Baraka_Guru

Well, yeah, the whole thing is pissy all round. Ten years in and it seems the questions keep piling up with no clear answers, and now we find out that things are worse than we thought.

And as far as the question of the OP: This merely strengthens my stance on the support for the Canadian government to end military operations in Afghanistan in 2011. I think we've been at it long enough, and I'm not alone on that. It's time to wrap things up and do the best we can for the country before we leave.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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roachboy

cimmaron---my response is basically that i see opposition to the entire operation as plausibly ethical or political or even strategic--if your comrades are consistently in harms way and there seems no purpose to it and no prospect that it'll change and nothing leads you to think that there's much hope of things changing, then functionally it's ethical or political. or exposing an operation become absurd. and the legality of the action doesn't change anything about its absurdity.

that as a way to expand the terminology to include how i used it.

but in the end, it's just a metaphor.
in reality, my position is close to loquitor's. but i'm also really curious about the documents, so i've been reading them as time permits. but i've come to no particular interpretation or conclusion about what i've been reading. but then again, i've not had much time. maybe on the weekend.

as an aside, i stumbled across this "iconic imagery" blog, which has some interesting photography, particularly about afghanistan. to wit:

Mythic Visions in Afghanistan | NO CAPTION NEEDED

and this guardian just released this 15 minute clip from sean smith, someone about whom i know nothing but who is to be featured in tomorrow's edition, about life on the front near helmand:

Video: Endgame in Afghanistan: 'It's taken a year to move 20km' | World news | guardian.co.uk

i doubt this would've been released this way a week ago.
for better or worse.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cimarron29414

I recently watched a documentary on History or NatGeo regarding the special forces in Afghanistan. It was documenting how a platoon or so will become indigenous to a region and soft-knock their way through gathering intelligence and building repoire. It was a vastly different effort than the soldier/policeman directing traffic in Kabul. This documentary was very telling of both the varying techniques and undeniable difficulties in achieving stability in a tribal nation-state. To me, they seem a thousand years away from democracy of any kind.

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hiredgun

To respond to this specific point: I actually think these two claims are internally consistent (or can be).

On the one hand, the claim is that the new information does not reveal any broad new trend that was not already known. (Examples: 'Pakistan is an unreliable ally.' 'Civilian deaths are high.' 'The intensity of combat is mounting.' 'The Afghan government is a weak and corrupt partner.' These were already well-established in the war narrative prior to the leaks.)

But it is possible to believe this and also believe that the public release of nearly a hundred thousand primary source military documents reveals a lot of valuable intelligence to adversaries (in a relatively compact, clean, and unified form). It's precisely those details that would not interest the general public that are of greatest interest to adversaries: what locations does this unit hit on its patrol? In what towns and villages do US forces have effective local allies, and who are they? Etc.

Not saying that I am fully in agreement with both of these points, but I do think they are more consistent than some detractors have claimed.

Slims

Roachboy:

The deliberate dessimination of classified information outside approved channels is a crime. Because he appears to have done it in order to hurt the war effort his actions are either seditious or treasonous.

With as many opposing viewpoints as exist in this world, individuals cannot take it upon themselves to 'release' anything they disagree with...We would not be able to maintain a functional system.

Also, the information is damaging for this reason if nothing else: The insurgents have a 'good' intelligence network but lack a lot of specifics. By releasing these documents we have provided detailed specifics on what attack types work best, where they are hurting us, where they are not, etc.

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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

roachboy

slims...i happen to be sitting around my livingroom at the moment. i mention that because there's a basic experiential split at play in the story of this leak--and it's duplicated in the way the thread is going (a little story but a story nonetheless)---in reverse order: the thread is mostly about the fact of the leak. almost all the statements concerning the documents leaked are general, press-release level. so everyone is hand-waving in terms of the actual content. speaking for myself, i'll only have the time i want to really start focusing on reading this material tomorrow, and even then i'm not so sure.

i have no idea if other folk are reading this material or not. my assumption is they aren't, and this not for any cynical reason, but just because folk have lives.

the only difference is that i've been quite clear about my relation to the actual information--where i've read i find it a disorienting experience and i've been relying inwardly on your earlier characterization of the logs to if anything destabilize the information. so i don't really feel like i have fragment of "the real picture"---i have fragments of a different picture.

there's multiple pictures in this information. the one you're keying on its the geographical grid--and i kinda understand what you're saying, but i also have reservations because---again--it's all very general what you're saying about the information. in the abstract you're point is taken. concretely, i have no idea at this point. nor i would wager does anyone reading this. at that level, at the geographical level, at the level of x type of operation in area 1 resulting in outcomes that are, say, poor to indifferent and that consistently over a long period---yeah, i can see that could pose problems. but it's also a very particular reading of that information you advance. for example, it presupposes that the taliban is reading and that it is transparent to them. i would think the chronological spread (2004-2009) and amount (92,000 file so far) get in the way of that being a dominant feature of the information, and that interpretation describing a major aspect of how this stuff is being used.

but it's complicated...."democracy" and secrets is a **really** complicated relationship.


that's one area. the other is politics.

clausewitz's famous line is correct: war is politics by other means (i paraphrase, and badly)...so of course--OF COURSE---war is political. and its naive to imagine a separation of the military from the political when the whole of the military is nothing--and i mean nothing---but an instrument for the forcible imposition of the political directives of the state. any military function you can name can be reduced to an expression of a political directive or policy or aim. i would think this obvious.

because the military is an extension of policy & its actions are expressions of policy, there is no meaningful distinction between military action and politics.

so the military IS involved politically. it is a major political actor, from war marketing to lobbying to patronage at the polling booths to decoration. all of it. and the military acts, in general, as a political institution in its own interests.

how the pentagon press office "shapes" information and infotainment (war marketing is infotainment; the press pool may get information. that's more or less the distinction i'm drawing.) is just one aspect.

so what the military does are eminently political questions. so they're open to critique as is any other political action.


i expect that for you things have to be different because your daily rounds of doing stuff is a technical and social and organization and the politics that underpin or undermine what you're doing are held as a distance. and it makes sense that things would be organized that way functionally. but the viewpoint i have, which comes from a different social position (my living room, for example) points to an alternative organization which is present for me in the way that your organization of experience is present for you----and the political conflicts around the afghanistan war can, i imagine, seem as distant for you as your everyday experience there in theater is distant from what i know about.

so far as the leaks themselves are concerned, like i said i have no problem with them because they undermine the political consent for the policy that informs the military presence in afghanistan. but i opposed the war. so its follows. the only way i can participate in this kind of discussion is to be up front.

but i can see what you're saying and believe it or not i respect it.
i don't agree with it, but there's no requirement of what, any more than there is a requirement that you accept my argument.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

They might change something, who knows what Obama is going to do about it but it looks like not much. I agree, the content of the documents are almost irrelevant. Its garden variety anti-war propaganda (which is fine, it is what it is and this is a democracy), and the contents are relevant to that extent and no further because any secrets that were revealed will be adjusted for in the field by the commanders on the ground. The sole purpose of the whole thing was as an expression of dissent towards the war and dissatisfaction with Obama for perpetuating and deepening what Bush started in A-stan. If you listen to what Hilary Clinton has been saying lately about the region, one might mistake her for a neo-con, or at least what the netroots labelled a neo-con a few years back. Every other word out of her mouth is "containing terrorism", "denying safe havens to terrorists", "keeping the taliban from obtaining nuclear weapons" etc etc etc. So this is the second american administration in a row that has taken the stance (along with nato) that the area is a potential powderkeg waiting to explode...its either got to be one or the other, true or false, real and present danger ... or no danger at all. Theres got to be a reason otherwise extraordinarily intelligent people are concerned about the region and it cant be blamed entirely on oil this time around.

roachboy

the situation in afghanistan seems to me in part a result of policy inertia--just as there was no clear reason to involve the military there and there's been no clear strategy to orient what's happened thus far, there's also no reason to pull out.

and in part a result of the political turd handed the united states by the bush administration. one enabling condition of the debacle that was the bush period was an orchestrated right shift in public discourse. obama as a campaigner seemed to me to be running against the iraq fiasco--but there was likely (i think) a concern that emphasizing that too much would alienate the center, which was in play thanks to the giant steaming turd that was the bush administration. so afghanistan was useful. it also allows for nothing to be done to dismantle the vast "security" public/private sector thats metastasized since 9/11/2001 and nothing to be done to roll back the prerogatives claimed by the bush people for the state (the fbi announced a plan to extend email surveillance without a warrant last week)

so much for all that conservo-nonsense about obama being a leftist.

speaking of that nonsense, it appears that the machinery of war marketing is struggling to get ahead of this story from wikileaks, but with the help of a complaint press is managing it. the red herrings abound:

WikiLeaks 'has blood on its hands' over Afghan war logs, claim US officials | World news | The Guardian

the investigation widens to include people nearby:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/wo...gewanted=print

and there's a few stories on the front page of the ny times like this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/wo...ef=global-home

all of which go to show you the outlines of a media strategy that's being implemented to manage the leak situation. divert attention onto the leak as Crime. restate the vague orientations that guide the afghanistan involvement to begin with. use anything bad that happens in afghanistan to emphasize how bad the leaks as as leak, as action. demonize wikileaks.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Slims

Well, congratulations back-seat quarterbacks.....by encouraging the sort of behavior we have seen from Wikileaks people are going to be killed:

"The Taliban is wired, and they’re pouring over the military intelligence published by WikiLeaks earlier this week.

"We are studying the report," Zabihullah Mujahid, a self-proclaimed spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, told British television station Channel 4.

"We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the U.S. If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them."

The Taliban is well-known for executing their enemies. These revenge killings typically take place in public, as a warning to would-be opposition."

Read more: Taliban in Afghanistan says they will target informants outed by WikiLeaks for working with U.S.


Wikileaks 'harm minimization' efforts are a massive fail. They don't understand enough about the units in the reports to adequately filter them. And while they removed the 'names' of the informants they did not pull the rest of the identifying information...which is often all it takes.

When a report details a meeting (which maybe 10 people attended) and then mentions the fathers name of the informant it pretty much narrows it down.

Also, people are identifable as much by fathers name-tribe-village as by personal names which they may change




It is not 'getting ahead of the story' when Zabiullah Mujaheed makes a press release about this topic...it's a disaster.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

roachboy

assange says the following about the editing process:


[[[edit: if this is true, what appears to have happened is that wikileaks told dod that the leak was going to happen and asked for help in vetting them. my speculation is that people inside dod figured: why help these people? this is illegal. or something like that. so they didn't help the vetting. which complicates the story, yes?

i have no outside information about the veracity of the story though....just putting together a scenario from available infotainment.]]]



and continues to talk about one of the motivations behind the leak...

most of the politically damaging information in these documents concerns "collateral damage" and the refusal of the american military in particular (the uk to a lesser extent) to investigate the instances or even, the story goes, to take them seriously.

so it hardly seems a good road to head down in response to the leak to say "o now a bunch of people are going to die" does it?

WikiLeaks 'has blood on its hands' over Afghan war logs, claim US officials | World news | The Guardian

the guardian concentrates on the uk incidents...

again, i don't have a particular axe to grind in this, apart from what i've already talked about.
but nothing seems to be as straightforward as one might prefer to imagine either in the documents that were leaked or in the infotainment jockeying that's ongoing, which amounts to a fight over who gets to frame the information.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Slims

Are you really suggesting that Wikileaks is somehow less responsible for the information they published regarding informants because they asked the US government to basically provide an accurate list of 'spies?'

If the US government provided Wikileaks with an accurate list of 'informants' they would be committing the biggest face palm in the history of espionage. How could anyone consider it a good risk to deliberately provide classified information to Wikileaks? If we did so I would fully expect Wikileaks to publish a 'confirmed list of informants' or some such nonesense....I doubt they could pass up that sort of opportunity to embarrass the government.

Also, by admitting they 'tried' to minimize the damage caused by releasing identifying information about informants Wikileaks is admitting they recognized that such information would lead to trouble....and chose to release it anyway. That is unacceptable.

We have a first amendment right to free speech, but IMHO it does not extend to deliberately seeking out and then publishing classified military documents during an ongoing war which betrays our sources and methods any more than it does to "yelling fire in a crowded theatre."

If they had conducted some sort of investigative journalism and received documents regarding a particular incident or scandal....then fine.

But when an organization coordinates for espionage to take place on a large scale and publishes documents with no journalistic purpose it goes too far.

Their ignorance (or lack of concern) of unit call signs, the intelligence community, and how the war is actually conducted has rendered their 'with holding' process mostly worthless. Sure, they may have with held some reports that would be obviously damaging, but they released thousands of others either through ignorance or deliberate intent.


Here is my short list of what this has (or will) lead too in my community:

1: The death of informants. By providing the information contained in the uncensored reports the Taliban will be able to find and kill many of the people mentioned either directly or indirectly.

2: Inability for intelligence professionals to find new informants now that no one trusts we can keep their freaking names off of the internet.

3: Better exploitation of our weaknesses by the Taliban now that they have hard data indicating which techniques work the best against us.

4: The Taliban will know which of their commanders are being targeted by higher-level entities...Those off the lists will know they can relax a little and those on will know to lay low. It also provides them with a measure of success...The people we want the most are those whom we judge to be the most effective.

5: The Taliban can read the IED reports and determine which IED's were able to cause hull-breach on our MRAP's and which just blew parts off the vehicles....And adjust acordingly. Likewise with the types of devices....for instance they can read about which devices slipped past the mine-rollers and scanners on route clearance patrols.

6: By reading the reports the Taliban can determine where we have been going 'quietly' for ambushes, etc. If we have been doing our jobs well then nobody will know we have been setting up ambushes in particular areas unless we made contact....until the Taliban read about it on Wikileaks.

7: Increased compartmentalization resulting in less information sharing....The government will likely have to change the 'openness' analysts have enjoyed in the classified world relating to their theatre of war. This will cause an increase in friendly-fire incidents as well as make it more difficult to let everybody know the latest-breaking news on the insurgency.

8: The best propaganda tool the Taliban could ever ask-for....I am sure in a few days they will start publishing and translating some of the SITREP's regarding particular villages (and particular village elders) and then using them to further their agendas in those areas.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

roachboy

slims...interesting.

if you remember, wikileaks provided access to the materials well in advance to der speigel, ny times and the guardian. there was no simple dump of documents. there was investigative reporting. what makes the way the release happened unusual is that (almost) all the primary material was made public, which changed the nature of editorial decisions for the papers. but there was work done in advance. some of it quite good. check out the guardian stories.

second: if wikileaks approached the us government or dod in particular up front and told them of the release and asked for help in editing the material so as not to compromise operations or people and the us dod chose not to take them up on it---knowing that the material was going to be released anyway---then it looks to me like you've got nothing really to complain about because everything you mention coulda been stopped or mitigated by your employer but your employer chose not to do it.

and i doubt seriously that anyone suggested the editing go the way you note, btw. "o give us a list of all your intelligence assets so we can check to see if they're here." i think--but do not know---that the offer of space to edit was serious and would have involved--you know--editing.

no matter the arrangement that was (or wasnt) proposed, the fact is that almost all the consequences you outline above follow as much from that refusal to assist as from the leak itself. which means that there had to have been a calculation about damage and a decision taken that they were worth incurring.

but past that i cannot go because i don't know enough to not just make things up.


more later.

interesting posts, btw. thanks for them.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Slims

I agree that the NY Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegal did conduct some investigative reporting off the information that was provided through Wikileaks....But Wikileaks was just a conduit. As an organisation they knowingly accepted stolen classified material and then passed it on.

Also, you can't really believe your statement regarding the consequences of the leaked documents. Be honest.

If the government did cooperate with Wikileaks and asked for all the incendiary reports to be with held Wikileaks would have told the government to go piss up a rope. The only value these documents hold for Wikileaks is that they damage the governement and thus attract attention.

Also, considering the foundation on which Wikileaks is built, there is absolutely no way the US government could reasonably expect Wikileaks to keep any sort of secret. That Wikileaks dangled the information in order to tease the government into voluntarily pointing out the 'good bits' does not make them less responsible.

With regard to your last comment about the calculated decision: I am sure that is exactly what happenned. Except the government probably concluded that to not-assist was less damaging than having Wikileaks 'decide' what they were going to release after receiving additional classified information from the government.

Besides, it isn't as easy to release that sort of thing as you would imaging. It would take (I believe) the Director of National Intelligence to approve such a release personally and a couple of weeks is simply not enough time to sort through 90,000 documents and weigh all the consequences and collateral impacts.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

roachboy

i wanted to post this but haven't time at the moment to do more than that.
i saw a reference to this article:

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Could Face Criminal Charges from U.S. Allies - The Daily Beast

in this article on the front page of this morning's le monde:
Les Etats-Unis demandent à leurs alliés de les aider à stopper WikiLeaks - LeMonde.fr

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

The crackdown seems to be a good indication that wikileaks is having a significant effect on the military and political landscapes. It was recently said that wikileaks in one leak has done more in a month than the entire corporate media has done in 9 years and I couldn't agree more. The fact is the apparent lack of conflicts of interest or pandering in order to improve viewership and raise stock prices is actually a boon to investigative reporting. Who knew?

Regarding the documents themselves, they'll become public record if something happens to Julian or any other senior wikileaks volunteer. I don't think the Pentagon or the Obama administration wants that to happen. There's a backup plan in place as insurance that the documents are already spread across many many computers all over the world in a heavily encrypted file. Should the US or our allies test the resolve of wikileaks, the password will be released and all hell will break loose because, as I understand it, there's a lot more in the sigacts than has been published by major news sources it was leaked to.

powerclown

Obama's special ambassador to AfPak Richard Holbrooke is pissed these documents came to light: The other Dick - Mr. Cheney - couldn't have said it any better.

roachboy

yeah, for once i agree with you powerclown. there's not a whole lot of difference rhetorically. it almost makes you wonder the extent to which the national security state actually runs the show.

obviously, all this huffing and puffing is about the next release:

Pentagon fears new Wikileaks documents 'even more damaging' - CNN.com

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

Has anyone actually seen the names or personal details of the informants? I've been going through what's available publicly, and all I've seen so far are senior police and governors speaking to the coalition regularly. If the Taliban can't figure out senior Afghan officials are cooperating with the coalition, it's a great mystery as to how successful they've been.

Otherwise, wikileaks is the more successful in investigative journalism than all of the corporate media combined.

Slims

Remember that a local who does something as small as speak to the Americans in private briefly is likely to get killed if the TB find out. Commanders SITREPS often mention such incidents because it gives them a way to illustrate progress.


Forgive me if I don't disclose particular examples. Both because I am too lazy to dig them up, and because it would be monumentally stupid to do so.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Willravel

No, no, no, I'm not asking you to find and post them, that would be horrible. I just want to verify they're in there. You'll forgive me if I don't automatically believe the impotent corporate media, all of whom have been challenged by Wikileaks in the area of credibility and ability. They would benefit from discrediting or otherwise damaging the reputation of Wikileaks.

It's a serious accusation that Wikileaks has accidentally or negligently released the names of innocent people who can be found by the Taliban, in fact it's the one and only serious argument against the leak as far as I'm concerned. If it's a legitimate accusation backed by evidence, I'll have to evaluate the leak with that information in mind. If the accusation is simply a way to discredit Wikileaks, that would obviously mean something significantly different. I'd say the entire thing hinges on this information.

Slims

Will,

I am not saying that there is a huge red arrow pointing out informants or that it will be easy for the taliban to capitalize on what information is in the reports.

What I am saying is that there is probably *enough* information for the Taliban to pin down at least a couple individuals.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Tully Mars

I've done some thinking about this since this thread came, actually since the leaks hit the news. I was absolutely opposed to the Iraq debacle. Thought it was horseshit the first time I heard they were thinking about. Afghan was a different story for me. When Bush Jr. stated he was going send our guys over there to get, dead or alive, the people responsible for 9-11 I was 100% with him. You bomb us we track you down, end of story. But the way the war was being run, it became quickly obvious it was likely a mistake. So honestly even when Obama came out and said "it was the right war and were going to finish it," I'm paraphrasing, too lazy Google the actually quote, I thought that was a mistake. I mean really how long are we suppose to try to make something of that place? History pretty much shows anyone who's tried has left broke, tried and missing lots of soldiers. Doesn't seem to be going any better for us. Like Iraq we've been told we've turned the corner so many times anyone with a lick of logic would have to conclude we're going in circles.

So not a fan of the wars, at all. I think we should have started pulling people out years ago. I mean how many lives have we lost? How much has it costs us? And 10 freaking years? Give me a break.

All that said this leak thing bugs the shit out me. Maybe it's a military thing but I'm not a fan of military members leaking classified info. I know when I was in the Navy if some one blew up the ship I was on and I found out they got intel on how to do it because some guy "thought" he was doing the right thing I be a little more then pissed. If I survived and many of my friends didn't I just might make it my life's mission to track that SOB down. You join the US military voluntarily. You sign documents swearing you won't do exactly what this guy did. Just because you don't like the war or the way it's going doesn't give you the right to basically steal a bunch of classified intel and give it to the media.

Today I went down to Mexican Immigration to get my FM3 resident visa renewed. Last year the process was pretty friendly and quick. Today I was asked if I ever lived in Arizona and was pretty much treated like shit. Never did get the whole process done, need to finish on Monday... I hope. Why am I writing about this experience? Because it's just another example of how governments and law makers make policy, pass laws or even go to war. The people in charge are affected very little by their actions... it's the people who end up suffering.

So my day and probably part of my Monday has become a pain in my ass, big deal not like I was finding a cure for cancer and this interrupted me. But I think about these leaks and I think about some poor smuck under orders to man a base in Bumfuck, Nowhere sitting in his 100 degree sand filled tent or maybe he's standing watch on some ridge alone some night. Is he in more danger now? I'm not 100% sure he is but I'm nearly 100% sure this didn't make him safer. I'd also be willing to bet he's more stressed then he was before someone took it upon themselves to release info they had no legal right to release.

Bottom line after much thought- I don't like it... at all and I hope they find the parties responsible and take what ever legal action they can to lock them away for a very long time.

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roachboy

but if that's the case, then it loops back to the dod not doing something to assist with the editing. instead they've decided to make a different stand, one which i think is self-defeating in this context.

basically, they've been flanked in an information war but they would prefer to pretend that its not the case. and they've been made complicit in all the damages they claim follows from the leak--that they were offered a chance to help edit to limit or even eliminate the damage from.

in other words, the defense department looks stupid. and i for one am glad for it. and this, again, because it is wrong in a democratic context that the veil of official secrecy be impermiable. because like it or not the conduct of the military rests on the consent of the polity and the polity is not a management problem but rather the source of legitimacy. you play the people like they're chumps and you grind down the legitimacy of the system you pretend to be defending. why would anyone take seriously a system that you don't take seriously? what would be the basis for the argument that "democracy" in this mode is any different from what the afghan people have now? the only change would be whose in charge. and the ability to buy shit isn't freedom. it's merely the ability to buy shit. so what exactly do the americans have to offer across this term "democracy" if even a little transparency has the expression of that "democracy" claiming that the exercise of democracy at the level of information endangers everything that's supposed to be defending democracy? what that we like to think we're nicer people? who the fuck goes to war to replace one system with a version of the same system the only difference being that the people in control are nicer?

you can't have it both ways. you want to "defend democracy" then you have to defend openness about information, because without that there is no democracy.

it's unfortunately simple.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynthetiq

rb if they did participate in the editing then they are complicit in leaking the documents.

that's just bad logic you're touting there.

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roachboy

but if the documents are going to be released anyway and the "problem" is that the release endangers people, refusing to help with the editing simply perpetuates the danger.

seems to me that the bad logic is yours.

in other words, what's the real problem here?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynthetiq

then the morality of the person releasing the documents is what is in question. THAT is what endangers the people not the lack of editing.

Again, if the DOD participated in it, then it makes them complicit in releasing the documents and thus should have released the documents themselves which they were not interested in doing.

The burden is on the person releasing the documents, 100%.

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roachboy

yeah, see i am not sure it's so easy. if you assume the committment on the part of wikileaks is to a more democratic information environment, so to more openness, to less secrecy....i find that acceptable as a justification for releasing the documents.

but that doesn't mean they should just be put out there as they are. so you ask yourself: who can help edit these to minimize the damage to actual people on the ground in 2010, given that the most recent of the documents is from early 2009...clearly the institution that originated them would be most competent.

so if the ethical question is resolved in the direction of democratic information flows that obviates the question of official classifications. to my mind it does. but it **doesnt** eliminate the questions that have to do with endangering people. so they approached the dod. at that point, the people in the department had a choice: what's more important really? maintaining the formal stance concerning secrecy or actually protecting people's lives. the choice is clear.

i think it was a cynical and absurd choice on the part of the dod.
like it or not they are already complicit in any damage that comes from the release because they were given the option of helping with the editing of damaging information and they chose not to take it.
so now they want to act as though the problem is that the releases endanger people? bullshit.
it's not that the releases don't endanger people--without dod's help in figuring out how to edit them, there's little doubt they do endanger people.
the issue is the tactical choice the department of defense made, given that strategically they were already fucked.
they chose to endanger people on the ground in afghanistan so they had something to complain about.
it's entirely institutional self-interest thats at play here.
dod doesnt really give a shit about the people on the ground.
if they did, they would have protected them by editing the documents.

but they didnt.

the real question is, though, about what constitutes a democracy, what kind of information is required, what the "consent of the people" means. i think americans are so used to being fed marketing shit that they've forgotten that there's a difference between marketing shit and information. this reminds them, helps them remember. it's good for the health of the system as a whole. and the damage it causes in theater is the responsibility of both the people who released the documents AND the department of defense, which is complicit already whether they like it or not.

but here's the bottom line: dod was simply outsmarted.
and when things were on the line, they made a stupid choice.
i have no sympathy for them.
and it's not like the care about the people on the ground really.
if they cared about that, the people on the ground wouldnt be on the ground. not there anyway.

and maybe that's the underlying point.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

I don't think there's anyway to say it's bullshit that military members are or are not in more danger due to this action. I've read through a bunch of them and I know I don't know.

I would say without little question leaking classified documents to the media is illegal, I fail to see an upside to that.

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Cynthetiq

rb, there is no democracy WITHIN the military. It's not a democracy. the soldiers don't get to vote on taking a military installation. they get told what to do and they do it.

tully, that's correct, but put in civilian in there too because not everyone they write about is within the constructs of the military.

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roachboy

cyn---right. but we arent inside the military. the information is leaked to us, to those of us who are outside. it's a priori a violation of the military system of classifying information. the argument i am making isn't about that. it's about whether there should be such a thick veil of secrecy relative to us, if the idea that the consent of "the people" means anything.

since vietnam, the approach of conservative regimes has been to choke off information and replace it with war marketing via press pools, etc. there's no denying this.

i think this is a problem.
dont you?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynthetiq

I do not find it a problem as I do not need to know the information about it immediately.

Time for the release of documents on a schedule like FOIA is acceptable to me. Outright taking documents and giving them liberty is not.

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Tully Mars

I'd the "selling of war" predates Nam. But I don't see how that makes a difference here. I read through the posts of people here who favor this and I basically see trends in the logic... the ends justify the means and two wrongs make a right. I disagree with both.

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roachboy

first off, the most recent information in the release is from 2009.

second, there's no end justifies the means in the argument i am making. i am arguing that the opposition to total military secrecy is an a priori. i've outlined the grounds for it. seems to me that the central claim and the grounds for it are being dodged. that's fine--i merely point it out.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

Well then we'll just to agree to disagree. I have no idea how you operate a military without keeping operational planning secrets.

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roachboy

but these are documents from 2004-2009. they aren't operational plans. they're information pertaining to the conduct of operations in the past. there was a request made to dod to help edit them in order to minimize any relation to ongoing operations or harm to people who are potentially involved in current operations. dod refused. that is a problem.

i dont think the leaks would have happened at all were the information more recent.

so if you put that aside, the concern about ongoing operations--or if you accept the idea that the links to ongoing operations that remain are there in part because dod refused to assist with preventing them from being released....where's the problem?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

From the ones I've read they clearly show our thinking on how to run operations. That's a problem.

DOD shouldn't be blackmailed into action becasue someone decided to break the UCMJ... which they swore to up hold.

I think it was wrong. You're not going to convince it was right, nor do I think I'll convince you switch your position.

So let's just agree to disagree.

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roachboy

o no worries...i'm fine with disagreement. i'm just sitting around thinking about this question of secrecy vs. democracy (which is how i frame it) and decided to poke around the edges of your position, which is framed differently. yours seems more a defense of the military's prerogative to designate what is and is not secret. there's a side of me that understands that. there's also a side that sees it in conflict with the requirements of a democratic society. i'm not sure there's a resolution to the conflict one way or another.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

Nope, not until people learn to live without war. The way the US currently feeds the military monster it created I don't ever see that happening. More like we'll crumble like Rome first. Which may not be that far off, sadly.

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Willravel

I can live without war. I mean if you're asking, I can totally live without war.

Tully Mars

The whole world could they're just too stupid to realize it.

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club