Defence departments love it: 92,000 documents on Afghanistan operations leaked

[AVGWarhawk]

Anyone verify the material in the "leak"? I'm sure the WH looked it all over before making a statement. Just like the Sherrod debacle.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Anyone verify the material in the "leak"? I'm sure the WH looked it all over before making a statement. Just like the Sherrod debacle.

Three independant international major newspapers from three countries were given the material in advance, I think I have read: weeks in advance, for proper inspection.

If you have solid information that puts the original nature of the material into doubt, I'm sure they would love to know.
The release of these infos is a coordinated effort by not only wikileaks, but these papers as well.

Think of it as wikileak outsourcing verification procedures.

I also read that the US government has a foamy mouth. Nice! Where there is foam, there is pain and anger. It's clear that this hits them quite hard. Can't say i shed a tear for Obama here. He followed Bush and his follies on his feet and continued a stupid policy that is very much disconnected from the facts of reality.

[August]

Well I hope they catch the guy who leaked this stuff. I take a dim view of the unauthorized dissemination of classified information. Somebody needs to go to jail for a long time.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Well I hope they catch the guy who leaked this stuff. I take a dim view of the unauthorized dissemination of classified information. Somebody needs to go to jail for a long time.

the governments betraying their own people weighs much heavier. the leaking of this material I consider to be some kind of an ultima ratio in self-defence - becasue there is zero idnication that our governments are stopping to betray us: you, me, all others, and last but not least: the troops in the field, no matter the nationality.

As I see it, if ranking the enemies by importance and priorities, the greatest enemy of the troops fighting is their own governments, next it is the Pakistani and the ISI (preaching this since years, don't I), and then, maybe, finally, it is the Taliban.

Compared to this, the leaking of these documents is a minor crime. And why should our governments ever change their approach and their deception of the public, if the public can be successfully deceived by hiding such reports from it?

As somebody above put it: if this makes the governments more afraid of the people, then it is a good thing. I personally am sick and tieed of listening to government'S infantile stupid claims about what they plan and can do in Afghnaistan. It is so very disconnected from realities, and own troops are being told to risk their lives for this governmental crime.

to me, the crime of leaking secret stuff is put into relation if that deeds helps to enforce more realism and honesty from politicians. A politician will lie if it helps his interest - but only if he sees that he gets away with it. that's why free media are so important in a democracy, and that's why gagging media or limiting the protection of their sources is a direct assault on the very basics of free, democratic political and social order.

If those in power are allowed to hide too much from the people, freedom dies.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

As somebody above put it: if this makes the governments more afraid of the people, then it is a good thing.

What if it identifies people who have been working for us to the Taliban and they are killed and/or tortured as a result? Would it still be a good thing then?

There are good reasons for assigning security classifications to information and i'm betting that somewhere in those 97 thousand documents there will be some information that will put some good people at risk. I don't trust the media one bit to choose what is safe to disseminate and what isn't.

What if it identifies people who have been working for us to the Taliban and they are killed and/or tortured as a result? Would it still be a good thing then?

Once they pull out then its gonna happen anyway isn't it.

I don't trust the media one bit to choose what is safe to disseminate and what isn't.

But do you trust the government to?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by August

What if it identifies people who have been working for us to the Taliban and they are killed and/or tortured as a result? Would it still be a good thing then?

There are good reasons for assigning security classifications to information and i'm betting that somewhere in those 97 thousand documents there will be some information that will put some good people at risk. I don't trust the media one bit to choose what is safe to disseminate and what isn't.

Letting the military choose means none of it ever will. Sometimes, the security provision does serve a useful purpose (with almost 92000 documents to choose from statistically some may well have critical information), but governments have developed too many bad habits in using it to deny information, thus shafting it of its original purpose.

[mookiemookie]

If this release helps end this stupid war, then it will have saved more lives than any amount of guns or bombs ever would have.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

What if it identifies people who have been working for us to the Taliban and they are killed and/or tortured as a result? Would it still be a good thing then?

There are good reasons for assigning security classifications to information and i'm betting that somewhere in those 97 thousand documents there will be some information that will put some good people at risk. I don't trust the media one bit to choose what is safe to disseminate and what isn't.

Obviously many documents in there show that many non-combatants get killed while we debate this, and that this is kept secret, and that many operations by special operations teams fail too, again resulting in the killing of not the intended targets, but "others". Also the many reports from men fighting at the front seem to show that the situation is much, much worse than what the media and the govenrment try to make the people at home believe. I noted over the day that in the American media headlines, the aspect of the ISI massively supporting and directing the Taliban, and the existence of commandoes for tagetted assassination of hostile key figures, seem to get most attention - as if the reports are not showing anything else. But they cover as well the inadequzate equipment of the German bundeswehr and the deficits it suffers therefore. Der Spiegel also points at reports showing how very many of the remote control drones are malfunction and go lost in crashes, or troops trying to retrieve them get ambushed. There are so many very different aspects that get adressed, that each nation currently seem to focus its' media attention on only a small ammount of the overall ammount of information released here.

Also, it is was mentioned by the chief editors of the newspapers and Wikileaks as well, that critical information that could effect running operations or put lives at risk, get withhold from public release, or get blacked out.

Much more things go wrong in Afghanistan then what the media usually gets told and then reports, or what governments try to make us believe. And this material seems to be a huge truckload of first-hand information from those who know the situation better than most others: the men fighting this messy war at the frontline, on the basis of political lies, illusions and deceitful claims of their own government on why they get send there.

Note that I do not make much difference between Germans and Americans and British and Dutch and others here. All our governments have lost their senses over Afghanistan. and no matter their flags, all our soldiers over there need to spoon out the soup politicians at home have messed up.

[Skybird]

Acting on these new convictions, in the summer of 1971 Ellsberg leaked copies of the McNamara study to the New York Times and other prominent newspapers. Almost overnight the "Pentagon Papers," as the study was quickly dubbed, became a lead story in the media, and Ellsberg became a controversial national figure. As he later explained his motivations:

"I felt as an American citizen, a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American people. I took this action on my own initiative, and I am prepared for all the consequences."

Those consequences included federal indictment on several counts under the Espionage Act for the possession and unauthorized release of classified documents.
The Pentagon Papers catapulted Ellsberg into a position of national prominence. For the antiwar movement, his conversion from ardent "hawk" to committed "dove" proved a powerful symbol. Ellsberg, for his part, warmly embraced the movement along with a series of other liberal causes. In 1972 he published a book, Papers on the War, that set forth his position on the Vietnam conflict. The following year the charges against him were dropped as a result of government misconduct. In the wake of the Pentagon Papers furor, the Nixon administration had launched its secret "plumbers" operation, so named because this team of trusted presidential aides was directed to stem any further "leaks" that might embarrass the government, as the Pentagon Papers had. Nixon aides burglarized the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in an effort to find information that would destroy his credibility, and employed similar criminal tactics in an attempt to tap the phones at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in the summer of 1972. The ramifications from this last act forced Nixon to resign 1974.

from:
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/daniel-ellsberg/

the same guy fears that the Us is planning a hit on the Wikileaks founder, since it is no secret that the government would love to shut down Wikileaks better yesterday than today, and that it is "exmained" how that could be acchieved. so far they preferred to focus on "legal actions", or hindering Wikileaks' access to thr world wide web. After this stunt now, one indeed cannot rule out that Wikileaks is considered to be too great a threat to government and party interests as if even an accident or a hit could be ruled out.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Also, it is was mentioned by the chief editors of the newspapers and Wikileaks as well, that critical information that could effect running operations or put lives at risk, get withhold from public release, or get blacked out.

Yeah I read that too. My question is what makes a newspaper editor such an expert that he can make such determinations?

Also, what is their chain of custody like? Is it good enough to keep the withheld critical information out of the wrong hands? I'm betting it isn't.

[Wolfehunter]

Originally Posted by Skybird

the governments betraying their own people weighs much heavier. the leaking of this material I consider to be some kind of an ultima ratio in self-defence - becasue there is zero idnication that our governments are stopping to betray us: you, me, all others, and last but not least: the troops in the field, no matter the nationality.

As I see it, if ranking the enemies by importance and priorities, the greatest enemy of the troops fighting is their own governments, next it is the Pakistani and the ISI (preaching this since years, don't I), and then, maybe, finally, it is the Taliban.

Compared to this, the leaking of these documents is a minor crime. And why should our governments ever change their approach and their deception of the public, if the public can be successfully deceived by hiding such reports from it?

As somebody above put it: if this makes the governments more afraid of the people, then it is a good thing. I personally am sick and tieed of listening to government'S infantile stupid claims about what they plan and can do in Afghnaistan. It is so very disconnected from realities, and own troops are being told to risk their lives for this governmental crime.

to me, the crime of leaking secret stuff is put into relation if that deeds helps to enforce more realism and honesty from politicians. A politician will lie if it helps his interest - but only if he sees that he gets away with it. that's why free media are so important in a democracy, and that's why gagging media or limiting the protection of their sources is a direct assault on the very basics of free, democratic political and social order.

If those in power are allowed to hide too much from the people, freedom dies.

+1 I have to agree with sky. Your enemy is your government. There personal interest are for themselves and there friends. Unless your part of that system of there your worthless to them. Just trash.

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Wolfehunter

Unless your part of that system of there your worthless to them. Just trash.

Not entirely; someone has to keep the mills running.

[SteamWake]

The regime is not pleased...

The Obama administration on Monday called the release of thousands of classified documents on the Afghanistan war a "breach of federal law," as a prominent senator said the government needs to press charges in the case.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...ul-amid-probe/

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by August

Well I hope they catch the guy who leaked this stuff. I take a dim view of the unauthorized dissemination of classified information. Somebody needs to go to jail for a long time.

Agreed. This is most underhanded. The media is not the media of 50 years ago. Integrity has given way to the almighty dollar. The outlet that can spill the most dirt, spill it the quickest, and give the highest justification to its 'base' is the one with the fattest coffers. It is simply that pointing the finger at the government is very fashionable nowadays. A year ago, it was corporations. Before that, it was the military. Tomorrow, it will be something else.