wikileaks ?

[kai]

Nope. That was established millenia ago. Then Nuremberg reinforced that in case anybody forgot that if you lose your going to have to answer for your actions to people that could well be ideologically opposed to you.

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.

Yep there's the distinction again. an Officer can order you to murder and if you carried it out its murder but killing an opposing soldier in combat is not murder is it.

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

sure why not . I mean in some countries they can kill you for being a homosexual now i call that murder but they don't.

The US has the death penalty , we dont. is the guy that throws the switch on the electric chair a murderer? not in the US he isnt ,but here we may just think he is. after all , is he only following orders?

 

[Copernicus]

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

I don't think that I was being unkind to him. I genuinely pity him, because I do not think he will look back on this act with a sense of pride. He has thrown his future away for very little in return.

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.

But I criticize the indiscriminate and irresponsible nature of the leak, and I never expected "every leaked document should constitute a 'smoking gun'". Quite the opposite. The government "secrecy" in this case was not extreme at all. A secure database will always contain a mixture of sensitive and innocuous materials. They exist for the purpose of information extraction, not to hide embarrassing information. Perhaps we ought to hire people to scan them for embarrassing information that could be passed out to the news media, but do you really think that that would be a practical possibility? Good luck getting politicians to support that idea.

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.

Yes, it does work that way. It doesn't sound like you worked with classified materials. The government has recently switched from "need to know" to "need to share", and the administration has issued orders to declassify large amounts of information in the future. The problem with that is that information flows to higher networks freely and cheaply. Flowing from high to low requires expensive "downgrading". Downgrading requires a set of security policies and a person trained to recognize the information. Even when that is done, lots of sensitive information can slip out. The data in SIPRNet was supposed to be sharable, but not everything in it is properly classified. It was a very sloppy response to the "need to share" requirement.

Look, Assange himself realized that he lacked the expertise to declassify the materials. He tried to blackmail the US government into helping him declassify secret documents that had been stolen from them. Even if it were feasible to declassify that amount of material quickly (not likely), the criteria for declassification are themselves classified, and there is no possibility that a government could accept such an offer and survive the political firestorm.

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.

Just to be clear, we are talking about SIPRNet (Secret Protocol Router Network), here, not just personal medical or financial records. I have no doubt that a foreign government would have paid Manning handsomely for that data. He gave it away to all hostile governments for free.

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.

Look, I've got no idea what your situation was in the UK. The laws regarding secrecy are different there, and I have no way to judge the nature of what you are talking about. SIPRNet data is definitely not material that should be leaked to governments hostile to US interests. Manning knew that, but he didn't really think clearly about what he was doing. (At least, I hope he wasn't.)

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.

Again, "Secret" in the US is a classification that means "grave damage to national security". Getting that classification does not mean that the information really would have that effect. Sometimes it is just material that is mixed in with more dangerous information.

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

Maybe it does in the UK, but I'm confining my comments to this specific story. I think that you are transferring some of your personal experiences onto a completely different situation. Some of the records released contained the names of individuals whose lives might be endangered by the disclosures, but they also provided some insight into the condition of troops and effectiveness of battlefield tactics. That is not information that should be released in the midst of a war and without any serious attempt to redact it.

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.)

I think that your count of the released materials is off. They have released 3 batches of documents so far. 70,000 records were released on the Afghan war in the summer, and those were very poorly redacted. They made an effort to remove names, but they did not get them all, which is not surprising, given the sheer volume of data. Unfortunately, removing names is not really effective at hiding identities. Text contains lots of descriptive information other than names that can be used to identify individuals. I had heard that the 250000 files were released, not that they were the encrypted blackmail threat. I cannot find any information to confirm that the 250K are still encrypted. Assange, of course, has retained materials as an "insurance policy", but he was saying that even before the 250K were released. BTW, the encryption on those files will be broken easily by the Chinese and Russians.

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.

I'm sorry, but it is you who are misinformed. The government does not even know everything that is in those cables. They are raw information. The attempts by amateurs like Assange and news journalists to redact them were ludicrous. They have no policy guides, and they don't even know what they are looking for to redact. They seem to think that just eliminating names--a monumental task in itself for so many records--is sufficient.

You're misinformed. Correct yourself and report back.

I know what I am talking about. From what you have said so far, I do not think that you understand the nature of what has been done here. That material is a godsend for foreign intelligence agencies and academics. I don't mind the academics getting it after a decade or two, but it should not be given to foreign governments, who will use sophisticated text mining techniques to analyze it.

 

[LuisDantas]

sure why not . I mean in some countries they can kill you for being a homosexual now i call that murder but they don't.

The whole idea is to rise above such a base level, however. I can see no other way of even pretending to have respect for governments and the military.

The US has the death penalty , we dont. is the guy that throws the switch on the electric chair a murderer? not in the US he isnt ,but here we may just think he is. after all, is he only following orders?

That and the high incidence of convictions that are eventually proven wrong are two of the main reasons why many US states lack the death penalty, and there is a strong public opinion movement against it even in the states that allow such a penalty.

Incidentally, that death penalties are often wrongly applied underscores how inherently immoral war killings are, regardless of any silly alegations otherwise.

 

[LuisDantas]

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

It isn't, and that is why I don't buy it.

I'm sorry that you don't understand how important the lessons from the WW II are, I really am. Of course, it would be only a minor nuisance if there were not so many other people that also seem to fail at that.

 

[xkatz]

[youtube]Wk_9P_sdrXw[/youtube]
YouTube - We The People

 

[kai]

It isn't, and that is why I don't buy it.

Then what exactly did you mean by this:

There is a world of difference between having a black and white morality and giving military murder a free pass.

I'm sorry that you don't understand how important the lessons from the WW II are, I really am. Of course, it would be only a minor nuisance if there were not so many other people that also seem to fail at that.

well its a shame people don't learn that appeasement doesn't work in the face of an aggressor but I think the sorriest thing of all is when people dont even understand that the lessons won in the second world war were won by soldiers millions of them fighting on behalf of their governments to deliver my country and many others from a truly dark age .You see if it wasnt for those soldiers there might have been an altogether different trial at Nuremburg.

Thats soldiers to me but murderers to you isn't it?

 

[Requia]

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?

That's not even close to my point, my point is that tank crews are firing on people who aren't a threat to anybody period, and doing it without any real effort to establish that they will become a threat, beyond it looking like they have a weapon.

They need to find out what the hell is going on before they start shooting, if they run or try to shoot, by all means kill them, but they can't assume its ok to kill somebody just because it looks like they have a weapon.

 

[Alceste]

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?

Sorry, kai, apparently you're right - two thirds of your countrymen wanted the war in 2003, although two thirds now think it was a mistake. That's unusual, compared to just about everywhere else. Nevertheless, regardless of popular opinion it was still probably illegal (the war's legality still needs to be decided by an international war crimes tribunal).

 

[Snow_Owl]

On the OP I just want to say I am in full support of Wikileaks, although I do wish they would ramp up the amount of information released daily.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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.

So then you do not believe "murder is murder" there are differing circumstances. Right?

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.

Here's the "rational ethical basis": someone is pointing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at you and they intend to use it. That's about as rational a basis for killing someone else as I can think of. Noam Chomsky agrees with this view, as it happens.

Now, whether or not coalition soldiers should be in Iraq in the first place, which arguably creates the potential for these situations to arise, is a different question. I think we agree on the answer to this question but they are subtly different questions.

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.

Absolutely innocent civilians have been killed, so let's focus on facts like that to make the case for wikileaks / the case against the war. Let's not hurt our own credibility by throwing around distortions. Do you sort of see what I'm struggling to say here?

 

[Bismillah]

Wow can we stop discussing this fatally flawed police soldier comparison because it is irrelevant and wrong in every aspect.

The men walking (that's right walking, ambling not running or doing anything that attracts attention or suspicion) are seen on the camera. The men do not react to the helicopter and obviously don't view themselves in any danger. From the video the pilot states that they are holding machine guns and rpgs, when in reality it is only two men who are holding cameras.

After lying to get permission (stating that the group is in possession of weapons) to open fire, they illegally do so. On unarmed men, who are in no way endangering any one else or any allied troops in the area. This in itself is illegal and had every single one of these individuals been carrying a weapon, their murder would still be indefensible.

The helicopter then fires on and kills the unarmed group, firing continuously at an individual struggling to crawl away. Then they fire on a van that stops to help the dying man on the street. Note that the pilot states that they are taking both bodies and weapons. Again he is lying to gain permission to fire. He gets permission and again shoots, illegally killing the two men who are holding the dying man in their arms.

The American personnel had no right to engage unless they or someone else were under attack. The military knowing this responded with the statement that they engaged supposed "anti Iraqi elements" who were battling coalition forces. The video was never revealed and the facts were distorted and hidden. Clear murder. I don't know how you can call it anything else.

 

[kai]

Wow can we stop discussing this fatally flawed police soldier comparison because it is irrelevant and wrong in every aspect.

The men walking (that's right walking, ambling not running or doing anything that attracts attention or suspicion) are seen on the camera. The men do not react to the helicopter and obviously don't view themselves in any danger. From the video the pilot states that they are holding machine guns and rpgs, when in reality it is only two men who are holding cameras.

After lying to get permission (stating that the group is in possession of weapons) to open fire, they illegally do so. On unarmed men, who are in no way endangering any one else or any allied troops in the area. This in itself is illegal and had every single one of these individuals been carrying a weapon, their murder would still be indefensible.

The helicopter then fires on and kills the unarmed group, firing continuously at an individual struggling to crawl away. Then they fire on a van that stops to help the dying man on the street. Note that the pilot states that they are taking both bodies and weapons. Again he is lying to gain permission to fire. He gets permission and again shoots, illegally killing the two men who are holding the dying man in their arms.

The American personnel had no right to engage unless they or someone else were under attack. The military knowing this responded with the statement that they engaged supposed "anti Iraqi elements" who were battling coalition forces. The video was never revealed and the facts were distorted and hidden. Clear murder. I don't know how you can call it anything else.

Abibi

That debate went on here:feel free to continue it.

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/political-debates/95608-collateral-murder.html


and i think we need to get back on topic.

 

[Alceste]

So then you do not believe "murder is murder" there are differing circumstances. Right?

Here's the "rational ethical basis": someone is pointing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at you and they intend to use it.

If you are a home invader and the owner of the house you are invading points a gun at you, you will still go to jail for murder if you shoot them.

Also, I watched the video several times and did not see anything remotely resembling a "rocket-propelled grenade launcher". I am not even convinced of machine guns, to be honest. You have to admit it's pretty grainy. Also, none of these conditions justify shooting willy-nilly into that poor family's mini-van when they posed no threat at all to anyone.

That's about as rational a basis for killing someone else as I can think of. Noam Chomsky agrees with this view, as it happens.

I bet you're quite wrong about that.

Now, whether or not coalition soldiers should be in Iraq in the first place, which arguably creates the potential for these situations to arise, is a different question. I think we agree on the answer to this question but they are subtly different questions.

Absolutely innocent civilians have been killed, so let's focus on facts like that to make the case for wikileaks / the case against the war. Let's not hurt our own credibility by throwing around distortions. Do you sort of see what I'm struggling to say here?

Yes, you are struggling because you think you are quite reasonable and even-tempered to furrow your brow and pretend that using the word "war" to describe a killing spree makes the moral implications of the bloodletting terribly complex, and I am telling you it does not.

Do you have a single RATIONAL reason to insist that it's OK for soldiers to indiscriminately kill? They're not enforcing any laws, they're not defending themselves or their property, there are a hundred non-lethal means by which they could remove themselves and others from mortal peril, they're not insane... all the legal defenses we could rely of if WE went on a killing spree are not available to them, their casualties number in the tens of thousands, and yet instead of locking them up and throwing away the key we are told we must celebrate them as heroes.

I don't think I'm the one with the credibility issue, to be honest.

 

[linwood]

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.)

Are you saying Wikileaks has stopped releasing these cables in order to use them as a bargaining tool in Assange`s prosecution?

 

[Bismillah]

I thought Wikileaks delayed its release of cables because of online difficulties. I read somewhere that they released a new batch...

Regardless, the cables could be just as easily released with or without Assange.

 

[Requia]

They release new cables every day, they never stopped for even one day that I'm aware of.

The slowdown is because they made a bargain with news outlets to give them first access to the cables if the outlets would help them make sure everything that needs to be redacted is redacted (Wikileaks has made mistakes in the past, and the US gov has refused to help). The news sources want to slow things down to increase sales.

I don't think all 250,000 will be published, but more are still on the way.

Edit: actually it looks like they stopped at 1295 cables Friday, not sure if that's a weekend thing or what, I suppose I'll know more come Monday.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

If you are a home invader and the owner of the house you are invading points a gun at you, you will still go to jail for murder if you shoot them.

Of course from your perspective it's all the same whether you are in someone else's home or not, after all "murder is murder".

Also, I watched the video several times and did not see anything remotely resembling a "rocket-propelled grenade launcher". I am not even convinced of machine guns, to be honest. You have to admit it's pretty grainy. Also, none of these conditions justify shooting willy-nilly into that poor family's mini-van when they posed no threat at all to anyone.

I totally agree about the van and I was quite adamant on that point in the "Collateral Murder" thread. I agree it's grainy but the U.S. patrol on the ground had taken fire. The guy setting up what looked like an RPG was peering around a corner, he happened to be staring straight down the road at a U.S. humvee and the patrol that was engaged. They continued to be fired upon after the video was taken, too. Wikileaks released the U.S. Army report investigating the incident, including the testimony of the pilots, photographs, etc. all of which I read and quoted in the "Collateral Murder" thread.

I bet you're quite wrong about that.

I'm not sure. He's not a pacifist.

Do you have a single RATIONAL reason to insist that it's OK for soldiers to indiscriminately kill?

No. We're talking about killing people with weapons who are trying to kill you; that's different from indiscriminate killing. And, I'm not arguing it's okay (quite the contrary, if you read the "Collateral Murder" thread). I'm just saying let's respect the facts, instead of falsely suggesting the pilot in the video deliberately murdered journalists and a family.

 

[Alceste]

Are you saying Wikileaks has stopped releasing these cables in order to use them as a bargaining tool in Assange`s prosecution?

No,they are still publishing cables by the same slow process as ever. Editorial review takes time, and there are a quarter million documents to go through. Also, as far as I know, they are still only publishing cables selected and reported on by their corporate media parters. The entire file (encrypted) that tens of thousands of people have downloaded is their way of ensuring the documents remain in the public domain if their site, for whatever reason, is unable to survive on the internet.

 

[Alceste]

Spinkles, if shooting someone from a helicopter is not a "deliberate" attempt to kill, I don't know what would be.

With regards to Chomsky, while he may not be a strict pacifist (neither am I, for that matter. I've outlined the conditions where killing is acceptable to me in this very thread), I know he is an anarchist and disapproves of coercion and violence as a method of establishing, expanding or maintaining the authority of the state. Obviously, the war in Iraq falls squarely in this category. But why speculate? If you have something he's written in support of the war in Iraq and / or the associated indiscriminate slaughter of civilians by Western forces (or any individual incident of civilian slaughtering) I'd be happy to read it. Otherwise, neither of us are mind readers.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Spinkles, if shooting someone from a helicopter is not a "deliberate" attempt to kill, I don't know what would be.

It's a deliberate attempt to kill, obviously, but it's not a deliberate attempt to kill journalists, a family, etc.

With regards to Chomsky, while he may not be a strict pacifist (neither am I, for that matter. I've outlined the conditions where killing is acceptable to me in this very thread), I know he is an anarchist and disapproves of coercion and violence as a method of establishing, expanding or maintaining the authority of the state. Obviously, the war in Iraq falls squarely in this category. But why speculate? If you have something he's written in support of the war in Iraq and / or the associated indiscriminate slaughter of civilians by Western forces (or any individual incident of civilian slaughtering) I'd be happy to read it. Otherwise, neither of us are mind readers.

Fair enough. He says he doesn't necessarily object to the use of terror/violence as self-defense and even its use in cases beyond simple self-defense, but OTOH he's talking about "political violence". I never meant to suggest he supports the war in Iraq but only that he agrees with the principle of self-defense. One does not have to take issue with the occupying soldier who, in certain circumstances, kills an insurgent in self-defense, in order to take issue with the decision to continue an occupation, which creates these situations in the first place.