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.'"
How does a little egg on the Governments face = endangering troops? Seems to me sending them to Afghanistan and Iraq puts them in more danger than anything wikileaks could ever publish.
for bringing our own war criminals to justice.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You know you've made the big time when the Big O goes after ya through diplomatic channels. :p
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
What about investigations into the crimes that US troops (among others) and people higher up in the chain of command have conducted?
Why do they never get put on trial and punished?
Naive to think that they ever will be perhaps, but still...
"These documents that this website released endanger the lives of men and women around the globe. THESE DOCUMENTS. THESE DOCUMENTS RIGHT HERE."
If you don't want people to know about what's in the documents, stop fucking talking about them.
Living With a Nerd
The US is just doing what it does best: being a bully.
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
They would get a lot more support for this sort of action if the leaked documents were legitimately classified due to national secrets rather than just because they are embarassing. Revealing that the US government has been lying to its citizens and the world about what is happening in Afganistan and Iraq is certainly something they wouldn't want but keeping the electorate in the dark prevents them from providing direction to the country by electing officials to serve its aims
Anyone read the Jump 225 Trilogy by David Louis Edelman? This garbage sounds like a page right out of those books... The govt needs to keep their mouths shut and their hands off before they end up looking even stupider than they already do. Information wants to be free. If wikileaks dies, it's not like something else won't come up to replace it.
You know, you could replace Assange's name in this quote with Obama's and it would read equally true. Trying to drag us Europeans in as allies to support what looks like a war on exposed government cover-ups will not do wonders for how the US government is perceived over here.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Gosh, it's as if our government doesn't appreciate it when people leak videos of our soldiers murdering civilians! You'd think they'd be grateful, since it gives them a more accurate understanding of why the civilians there are turning to extremism.
I'll do the Glenn Greenwald thing and point out the pathetic "stenographic reporting". When you anonymously quote a political body supporting itself as news, you are a tool of that political body. Here are the sources cited in the article:
American officials say
Officials tell The Daily Beast
American officials confirmed last month
Now, the officials say,
an American diplomatic official
a Defense Department official marveled.
American officials say.
An American military official tells The Daily Beast
Im starting to think , there is professional trolling behind those posts.
Slashdot has always had many different oppinions and POV's...Yet as soon as the US goverment "officially" spoke against Wikileaks there has been an increasing number of obtuse and retarded "think of the troops" posts claiming assange is a jerk...
I know several boards who are regularly troled for commercial interests but... wtf this is slashdot.
I know I will hear a lot of counter-arguments to this but I'm going to say it anyway.
The documents were leaked by people who are in a position of disagreement with their orders and the behavior of the military and political officials. Simply saying "I don't like it" isn't enough of a statement for anyone's needs or purposes. If they are in the know and have evidence that "bad things" are happening, presenting proof of these bad things is the only true means of expression.
The U.S. and its involvements (interference) in the affairs of other sovereign nations is simply not appreciated by the majority of the world and this is especially true more recently. If there is anything that threatens the U.S. national security more than anything else, it is the increased disapproval of the U.S. in the world. People who are intent on sharing facts and truth wouldn't be as much of a problem if the U.S. was on the straight and narrow.
The notion of "if you haven't been doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear" has been used by governments against its citizens for a very long time. But when directed against governments, we see a pretty different set of standards.
Maybe a week or so ago. He simultaneously stated that there was nothing new or dangerous in the leaked documents, yet called it irresponsible for WikiLeaks for release this information. Normally, I'd take into consideration the "this will harm our intelligence assets" argument, but this has been going on for 9 years and every time we get a peek behind the curtain, we see that the public face on the war is a complete lie.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Wikileaks is journalism, and this is a test of the American principle of "Freedom of the Press".
Sometimes the press publishes embarrassing, inconvenient, or dangerous information.
Those are the times when society is asked, "Is the freedom to publish a core value enshrined in a special place in our society or not?"
As an American, I hope the answer continues to remain "Yes".
I find myself torn on the subject. While the Taliban was undoubtedly a terrible organisation that harmed the nation of Afganistan I don't believe that we have the right to unilateraly invade and 'make' them change. After all I imagine that during WWII that the Germans would have been extremely upset if records of their collaberators were released but we laud the French freedom fighters for discovering and executing them. The only difference in this case is that our side is the 'good' guys in this one.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that releasing these documents was morally and/or pragmatically wrong/harmful. I'm not entirely convinced of that, but I'll cede the point for this discussion.
What actual *crime* was committed in releasing these documents, that would justify a criminal investigation, limited travel, and general harassment by the government? Certainly the person with original access to the documents committed a crime in releasing them to unauthorized persons, but once that happened, what further crimes have occurred that would justify governmental interference?
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". Has anyone checked if this is true? Are the names of Afghan civilians in the disclosed documents?
So when did reporting secrets become illegal Reporters do it all the time, it's their job. Half the time it's the politicians who leak the information in the first place. I really didn't see much in the stuff that everyone didn't already know or suspect anyway. Anyone remember the Pentagon Papers?
The leaked files were in possession of Wikileaks for months. During that time they contacted the Pentagon for assistance in minimizing the damage to informants that would likely be a consequence of the leaks.
The Pentagon and US military railed against the idea of helping to mitigate the damage and condemned the notion of making this data public, and so after a few months of fruitless negotiation the entire 91,000+ files were leaked unaltered. The perception that this all happened in the space of a few days is false and not worth entertaining.
Do note that Assange has subsequently been cavalier over the notion that people could die should the Taliban employ the documents to locate them; his comments have been of the blunt 'ends justify the means' flavour. Whether a person's life is worth the US losing this amount of face over controversial events in Afghanistan is down to individual perception but my point is that this situation isn't quite as clear cut as much of the mass media depict - and this goes for those in favour Wikileaks actions as well as those against.
The issue is less "information should be free" and more "this just signed some people's death warrants" with some of the posted information. Civilians whom, probably under the assurance of anonymity and safety, gave the US information. Now, someone leaked their names, Wikileaks posted it, and those same civilians are now in the cross hairs. Of course, we'll arm chair philosophize about the ethics, reasoning, logic, etc, about this whole thing, because men won't come in the night to kill us and our families as a result of some jackass claiming we told someone something.
The key part of the article, of course on the second page, is the following:
"Pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist review," he tweeted on Monday, referring to the effort by WikiLeaks to convince the Defense Department to join in reviewing the additional 15,000 documents to remove the names of Afghan civilians and others who might be placed in danger by its release. "Media won’t take responsibility. Amnesty won’t. What to do?"
Wikileaks went to the Pentagon and/or White House and asked them to assist in the redaction of sensitive things... like the names of civilians. They refused to do so thinking it would prevent the release of the documents. Instead, Wikileaks simply did a cost-benefit analysis and found that the potential danger of the Taliban acquiring the documents, sifting through them, picking out suspect names, and then targeting them was not as valuable as releasing all these documents to the public.
Now, the government is going to try to demonize Wikileaks in every possible way... not because they're endangering lives or missions, but because they are willing to unveil damaging secrets. It's the Pentagon Papers all over again. The government will lose this battle in the long run.
Then again, as the immediate effects of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers showed, the public doesn't care. Ideally, people would be marching on DC, enraged at military mismanagement and lack of direction, but, just like before, they get excited by the sensationalism and then they forget.
Lose-Lose
Let's not beat around the bush. What they REALLY mean is that wikileaks is threatening their justification for spending. Spending is what makes the business of government incredibly lucrative for the elite few, not lying. Lying is merely a means to more spending.
The defense industry is worth billions of dollars per year, and the vast majority of that cash comes from government. The more money passing through the hands of the elite at the top, the better their position to exploit that flow of cash for personal gain.
Am I saying that money is the primary motivator of war, and the underlying objective of defense spending? You're damn right I am.
Why don't we outsource our War on Terror to India or China, we could pay them 1/4 for what we currently pay and they would be happy for the money. Save money and if we outsource to the Chinese we won't have to worry about the enemy not understanding we are serious.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Credibility?
He doest fucking need credibility.He's(and wikileaks) the messenger not the author.
Got leaked information.
Asked the original source( not the leaker) for help in redacting out sensible information.
Got told to fuck off.
Published the information with whatever redeacting they could do themselves.
Can you blame wikileaks for displaying(quite often) embarrasing information about powerfull entities? Hell Yes.
Can you blame wikileaks for whatever you learn through that information, spoecially since they refused to hel redacting it? Fucking Not.
Stop shooting the messenger.
This is my thought too. I think it's a good thing to have a venue where evidence of wrongdoing can be leaked. For example, I didn't have an issue when they leaked the video of the Baghdad strike that killed the Reuters journalist and other unarmed civilians. The military was trying to cover it up, and the video showed evidence of possible wrongdoing. But they shouldn't leak something just because they can. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for the military to keep much of their information classified.
So, this doesn't come as a surprise either. Similar foreign policy, not as blatantly arrogant as Bush, but not better as Clinton's. The right answer to the leaked documents would have been: "Of course the documents talk about human right abuses. That's why we have these documents. It just shows that we are investigating every claim and are really committed to justice..." Next step: work with international support (Amnesty International) to have names redacted ("in the interest of Afghan civilians" maybe). Not the dumb old "really bad if our dark secrets become public"-statement. That might work with some super-patriotic Americans but will damage any trust other countries had in the new administration.
The European reaction to American pressure tactics? Quite predictable. European politicians will complain but play along, but the public will grin even more about the American claim that they are the champion of free speech.
Not that the government wouldn't have a justified interest in keeping at least some war related documents secret for at least a period of time, but the way they are going after the leak is more damaging than the leak itself. It reminds people of past cover ups. Obama is about to loose all the good-will bonus he got after the election. His hope-slogan carried the hope that things could be done differently and not the same-old. Now it's the same old "pressure the Allies"? Well, that's how Reagan created the Green party in Germany. Maybe Obama can help the pirate party.
Also make sure to say what war crime they committed as per 18USC2441. Then please provide evidence of said crime to at least the standard of a reasonable cause to believe (what is normally required for a grand jury indictment).
If you are talking about the helicopter video then no, sorry. While there were civilian casualties, that is not illegal. War is not pleasant and the rules of war are very different from normal civilian law.
So if you really believe there are people who need to be indicted, then let's here specifics. If you are just grandstanding and/or talking without understanding what a war crime really is, then please stuff it.
A quote from an "American diplomatic official" becomes the Obama administration's position in an article and then becomes what Obama himself wants in the /. story that links to it.
The next step will probably be someone linking to the /. article and suggesting that God wants the world's nations to rise up against Wikileaks.
So instead of redacting names, why don't they just replace the names of the informants with the names of some Taliban fighters and start an internal war. Am I the only one who thinks spreading FUD into their ranks might be better than handing over our informants?
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Perhaps leaking everything you can get your hands on it's always the best thing to do. Just a thought.
Why don't you start it? You can publish your income, what route you take to work. Anything embarrassing in your past? Oh' post that too. While we are at it how about your address, SSN if you have one, and bank account with routing information. What if I went through your trash and published whatever I find. Next I pay people you trust for dirt and publish that too. Anything I can get my hands on to use your phrase. Those are all illegal acts but I shouldn't be prosecuted. Hey! I'm just doing what I think is right, so I can ignore any laws. Not all information should be public. It may sound like a good idea to the feeble minded and anarchists, but not all secrets need be published.
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.
It's my understanding that Wikileaks makes attempts to redact what they're able to protect the supposed innocent wherever possible, as a policy. It seems likely that they would indeed have reached out to the Pentagon to assist in redacting the names before publishing it just as they had claimed. The government, of course, hides behind the claim that "we're primarily concerned with the safety of our troops and of civilians" while refusing to accept the offer to help redact information. If the safety of those people was such a concern to them, they would take any opportunity to redact those names given, even if it comes at some sacrifice to their principals (aiding Wikileaks in redaction). They'd rather cut off someone else's nose to spite their face.
While I clearly have concern over the safety of persons who may be innocent, it's also vital to note that Assange does not (presumably) work for the government in any way. If they don't want information to be leaked, they should protect their information in the first place. I don't see how Assange is obligated to protect their data for them, other than to redact personally identifiable information where possible simply out of human decency.
That is utterly ridiculous.
Sensationalizing the "collateral murder" footage? Sensationalizing? It's inherently fucking sensationalized in its nature. Water is already wet, to begin with.
You know, I was starting to believe this as true just because its reported everywhere. But can anyone point me to _one_ civilian name, let alone a "comprehensive list". Google just gives me the run around. Every link says it's "reported to have a list" but there is no evidence that I can find. Sounds like it's BS made up to turn people against WikiLeaks. Then again, maybe someone can prove me wrong?
Or, possibly, Wikileaks and it's leadership aren't beyond criticism.
So bring the informants to United States already. They did their jobs. I'm sure there will be new informants to come forward.
Do you let a spy stay in foreign country if (s)he's been exposed?
How about their credit scores? How about their social security numbers? Why isn't the theft of their identities treated as a netional security concern? Why isn't the buying and selling of their medical records, shopping history, the web pages they surf all a matter of national security?
Why is Wikileaks being targeted, but not TransUnion, Experian and Equifax? The government can't have it both ways (well yes, they can and often do), as it seems they are setting a double standard. It's OK to publish information about the troops if you're selling it to advertisers, but not OK to publish on Wikileaks?
Who's to say that the information TransUnion is selling is any less a threat than what's in those redacted documents? Imagine a soldier with a bad credit history being pressured to do something against national interests by someone claiming they can "fix" the credit history of the soldier...
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
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.
I think many people in my country in Europe don't really know how to judge this, because they don't really understand what Wikileaks is and the US goverment's spin/propaganda machine is pretty dominant in the European medias. As far as I'm concerned, it is 100% clear to me that Wikileaks is a media like the press and that Julian Assange should be protected completely from persecution because he is acting as a journalist and was only disseminating information whose confidentiality was already broken. If journalists who publish confidential material are treated like terrorists, something is going in a very wrong direction, and although the law makes a difference I personally don't think it matters much whether you are formally accredited as a journalist or de facto fulfill the role of a journalist. But it seems to me that not so many people in Europe regard Assange as a journalist, partly due to the way the US government has spinned the news. Also, I doubt that many people here are aware of the fact that the US government is mainly angry about the way the documents got published.
Here is how it usually works. Government officials and contacts blackmail journalists: "If you do not ask us before publishing X you or even your paper will be a persona non grata at the White House. If on the other hand you publish the bits we approve, you get other bits of news for free. Oh by the way, I just had lunch with your boss, editor in chief of Y, a few days ago..." Assange doesn't seem to play by this game and that's why they want to crucify him. But as I said, I don't think people in Europe are more aware of this than in the US, and the public is probably split according to their general agenda towards the US.
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!
There has been a bought and paid readings of a prewritten script as part of a coordinated effort to progressively demonise, discredit and finally destroy Wikileaks. The PR divisions of most organisations, charities included, can simply be viewed as part of the modern media sector. And as part of that sector, their primary purpose is to echo the opinions and worldview of their benefactors.
No-one cared about these civilian risks when the documents were first released; the Pentagon was still reeling from the shock of encountering actual investigative journalism. The scriptwriters were called in, but it took them a week or two to come up with hooks. The civilian risks has so far been the most successful way to paint the leaks in a negative light. The mainstream media, literally incapable of digesting the data load it was faced with, has swallowed this propaganda far more easily, and found it more palatable than doing the job they claim to do--showing truth to power.
The powers said that the war in Afganistan was going well; that the US and the UK were winning. The Wikileaks expose proves that they were lying. The war was going terribly all along. See what that is there? That's journalism; not paid propaganda. Wikileaks did the people of the US and the UK a enormous service, virtually unparalleled in history. And instead of their thanks, Julian Assange is going to be drawn and quartered.
The Western free press is dead; Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. It is not possible to expose hard truths or challenge those in power in any modern Western state(or at least the Anglo-Saxon ones). Those who try will be destroyed, discredited or simply ignored. This is made possible by the modern media, which has become a propaganda complex of terrifying size, power, and influence.
The definitive proof of all this will be the fate of Assange, which is now playing out before our very eyes. He is going to be torn apart by the monstrous media; A feral pack--on leashes. He is finished. No idealistic journalists, no cadre of bloggers, no editorials, no law, no person, no country can save him now.
And if you try anything similar, they'll get you too.
May the Maths Be with you!
Where? Where in the documents are these civilians outed? It's been weeks now, and I haven't seen anyone say "these are the locations in the documents where a civilian was outed".
Look, if these accusations are true, there's no problem with you posting where the civilians were outed. Like I said, it's been weeks - every intelligence agency in the world knows where the civilians are outed in the documents by now, so there's really no harm in pointing it out so I can look for myself and maybe come up with a real count instead of "hundreds".
WRONG!
Absolutely no human organization made any statement about Wikileaks. "Amnesty International spokeswoman Susanna Flood confirms there was no authorized statement on WikiLeaks."
Just because some guy from an human-rights association said something about the matter, it's not the same as saying that a Human-Right organization said something about the matter. Because if you mix the two things, you would also say that the USA governments wants Wikileaks founder "Hunted Down And Grabbed And Put On Trial' " just because some idiot Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush Karl Rove said so on air in FoX News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp8a8EWiWls
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.
I don't think the leaked Afghanistan war documents are a 'little egg'. It's clear proof that the war is lost and there is no hope for winning. ...
Bullshit. The Wikileaks documents a lot of out-of-context reports, mostly from low-level soldiers and unit commanders. Essentially, it's an internal bug-tracking database for the war.
Look at any internal bug-tracking database for any reasonably-sized project and you'll immediately conclude that the project is a horrible steaming pile of crap that everyone hates. That does not necessarily mean that the project actually is worthless. Imagine what the MS Windows (or OS X, or whatever) internal bug database must be like. Millions of known, incompatibilities, crash reports, and unsubstantiated error reports. And yet MS and Apple make shit-tons of money from them, and millions of people use them every ay.
Of course there are major problems with the war. It's a fucking war.
"by redacting all of the names"
Which they actually did.
Remember, a vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a vote for the status quo, no matter what BS they vomit during the campaign.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Democrats==Republicans for the most part. They only try to distinguish themselves by adhering to one side or the other of a limited number of hot-button issue.
I think what we need is a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary secession of the states. The system is beyond fixable, and it would be nice to be able to start over locally.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Assange told in an interview that informants' names were tagged with special code. So they just removed all of them, only 3 names have slipped. Undoubtedly, some more names can be deduced from indirect data.
However, there's nowhere close to hundreds of informants's names leaked that Pentagon wants us to believe.
If nothing else, it shows how little power the president REALLY has. No matter who you put in office, if they want to get anything done, they have to play the exact same games with the exact same players as the previous one.
Everyone should read War is a Racket, written by Marine Major General Smedley Butler in the early 1930s:
--
make install -not war
If they're on every page, then it would be easy for you to provide the filename and page number for the very first mention of a civilian informant? I mean, it would be trivial: "Page 1 of the document named 'secret military stuff.txt' identifies an American sympathizer in Afghanistan, and puts his/her life in danger".
Surely you, the honorable Anonymous Coward, wouldn't exaggerate for effect?
Like I heavily implied, that reasoning is specious bullshit. It's been weeks now. Our enemies in Afghanistan have already sucked all the useful information out of those documents; there's no operative reason not to cast more substantial criticism against Wikileaks now. We should see people saying "In this document on this page, you guys didn't redact someone's father's name and now he's in danger". Instead, all we're getting is vague statements that Julian Assange "has blood on his hands" and that "hundreds" of civilians were put in danger.
Do your goddamn jobs, reporters! Don't just parrot the government's line that "civilians have been killed"; find out which ones, find the document excerpts that killed them, and nail Mr. Assange with it. If he's responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, he deserves to have their names and the pages he revealed that killed them beaten into his skull by every radio station and every newscaster. Don't be shy; if he's been the cause of a significant number of civilian casualties, you'd be totally in the right by executing the man in the court of public opinion, and you'd have the support of almost every mainstream government and non-government organization.
Of course, this takes more effort than just uncritically repeating what your next anonymous source at the Pentagon said, so I'll probably have to wait for the Daily Show to talk about it.