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My HUGE problem with Wikileaks

casebro said:
I suppose a body count could be seen as a negative, but what about the revelation that the Paks are aiding the Taliban? Seems to me that a bit of whacking of each other in that scenario might be to our advantage.
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Breaking news: the Pakistanis invented the Taliban.
 
BenBurch said:
All actions have to be viewed in light of what they are, not in light of what they might have been.
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If wikileaks were around in the 1970s and released the Pentagon Papers would that be OK with you?
 
Arisia said:
No, that's why I said 'I doubt they went through every page...' and not 'I know they didn't go through every page...' Considering that I've heard commentators on NPR mention that the Taliban will start to mount more reprisals against cooperative Afghanis because of this leak, I'm assuming it's because they'll have a longer list of names of cooperating Afghanis, most likely because actual names are still discernible in the documents.
I really hope I'm wrong about it, and that the Wikileaks harm minimization process keeps the Taliban from threatening even more Afghan families than they already do. Apparently there are 15000 reports to be released when the security situation in Afghanistan permits, I can't tell if these are in addition to the 91000 or are the most sensitive of the 91000.
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Just stop and think about this.
Compared to the terror the Taliban inflicts upon the Afghan population day in and day out, do you really think these documents matter?
 
What these documents really tell us is the number of civilians killed by the “good guys” in routine operations.
 
drkitten said:
This seems to me to be a classic example of "blaming the messenger."
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No doubt the person who breeched security was MORE to blame.

But if your point is that neither the leaker nor the publisher is out there killing people, I think that is the wrong way to look at it.

If I know a person who is, say, in the federal witness protection program, and I find out who they are, and who they are hiding from, am I blameless if I proceed to tell the person who they are hiding from the current address of the witness?

I think not.

"Accessory before the fact."
 
MaGZ said:
What these documents really tell us is the number of civilians killed by the “good guys” in routine operations.
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So that's it? That's the entire value of releasing 90,000 documents????

Wikileaks could easily provide that analysis without releasing the documents themselves. Analyze them and write an article and say: "In our analysis of 90,000 documents, we found that NATO forces killed XX civilians."

Or are they just too lazy to actually do any real work?
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
So that's it? That's the entire value of releasing 90,000 documents????

Wikileaks could easily provide that analysis without releasing the documents themselves. Analyze them and write an article and say: "In our analysis of 90,000 documents, we found that NATO forces killed XX civilians."

Or are they just too lazy to actually do any real work?
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Actually, they don't care. That's the problem. They want to make a sensation, or make a point, or be the next Drudge Report, or the next scoop.

That is their aim.

Their actions show that they care not what wreckage they leave in their wake.

Reminds me of a count (drop the o) named Agee.

However, Wikileaks' source is the real pud knocker in this one.

Them's as are charged with maintaining proper security are obliged to do so. News writers and spies, and a variety of others, are for their own separate reasons are always trying to find more info. Play is continuous.

But hey, someone needs to make The System look flawed.

Well, it is. So be it.

As annoying as this all is, I still recall President Carter blowing OPSEC on the Stealth program in public, in what is largely understood as an error, not a planned leak.

Could be worse.
 
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Darth Rotor said:
Actually, they don't care. That's the problem. They want to make a sensation, or make a point, or be the next Drudge Report, or the next scoop.

That is their aim.

Their actions show that they care not what wreckage they leave in their wake.

Reminds me of a count (drop the o) named Agee.

However, Wikileaks' source is the real pud knocker in this one.
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So how does this compare to leaking the abu graib pictures become public and forcing the military to actually look like it cares about what happened? It also endangered people by inflaming opinion against America, it cause selective prosecution which is why we see presidents defending much the same actions documented in the same fashion that were not leaked.

And imagine how much more respect that the army would get if they had managed to keep the truth about Pat Tillmans death secret. They would have a great hero instead of a very public marker of their failures.

There certainly are things that need to be kept secret, but it is also used to keep the public in the dark and control public opinion.
 
ponderingturtle said:
So how does this compare to leaking the abu graib pictures become public and forcing the military to actually look like it cares about what happened? It also endangered people by inflaming opinion against America, it cause selective prosecution which is why we see presidents defending much the same actions documented in the same fashion that were not leaked.
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The prosecutions of the individuals involved in Abu Ghraib were already being carried out before the photos became public; in fact, that's how they became public.

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuseWP:

Revealed in the Taguba Report, an initial criminal investigation by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway, where soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse. In 2004, articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel appearing to abuse prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.

...

Media coverage
US media initially showed little interest when the US military first reported abuse. On January 16, 2004, United States Central Command informed the media that an official investigation had begun involving abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees by a group of US soldiers. On February 24, it was reported that 17 soldiers had been suspended. The military announced again, on March 21, 2004, that the first charges had been filed against six soldiers.[14][15]

60 Minutes II broadcast and aftermath

Lynndie England pointing to a naked prisoner being forced to masturbate in front of his captors[16]It was not until late April 2004 that U.S. television news-magazine 60 Minutes II broadcast a story on the abuse. The story included photographs supposedly depicting the abuse of prisoners.
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The Army was already prosecuting those involved and had informed the media of the prisoner abuse cases. The media just wasn't interested...at least not until there were lurid photos to go along with the story.
 
MikeMangum said:
The prosecutions of the individuals involved in Abu Ghraib were already being carried out before the photos became public; in fact, that's how they became public.
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No they got leaked. There was an investigation but no charges, and likely there never would be like all the other torture that will never be prosecuted.

The charges only came out after someone leaked the photos to the press, this caused an up roar and they knew they had to put someone in prison for it.

That is why Obama refused to release similar photos in violation of a campaign promise, if they got out the political uproar would mean someone needed to be punished. It is because a picture elicits a much stronger emotional response in people, rather than dry text.
 
Arisia said:
This may also end up causing a restriction of the amount of intelligence info our front line fighters have access to, which could cause unnecessary harm to them down the road.
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Pure speculation. I speculate that this could speed up withdrawal from Afghanistan therefore saving lives.

Who's right?
 
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