wikileaks ?

[kai]

War is murder. There is no rational ethical basis I can think of that justifies morally distinguishing between the willful, unnecessary, premature destruction of a life because you want to do it for your own reasons or because somebody in authority wants you to do it for theirs. To hear some people talk, you'd think the difference was night and day.

Anyway, you and I both know that perfectly ordinary civilian men, women and children going about their business, not bothering anyone, have been slaughtered by the tens of thousands in these criminal invasions.

I have no problems with people who have a conscientious objection to war but like Mr Spinkles said why distort the facts to make a point when your point is already relevant enough.

 

[Alceste]

Thanks for your opinion. I am not getting into a lengthy debate on that particular case as i have already done so in another thread.

Except to say not sure you are aware but Iraq is full of people murdering other people and its very dangerous to walk around in broad daylight with AK47s and RPGs or indeed accompany people doing so. on the periphery of a security operation you could get yourself killed.

you i am sure are also ware of voluntary manslaughter where the intention to kill was there, but there were mitigating circumstances? Interesting point about the helicopter ? do you consider artillery ,air strikes drone attacks ,missiles etc etc all murder because the operatives are not in any danger?

Yes of course I do. Killing people intentionally in the absence of imminent physical danger to yourself or others is the very definition of murder.

I know many people prefer to make exceptions for unnecessary killings when they are authorized or commanded by "the authorities" (how else will they ever get to go on a killing spree without adverse social consequences to themselves?). For myself, I recognize no authority over - or accountability for - my actions apart from my own conscience. Because this is the standard I set for myself, I don't let anyone else off the hook either. Whether you do your murdering in an "authorized" capacity or not, a murderer is what you have become.

 

[Alceste]

I have no problems with people who have a conscientious objection to war but like Mr Spinkles said why distort the facts to make a point when your point is already relevant enough.

The fact you see the observation that there is no rational basis to distinguish between murdering because you've been commanded to do it and murdering because you just feel like it as a "distortion" is interesting. Are you saying there IS a rational basis to ethically distinguish between killing because somebody told you to and killing because you felt like it? And that killing because somebody told you to is somehow more acceptable?

 

[kai]

The fact you see the observation that there is no rational basis to distinguish between murdering because you've been commanded to do it and murdering because you just feel like it as a "distortion" is interesting. Are you saying there IS a rational basis to ethically distinguish between killing because somebody told you to and killing because you felt like it? And that killing because somebody told you to is somehow more acceptable?

Yep the Military and Law enforcement kill people under certain rules ( which you call "told you to") and that's one thing . killing because you" felt like it" is quite another.

Tell me if a cop kills someone by mistake ( for arguments sake he thought the perp pointed a gun at him but was mistaken )is that murder? i mean to use your words hes been "told" he can kill people.

and a guy breaks into a house and kills the occupant just for fun and leaves. is that a distortion to think that there's a difference in the two actions.

 

[Copernicus]

Assange and Manning have become a cause celebre with the left, and I have nothing against that. But, in this case, I cannot condone what Manning and Assange have done. I see Manning as a tragic young man who had no idea what he was doing or getting himself into. For a relatively short catharsis from getting back at his imagined enemies, he will spend the rest of his life regretting giving away so much in return for so little. None of the material released so far is worse than has already been released to the public and largely ignored by it.

To put this act in perspective, let's remember that whistle blowers release specific material that reveals details of a coverup. The materials in this case were a database of materials used by government analysts to produce reports for superiors. Those databases do not exist to hide embarrassing incidents, but they most certainly contain reports of such incidents. The diplomatic cables were raw assessments made in confidence to others in the State Department. Sure, some of them were stupid and petty, but that is to be expected. The point is that they were candid, because the authors did not expect their impressions, gossip, and opinions to be made public.

But why was so much of the material innocuous and not what one would expect to be classified "Secret"? The classification "Secret" means "grave damage to national security", so why were all those innocuous documents classified with that label? The reality is that classification is cheap and easy. It is a one-way sieve of information. Moving classified material into the public domain is expensive and difficult, because declassification requires someone with special knowledge to scan the document for sensitive information.

Assange and the international press have no idea where the sensitive information would be in those documents, because they do not possess security guidelines or expertise in spotting it. You can erase names of people and places, but not necessarily descriptions that identify people and places. Assange had no time to read all of that material, but he still chose to dump all of it into the public domain. The very first people to download it would be news organizations and every spy agency in the world that had an interest in what the US might classify as "damage to [its] national security". It is a haystack of information that people trained in finding needles would be very eager to get. So all of the governments in the area of military conflicts would want that data, not to mention hostile groups. For one thing, the military records revealed what was working and what was not in the battlefield. Also, those records say a lot about the state of mind of US and allied soldiers in those combat situations. Diplomatic cables do the same for foreign diplomats engaged in negotiations with the US. What Assange published was raw data, not just specific materials that the public ought to know about in order to make informed decisions.

So, much as I would like to jump on the bandwagon of defense for Assange and Manning, I cannot see them as heroes. Instead, I see them as flawed individuals who were motivated as much by self-interest as an altruistic desire to promote freedom of information. And I think that their less noble goals may have overridden their better judgment in this case.

 

[Alceste]

Yep the Military and Law enforcement kill people under certain rules ( which you call "told you to") and that's one thing . killing because you" felt like it" is quite another.

Tell me if a cop kills someone by mistake ( for arguments sake he thought the perp pointed a gun at him but was mistaken )is that murder? i mean to use your words hes been "told" he can kill people.

and a guy breaks into a house and kills the occupant just for fun and leaves. is that a distortion to think that there's a difference in the two actions.

Police, theoretically, are meant to be enforcing the rule of law (although it doesn't always work out that way), which theoretically reflects the ethics of the population the laws represent. Not only that, but police are accountable to the public (again, theoretically), and generally do not slaughter hundreds of civilians during their law enforcement operations. Therefore, armies and police forces are not morally equivalent.

Armies go where they are sent and blow up whatever they are told, with no regard for human suffering and little concern for the difference between civilians and combatants (IOW, as long as you were TRYING to "get" a combatant, it doesn't really matter how many civilians you kill, maim or traumatize). US, UK and the other armies engaged in Iraq, as well as the people who control them, have little or no regard for the rule of law, or for public accountability. The majority of the population of every country currently engaged in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, vociferously and uncompromisingly opposed both wars, so the wars can not be said to represent our collective ethos.

To sum up, it's bull crap. I'm sick of it. I was against this crap from the very beginning, and I'm completely disgusted to be part of a culture that justifies the wanton slaughter of children (especially) for nothing more enlightened or meaningful than the shameless profit of graying, grasping stock marketeers.

 

[kai]

Police, theoretically, are meant to be enforcing the rule of law (although it doesn't always work out that way), which theoretically reflects the ethics of the population the laws represent. Not only that, but police are accountable to the public (again, theoretically), and generally do not slaughter hundreds of civilians during their law enforcement operations. Therefore, armies and police forces are not morally equivalent.

Armies go where they are sent and blow up whatever they are told, with no regard for human suffering and little concern for the difference between civilians and combatants (IOW, as long as you were TRYING to "get" a combatant, it doesn't really matter how many civilians you kill, maim or traumatize). US, UK and the other armies engaged in Iraq, as well as the people who control them, have little or no regard for the rule of law, or for public accountability. The majority of the population of every country currently engaged in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, vociferously and uncompromisingly opposed both wars, so the wars can not be said to represent our collective ethos.

To sum up, it's bull crap. I'm sick of it. I was against this crap from the very beginning, and I'm completely disgusted to be part of a culture that justifies the wanton slaughter of children (especially) for nothing more enlightened or meaningful than the shameless profit of graying, grasping stock marketeers.

So you do agree there are moral differences in a soldier killing someone and a cop because you agree with telling the cop he can kill but not the soldier?

The US and Armed forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan under UN auspices and have been for some timeand theoretically reflect the ethics of the population the laws the UN represents.?

I dont recall he majority of the population of every country currently engaged in Iraq and certainly not Afghanistan, vociferously and uncompromisingly oppossing both wars?

 

[Requia]

Cops don't usually kill people because the Captain says too, they kill people largely because that person was perceived as an immediate danger.

That stops being the case once the killing is being done by somebody in a heavily armored transport, against a target who (regardless of how well armed they are) isn't actually pointing a gun at anybody.

 

[Alceste]

Assange and Manning have become a cause celebre with the left, and I have nothing against that. But, in this case, I cannot condone what Manning and Assange have done. I see Manning as a tragic young man who had no idea what he was doing or getting himself into. For a relatively short catharsis from getting back at his imagined enemies, he will spend the rest of his life regretting giving away so much in return for so little.

Nobody knows much about Manning, rotting in silence as he is in a military prison cell. Best not speculate, especially unkindly.

But why was so much of the material innocuous and not what one would expect to be classified "Secret"? The classification "Secret" means "grave damage to national security", so why were all those innocuous documents classified with that label?

Yes, this! Exactly! Those who criticize the sheer volume of the leaked information due to their expectation that every leaked document should constitute a "smoking gun" relating to illegal activity miss the point the indiscriminate application of extreme government secrecy, even pertaining to mundane and non-controversial matters, is a problem (and in some states a crime) in and of itself.

The reality is that classification is cheap and easy. It is a one-way sieve of information. Moving classified material into the public domain is expensive and difficult, because declassification requires someone with special knowledge to scan the document for sensitive information.

It doesn't quite work like that. I recently worked in the information management dep't of a government organization. I was the privacy officer and I worked with a freedom of information officer (I handled policy and requests re. personal information, she handled policy and requests re. government information and we collaborated wherever these requests overlapped). I don't think either of us were particularly "expensive", judging by the state of my bank accounts.

Nothing needs to be "moved into the public domain" by the government. Anybody can request documentary evidence from the government, and assuming there are no legislative barriers to disclosure (which I could get into if you like), the information is released. The cost in our organization (representing half a million citizens): Four salaries. One FOI officer, one Privacy officer and two administrative assistants.

Now, what happened to our department is symptomatic of what seems to be happening everywhere these days: our entire department (all four of us) was eliminated, and the "Communications" department (read: propaganda) was expanded enormously. The result: requests for documentary information are no longer being met in accordance with the UK's FOI legislation, and all requests for information are now channeled through this new, enormous army of professional propagandists.

In effect, this means that everything is now classified "secret" unless otherwise advised by the propaganda arm of the government, none of whom have any expertise in the correct application of FOI or privacy legislation. Before, everything was classified as "public domain" unless a legal justification could be found for withholding information.

As a trend in a society that claims to be democratic, this development sure sucks.

Assange and the international press have no idea where the sensitive information would be in those documents, because they do not possess security guidelines or expertise in spotting it. You can erase names of people and places, but not necessarily descriptions that identify people and places. Assange had no time to read all of that material, but he still chose to dump all of it into the public domain.

Incorrect. In fact, Wikileaks only published around 900 cables, all of which had been previously reported on by mainstream news organizations. They are sitting on the rest, presumably pending the outcome of this illegal persecution of the site and its founder. (They've released all 250,000 leaked cables as a very secure encrypted file, the password for which could be released at any time. I assume this is a negotiating tactic, and that I'll never see what's in most of those cables unless no agreement can be reached.)

What Assange published was raw data, not just specific materials that the public ought to know about in order to make informed decisions.

See above. The 900-odd cables (out of 250,000 or so) that were published were reviewed, redacted and reported by mainstream news organizations before being published by Wikileaks. I can only assume they are intended to be a fact-checking supplement to the reporting we see in the mainstream media.

So, much as I would like to jump on the bandwagon of defense for Assange and Manning, I cannot see them as heroes. Instead, I see them as flawed individuals who were motivated as much by self-interest as an altruistic desire to promote freedom of information. And I think that their less noble goals may have overridden their better judgment in this case.

You're misinformed. Correct yourself and report back.

 

[kai]

Cops don't usually kill people because the Captain says too, they kill people largely because that person was perceived as an immediate danger.
Same with soldiers
That stops being the case once the killing is being done by somebody in a heavily armored transport, against a target who (regardless of how well armed they are) isn't actually pointing a gun at anybody.

So do you mean tank crews should only open fire if someone is pointing an appropriate weapon directly at them.That combatants should meander around the battlefield until someone actually targets them personaly?

 

[Alceste]

So you do agree there are moral differences in a soldier killing someone and a cop because you agree with telling the cop he can kill but not the soldier?

No. WHEN a cop is enforcing the rule of law, as established by the collective will of a democratic population, AND in full respect for and awareness of the constitutional framework for her enforcement activities, AND her life or the life of others is in imminent danger, AND there is no viable method of protecting the lives of the threatened party EXCEPT the taking of the life of the aggressor, THEN there is a difference between a soldier indiscriminately dropping bombs on / firing into densely populated cities and towns and a police officer shooting people.

Otherwise, they're all members of the same despicable horde of murderous thugs which must not be tolerated by any society that hopes to call itself "civilized".

The US and Armed forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan under UN auspices and have been for some timeand theoretically reflect the ethics of the population the laws the UN represents.?

Afghanistan, yes, Iraq, no. The legality of the Iraq war is far from firmly established. The US could not obtain a resolution, so manufactured an as yet legally untested argument that an unrelated prior resolution gave them the right to invade.

I dont recall he majority of the population of every country currently engaged in Iraq and certainly not Afghanistan, vociferously and uncompromisingly oppossing both wars?

You're kidding.

Opposition to the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[kai]

No. WHEN a cop is enforcing the rule of law, as established by the collective will of a democratic population, AND in full respect for and awareness of the constitutional framework for her enforcement activities, AND her life or the life of others is in imminent danger, AND there is no viable method of protecting the lives of the threatened party EXCEPT the taking of the life of the aggressor, THEN there is a difference between a soldier indiscriminately dropping bombs on / firing into densely populated cities and towns and a police officer shooting people.

Otherwise, they're all members of the same despicable horde of murderous thugs which must not be tolerated by any society that hopes to call itself "civilized".

But i thought you said there wasnt a difference and murder was murder ? glad to hear that you think there are distinctions and everything is not black and white

Afghanistan, yes, Iraq, no. The legality of the Iraq war is far from firmly established. The US could not obtain a resolution, so manufactured an as yet legally untested argument that an unrelated prior resolution gave them the right to invade.



You're kidding.

Opposition to the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No i am not kidding !you don't honestly think that is the majority of the UK population do you? You are aware that there's around 60million people here?

 

[LuisDantas]

Yep the Military and Law enforcement kill people under certain rules ( which you call "told you to") and that's one thing . killing because you" felt like it" is quite another.

I believe the Nuremberg Trials established that, basically, no, they aren't different things from a legal perspective. They most definitely aren't morally different to any significant degree. As Alceste says, murder is murder.

Were we to think otherwise it would be a real pain to explain why not only soldiers, but hired killers in general should be held responsible for their deeds. Mafia thugs, for instance, follow rules as well. They are murderers all the same.

 

[LuisDantas]

So do you mean tank crews should only open fire if someone is pointing an appropriate weapon directly at them.That combatants should meander around the battlefield until someone actually targets them personaly?

Well, is there any halfway decent reason to do otherwise?

 

[LuisDantas]

whats beside the point? you intimated you didnt see a difference between manslaughter and premeditated murder, and between aggression and self-defense. prompting me to comment on seeing things in black and white.

I can see that. And I must point out that I don't recognize that as a legitimate criticism. It is, in fact, a strawman. There is a world of difference between having a black and white morality and giving military murder a free pass.

 

[kai]

I believe the Nuremberg Trials established that, basically, no, they aren't different things from a legal perspective. They most definitely aren't morally different to any significant degree. As Alceste says, murder is murder.

Were we to think otherwise it would be a real pain to explain why not only soldiers, but hired killers in general should be held responsible for their deeds. Mafia thugs, for instance, follow rules as well. They are murderers all the same.

The Nuremberg trials established that the victor enforces his rules on the vanquished . what i mean is its wrong for the Loser to bomb cities but not the victor.They couldn't really try themselves now could they.

All killings are not murder and each country has its own definitions. as do you,I and Alceste . Murder is Murder it just depends whos defining it.
__________________

 

[LuisDantas]

For this to be a fair comparison, I would have to go into the street tomorrow while the police just had a shootout with a militant group, I see some guys walking around with guns on a street not far from the police, no one else is around, I see a guy aim an RPG at the police, and then I shoot them.

In which sense is that a fair comparison? The police is a legitimate authority in most circunstances. Armed conflicts are a whole different beast, by definition.

Of course any death is a tragedy, but it's utter nonsense and moral confusion not to acknowledge there is a difference between my hypothetical actions, and the actions of a psychopath who decided to mow down unarmed people one day, for absolutely no reason.

I thought we were talking about war? In wars the psychopaths are rarely among the people actually firing weapons. They usually prefer to lead.

 

[LuisDantas]

The Nuremberg trials established that the victor enforces his rules on the vanquished.

Nope. That was established millenia ago.

Nuremberg established instead that following orders is no longer an acceptable excuse for even military murder. Not even for military officers of the Nazi regime, where soldiers and even officers where essentially under constant danger of being killed or worse if they disobeyed.

what i mean is its wrong for the Loser to bomb cities but not the victor.They couldn't really try themselves now could they.

All killings are not murder and each country has its own definitions. as do you,I and Alceste . Murder is Murder it just depends whos defining it.
__________________

You can't in good faith expect me to buy that, Kai.

 

[kai]

Well, is there any halfway decent reason to do otherwise?

Yes if someone is pointing an appropriate weapon at an allied tank or soldier or civilian for that matter leading you to believe they are going to kill them.

 

[kai]

I can see that. And I must point out that I don't recognize that as a legitimate criticism. It is, in fact, a strawman. There is a world of difference between having a black and white morality and giving military murder a free pass.

Is it a legitimate argument that the military has a free pass ?