strategize against Afghans and American troops.

The Afghani war was legitimate as an attack on US soil was planned and coordinated from there but the US didn't put enough resources when they could have, instead they turned to Iraq which caused them to lose the Afghan war. It has turned into an untenable situation exactly like Vietnam and the US is scrambling to get out while they still have a fig leaf on and don't repeat the airlift of Hanoi in Kabul.

To those who would object to the use of the word 'lose' with respect to the American army.. it has. A war is won or lost when the enemy has lost the will to fight and America has lost that. To oust the taliban now would take major commitment spanning another decade, and unfortunately Obama doesn't have the stomach for that.

In this he is showing his naivete when it comes to Geoploitics and is wrong when compared to the Republicans, they understand the bigger global picture(although their divisive politics are disgusting). There is a second cold war happening right now, except this one has multiple factions.. US/EU on one side with Islamists and their enablers the 'moderate Arab countries' and their Chinese enablers on the other. This will take another 20 years to resolve properly and by demurring now the US is emboldening the other side just like when Obama announced a pullback date prematurely, a huge strategic error from an inexperienced leader.

He is turning into Kennedy in too many ways.. and this comes from a guy who voted for him enthusiastically.

So what *is* there?

[ugen]

As it often seems to be the case on /., the discussion centers around "talking points" conveniently fed by originator based on fairly clear /. views and agenda.

So, I went and began reading these reports. My impression is that these do have operational value, and are probably of some interest to military buffs (and certainly to enemy intelligence, though they probably knew most of that anyway). What I did not find in these reports is 1) any particularly unvarnished picture that differs markedly of what my impression of war in Afghanistan was until now based on otherwise available data 2) any real insight into why the war is going the way it is

I think, in fact, that both these points were answered many times in variety of other media and in other types of discourse.

My personal opinion is that other than sensationalist value, primarily due to the fact that classified information has been released, there isn't much here that will further any decent causes in our world. There is, however, a clear boon to stature of mr. Assange and his site and he is the one that benefits the most.

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), I think it is safe to say that mr. Assange is in it for himself and himself alone.

For my part, I will not patronize or support his venture. While in theory openness is good, it is only good if it is for the right reason. "Openness" for the sake of personal ulterior motives is just as bad if not worse than what it purports to fight.

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:So what *is* there?

[copponex]

All you had to do was read a single news story for the point. It's the truth versus the rah-rah bullshit patriotism that passes for news these days.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

The archive is a vivid reminder that the Afghan conflict until recently was a second-class war, with money, troops and attention lavished on Iraq while soldiers and Marines lamented that the Afghans they were training were not being paid.

The reports — usually spare summaries but sometimes detailed narratives — shed light on some elements of the war that have been largely hidden from the public eye:

  The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

  Secret commando units like Task Force 373 — a classified group of Army and Navy special operatives — work from a “capture/kill list” of about 70 top insurgent commanders. These missions, which have been stepped up under the Obama administration, claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.

  The military employs more and more drone aircraft to survey the battlefield and strike targets in Afghanistan, although their performance is less impressive than officially portrayed. Some crash or collide, forcing American troops to undertake risky retrieval missions before the Taliban can claim the drone’s weaponry.

  The Central Intelligence Agency has expanded paramilitary operations inside Afghanistan. The units launch ambushes, order airstrikes and conduct night raids. From 2001 to 2008, the C.I.A. paid the budget of Afghanistan’s spy agency and ran it as a virtual subsidiary.

So, the Taliban are apparently using advanced weaponry against ineffective drones, and the CIA has once again formed a secret police force that's terrorizing Afghani citizens for the crime of defending themselves against a foreign invader.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

These csv files and reporting data are identical to US Army reporting database systems. Most likely an MI soldier grabbed this data off a SIPR computer and sent it to Wikileaks. There's really nothing critical to national security in those logs but unit SOPs which change regularly. I'm surprised someone ended up doing this, if whoever did it gets caught, there will be hell to pay.

Oh and hey idiots, these are SIGACTs not proof of clandestine abuses. Read the material before you go spouting your liberal/conspiracy theory bullshit.

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:Personally I don't like them

[betterunixthanunix]

Would you want a criminal getting a hold of information relating to an active investigation against them?

In fact, sometimes we do, in countries where people are labeled "criminals" for being members of the wrong political groups or other abuses of human rights.

Wikileaks just wants to release any and everything

In fact, the Wikileaks volunteers do review the material that is submitted to them to ensure that it is not personal information about someone or other private information. They are not there to "release everything," they are there to release information that is of political or historical interest that some group of people is deliberately trying to keep secret from the public. You may disagree with that specific goal, but the least you could do is refrain from criticizing Wikileaks for things that they do not do.

Fine, but then the unaltered, uncommented video would be what to release.

They did release it, so what is your point? The commentary on the video is their own take on it, but do not present this as them trying to hide the truth from people -- anyone can download an unedited copy.

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.

Re:Just stupid...

[VirginMary]

No you're not stupid! We should all aim to improve ourselves and our countries! And, I can't believe all the assholes that say that other countries have been as bad or worse. Who cares, everyone is responsible for their own actions! Otherwise all you're saying is that it's ok to be an asshole because there were and are other assholes! Highly unethical, if you ask me!

Can anyone figure out what the mission is?

[TheNarrator]

I know, according to the official story, the original mission was to go to Afghanistan and kick the Taliban out of power and get Osama Bin Laden.

I don't really think that's the mission right now. I haven't heard anything about Osama Bin Laden in quite a while. What exactly are they trying to do? Perhaps these documents can shed some light on that?

Re:Can anyone figure out what the mission is?

[QuantumG]

Seeing as no-one has replied to you (yet), I'll take it as my opportunity to tell you my opinion.

Afghanistan is a hard country to rule, due to the geography. Back when the US was aiding the rebels to fight the Soviet Union some of the best work they did was making roads. It allowed a government to form. However the roads didn't go everywhere and there's plenty of pockets of peoples who are officially part of Afghanistan but simply don't want to be ruled, and when you consider that the last government was the Taliban, who can blame them?

So what is the US doing there? They're helping the government gain complete dominance over the populous. Why? That one is beyond me I'm afraid.. I'm Australian and we're in-country too. My honest opinion is that it gives our forces something to do - it's the most effective training for some theoretical future war.

Words like "insurgents" and euphemisms like "bringing stability to the region" are the kind of talk that pisses me off the most. Just talk like a rational human being so that someone who isn't indoctrinated in your culture can understand your motivations and you'll do a lot better at gaining support.. assuming you even understand why you're shooting at people.

The US isn't trying to crush them

[Sycraft-fu]

There's a big difference. The US military is the best of the best at destroying shit. If things need to get blown up, people need to die, etc, they can do it quickly and professionally. Never before has there been a military with such raw power.

What the US military is not good at is conquest, going in and taking a place over. For that you need lots and lots of troops on the ground, and a willingness to be fairly ruthless. None of that guarantees a conquest is successful, of course, history is full of people pushing out oppressors, but it is needed for it to work. That's not what the US army does, never has except for maybe in Japan in WWII.

So what they US army can do, and has done well, is act as an army of liberation. A country has a powerful occupying force, the US can smash that force and liberate the populace. France in WWII is a good example. That is what the US tried to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. Come in, toss out the assholes in power.

The problem is that liberation only works when people want to be liberated, and are willing to work for it. It worked in France because of two reasons:

1) The French people wanted the Germans out, pretty much to a man. There weren't a whole lot of Nazi supporters there, relative to the total population.

2) They were willing to work together. When the Nazis were kicked out, the worked as a country to untie and rebuild. They understood that freedom meant sacrifices.

This is not the case in Afghanistan. It is a very, very tribal mindset over there. For the most part people care about what is good for them and their tribe. There is little sense of national identity, little cohesion. To them, freedom means freedom to take your neighbour's shit and make your tribe richer/stronger. As such liberation is near impossible. They aren't willing to work for it.

So if the objective was to kill every person in the country, I've no doubt the US military could accomplish that goal quickly and efficiently, with little loss on their own part. That's not the goal though.

Re:The US isn't trying to crush them

[mjwx]

The problem is that liberation only works when people want to be liberated, and are willing to work for it. It worked in France because of two reasons:

1) The French people wanted the Germans out, pretty much to a man. There weren't a whole lot of Nazi supporters there, relative to the total population.

2) They were willing to work together. When the Nazis were kicked out, the worked as a country to untie and rebuild. They understood that freedom meant sacrifices.

This is a very important point, one of Sun Tzu's keys to victory and the most important was what was translated as "the moral law". The moral law was a populations willingness to follow a leader, in WWII most of Europe was willing to follow the Allies or Stalin rather then Hitler. Same with the Pacific, the Filipinos, Indonesians and Thais happily threw off Japanese rule in favour of the Americans at their first opportunity.

It wasn't the US Army who shot Nazi collaborators when they liberated Holland, the Dutch did.

Re:Oil...

[CharlyFoxtrot]

There's lots and lots of rare (and less rare) metals, it's the saudi arabia of lithium. According to wikipedia = "[Lithium is used in] high strength-to-weight alloys used in aircraft, and lithium batteries. Lithium also has important links to nuclear physics." They discovered this right before the war by the way, but I'm sure that's all coincidental.

No, not at all

[Sycraft-fu]

Handing out money would accomplish nothing. Few reasons:

1) True wealth is not in having money, it in having the ability to produce things. Rich countries are rich not because they have cash, they are rich because they have strong economies. While cash could be used to buy that, it won't be. Direct handouts are never used in that fashion.

2) It would just fall in to the hands of warlords. When you get an anarchy situation where the strong can prey on the weak that is what happens. Happens all the time in Africa with aid. You can hand it out to individuals if you send in guys with guns to make sure that happens, but when they leave it'll get taken.

3) It would just be used to fuel further fighting. Afghanistan is highly tribal. What this means is people don't really have a large scale, national, identity. They identify just with their "tribe" which in this case is basically extended family living together. By and large they see no problem with stealing from, killing, etc other tribes to their own gain.

Unfortunately, there is no real solution to the problems there. You cannot help people that do not want to help themselves. This is true with individuals who have addictions, and it is true with cultures, with nations, as well. Help only works when the group you are trying to help wants it, and is willing to worth with you. The Afghans don't, so help will do nothing.

Re:No, not at all

[jelizondo]

Thanks for the reply, I agree with your points entirely.

My beef is: what the hell is the US goverment (I don't think the people are getting anything out of this war) trying to accomplish?

Back in the 80's, it was clearly a way to keep the Soviets out of the regions, but today?

Re:No, not at all

[Sycraft-fu]

The government is, misguidedly, trying to bring freedom and Democracy there. The overall reason is simple: The more of the Middle East that isn't a theocratic shithole, the less problems it causes the rest of the world. If all the countries there used their oil wealth to build prosperous Democracies that took care of their people, well we probably wouldn't have much in the way of terrorists from there. Contented people don't tend to go blowing themselves up.

Nice idea, but as I said, it won't work unfortunately. The US military needs to get the hell out of there.

As far as I can tell, there is no solution in any short term. In the long term, the world will eventually transition off of oil as the primary energy source, one way or another. When that happens, the ME will lose their economy, their power. The countries will then have to either grow up, evolve, and become world citizens, or they'll just devolve in to tribal wars that nobody cares about like in Africa.

Nobody can force progress, unfortunately. Any nation that wishes to progress can and should be offered the world's full support. However it cannot and thus should not be forced.

Short version: The US government has their heart in the right place and wants what's best for stability over all, but they are blind to the realities of the situation. All they are accomplishing is more war.

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:US revolutionary war, anyone?

[wisty]

I'm not sure that old-style infantry was a result of outright incompetence.

Sure, it's better to spread the troops out, and hide them behind rock walls, but only if you trust them to stick their heads out long enough to fire. That's not a problem if you have all volunteers, but colonial armies aren't staffed with volunteers. I guess modern armies have better training, so they can give their troops a bit more independence.

Collateral Damage

[linumax]

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.

I don't know where that number came from, but to me, it seems extremely... inaccurate. Every time there's report of a drone "misfiring" the number of casualties are in dozens and it seems to be a rather common occurrence. Case in point:

U.S. military investigators found that "inaccurate and unprofessional" reporting by U.S. operators of a Predator drone was responsible for a missile strike that killed 23 Afghan civilians in February, according to a report released Saturday... (and on third page of the article) The U.N. says at least 2,412 civilians were killed in 2009 — a 14 percent increase over the previous year. NATO and Afghan government forces were responsible for 25 percent of the deaths, the U.N. said in January report. Of those, about 60 percent were due to airstrikes, the U.N. said.

Source

That is just 2009 and the trend is, at least at the time of article's publication, upward.

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.

not necessarily an asshat

[jDeepbeep]

How can this asshat know what is harmful and what is not?

From the Wikileaks article (Afghan War Diary)

We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source.

It seems the source of the documents may be deciding what is harmful, although that is not conclusive from the statement. I dare say that the source is likely to understand what can "harm" than you or I (or Julian) may be.

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

[Luckyo]

The bottom line here is that we elect people who's job it is to decide what happens, when and how and they appoint others to do the same. If things go bad, then they are ultimately held accountable. Maybe not as fast as you want and maybe not to the degree you want, but that's the system that we have.

Your naivete is charming. These are the people that will NEVER be brought to justice - even now they'll just let someone else take the fall. Instead they will be very, very rich, and live long and prosperous lives, like most proper successful sociopaths do in modern western society.

And no, it's not all the same to me. When you put a fox to guard the hen house, and then claim that it's "proper and right, because he's been democratically elected there by the local fox community", it's not a correct thing to do - it's a travesty and a rape of justice.

Frankly, I could care less what Assange's motivations are, so long as his acts stick to delivering the facts, rather then opinionated crap. The video released some time ago was borderline material for me, because it wasn't ALL of the relevant material. In this case, he clearly learned his lesson and went for what people are asking for - as many relevant facts as possible.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I am one of these troops. If you knew anything about operational security, you'd know that an enemy can use the most mundane information to gain advantages over an opponent. I'm sure that in these documents there are numerous references to things that will potentially endanger troops lives, from procedures, to defensive capabilities, to weapons system operation and employment.

I'm all for a free press.. but this is one step too far. These documents were classified for a reason and they were stolen. Maybe someone can steal your information and post it on the interwebs in the name of "transparency". I think that would be sound journalism..

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.

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.

Re:Not really

[kramerd]

The Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden, the US turned them down. There was never a prospect of going in until we got bin Laden, they were in it for the long haul from the start. They wanted to transform Afghanistan into a proxy state as part of their grand strategy.

Not quite. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

President Bush rejected an offer from the taliban to discuss handing bin Laden over to a third country while researching whether bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, in return for the US to cease bombing Afghanistan.

An offer of discussion is not close to an offer to hand over.

It was the equivalent of a movie director offering to look at an actresses resume if she sleeps with him, not offering the part.

Eh, partly right

[SmallFurryCreature]

You have a valid point HOWEVER it puzzles me why you then forget to mention the OTHER side in this conflict. The Taliban/Al Queda (or dare I say it, Islam) is involved in far MORE wars then the US.

Odd that you leave that bit out. There are two sides to every conflict. Oh and other countries are close seconds, lets not forget that the US is not fighting this war alone.

War mongering is a common business of countries. It is just that Joe Public doesn't notice much of it.

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

[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.

How is this not like Vietnam?

[PSUspud]

I'm sorry, but the more things change, the more the stay the same. The parallels are eerie:

1) Daniel Ellsberg / Pentagon papers == whoever / This stuff

2) Operation Phoenix == "capture / kill" CIA operations in Afghanistan.

3) The corrupt Ngo Diem == The corrupt Hamid Karzai.

4) French war in Vietnam == Russian war in Afghanistan

5) Corrupt, worthless army == The corrupt, worthless Afghanistan army.

6) Support for the war from North Vietnam == Support for the war from Pakistan

7) Death from above via B-52's, AC-47's, Hueys == Death from above from F-16's, Predators, Reapers

8) Massive civilian casualties == Massive civilian casualties

9) Nationalism / Religion fueling the fire == Nationalism / Religion fueling the fire

10) Slow build up over years, with too little to start with == Slow buildup over years, with too little to start with

11) Humiliating defeat for the US, with a small fig leaf == ????

Without lots more soldiers sent in, and perhaps even then, this war is lost. When are we going to recognize it?

Re:special interests

[AK Marc]

The thing is, if you keep saying "I HAVE WMDS, GIMME MONEY OR ELSE!", eventually *somebody* is going to call your bluff.

Yeah. Too bad we didn't have an organization that gathers information or "intelligence" about countries to help us make decisions about things like going to war.

Ah Alexander did actually...

[DABANSHEE]

Ever heard of Hellenistic Bactria. Their kings did not wear Macedonian royal berets on their coin stampings for nothing.

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:special interests

[tyrione]

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.

How dare you say a nation with a roughly $10-$15 Billion GDP cannot conquer a nation with roughly a $15 Trillion GDP. Such gall!

On a serious note, we've known for over 30 years that Afghanistan is an untapped nation of massive minerals that can be used for military and commercial applications. The conservative $1 Trillion recently discussed is confirmation to what we always suspected was the main reason the USSR wanted to control it. Same goes for us so it seems.

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?

you don't want to play by the rules of the game

[circletimessquare]

the rules of the game are this: protect your secrets. be constantly paranoid about evolving threats. protect against those threats and anything else you can imagine. once you've locked every door you can possibly conceive of 5 different ways, then look for more doors and make 6 different locks. rinse and repeat

this game is called the game of national security. there is no sympathy if china loses its national secrets. there is no sympathy if russia loses its national secrets. why do you think there should be any sympathy about fairplay and decency if the usa loses its national secrets?

"its not fair"

not fair? is there or has there ever been anything fair in the game of national secrets?

if you don't protect your secrets, and they get out, guess what? you lose. simple as that. no other recourse, no blame game

whining about whoever released the secrets, wherever they were hosted, and whoever reported on them, etc., is completely besides the point and marks you as insufficient in character for the nature of the hardcore game you are commenting on

we are not talking about the civil behavior of government officials or your reputation in high school. arenas where concepts such as fairplay, decency, reciprocity, trust, etc., have valid meaning. we are talking about the game of national secrets. nothing matters except vigilance

that means you take responsibility for the integrity and the maintenance of your secrets, and if they are released, then you, and you alone, have failed, and no one else is to blame, because such a blame game is completely besides the point: you can't put the genie back in the bottle, so the game is completely over at the point of release of secrets

so stop whining. or admit you don't have the stomach for such a hardcore game, and go comment on an easier game

but you have absolutely zero right to complain and no basis to complain, because you clearly do not understand the hardcore nature of the game you are commenting on

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.

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.