I would be very interested in reading citations that indicate that Wikileaks has done a great deed for the country.

If a government employee obtains information that they truly believe reveals illegal activities, there are myriad cleared channels that the employee can bring this up to. If they do not feel comfortable working within their own agency, they can contact the cleared IG if another agency.


If they believe that there is absolutely no agency in the United States that can help with this (which would be an impossibility), then the employer can contact the Senate or House IG that is cleared....

If they believe that the entire congress can't be trusted, then there is the Judicial system, which has cleared people to rule on this.

The point I am making is that there already exists multiple levels of oversight that a concerned employee can go to handle these issues correctly without blowing it to the press.

The fact that these people leak to the press/internet indicates that

1. They are unaware of these other appropriate venues.

2. They don't care about handling it appropriately

So the conditions, as I understand it distill down to either ignorance or arrogance. Neither of which bodes well for the IC.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...708850,00.html

I personally hate to lose. But since years I am preaching that this conflict already has been lost since 2002, 2003. America messed it up beyond repair when it shifted forces away from Afghanistan, and into Iraq. It should have stayed focussed - in strength - on Afghanistan. and even if that would have happened, I would have given the possibility of success a chance of 50:50 - at best, and under most optimal conditions.

It was a mission difficult in the opening years. After 2003, it had become a mission impossible. Time to stop wasting resources in a cause already lost since many years. the altwermnative would be tom open unlimited war against Pakistan, and against Iran. We all know what the chances for this decision are: they are almost nil.

Told ya:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100728...Vwb3J0d2lraWxl

Most of which, if they even bother to annoy another agency because one person complained to them, will let said agency know who blabbed. Which will be de facto curtains for that person. And with so many governmental bodies colluding in this case, what is a safe body to complain to...

The link doesn't work. In any case, I'm not that shocked, as I said, with 92,000 documents statistically it had to be there somewhere.

Looks like they may have tracked down the traitor.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=C2

If he did it, I hope the entire weight of the UCMJ comes crashing down on his head.

EDIT: Right along with a reduction of rank to Private Basic, Confinement at Fort Levenworth for the next decade, followed by a dishonorable discharge. May he never hold a job in the US ever again with that kind of DDForm 214.

Not to mention the felony conviction that will follow him for jobs. :yep:

If guilty, he deserves nothing less. If he is guilty, he is a man without honour and our society is justified in shunning him from any position requiring honour or ethics.

And, of course, there will be the civil suites against him, to make sure he will really regret betraying his oath. :yep:

Oh yeah, i forgot about that. As a member of the military you fall under civil law, AND the UCMJ. Who ever said military members aren't held to a higher standard? :haha:

But, but, but... those self appointed protectors of truth have assured us that any identifying information had been removed!

Yet:

I suppose they made an honest attempt, but perfection is impossible.

Let's put it in perspective. As I understand it, out of 92000 documents, only 76000 of them are actually put out because the others actually do contain something sensitive in Wikileak's judgment.

So, suppose that as the score finally ends, we'll find that Wikileaks has a 1% error rate. So, 760 documents that shouldn't be released were, and 160 documents were denied to us even though they are OK.

So that's 920/92000 documents they screwed up on. Compare that to the government screwing up on the disposition of 75400/92000 documents.

Do remember that in our society of democracy (using that term broadly so don't try and tell me the US is a republic) and freedom of speech, only things that have legitimate reasons to be classified should be. The amount of classified material should be restricted to an absolute minimum. From that viewpoint, every time the government classifies something that does not endanger security, it is a screwup on their part.

Looking it in perspective, you will find it much more forgivable.

The latest news in those documents is more than 7 months old. Missions, operations of the past 7 months cannot be effected.

Also, the wH and others has well have soon started tocampaign against this leak by playing it down (while at the same time yelling about it), putting information into doubt, saying rightout that there is much wrong stuff, and that it nevertheless can do this damage and hurt that intention. When Pentagon officials now say that persons have been put into risk, then I do not automatically believe it (it is those saying so who keep the real face of teh war a secret since 7 years, mind you). It may be like that, or may be not. But the accusartions comes from sources who have an interest in damaging wikileaks, and who have a prominent reputation in putting up endless lies themselves.

So - at least that puts it a bit into relation.

Letting the war run on in cover and hiding, and allowing politicians to continue basing on self-deceptions as well as producing lies to the public, still is the much much greater risk, putting much more lives into question. I cannot help myself, but I simply am strictly againt making financial and material and human investements into a military cause that since many years is hopelessly lost and beyond acchievability. I did not compare afghaniostan ti Vietnam too often in the past, in the first ears there were differences, but now, in what I see as the endgame, the parrallels are striking - in Vietnam, after the US realised that they could not win and could not acchieve even a minimum of wanted own goals, it took them another couple of years befoe they finally stopped fighting and retreated. In those years, many more lives got lost as a direct result of the American presence in a war already lost - American soldiers', civilians', Vietnamese combatants' lives. One had messed up long before, and for too long a time, and one had made decisive, unforgivable mistakes already at the very beginning from which the later "gameplay" was impossible to recover.

In these regards, Afghanistan is not different to Vietnam these days.

Aha.

I don't find it at all forgivable. You mention Wikileaks "judgment", well that doesn't impress me one bit. Who made these determinations? What is their experience in reading and deciphering these reports? What criteria did they use?

All we have is somebodies word that these classified documents were even reviewed at all. If they're have the usual civilians attention to detail then the release of these reports is definitely going to get people killed.

Since we've gone to comparing their ability to decipher between sensitive and non-sensitive, a false positive is a screwup as much as a false negative. By that measure, the signs say the US military is only over 70,000 points behind...

As for whether they are reviewed at all, I'll put coins on the side They Did, if only for their own self interest. They know the vectors their critics will use to attack them...

This isn't a game Kaz. Do you think who is ahead on points is going to make difference to the family of that man and his father if the Taliban comes knocking on their door?



If they did actually review them they did a piss poor job and people are going to die because of it. When that happens those of you who take Wikileaks side in this are going to have blood on your hands too.

Blood will be shed anyway, with or without Wikileaks. the querstion bbeign asked at the end is what your intentions have been when accepting that bloodshed, and whatammounts of blood have been shed. the one people say this war has no cause anymore that is worth it, and it cannot be won, so even minor bloodshed is unacceptable, especially for one'S own troops. the other prfeer to reject reality, living by an illusion that if only enough decades get invested the war will be "won", and by that they help to create a mutliple times bigger bloodshed from now on.

The match is lost. It is FUBAR. Since years. Let's come to our senses and accept realities, instead of behaving like arses and willing even more bloodshed from our hands for no other motive than to delay the revelation of our failure. Our presence there is no remedy to their problems. Our presence there is part of the problem, and we have lost control many years ago, becasue we gave it out of hand, carelessly, mindlessly, foolishly. And it is like this since many years.

If the leaked material has any message, any value, than this.

I again remind of the fact that wikileaks did not feel competent to sighten the materiual and evaluate it all by themselves. The major part of the work was done over several weeks by teams by the NYT, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel. Wikileaks simply does not have the ressources to handle something of this size all by themselves, their ressources and their staff is relatively limited. The main work in this was done by the newspaper teams. and one woudl assume that these papers did not send their amateurs. The list of names for Der Spiegel's evaluation work for example includes two of their chief editors and outspoken experts on ME affairs.

claims by the government how much damage has been done, and how much harm people have received, or such claims by the Pentagon, I would take with extreme care, since they are running a campaign in dfeence of their own interests. Third sources of independent nature need to confirm such claims before I am willing to take them serious. Until then, any such complaints and horror stories likely are just propaganda lies aiming at destroying wikileaks reputation. And so far the american military said, as quoted above, that they saw no need to change their strategies or operations due to the material leaked. If that is so, it cannot be all too harmful in revelaing sensible information.

Apparently such assumptions are not borne out by results. Already sensitive information has been discovered in the released documents, so if those were the news organizations best people then that doesn't say much about their competence.

Now some folks might say that these oversights are acceptable but I would bet it's not their families who are put at risk.

Letting the war run on like in past years - in hiding and over illusive goals - puts even more families at risk, also causes more civilian deaths and thus directly raising hostility by the Afghan people. Their loyalty already is minor only, and aids given to Afghanistan to wide degree get used by local warloards to battle each other for their own power.

Losses in war are no just matter, but mathematics. that's not fair, that is not moral, but fairness and morals have nothign to do with it. Either you have low losses, or high ones. and if you accept high losses, then the issue really should be worth it. I think the sisue is not worth it, and thus we shoudl try to minimise losses now until we have gotten out there. And we should get there soon, since there is nothing we can improve anymore. We make things worse by being there.

Let's turn this into a porper coutner-terrorism operation: infiltrating the ISI and the Afghan and the Talebans, targetting Pakistani key personal and Iranian key personal. Counter terror operations is no big war business with flags and fanfares and the cavalry charging. It is good "police" work, investigation work, infiltration, intel gathering, special operations, counter espionage.

And since years I say that one needs to start fighting against the Pakistani, their intel service as well as the taliban sympthising part of their majors, colonels and generals. Get rid of that breed, and keep the size of the follow-up breed as small as possible.

and stop paying billions and billions to the Pakistani for their "assistance" in the war on terror. One could as well pay the Taliban directly, or launch terror bombs in Kashmir against the Indians oneself. with "friends" like the Pakistani you do not need "enemies" anymore.

Lets get outta there. It's just tapping around blindly inside the afghan maze. It leads nowhere.

If the documents are "old" or not, is irrelevant. What is relevant, is that PFC acted on his own, abused his position, abused his security clearance, and distributed classified documents without authorization. His actions were belligerent, go against the oath he took, and put Operational Security at risk. That's what's relevant, and hopefully he will answer for it to the fullest extent allowed by the UCMJ and civil law.

In in my opinion he's also guilty of a gross and dishonorable dereliction of duty. He may as well have walked over to any number of our enemies and personally handed them the documents himself.

The lives of all people, soldiers and civilians that get needlessly killed while continuing a war in hiding and over a casue that is alreaedy lost, weighs much heavier.

If operational security is breached, then I wonder why the US commander in West Afghanistan has said that they hve not changed strategies or procedures due to the breach. Maybe becasue info that is 6 months to 6 years old, is not that sensitive anymore at all? However, that all is not the point. The point is that this leak increases pressure to withdraw - and it does so by fueling critical questions being asked, revealing that the war runs much worse than what we are made to believe, and strengthening resistence to continuing the war. This war must end, because it only produces costs, but no gains, and cannot be "won" anymore. All loss in life, and all destruction - is in vein. Compared to that goal of trying to reduce these wasted, needless losses of the imminent future by getting out of Afghanistan, your complains are just bureaucratic formalities. yes, the guy leaking it, acted against rules and laws. Compared to the crime of the government to will the needless loss of money, time, life, health and material - just to hide that the war has been messed up -, his crime is so small that it means almost nothing. the much bigger treachery has been committed by the government(s), and that means not only the Us government but the german and British as well. german illusions are different than American illusions, but illusions is it what both governments are driven by.

Everything that makes western nations finally getting out there earlier than later, is acceptable to me. It is not acceptable in principle, and I would not will it in any given case - but in this situation of most urgent emergency and speciality and un-normality, un-normal irregular ways seem to be the only thing that could get governments moving their treacherous a#####. Becasue they are out of control by legal means. The mission is a disaster, and this disaster has to be stopped immediately, better yesterday, better six years ago. We are 6 years over time already. Thousands of troops and civilians payed with their lives in these six years - for nothing. We won no friends, we just increased the number of our enemies and turned once neutral civilians into hostiles. By dpoing so, we have formed a wonderful harbour for the Taliban to land in and to establish themnselves again once we are gone there. and do not deceive yourself - you will not defeat the Taliban there. Not as long as you have not blown Pakistan to the dark side of the moon first. For them, Afgjanistan is part of their war against India, it means what military planners and analysts call "strategic depth" to their setup. And they will not give it up.

Because if he were to change strategies, or say he will change the strategies, it would clue-in the people reading the documents which ones were accurate and which were not. What the military/government is engaged in now is called "spill control", which means above all else, don't make the information spill worse by confirming or refuting any of the claims made by people unauthorized to handle the material.

Please keep in mind that what a general says to the public and what the general really thinks and does may be very different. This is a case where the professionals need to handle this situation.