Slashdot Mirror
Obama Wants Allies To Go After WikiLeaks
krou writes "Coming on the back of human rights groups criticizing WikiLeaks, American officials are saying that the Obama administration is pressuring allies such as Australia, Britain, and Germany to open criminal investigations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and to try limit his ability to travel. 'It's not just our troops that are put in jeopardy by this leaking. It's UK troops, it's German troops, it's Australian troops — all of the NATO troops and foreign forces working together in Afghanistan,' said one American diplomatic official, who added that other governments should 'review whether the actions of WikiLeaks could constitute crimes under their own national-security laws.'"
From TFA:
"The initial document dump by WikiLeaks last month is reported to have disclosed the names of hundreds of Afghan civilians who have cooperated with NATO forces; the Taliban has threatened to hunt down the civilians named in the documents, a threat that human-rights organizations say WikiLeaks should take seriously."
Maybe not troops, but civilians were apparently endangered.
Wow, who is being alienated?
There has been quite an outcry from various humanitarian organizations who think the documents were not redacted well enough to hide the identities of civilians who may now become targets of reprisals.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Since the names started showing up on Wikileaks.
Don't forget Guantanamo Bay. Didn't he win the election in part thanks to those promises to shut that hellhole down?
cat:
and no NEW states secrets policy is more stringent than anything that came before
Uhm... reality check.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/congress-considers-rules-for-invoking-state-secrets.ars
- That new state secrets policy that is WAY more stringent than anything before.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090313/1456154113.shtml
- The Obama admin claiming that the details of a copyright treaty are "state secrets."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/02/10/obama
- Obama administration invoking "state secrets" FAR MORE OFTEN than the previous administration
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/foia-filtered
- Obama administration having political appointees vetting FOIA requests intended for the Dept of Homeland Security, and making decisions on what can be released on the basis of political expediency...
The question of no "new" Gitmos - Yes, but the one we have isn't anywhere close to shut down.
The question of "no new pointless, unwinnable wars have been started" - How many are we on the brink of still?
While not necessarily directly harmful to the Allied forces, the leaks include the names of informants and those sympathetic to Allied forces.
To Shillnonymous and friends. Reality: Out of the thousands of records only three records contain a name of an "informant". One of which died and another was a pro-Taliban double agent. Not to mention that the White House also had the opportunity to redact names via the New Your Times contact, but declined to do so - they could not have cared less
All those news channels (and there are many - mostly US based) all all standing on very shaky moral ground, considering the news channels and their parrots talking about "thousands of Informants exposed" just happen to NOT talk about the murdered 20K+ civilians. What is more important - actual deaths or your self delusion/lies over thousands of imaginary Informants "and their families" dying.
I think if you check you'll find that no-one in the previous Administration violated the Geneva Conventions.
Alas, while it's still inconvenient as hell, the only part of the Geneva Conventions binding on the USA are the parts we're actually signatory to.
Even more inconvenient, the parts we didn't sign onto include all those bits about treating guerrillas as the same as soldiers....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No, they cannot prove your wrong since it is damage control - the only shaky moral ground they can invent to stand on. Notice that these shills never talk about the 20K+ innocent Afghan civilians who are already murdered - not even an apology, or feign of concern - like they want you to think it never happened.
Wait, there's a list of hundreds of informants? Because Wikileaks took a hell of a lot of time trying to redact actually materially dangerous information (vs the politically dangerous info) for there to be hundreds of informants names available still... I haven't looked myself, but stating things as fact without evidence to back them up seems a hell of a lot like you're falling for the propaganda.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
However...
So, only "wrong on all counts" if you have a sufficiently-twisted world-view...
Reply if you must, but this is the last comment from me on the subject, as I said, it was only supposed to be humorous, with one serious thing thrown in for each of them.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
If it weren't for these fools living in the Red States, war wouldn't be considered acceptable. Most people in the civilized Blue States would not stand for money being wasted like that.
You are an idiot. Off the top of my head:
Wilson - Democrat - WW1
FDR - Democrat - WW2 (FDR went even further than most, he had the US Navy attacking German warships months before war was declared by Germany or authorized by the Congress)
Truman - Democrat - Korea
JFK/LBJ - Democrats - Vietnam
And those are just the major wars. Democrats have engaged in their share of police actions too.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What do all of those countries have in common? No immigration whatsoever.
See, that's why we Europeans, call you Americans stupid. You are here, in the net, could easily check the fact before open your big mouth, but you choose to say just the shit you hear in Fox News. Some of these countries have in fact MORE immigration than the USA. 12% in Sweden against less than 10% of population in USA. So what about find another excuse?
"by redacting all of the names"
Which they actually did.
Strange. I found a bunch on the first day I looked at them.
Look at the category: MEDCAP
Shouldn't take you very long to find quite a few documents with names in them. MEDCAP is the category where medical patrols goes from village to village to help people and also establish good ties with the locals. You'll quickly be able to see that a lot of the documents in that category includes both village names and names of locals that are friendly and cooperative.
Now, I personally think it was entirely appropriate of wikileaks to release the documents. However, there is no doubt that quite a few names are leaked in the documents.
Oil? In Sweden? You are thinking about Norway - Sweden doesn't have any oil and have never had any oil.