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My HUGE problem with Wikileaks

This Julian Assange guy has said that if anything happens to him, even more damning documents will be released. That's blackmail!
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Oh I see. So clearly, prior to the leak, you thought things were going great, and you fully supported the operation. These documents really opened your eyes.

Unless the censored word is "teriffic."
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What I think/thought is irrelevant.

Cain said:
This Julian Assange guy has said that if anything happens to him, even more damning documents will be released. That's blackmail!
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What's wrong with self-defense?
 
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.
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This, to be quite honest. That some of the documents show larger-than-reported civilian casualties is sprinkles on the cupcake. When Wikileaks received this cache of classified documents, they honestly didn't care what was in them; by Assange's own admission, they hadn't even looked at more than five percent of them by the time they were released. They posted the whole kit-and-kaboodle online for download in the hopes that the public would do the footwork for them and find something juicy - blatant abuse, perhaps something along the lines of My Lai - which Wikileaks would of course get heroic credit for "exposing". They assumed said juiciness exists somewhere in the 90 thousand documents because 1) they're classified and 2) it's the US military, who are evil.

The problem is, nobody is finding anything really all that smoking-gun in the documents. There's no "there" there.

Well, scratch that - there is somebody who's finding something in them: the Taliban, finding the names of its next victims.
 
Checkmite said:
This, to be quite honest. That some of the documents show larger-than-reported civilian casualties is sprinkles on the cupcake. When Wikileaks received this cache of classified documents, they honestly didn't care what was in them; by Assange's own admission, they hadn't even looked at more than five percent of them by the time they were released. They posted the whole kit-and-kaboodle online for download in the hopes that the public would do the footwork for them and find something juicy - blatant abuse, perhaps something along the lines of My Lai - which Wikileaks would of course get heroic credit for "exposing". They assumed said juiciness exists somewhere in the 90 thousand documents because 1) they're classified and 2) it's the US military, who are evil.

The problem is, nobody is finding anything really all that smoking-gun in the documents. There's no "there" there.

Well, scratch that - there is somebody who's finding something in them: the Taliban, finding the names of its next victims.
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Name one.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Oh I see. So clearly, prior to the leak, you thought things were going great, and you fully supported the operation. These documents really opened your eyes.

Unless the censored word is "teriffic."
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From the Toronto Star, Haroon Siddiqui:


"The buckets-full of leaked documents on the war in Afghanistan have elicited three responses, all misguided.

The first is that the classified papers tell us nothing we did not already know, namely that the NATO mission has long been a mess. This assertion devalues their real value — giving the war an official stamp of failure, which can no longer be dismissed as merely the opinion of naysayers or the weak-kneed.

The second is that the papers are old, covering a period ending in December 2009. The Obama administration has emphasized this, to imply that things have improved since. In fact, they are much worse, as we shall see.

The third is to overplay Pakistan’s con game: taking arms and money from the U.S. to take on the Taliban but, in fact, nurturing them as its proxy....

The most pertinent point for Canadians is that the situation in Afghanistan today is far grimmer than painted in the leaked papers."
 
BenBurch said:
Actually, this is exactly what the Justice Department needed. He crossed the line there. This will let them roll up the whole enterprise.
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How is it blackmail?

Are the US free to harm whomsoever they wish?
 
JihadJane said:
How is it blackmail?

Are the US free to harm whomsoever they wish?
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You tell the court that harm can mean apprehension, trial, conviction and imprisonment, and that this was blackmail to prevent that, and a terroristic threat besides.

You then ask for him to be held without bail, and incommunicado except with counsel.

In other words you treat him like the espionage agent he now is.
 
Cain said:
This Julian Assange guy has said that if anything happens to him, even more damning documents will be released. That's blackmail!
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I should clarify. He said that in the event he dies -- say, "falls" out the window of a tall building -- he's releasing the documents. At least that's the context I recall.
 
Normally I would be opposed to the release of classified information -- but sometimes the government misuses secrecy not to protect itself from legitimate threats, but to protect themselves from the public, and from embarrassment. This would be an example.


Cain,

This Julian Assange guy has said that if anything happens to him, even more damning documents will be released. That's blackmail!
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Never, ever blackmail the government. Doing so will likely get you killed. You don't threaten, you just do it, and let them deal with what comes out of the leaked documents.


INRM
Hope I don't disappear under mysterious circumstances, get a heart-attack, stroke, contract some incurable disease or cancer, or get some mysterious poisoning, end up "committing suicide", or end up arrested on bogus manufactured charges.
 
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Unfortunately, Afghanistan will not produce a humane, educated and "civilized" (by our definition) government without GENERATIONS of education and socialization within its populace. Therefore, most of our meddling in the region is in vain.

However, this leak did not give the public any general knowledge that has not been discussed before in the press and elsewhere. It DID paint targets on the backs of some people who probably did not deserve such treatment.

Basically, it was a pointless publicity stunt that should have never been considered. The blame, of course should go to those that got the information through the proper channels and leaked it. We all know the press has no morals... we don't expect them to have any in its modern paradigm. Whatever entertains, inflames, or excites us is just what the editor ordered. We do, however expect those with security clearances to posess and exhibit proper discretion.
 
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Manopolus said:
However, this leak did not give the public any general knowledge that has not been discussed before in the press and elsewhere.
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It provides solid, undeniable documentation and reveals things that have not appeared in the press.

It DID paint targets on the backs of some people who probably did not deserve such treatment.
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Do you genuinely think that that is the only thing worth commenting on in the documents or are you just aping the latest, politically correct spin?
 
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