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

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

He did.

Of course, Ms. Plain was not executed either.

So that is the burden now? Treason is only treason if someone familiar to us dies as a result?

You think people didn't suffer as a result of that leak?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

This is absolutely not true. There was partying in the streets after the Taliban were flushed out of Kabul, with freshly shaven men and people listening to music in the streets (Shaving and music were forbidden by the Taliban).

Anyone with any secular education in Afganistan is very opposed to the Taliban. Illustrations were banned, so people studying to be medical proffessionals, for example, had to learn about anatomy from text only books.

Most Taliban soldiers would gladly put their guns down. The only reason they picked them up was because they had no other way to provide for their families.

Rich Saudi's have been pumping money into remote rural Pakistan/Afghanistan for years to build mosques and Madrasas. The Madrasas are pretty much Taliban academies where you take completely uneducated children and teach them a cirriculum which is basically propaganda class to teach you to hate the west and weapons training. They are factories that take disadvantaged children and turn them into brain washed soldiers.

The Central Asia Insittute is an organization that has been building secular schools in these areas (with very strict requirements for the enrollment of girls as the Taliban ban the education of girls) and the American founder has recieved incredible support from local leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan for his cause. There have been a few of the wingnut fundamentalist religious leaders that have tried to leverage Islamic law to get him removed from Pakistan but they high Islamic courts in Iran have even stated that they support his work.

Your average Muslim is not a woman hating nut job. These guys are by far in the minority, but they are powerful and have large regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan by the nuts and are breeding fear/hate at an alarming pace.

We can bomb the crap out of the Taliban, but if we are doing nothing to help the battered civilians we are leaving behind on the ground with health care, education and economic development, this war is for nothing and another will soon follow.

While it is true there are Afghans that are not profoundly tribal Sunni followers of the wahabbi school they are in the minority and will not run the country after we have left, the choice right now is our fundamental thugs or their fundamental thugs. For the average Afghan it makes little difference, in fact in some respect the Taliban are better, they are less corrupt and were the only force that actaully ran the whole country as opposed to just running a tribal portion of it.

Kharzi is our 'good guy' who passed laws making rape within marriage legal.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Weird logic, do you know for sure that the Afghan government had access to the war diaries, or all classified U.S. documentation.

Did the American's share the names of all of their confidential sources with the Afghan government at a level where Taliban "spies" could gain access to it.

did the Afghan government or the American government put these names out on a public forum? Not at all, but Wikileaks sure did.

The soldier that is under investigation just saw his troubles increase a million fold, but I doubt that the founder of Wikileaks is going to lift a finger to save him.

These were low level intel documents available to any one around a logged in PC, so I have no doubt they were available to our 'allies'.

The intel war in Afghanistan has been a joke, if the Taliban can get a suicide bomber into a CIA briefing you can bet their arse they have access to this.

[CaptainCrunch]

I''m a simple man Flash, and I do enjoy debating with you, so no worries on the personal intonations, if I come across that way it is strictly unintentional.

I think this breaks down to multiple different points here.

I agree that civillian casualties are happening way to often, however I don't believe that its an intentional point of the rules of engagement to target civillians. From everything that I've read and studied about this conflict is that the intent is to try to limit civillian harm. I'm sure you would agree though that up until the Vietnam war, the American's and their allies fought a clear enemy that didn't hide among the civillian population, wear civillian garb while engaged and use civillian garb to get close enough to the NATO forces to trigger suicide bombs. So while the ROE are in place to try to preserve or protect civillian life it runs almost counter to the security of the troops in the field, and leaves things open to some real tragic circumstances and poor interpretation or ignoring of standings orders.

I do agree that there are probably leaks of key and cruicial information to the Taliban from government sources both by Afghan and Pakistani officials, and the Allies have to find a different way to enhance security of this information. I get particularly irate about the failure of the allies to seal the borders between Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as I stated at the start of the war that this was a key strategy point in cutting off supplies and re-enforcements.

However I think what Wikileaks did was incredibly callous, by publishing classified documents without caring about the lives that it effects, and I'm not talking about the U.S. military I'm talking about the lives of people that worked counter to the Talliban who are now on a death list is wrong.

Also in terms of filtering through these war diaries, I get a good sense of capabilities, standing orders, patrol patterns, TOE and other information that would be of interest to the Taliban or any other nation state of organization.

The fact is that the young man who released those documents to Wikileaks broke his oath 6 ways to sunset and is no better then a spy representing a nation state.

Publishing those documents at the very least without taking the time to filter out information that could bring harm and death to individuals to me is a terrible act, and the fact that he basically shrugs his shoulders and says "Oh well, not my fault" shows me what type of person he is.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

So that is the burden now? Treason is only treason if someone familiar to us dies as a result?

You think people didn't suffer as a result of that leak?

Did I say that? I simply made a statement of fact. Both cases were wreckless and unforgivable, IMO.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Kharzi is our 'good guy' who passed laws making rape within marriage legal.

...and his brother is an opium dealer!

[Street Pharmacist]

I have no problem with the fundamental assertion that leaking these documents will help uncover the callous dealings of the "coalition" forces. I think most of us disagree with the divulging of names. There was NO reason for that, and is therefore responsible for any murder it causes

[Azure]

LONDON — Human rights groups said Tuesday they've asked WikiLeaks to censor secret files on the Afghanistan war to protect civilians who've worked alongside the U.S. and other foreign forces from reprisals.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and three other groups have sent a series of e-mails to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calling for the names of Afghan civilians to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published by the online whistle-blower last month.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...efGBAD9HGP9CG3

[peter12]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

While it is true there are Afghans that are not profoundly tribal Sunni followers of the wahabbi school they are in the minority and will not run the country after we have left, the choice right now is our fundamental thugs or their fundamental thugs. For the average Afghan it makes little difference, in fact in some respect the Taliban are better, they are less corrupt and were the only force that actaully ran the whole country as opposed to just running a tribal portion of it.

Kharzi is our 'good guy' who passed laws making rape within marriage legal.

I love how much of an apologist you are for one the most disgusting and evil groups on the face of this Earth.

[Azure]

No kidding. We shouldn't be resorting to the Taliban are good enough, or even that they are better for stability.

Maybe its time we actually sat down and considered if we actually have the balls to see this through till the bitter end. Because if people seriously want to give the Taliban power again, no way in hell our boys should be over there. They're not fighting for anything.

[CaptainCrunch]

The execution of 10 aid workers is an elegant argument about why we shouldn't have set an exit time line, and why I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of leaving without being able to transistion to a competant defense and policing force.

The latest re-emergence of negotiating with the Taliban to me is a fools mission. We can negotiate and claim to come up with an equitable shared government but 10 minutes after the last helicopter leaves the Taliban will overthrow that government and get on with their primary mission of murdering woman, burning down schools and executing anyone that disagrees with their world view.

[worth]

The country will collapse once NATO forces leave. The Taliban will be back in power in many portions of the country. Whose going to stop them? ANA? I doubt it.

[Thor]

Apperantly a republican senator held up an Obama ambassadorship for Iceland because wikileaks is hosted/headquartered in Iceland.

Have to say this leak has me both liking and disliking it. On one hand I think its important to know the truth about whats happening in a war, but on the other hand a military does need secrecy in order to operate above their enemies, especially like others have said here in the intelligence field.

Releasing names that is beyond stupid, so really I think this wikileaks guy was rushing to get this out and not thinking about the obvious consequences some of it would have.

Whistleblowing is key in a lot of things, I'm appreciative of those who dare go against their employers or in this case something even scarier, the military. But damn, there is just some information that shouldn't be released.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Thor

Apperantly a republican senator held up an Obama ambassadorship for Iceland because wikileaks is hosted/headquartered in Iceland.

Have to say this leak has me both liking and disliking it. On one hand I think its important to know the truth about whats happening in a war, but on the other hand a military does need secrecy in order to operate above their enemies, especially like others have said here in the intelligence field.

I strongly dislike the release of these documents, it was sloppy, and the Wikileaks guy didn't give a sh%t about who he put into peril. It doesn't look like he cares to much about the leaker who provided him for the information either.

Originally Posted by Thor

Releasing names that is beyond stupid, so really I think this wikileaks guy was rushing to get this out and not thinking about the obvious consequences some of it would have.

It wasn't stupid or a rush job, he flat out doesn't care, and he clearly stated that if anyone gets hurt its not his fault is a caullous statement and shows that all he cares about is pushing his website and his agenda.

Originally Posted by Thor

Whistleblowing is key in a lot of things, I'm appreciative of those who dare go against their employers or in this case something even scarier, the military. But damn, there is just some information that shouldn't be released.

While I appreciate whistleblowing in the private sector, I can't get past the fact that this guy left the names and locations of confidential sources in his leak without any concern for the safety of those sources. I also have a lot of problems with the leaker who swore an oath of loyalty and pissed all over it.

[Thor]

Would you agree with an action on the Icelandic government since wikileaks is headquartered here?

At this point that concerns me most, this economy is finally on a upswing, little as that is; and I'd hate to see this wikileaks crap bring down some crap on us.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Thor

Would you agree with an action on the Icelandic government since wikileaks is headquartered here?

At this point that concerns me most, this economy is finally on a upswing, little as that is; and I'd hate to see this wikileaks crap bring down some crap on us.

I don't think that Iceland has anything to do with Wikileaks, I'm not aware that the Icelandic government had taken any action on the Wikileaks activity.

I doubt that this senators action is going to go very far.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by peter12

I love how much of an apologist you are for one the most disgusting and evil groups on the face of this Earth.

I'm not apologising for anyone, I am just realistic, we arn't going to stay there for much longer, lets face it the US is flat broke, we don't want to take over, the Afghans are on there own in a year or two tops, at which point the Taliban will control the country again.

The only way to avoid this is if we are prepared to stay there for 40 or 50 years, as well as bringing down Pakistan and rebuilding that mediaval crap hole.

We all know this isn't going to happen so we will slink out of there with our tails between our legs in a couple of years and the revenge killings will begin.

In the end the locals would have been better off if we'd never gone there in the first place, not because the Taliban or Saddam Hussain are any prizes, but because in the end after a decade of war death and starvation they will end up back where they started, run by murderous thugs.

[CaptainCrunch]

One benefit of the Taliban taking back power is they'll be forced to congregate in Kabul to govern. You take your time, pin point all of the leaders, then you send in a seal team and kill all of those fu$kers.

Then you wait for them to replace that leadership and when they do that you find out where they live and hit each one with a sub based cruise missile.

then when the Taliban replaces them, you send another seal team in, pull them out onto the streets and hang them from the skids of your evac helicopter.

[mikey_the_redneck]

I can't see the U.S. allowing the Taliban to control things, they tried to cooperate with them pre-9/11 and it did not work out.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

I can't see the U.S. allowing the Taliban to control things, they tried to cooperate with them pre-9/11 and it did not work out.

I suspect the US will be increasingly irrelavant, they are broke 8 ways till Sunday and seem too dumb to know it.