Wikileaks reveals identity of Afgan informants

[Fragony]

And NATO has not? But it's okay, the NATO only kills evil terrorists that want to destroy our freedom (or what's left of it) and they kill innocent soldiers and that is sooo sad because they have done nothing wrong.

I am going to blame this on the one indoctrinating you

[Skullheadhq]

I am going to blame this on the one indoctrinating you

What's the difference between one innocent death and the other? That one killer wears a turban and one wears an uniform doesn't really matter for the family, now does it?

[Fragony]

What's the difference between one innocent death and the other? That one killer wears a turban and one wears an uniform doesn't really matter for the family, now does it?

You are asking me

[Myrddraal]

And NATO has not? But it's okay, the NATO only kills evil terrorists that want to destroy our freedom (or what's left of it) and they kill innocent soldiers and that is sooo sad because they have done nothing wrong.

This statement is childish on every level. Take a step back and look at the you're posting.

What's the difference between one innocent death and the other? That one killer wears a turban and one wears an uniform doesn't really matter for the family, now does it?

Certainly not, and by the same standard, one innocent death does not justify another.

[Skullheadhq]

Certainly not, and by the same standard, one innocent death does not justify another.

kuch...9/11...kuch

[Myrddraal]

What? What are you trying to do, provoke me? You have no idea what my opinions are on 9/11, but I'll give you a hint, you're barking up the wrong tree, try something else. What on earth does 9/11 have to do with wikileaks? Are you saying that 9/11 justifies the release of informants details?

[Husar]

I think he's trying to say that the Afghanistan and Iraq war are justified by 9/11 so we justify the deaths of innocents in those wars by the deaths of innocents in 9/11.

I do however disagree since the deaths of innocents are not the point of the wars and are usually not justified by 9/11 but apologized for by the people causing them, noone goes there and says it's okay to kill a few innocents because of 9/11.

[Hax]

I think he's trying to say that the Afghanistan and Iraq war are justified by 9/11 so we justify the deaths of innocents in those wars by the deaths of innocents in 9/11.

I think he's being ironic (or trying to at least). How one would connect Iraq and 9/11 is something of a mystery to me.

[Skullheadhq]

How one would connect Iraq and 9/11 is something of a mystery to me.

But yet some stupids did, with devastating consequences.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials have often asserted that there were extensive ties between Hussein's government and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network; earlier this year, Cheney said evidence of a link was "overwhelming [...] We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

The finding challenges a belief held by large numbers of Americans about al Qaeda's ties to Hussein. According to a Harris poll in late April, a plurality of Americans, 49 percent to 36 percent, believe "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found." [....] In September, Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "If we're successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

But anyway, back to topic.

[Centurion1]

And there's the requisite bush bash of the thread.

Carry on everybody.

[Jolt]

I think he's being ironic (or trying to at least). How one would connect Iraq and 9/11 is something of a mystery to me.

[Furunculus]

ah look, there we go again.

anyone noticed how bush looks like hitler?

................ oops, Godwin alert!

[Ice]

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Skully:

One of the regrettable truths of combat is that defeating an opponent often requires you to emulate some of the characteristics of that opponent. We are opposed by an enemy that specifically targets non-combatants in order to generate the highest possible number of casualties for the least use of resources. Setting aside the utter imorality/evil of the 9-11 attacks, it was brilliantly efficient. Resources were stolen from the target and used against that same target with much damage and loss of life resulting. Less than two dozen lives were lost by the attackers and surprisingly little was spent to fund the attack.

The US does not and will not specifically target non-combatants. Regrettably, quite a few of them get killed by the USA as a by-product of attacks on legitimate targets. In addition, some die as a result of mistaken targetting. Each of these lives is a tragic loss, and each tends to make a few enemies. Unfortunately, waging war without such "collateral damage" is virtually impossible.

So, if your argument boils down to "the USA is no better than Al Queda because they both kill the innocent," then I submit that your argument fails to address both the intentions of US violence and the efforts made to minimize the death of the innocent. Asserting a moral equivalence is not justified.

If your argument boils down to "all violence is bad, so just stop it." then I submit that your argument is naive. Violence should not be the first choice for resolving conflict, but if violence is used against you than a violent response is justified. In fact, if one side willingly employes violence and the other does not, the violent ones have a horrific advantage in the conflict.

If your argument is working on a deeper level, I was unable to discern it.

[rory_20_uk]

The USA on a governmental level might not specifically target civilians, but the grunts on the ground have shown on more than one occasion to take what could be charitably described as a "pragmatic" approach and gun down everyone who gets to close to be on the safe side.

The concept of minimising deaths is of course a relative thing. Propping up a regime and blowing up the enemies of the regime from afar is causing a lot more deaths than leaving the area well alone. Relying on drones and intel rather than eyeballing a target also increases the odds of killing civilians.

We speak of our returning heroes / corpses and their tragic loss, but what is this achieving exactly?

Ground is captured - guerillas never fight to keep ground
Troops are killed - never that many and the Taliban's best recruitment is the Christian Invaders killing women and children from Afar.
Leaders are killed - again, never that many to destroy the group which after all is an idea and it's difficult to kill ideas.

There's not the commitment to systemically root out the Taliban (the nigh on impossible task of dividing the country up with check points and clearing each part - with the fact that the Taliban don't wear uniforms and many Afghans have guns...) and the fact that after the Allies leave there's a good chance the governors will either join with or become warlords and use their police / military as their army.

It's one thing to back a power and help them win, another to create a power and expect it to survive after you leave.

[Skullheadhq]

I saw some interviews on NOVA (Dutch news programme) where they interviewed a squadron that returned from Iraq years ago and they admitted killing civilians on purpose because they didn't see Iraqis as human anymore because their sergeant was killed.

[Myrddraal]

I'm a bit flummoxed. What has any of this got to do with the wikileaks revelations?

[Vladimir]

I'm a bit flummoxed. What has any of this got to do with the wikileaks revelations?

Everything I'm afraid. It appears to be at least one of the issues at the heart of the matter.

[Myrddraal]

Ok, because I'm failing to see it, could somebody make the link for me?

Do the civilian deaths in Afganistan somehow justify more civillian deaths?

[Vladimir]

Ok, because I'm failing to see it, could somebody make the link for me?

Do the civilian deaths in Afganistan somehow justify more civillian deaths?

No. But because of the many deaths caused by evil coalition forces it's OK if a few dirty rats die because one of our guys.





It's a sort of moral equivalence and one of the more disturbing aspects of human psychology.

[Myrddraal]

So you mean to say that those defending Wikileaks are entirely partisan supporters of the Taliban, and that because Afgan informers help the Coalition, they deserve to die? I find it hard to believe that we have supporters of the Taliban posting in this topic. Is that the only way in which discussions of 9/11 and civilian casualties are relevant to the topic?

[Andres]

Meh, I think people are bringing in all kind of irrelevant stuff into this topic, while the issue at hand is pretty simple.

a) military has a leak;
b) wikileaks guy gets information;
c) information is evidence that government(s)/NATO/whatever lied/misinformed/kept things secret;
d) information also contains names of people who will be in danger if their names are made public, publishing those names is not necessary to point out that the information is evidence of c);
e) wikileaks publishes evidence, but "forgets" to blot out names of people who will be in danger or did not read all the stuff they threw out in public themselves;

wikileaks has made a terrible mistake by publishing these names and there are no excuses for it. They could have published their evidence without bringing people in danger. Since it is crystal clear that wikileaks has no way to justify their stupidity, all kinds of irrelevant stuff is brought up.

That's the issue at hand. wikileaks screwed up and they have no excuses and nobody or nothing to hide behind.

The questions whether the war in Afhganistan is just or not, if Iraq was a mistake or not, if the Taleban are evil or not, if the US is evil or not, if anti-militarism is naive or not, if Bush looks more like Hitler than like Woody Woodpecker are attempts to divert attention away from the naked truth (oh, the irony) that wikileaks made an unforgivable mistake, are completely irrelevant and belong in seperate threads.

[rory_20_uk]

I view threads as having a life of their own and should be allowed to go off on tangents.

If wikileaks is trying to get rid of censoring that might be why they didn't censor the material. Perhaps they view unfettered information is more important than a few deaths.

[Don Corleone]

At the risk of repeating myself, I'd again like to ask.... If Wikileaks is to be believed, that they abhor secrecy and that their leak of massive numbers of classified documents was not done to weaken the NATO position, but to lead to openness in government....

1) Where is any hint of divulgence of information the Taleban might find harmful?
2) Why did they attempt to protect the identity of their source?

It seems to me the height of hypocricy to use "unnamed sources" to attempt to get more openness and disclosure in anything...

[Vladimir]

So you mean to say that those defending Wikileaks are entirely partisan supporters of the Taliban, and that because Afgan informers help the Coalition, they deserve to die? I find it hard to believe that we have supporters of the Taliban posting in this topic. Is that the only way in which discussions of 9/11 and civilian casualties are relevant to the topic?

Good morning boys and girls. The word for today is:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hyperbole

At the risk of repeating myself, I'd again like to ask.... If Wikileaks is to be believed, that they abhor secrecy and that their leak of massive numbers of classified documents was not done to weaken the NATO position, but to lead to openness in government....

1) Where is any hint of divulgence of information the Taleban might find harmful?
2) Why did they attempt to protect the identity of their source?

It seems to me the height of hypocricy to use "unnamed sources" to attempt to get more openness and disclosure in anything...

Maybe truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies? I can see them making a similar argument.

[Myrddraal]

So you mean to say that those defending Wikileaks are entirely partisan supporters of the Taliban, and that because Afgan informers help the Coalition, they deserve to die? I find it hard to believe that we have supporters of the Taliban posting in this topic. Is that the only way in which discussions of 9/11 and civilian casualties are relevant to the topic?

Ok, so you mean that, but said less provocatively. I honestly don't see the link between civilian casualties and the revelation of informants names, unless you mean as some kind of justification, which is partisan.

That's the issue at hand. wikileaks screwed up and they have no excuses and nobody or nothing to hide behind.

The questions whether the war in Afhganistan is just or not, if Iraq was a mistake or not, if the Taleban are evil or not, if the US is evil or not, if anti-militarism is naive or not, if Bush looks more like Hitler than like Woody Woodpecker are attempts to divert attention away from the naked truth (oh, the irony) that wikileaks made an unforgivable mistake, are completely irrelevant and belong in seperate threads.

You just summed up the last three pages of text.

[Husar]

At the risk of repeating myself, I'd again like to ask.... If Wikileaks is to be believed, that they abhor secrecy and that their leak of massive numbers of classified documents was not done to weaken the NATO position, but to lead to openness in government....

1) Where is any hint of divulgence of information the Taleban might find harmful?
2) Why did they attempt to protect the identity of their source?

It seems to me the height of hypocricy to use "unnamed sources" to attempt to get more openness and disclosure in anything...

2 seems like a valid point to me, 1 however may just be because the Taliban don't take records of everything they do and/or there is no crazy whacko jihadist who is willing to sacrifice his 72 virgins in order to provide wikileaks with the secret hello kitty diary of Osama bin Laden...

[Moros]

Why has no organisation actually killed the site already? If I was running secret services I had those servers hacked and blocked from the start...

[Beskar]

2 seems like a valid point to me, 1 however may just be because the Taliban don't take records of everything they do and/or there is no crazy whacko jihadist who is willing to sacrifice his 72 virgins in order to provide wikileaks with the secret hello kitty diary of Osama bin Laden...

Though, that is unless Obama Bin Laden has got access to the best medical services money can buy, very hard to do, since we was pretty much already dying with cancer before the war on terror.

There has always been the referenced report of:
"On Dec. 8, 1998, NBC News reported that bin Laden had only 'months to live,' explaining that he was suffering from heart problems and possibly cancer"

Perhaps the USA has been chasing ghosts while in reality, he is dead and buried in some random unmarked grave?

[Brenus]

“wikileaks has made a terrible mistake by publishing these names and there are no excuses for it. They could have published their evidence without bringing people in danger. Since it is crystal clear that wikileaks has no way to justify their stupidity, all kinds of irrelevant stuff is brought up.”
I still didn’t find any evidence of names published. And again, exclusivity was given to 3 major media and apparently only one newspaper found this leaks, and this is relayed by a US general with the good moral tone that this betrayal deserved…

As this affair doesn’t do any front page even in the most conservative newspapers I think it was a hoax to discredit the site…

The problem I have with these Crusaders Searching For the True Truth is they have access to only one source…
As in Vietnam where they never saw one Assassination Committee, journalist and Reporters are able to report only the Allies side, for the bad. The Taliban will give interview after a successful ambush but will hardly invited journalists in preparing an IED or the slaughters of alleged informants.

I don’t think the Talibans are so powerful. I don’t think they have one chance to win the war on the front. They even weren’t able to defeat the Masoud’s Northern Alliances.
As very well explain by Major Robert Dump, a lot of people don’t see with a good eye progress and development to come in their villages, as they will loose their power…
If the Allies don’t make the mistake done by the USSR when they withdraw (and there is no reason they should as the “mistake” was do to the collapse of the USSR), the Talibans are finished.
In fact, military speaking the Allies have just to go outside and wait for the Talibans leaders to show-up and eliminate them…

I still think that the men who are actually crediting the Talibans of powers they haven’t and spreading this history of names given are de facto playing in the Talibans’ hands.