Wikileaks.org -- Tens of thousands of Afghan war docs leaked

[Azure]

Here we go.

WASHINGTON — Informants whose names appear in the documents posted on the whistleblower site WikiLeaks have reason to fear for their lives, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

At least one person who named appeared in the documents has already complained to US officials in Afghanistan, said Colonel David Lapan.
"Anyone whose name appears in those documents is potentially at risk," he said.

But the British newspaper The Times reported that after just two hours of combing through the documents it was able to find the names of dozens of Afghans said to have provided detailed intelligence to US forces.

The Times cited one 2008 document that included a detailed interview with a Taliban fighter considering defection.

The man, who names local Taliban commanders and talks about other potential defectors, is identified by name, along with his father's name and village.

In another case from 2007, a senior official accuses named figures in the Afghan government of corruption.

"The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans," a senior official at the Afghan foreign ministry, who declined to be named told The Times.

"The US is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the US/international access to the uncensored views of Afghans," the Afghan official told the newspaper.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...qP8DUv0KAHyDQg

Why am I not surprised?

[Azure]

Parents of two Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan are insisting it was the Taliban that killed their sons, and not "friendly fire."


A leaked U.S. report that emerged on the WikiLeaks website suggested that four Canadian soldiers who died on Sept. 3, 2006, in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan were killed when a U.S. jet dropped a bomb on a building they occupied during the second day of Operation MEDUSA.


The Canadian military has rejected that report, and says the four members of the Forces died in combat with insurgents.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/...#ixzz0v0ANCJf0

[Azure]

WP article.

An interesting note in the Times story concerns WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange: "White House officials e-mailed reporters select transcripts of an interview Mr. Assange conducted with Der Spiegel, underlining the quotations the White House apparently found most offensive. Among them was Mr. Assange's assertion, 'I enjoy crushing s.' " Assange told reporters he wanted the material to lead to "new policies, if not prosecutions." His agenda is clear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072801536.html


Again, not surprised. The edited part should say 'b a s t a r d s'

[Azure]

And, in regards to what I said about China/Russia.

U.S. officials are also worried that the raw data may prove useful not only to the Taliban but to hostile intelligence services in countries such as China and Russia who have the resources to make sense of such vast vaults of data, said Ellen McCarthy, former U.S. intelligence officer and president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

His comments also offered insight into his own motivation, referring to a statement he gave to German newspaper Der Spiegel in which he said he "loved crushing s."

He said the comment wasn't meant in jest, describing himself as a combative person who likes "stopping people who have created victims from creating any more."
Assange also expressed disdain for the military, invoking a quotation attributed to mathematician and noted pacifist Albert Einstein that describes soldiers as contemptible drones and attacks patriotism as a cover for brutality and war.

He scoffed when the Frontline's moderator spoke of teenage British soldiers "giving their lives" in Afghanistan.

"To what?" he asked.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...efGBAD9H82DRO0

[CaptainCrunch]

As I read through these documents, which will take me a long long time, you certainly get a sense of capabilities, equipment, standing orders and tactics for these special forces groups and the general military forces, which to me is a definate intelligence bonanza to foreign intelligence groups.

You also get a idea of U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities and methods which could put assets in danger.

The guy who leaked this better hope he's never caught. In a lot of ways this rivals the work of Aldrich Aimes and the Rosenburgs.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Here's an interesting article about the US and Pakistan in regards to wikileaks

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=128817940

"To put the issue somewhat melodramatically," he wrote, "the United States is giving 'moderate' Pakistanis and the Pakistani military billions of dollars yearly in military and economic aid, which allows Pakistani military intelligence to 'secretly' help the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan, which will drive America out of Afghanistan and undermine U.S. help for Pakistan."

[Locke]

Well. It seems like a good thing to me that Afghanistan doesnt have Wikileaks.org, the Internet at all, Computers or even electricity.

And, when they do get one or some of these things I'm sure it'll be blown up or shot to hell just like everything else in their country.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Locke

Well. It seems like a good thing to me that Afghanistan doesnt have Wikileaks.org, the Internet at all, Computers or even electricity.

And, when they do get one or some of these things I'm sure it'll be blown up or shot to hell just like everything else in their country.

Except that the leadership for the Taliban is in Pakistan, and they probably do have access to the internet and electricity. Plus the minute that these documents came out you can bet that Pakistan's ISI was all over them and feeding relevant bits to their Taliban contacts.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Montana Moe

How 'bout them apples?

The inferiority complexes on this board are pretty hilarious.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by peter12

The inferiority complexes on this board are pretty hilarious.

It has nothing to do with an inferiority complex, that's laughable. It has everything to do with how you conduct yourself on this board, it reminds me (and obviously many posters judging by the thanks) exactly of that guy in Good Will Hunting, that's all.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by flameswin

It has nothing to do with an inferiority complex, that's laughable. It has everything to do with how you conduct yourself on this board, it reminds me (and obviously many posters judging by the thanks) exactly of that guy in Good Will Hunting, that's all.

It has everything to do with inferiority complexes. I conduct myself perfectly fine, thanks.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by peter12

It has everything to do with inferiority complexes. I conduct myself perfectly fine, thanks.

You should maybe re-read the thread carefully analyzing your own posts for how many times you present your opinion as expert due to your education and everyone else as not being able to have an opinion worth respecting due to their lack of education. It was pretty ridiculous.

To put it succinctly, you were behaving like a pompous ass.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by peter12

It has everything to do with inferiority complexes. I conduct myself perfectly fine, thanks.

Actually you come off as a condescending, pompous ass, who "reads books".

EDIT: What FDW said.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

You should maybe re-read the thread carefully analyzing your own posts for how many times you present your opinion as expert due to your education and everyone else as not being able to have an opinion worth respecting due to their lack of education. It was pretty ridiculous.

To put it succinctly, you were behaving like a pompous ass.

That's absolutely ridiculous. I posted extensive posts detailing my arguments and my beliefs and frankly, none of them were answered which led me to the conclusion that most posters didn't know or care about the issues but just liked spewing their own uneducated opinion.

Also, my infatuation with "books" has nothing to do with snobbery or pomposity, it's merely a respect for rigourous learning and informed opinions.

I never called any one out their lack of education and never mentioned my own except in the context of justifying my desire for a more enlightened discourse. Jeez louise, I even called out my own ignorance several times during the course of this thread.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by peter12

Also, my infatuation with "books" has nothing to do with snobbery or pomposity, it's merely a respect for rigourous learning and informed opinions.

...and this line right here, makes you sound exactly like that guy in Good Will Hunting. Which is why I posted a picture compaing you to him. That's all it was, nothing less nothing more.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by peter12

I never called any one out their lack of education and never mentioned my own except in the context of justifying my desire for a more enlightened discourse.

[Azure]

But the WikiLeaks story is a new and troubling event. Our initial reaction was that the documents expose no big lies about the war and, judging from what we've seen so far, no small ones either. They reveal nothing that wasn't already widely known about Iranian and Pakistani support for the Taliban. In other words, their value in terms of the public's right to know is de minimis.

But the closer we and others have looked at the documents, it's clear that the WikiLeaks dump does reveal a great deal about the military's methods, sources, tactics and protocols of communication. Such details are of little interest to the public at large, and they are unlikely to change many minds about the conduct, or wisdom, of the war. But they are of considerable interest to America's avowed enemies and strategic competitors such as Russia and China.

In his defense, Mr. Assange dismisses concerns about harm to U.S. national security, calling it ridiculous. That may be his right as an Australian national, although Australia deploys some 1,500 troops to Afghanistan and has lost more than two dozen men in combat. But Mr. Assange also says he takes threats to individual safety seriously, and he boasts that he has withheld or edited thousands of documents as a precaution against potential harm.

If so, he hasn't done a very good job of it. Yesterday, the Times of London noted that "in just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to U.S. forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers' names."

The newspaper goes on to note that "named Afghans offered information accusing others of being Taliban. In one case from 2007, a senior official accuses named figures in the government of corruption. In another from 2007, a report describes using a middleman to talk to an alleged Taliban commander who is identified. '[X] said that he would be killed if he got caught interacting with any coalition forces, which is why he hides when we go into [Y].'" The deletions here were done by the London Times, not WikiLeaks.

Perhaps the various countries that host WikiLeaks' servers can provide these informers and their entire families with refugee status now that their lives are in jeopardy. We'd say something similar about the New York Times, Britain's Guardian and Germany's Der Spiegel, which coordinated publication of the documents with Mr. Assange. The Times has made a show of seeking to corroborate the information it published, and to delete information the paper believed was especially sensitive (including the names of Afghan informants). It went so far as to urge Mr. Assange not to publish certain documents.

We don't believe in prior restraint, but it is worth asking whether the Times, the Guardian or Der Spiegel are really serving the public, much less allied security interests, in validating Mr. Assange's methods by flying in publishing formation with him. "I don't know, and I'll bet they [WikiLeaks] don't know, if publication of this mass of material is in some ways genuinely harmful to national security," Floyd Abrams, the well-known First Amendment lawyer, told the Journal yesterday. "That's one of my problems with their modus operandi."



Mr. Abrams went on to defend the behavior of the Times, which he credited for urging Mr. Assange not to publish certain documents. However, years after the Times exposed the Swift financing operation—an act we criticized at the time—we have still found no public benefit from that report. The most notable consequence is that Europe stopped cooperating with the U.S. on the program.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

Clearly nothing to see here. Move along now.

[CaptainCrunch]

If so, he hasn't done a very good job of it. Yesterday, the Times of London noted that "in just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to U.S. forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers' names."

That alone gets him into huge trouble, beyond being an incredibly scumbaggy action.

[Hemi-Cuda]

WikiLeaks is just the beginning. with how fast information can be traded now and the countless ways it can be recorded, the age of government secrecy is going to be a thing of the past. it's only going to snowball from here when future tech starts coming out, like phones you can implant under the skin, or ocular implants that function like digital cameras

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

WikiLeaks is just the beginning. with how fast information can be traded now and the countless ways it can be recorded, the age of government secrecy is going to be a thing of the past. it's only going to snowball from here when future tech starts coming out, like phones you can implant under the skin, or ocular implants that function like digital cameras

And you don't think for the most part that the government is going to be able to keep up.

To me this was an extraordinary leak. The question isn't if, but when the government decides to bring the hammer down on the leaker, and possibly to an extent a site like Wikileaks.

All this is going to do is force the government to up their secrecy, not reduce it.