DoD Study Contradicts Charges Against WikiLeaks

Voline writes "Last Summer, after WikiLeaks released 90,000 leaked internal US military documents in their Afghan War Log, Pentagon officials went on a media offensive against WikiLeaks, accusing it of having the 'blood on Its hands' of American soldiers and Afghan collaborators who are named in the documents. The charge has echoed through the mainstream media (and Internet comment threads) ever since. Now, CNN is reporting that after a thorough Pentagon review, 'WikiLeaks did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded.' And, according to an unnamed NATO official, 'there has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks. Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?"

Comments

It doesn't sell.

[AnonymousClown]

Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?"

No.

Rational discourse doesn't sell.

Re:It doesn't sell.

[PopeRatzo]

My opinion is someone who isn't a giant ass and can credibly claim transparency should be running Wikileaks.

"Someone like that" should be running every organization. One must be careful not to dismiss the truth because it's delivered by an "ass".

Re:It doesn't sell.

[Marcika]

Also, the actual number of dead civilians is 100k I believe, not half a million. Note also that this number includes all civilians who died as a consequence of the war regardless of who directly killed them. All these 100k civilians were not shot/bombed by US troops, they may have been killed by Talibans. I'm not sure if this number includes people who died as an indirect consequence of the war, for example people who died of illness/hunger because the war may have made medication/food unavailable. If not, then the total number of civilian war casualties is higher and may in fact reach half a million.

The Wiki has a good summary: There are 100k direct violent deaths from the war that were reported in the press; the indirect deaths (from hunger/illness/war-induced anarchy) are 150k, 600k or 1,000k depending on the survey.

And it is entirely fair to pin the deaths on the US government. You are begging the question - you assume that the invasion had to take place at all. (And even apart from that, Cheney and the Pentagon promised it would be a cakewalk and that the 'liberated' Iraqis would greet them with flowers...)

NO

[amiga3D]

It'll barely get mentioned. Every smear against wikileaks gets maximum exposure but retractions are barely heard.

Re:Hilarious

[PietjeJantje]

Let's not be shy.. Like half of the commenters here: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/14/2220209/Wikileaks-Donations-Account-Shut-Down

If you are in there accusing wikileaks of killing people, you have now been officially documented as an idiot and an easy target of propaganda.

Re:Hilarious

[Idiomatick]

People complain about Obama not doing enough good or just maintaining the status quo.

People complained about Bush AGGRESSIVELY taking away rights and degrading our situation at a scary rate.

It is best illustrated by the wars. People whine that Obama isn't leaving fast enough or that he is continuing in Afghanistan for some time. Whereas people complained about Bush because he started two wars without real provocation.

There is a pretty damn big difference. Try to keep that in mind.

I'll line up

[pavon]

I'll be the first to admit that I was misinformed about the actual damage caused by wikileaks' first batch of leaked Afghanistan documents, and now that I know the truth it does change my opinion somewhat.

I was initially supportive of wikileaks, as I am of responsible whistle blower groups in general. When the government and Fox news attacked wikileaks, it didn't phase me a bit - that was expected, and provided zero credible information. However, when Amnesty International and others rights groups came out and criticized wikileaks for not doing a good job protecting Afghan informants, that caught my attention. Those are groups that I trust to put the well being of the Afghans above politics, and I assumed that they had done their homework. That was followed by other wikileaks members publicly distancing themselves from Assange because they felt he was not doing enough to redact the documents before publishing them.

Even if I wasn't working or going to school I wouldn't have had time to personally review 700,000 pages of documents for myself. We are all dependent on others to provide information to us, and have to be careful who we trust. Given these independent sources it seemed reasonable to me to conclude that Assange wasn't being responsible in disclosing the documents the way he did. Now that report has been leaked, however, I am more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt that he will do the right thing with the next batch of documents.

But go ahead and assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a "patriotic tool" who only gets their news from FOX. Calling people names is a great way to change people's mind and strengthen support for your cause.

Re:If it were Pakistan...

[copponex]

First of all, I love your handle. You're like a jar of peanut butter labeled "A Jar of Peanut Butter."

Second, you fail at understanding the first goal of geopolitics: maintain order. No one is afraid of Pakistan or North Korea getting a nuke to the United States. That's as likely as you running across a clue and knowing what to do with it. What they are afraid of is destabilizing nations that have nuclear weapons. If you greenlighted India to run over Pakistan, what's the likelihood of a hardline Muslim in the Pakistani army getting a couple of nukes across the border? What are the chances that could make it's way to Chechnya? What's the likelihood that China would make a deal with OPEC to buy all of their oil, if OPEC decided to stop selling to any Western allied nation? Would Russia side with China? Would China rush more troops to the border and accidentally provoke India into war? That's a dangerous game no one wants to play. Well, except for people like you; maybe Sarah Palin, or some other vapid soccer moms who dabble in politics.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interest, will cost well over two stimulous packages that don't seem to be doing much of what was claimed when they were passes. The economy will not be ruined as war spending doesn't destroy the economy when they don't seem to be using it to stop other spending.

You'll have to translate that into a coherent statement if you expect me to respond.

The only countries we threatened with invasion in the last 40 years have been invaded (with the exception of Libya that was simply bombed into submission) so it's not like we A: threaten them often, or B: have any success in threatening them seeing how we had to go to war each time it's happened.

US CIA and military interventions and deployments since 1970
1970: Vietnam, Cambodia
1973: Afghanistan, Iraq
1976: Argentina
1978: Afghanistan
1980: Iran, El Salvador, Cambodia, Angola, Iraq
1981: Nicaragua
1983: Grenada, Honduras
1986: Phillippines, Libya
1988: Panama
1989: Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Philippines
1990: Iraq
1992: Somalia
1993: Guatemala, Bosnia-Herzegovina
1994: Haiti
1998: Afghanistan, Sudan
1999: Serbia
2001: Afghanistan
2002: Philippines
2003: Iraq, Georgia, Djibouti
2004: Pakistan

I don't have time to go through all of the threats made during that period, but you can look through White House briefings to find most of them. If you don't consider military action as a successful threat, I'm not quite sure how to explain to you what the word "terrorism" means.

And you are severely stupid if you think the US should give up it's sovereignty to the UN and have foreign nations create US law concerning our national interest.

And if you think that all other nations should give up their sovereignty and have the United States determine their national interests, what does that make you?