Leaked Doc May Have Forced US To Speed Up Bin Laden Raid 632
cf18 writes "Wikileaks released a set of leaked Guantanamo prisoner files to the public last week. Among them is a document dated from 2008, which mentioned both Osama's trusted courier's name and Abbottabad, the city in which Osama had been hiding. There are speculations that, fearing al-Qaida realized their courier may have been tracked and move Osama, the US administration accelerated their plan and attacked the target site over the weekend. This link highlights the relevant section of the document."
Sept 2008 document (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sept 2008 document (Score:4, Insightful)
You know its not a game, right? They just don't find a document from one guy and then go kill people.
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It is on Slashdot. After all they believe in Kill them all and let God sort them all then blame it on Bush! As I have gotten older I have discovered that you can never go wrong second guessing. That way you can never be proven wrong.
Re:Sept 2008 document (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a hard time believing the US government, the same one that drops countless bombs on innocents in order to take out low level "militants", would put off an operation for years in order to be 100% sure before it acted. Really, when has it ever dallied on a target for that length of time out of an excess of caution, much less a very slippery and high-value target? The idea is completely absurd.
Re:Sept 2008 document (Score:5, Insightful)
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Who knew for two years that the hideout was terrorist-associated? And the idea that Pakistan harbors terrorists is laughable - everybody knows they do (ever hear of Kashmir?). The question was whether they harbored OBL. They're not going to hit some random terrorist training camp in the middle of an allied nation.
I doubt that the US waited years after knowing where OBL was. I suspect that they took action as quickly as they could reasonably do so. The only reason I could see them deliberately holding o
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They had a lead only. A lead is not an address or confirmation. They have to find the courier, watch the courier over time, see where he goes, try to find out where he came from, verify that he really is a courier, verify that he's really the right courier, figure out which of the many locations he goes to is the one with Osama, verify that Osama is really there, watch the place to figure out the comings and goings, etc. This was in Pakistan which is an ally and not a country we're at war with, you can't
Isn't WL supposed to redact.... (Score:2)
Bin Laden (Score:2)
Im all for being Patriotic, but if he's not calling any shots how is he a threat? Even if he was still relevant, shouldnt we be looking for his replacement now?
I hope... (Score:3)
I hope it isn't true, but I really hope that our elected government weren't waiting to do this at a more convenient time... like election time.
If that's the case, I really am glad that WikiLeaks may have fast-tracked this operation.
The first confirmed kill by Wikileaks is Osama? (Score:2)
Apparently, the US knew where he was for the past 3 years and did nothing until Wikileaks pointed out we knew something about someone who may know something. Where's the line between cautious and negligent? Or have we been tracking him accurately for that long without his knowledge and using that knowledge to dismantle the organization? Though if we were doing that with any efficiency, we
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The people who originally had the document and the people who made the kill are both the US Military, right? Wikileaks didn't help at all, then.
If I'm wrong and a leak from Wikileaks actually led to finding bin Laden, I'm willing to change my position and say they should be hailed.
nope (Score:5, Insightful)
the doc only states that the detainee moved there in 2003. A couple a lines down it also states he moved away from there a year later.
Basically, it's that randomest and least remarkable mention of the place.
Election timing ruined... (Score:5, Interesting)
"...fearing al-Qaida realized their courier may have been tracked and move Osama, the US administration accelerated their plan and attacked the target site over the weekend."
Awww, so sorry Obama. You couldn't perfectly time the killing of OBL to match your re-election and get that popularity vote behind you. (Sorry, but the more I read about how we've known about/tracked his courier for literally years now, the more I question why the hell we waited this damn long to take action if NOT for some other benefit such as re-election timing.)
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, it would be better to live in perpetual ignorance. We can trust the Government and Corporations to rule us fairly.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Funny)
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But then spits on you with commercials.
They are not spitting on your back. They are faking an orgasm.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Osama was allowed to keep his life secret. You may believe all secrets are bad, Microlith (if that is your real name) but Wikileaks doesn't fix that - it's too random.
Any problem with trusting the government or other organizations comes from a lack of willingness to engage with them. It's not that we don't know what our government is up to, it's that we'd rather just stand on the sidelines shouting about how evil they are than get our hands dirty, get involved with actual decision making and risk making our own mistakes. It's not a question of trust - if you want to have influence, you have to get involved.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, what? Isn't that the entire point of WikiLeaks - that without leaks we don't know what they're up to?
You realize the recent WikiLeaks dump revealed all kinds of ludicrous "decisions" (using the term loosely) were being made, right?
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Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
You would rather Osama get away to lead more terrorist attacks than that you not know the name of his courier?
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you REALLY think that killing Osama changed anything? Think of it this way: Would killing the President of the US suddenly halt every operation running? Would killing the CEO of any large corporation make it fold and cease to exist?
We're not talking about a handful of loonies with a Bond-villainesque leader and a structure that would crumble when you remove the head. Ozzy has already been replaced, and I guess it's safe to assume that this "devastating blow" didn't change jack. Considering how "prominent" Bin Laden had been, it's quite likely that the day to day "business" was already in the hands of someone else.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Interesting)
The real question is not whether you or I, or the next guy thinks killing Osama will accomplish anything. It is whether the general public will think so.
The US culture has, for the past few decades, evolved to expect the "Good Guys Always Win" ending. It has been hammered into our heads by practically every movie, TV series, and book targeted for the mainstream audience. You and I may know perfectly well that the world is a complex inter-related network of challenging problems, but for the average Joe there is only a bad guy that needs to be defeated, and a world/girl that needs to be saved. Such a view may be depressing for those of us that can see through the illusion, but that does not change the fact that a huge section of the US society thinks this way.
Killing Osama simply plays right into this mentality; Yet again the US is the stereotypical "Good Guy" that killed the "Big Evil Villain." There was then a big party with a ton of booze and women, and now the credits are rolling, and everyone is getting up to leave the theater. This is a huge milestone not in terms of world events, but in the minds of millions of people in the US that wanted nothing more than to go to Afghanistan and kick one guy in the face.
So again, you can analyze the hell out of the problems of the world. You can create model after model and scenario after scenario for what will happen in all the various organizations. You can point out that the terrorists are still terrorists. However, you can not ignore how all of these things will sail straight over the heads of a good 95% of the population. Given that unfortunately these are the people that decide the elections, I will say that damn right this changed something.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question is not whether you or I, or the next guy thinks killing Osama will accomplish anything. It is whether the general public will think so.
No, the real question is how history will judge this assassination. We are outraged about what he took responsibility for, and likely blinded by it, justifying our blood thirst by having lived through his.
Future generations might not be so biased, and think that the right to a trial is universal and should be stronger protected the more atrocious the acts were, and the surer we are of the guilt.
History might judge this as government sanctioned vigilante justice, which takes away any moral high ground we might have had.
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No, the real question is how history will judge this assassination. We are outraged about what he took responsibility for, and likely blinded by it, justifying our blood thirst by having lived through his. Future generations might not be so biased, and think that the right to a trial is universal and should be stronger protected the more atrocious the acts were, and the surer we are of the guilt.
That's ridiculous. When you gloat about killing 3000 people and promise to kill more, your life is forfeit and you can expect to be dead as soon as those you've attacked get their hands on you. I couldn't care less how history judges it.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the point GP was raising that it would have been more appropriate to capture the guy alive, put him on trial, and then - if (heh) he is found guilty - execute him right and proper. Then it wouldn't have been assassination.
This is not unprecedented - Israel did just that [wikipedia.org] to Eichmann. He was directly responsible for so many deaths of their people that 3000 is chump change in comparison - and yet they felt that capturing him alive and putting them on trial is preferable to covert assassination.
Personally, I don't see how it makes any difference in the end in terms of justice - Osama is clearly guilty, never denied it, and would have gotten the death penalty anyway. But I think that putting him on trial would have been a much more prominent propaganda win than merely killing him.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
However I am fundamentally opposed to capital punishment. It has shown to not be a detererant, it doesn't bring justice only revenge (the two are not the same thing) and, most importantly in my eyes, the state doesn't have the right to kill anyone where it can be avoided.
I acknowledge that this view isn't the most popular idea right now, but historical trends are showing that capital punishment is becoming less and less acceptable and that is exactly what this was, an untried execution of a person. Whatever way you break it down, the US government acted no differently to a gang in the street
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, Israel has also carried out assassinations. The approach chosen depends on many other factors, not least of which is that Eichmann did not have tens of millions of sympathisers around the world who would be motivated to launch repeated terrorist attacks to free him.
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Historically, it has been a part of the image of "good civilized guys" (which I hope we're still trying to project) that even the most vile scum is only put to death after a trial. If that courtesy was extended to the perpetrators of the Holocaust, I don't see why it shouldn't be applicable to Osama. The end result is the same, but symbolically it does make a big difference.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, in other words, you do not think Justicia should be blind and provide _everyone_ with the same rights -- that the right to a fair trial can be waived if the commander in chief says so?
Had he surrendered, then sure, give him a trial. Maybe a military tribunal. But they were in a long firefight in a dangerous place, and he didn't surrender. If he wanted to be captured and wanted a trial, then he should have surrendered. I'm not going to ask that those guys put themselves at any more risk than necessary, and I'm not going to ask that they put a more priority on capturing rather than killing him if he isn't going to surrender. Better him dying than any one of them.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Informative)
According to news stories I've read, Osama was unarmed. Yet he was shot in the head, point blank. It's pretty clear that it was a planned assassination from the get go.
Getting back to the example of Eichmann - Israelis went so far as to craft an elaborate undercover operation all for the sake of capturing him alive and getting him into Israel. Assassinating him would be much easier to them (as evidenced by other cases where they did just that).
In fact, there's also an interesting point to consider. Hamas commanders who mastermind terrorist acts which kill, at most, a few dozen, eventually just get a bullet to the head, quiet like. But a guy who masterminded the murder of millions - him they got on trial, which many consider to be more fair than e.g. Nuremberg trials, and then hanged him right and proper - the only civilian ever executed in the history of Israel. Why? Because the trial was part of setting it an example for everyone to remember - here's what the man did and how, in rigorous detail; and here's what he gets for doing all that. A bullet to the head in the heat of the battle does not have quite the same effect.
Personally, I think it would have probably been even better to capture Osama and keep him alive. A dead man is a martyr, a shahid - doubly so as now he actually gloriously died in battle against the "infidels".
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Since you keep citing Eichmann, you should know that the Israelis killed several Nazis post WWII without bringing
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Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple and Birkshire-Hathaway's success is, for better or worse, truer or falser, tied to the leaders of the company in the mind of most investors. If Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet dropped dead tomorrow without having left clear plans for a successor, and having had the markets get used to the idea, I suspect the value would drop out of their stocks in a massive way before recovering.
Killing Bin Laden has changed the political dynamic in the United States. It's given Obama a popularity boost and an improvement in image which he can leverage in his negotiations on domestic policies. It makes it harder to call him "soft on defense" when he's kept up 2 wars, boosted troop levels in Afganistan, and just sent the Navy SEALS into Pakistan, pretty much unannounced, to bust into a house and cap Bin Laden in the face.
Whether or not getting at Bin Laden is going to have any effect in the "war on terror" is irrelevant. In Afganistan, we've been at it with the Taliban this whole time. There hasn't really been much of a foreign Arab-fighter presence there for several years. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are two different things. The spin-off groups in Iraq and Yemen were basically independent entities which used the name Al Qaeda for brand association hoping that believers in Bin Laden would come fight for them. It's basically trademark infringement.
The fact is that killing Bin Laden put the final cap on the whole 9/11 thing for Americans. Bin Laden can no longer be the boogey man hiding in the wings, because he's gone. Any threat that we might face going forward isn't going to come from him. Killing Bin Laden is a lot like the fall of the Soviet Union, in a way. The monolithic face of terror is gone and now the small operators are going to have to come up with their own spin on things. we'll see how this goes. We all know what a disaster letting the Soviet Union collapse was for us.
Also he's a figurehead (Score:3)
And figureheads are important, we wouldn't have them if they weren't. His death sends many messages to people who would engage in activities like he did things like we will track you down no matter how long it takes, you will not be safe, ever.
It is massively demoralizing for his followers as well. Their figurehead goes out not in a blaze of glory killing infidels, but taken out by a special ops team while hiding in his mansion.
Capturing or killing Bin Laden had a great deal of symbolic value and that is wo
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should look up the term, "justice" and see what it's all about.
I will give you a hint, this is not about sending seals to kill a guy in the middle of the night. Justice implies presumption of innocence, trial and conviction, even for the Big Bad Guy.
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Please elaborate. So far I can't see anything that could possibly change.
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Please elaborate. So far I can't see anything that could possibly change.
About five stories back was the real news: the US got ahold of bin Laden's computer [slashdot.org]. Regardless of the symbolism of killing the man himself, the seizure of his files may turn out to be the beginning of the end of at least the Pakistan/Afghanistan chapter of Al Queda.
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Funny, I was thinking of an entirely different Star Wars quote - "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." Martyrs are particularly difficult to deal with, after all.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Informative)
Moving on...
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False dichotomy much? I want both reasonable state secrets and eventual declassification of previously classified material. That's something similar to the present system, maybe with the declassification knob turned up a little.
I'm with the GP, mostly.
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Well we certainly can't trust wikileaks either, so who does that leave?
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Representative democracy requires informed voters to be truly functional and not just a facade for a ruling class. The balance of secrecy works the same as all other balances. It doesn't hover in a perfect middle. It pendulums between two sides with an average hopefully near the middle. Without Wikileaks and others like them there would be nothing to balance the over correction into government secrecy after 9/11. The counterweight used to be the traditional press but they got lost chasing profit with w
No, wikileaks may not know when to sit on info ... (Score:3)
... the accumulated cultural wisdom of all citizens which allows them to know when to publish a leaked document to expose corruption and when to sit on it. Oh wait, that's what we've got.
No. **If** wikileaks actually did release info related to Abbottabad then we *do not* have the component where people have the wisdom to know when to not release the info, the wisdom to sit on it as you say.
Wikileaks may be as unskilled as the government with respect to classifying info. They merely may be erring on the opposite end of the spectrum and letting too much out. Wikileaks is a bit like a vigilante organization and our "accumulated cultural wisdom" say that courts and the rule of law (logic)
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I'm sorry, where have you been the past decades? The US you describe might have existed a while ago, but I'm not old enough to remember it.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, where have I been granted more freedom in the last 30 years? Everywhere you look more is being taken away by both the war on drugs and terrorism. Remember times when a warrant was necessary to collect evidence? Remember when you had a right to speedy trial and didn't have to rot in jail for years on end without charge?
I'm amazed that you choose to blind yourself of the politics of the last 30 years and then have the balls to declare someone else deluded. Remember when I couldn't get a DUI for driving while sober? Now adays you can fail a piss test being bone sober and still end up with a DUI because a cop says you drove funny and even though you blow 0.0.
Parent wasn't a brave soul fighting anything, there is a big difference between acknowledging reality and doing something to fix it. Parent also said nothing about being persecuted.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you're true to your nickname. Only a right wing nutjob is getting what they want in this day and age.
Get it straight: We have nothing like democracy in this country and I'm not convinced we ever have had. Since Teddy Roosevelt there have been only three presidents who have not been total tools of the status quo, and one of them was only out for himself.
Manning is a patriot, Assange is a useful idiot. However instead of being useful to the power elite, he is useful to all of us.
The only way we will get accountability is when men like Assange and Manning do what they have done.
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for information purposes.
what is actually on wikileaks:
Abbottabad is mentioned 4 times on the site.
twice as someones place of birth.
once as somewhere where someone went to get his masters degree.
once as somewhere someones family lived for a few months.
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Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do left wingers always say that "dissent is patriotic". That's literally an oxymoron."
No, it's not. They're simply not as bloody stupid as you. Neither were the founding fathers. They had few illusions about what governments were and how wrong they could go. The government is a tool of the people, not the other way around. As soon as you think like a fascist, that the state is all that matters, then it's all over. Dissent is how you keep the government in check and ensure that the ideals on which the country was founded persist.
That's what other people understand and you don't.
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Shoot the messenger. That'll make it all better.
He's a patriot (or falsely accused) because he revealed the truth to the electorate. It's not guaranteed to make things better but lies can pretty much be guaranteed to make things worse.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>here in America, we've had it going in more or less working order for several hundred years,
Nothing to brag about really. Rome had a democracy (the Senate) for 500 years, and yet still succumbed to a tyrant (Julius Caesar and his offspring).
The UK democracy (Parliament) is about 200 years older than the american democracy. As for Assange, he serves the original purpose envisioned by the First amendment "freedom of press" clause. The citizens use the power of speech and writing to keep the spotlight on corrupt politicians, in order to keep them from becoming like the 1770s parliament we rebelled against.
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The UK democracy (Parliament) is about 200 years older than the american democracy.
Kids! The Icelandic Althing is 1081 years and still going. The US is a mere child when it comes to democracy. The right to vote is still not universal, which is a big obstacle on the road to the US ever becoming a democracy.
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Yes, this is a big problem, because many felonies are political in nature (like recreational drug use), which gives the people in power an opportunity to reduce the votes for the opposition.
Also, anyone who is arrested for a possible felony at the time of the election, whether the charges later get dropped or not. In certain southern states, it wasn't uncommon for the sheriff to round up the "undesirables" for the election, to prevent them from voting, and then let them go later.
In addition, you have to re
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"We have met the enemy, and they is us."
- Pogo
- Walt Kelley
Shut up and vote, or bitch and moan and remove all doubt about how it got this way.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't a reputable newspaper that tries to make sure they will increase profits if they cause people to get killed by releasing information
FTFY.
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being mindlessly cynical doesn't do anyone any good, and it may be worth mod points, but doesn't add much to the discussion. Many serious newspapers spend a great deal of money and time reviewing their work to make sure it doesn't cause the problems Wikileaks does. Read up on some of the procedures at the New York Times or other reputable sources. Considering their are trying to stay in business, it's pretty incredible what they go through to maintain integrity.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Informative)
wikileaks grows up and realizes they are endangering lives
The only life they seem to have endangered to date is Ossama Bin Laden's.
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Causing the pace of an operation to accelerate isn't the same thing as putting Bin Laden's life in danger. If anything, it put the lives of the special forces operators at greater risk by having less time to prepare everything before hand. So, pretty much the opposite of what you said.
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I don't recall that incident, when did Wikileaks publish the atomic bomb schematics? OH, YEAH, that happened decades before Wikileaks even existed, back when the internet was a curiosity available to DoD and a few universities only. They printed it in the newspaper. Nothing happened.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
For every 1000 documents of embarrassing diplomatic relations, corporate malevolence, and government secrets, perhaps one or two get out that should have been kept secret. What's that official death count from all those leaked afghan cables? Zero? One?
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What's that official death count from all those leaked afghan cables? Zero? One?
Well, if you do attribute the raid on Osama as a reaction to Wikileaks then the number would be "several", albeit the "bad guys"
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So back to that death count...
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If Wikileaks knew the difference between legal secrets and illegal ones, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's that official death count from all those leaked afghan cables? Zero? One?
Actually, Wikileaks appears to have played a large part in stirring the uprising in Tunisia (cables about corruption), and consequently Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Syria and Libya...
So back to that death count...
It appears the Governments there made their own mess. You discount the oppressive people/governments who actually are responsible for their actions thus far. Go back to bed Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Syria and Libya.
So about that blaming the victims, not the perpetrators...
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question seems to be, "Should Wikileaks be complicit in the corruption, and be quiet, or should Wikileads expose the corruption, even though someone might be killed?"
Obviously our government didn't mind being complicit.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Our government can obviously be trusted to never endanger lives through its recklessness.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Wikileaks appears to have played a large part in stirring the uprisings...So back to that death count...
The Declaration of Independence killed about 1 million British citizens, due to the uprising it stirred. Maybe you believe Thomas Jefferson should not have written it, and the US still be a bunch of British colonies? Maybe Thomas Jefferson is as "evil" as Assange for all the trouble he stirred-up?
(I disagree - I think they are of like character. They both believed the people deserve to know.)
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a million? You're off by almost two orders of magnitude. About 40,000 british soldiers and sailors died in the revolution, according to wikipedia. Or did you mean that Britain lost about a million subjects by virtue of them forming their own country?
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Informative)
The interrogation file was dated "10 September 2008." Is someone seriously claiming that the military was willing to wait more than two years to conduct the attack but then had to rush things by a couple of weeks because of this leak?
Apparently so. We have an article using the passive voice to indicate that someone somewhere is speculating that the military did in fact cut a two-and-a-half year delay down to just 2.5 years minus a week or two because they were worried about the consequences of this leak.
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The article is balls.
But the concept is valid.
If Osama knew that the name of this courier was known to al Quaeda's enemies, Osama could have stopped using him and prevented us from following him back. Or simply had him killed to prevent any chance of a linkage. Or determined how he was revealed and killed someone else for it.
Keeping secrets about the enemy keeps your people safe and keeps the enemy's status stable so you can find him and destroy him.
But if Julian Assange feels it's right to reveal these s
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a guys name, you seriously think based on a single couriers name they can determine exactly where Osama is?
Or are you thinking they'll magically know in 2008 where Osama is because five years earlier some other guy moved to Abbottabad for a year? Clearly Osama must be in that town in a building that didn't even exist when the detainee in question lived there.
The name is what is important. They were clearly tracking the courier mention (given he was there when they raided), if Osama find out that you know about the guy he has moving in and out of his hiding place he's going assume you are at least close to working it out and so move ASAP and get another courier. He survived for almost 10 years with the world's largest military after him and a $25 million bounty on his head - he had to be paranoid...
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If everyone really is out to get you, is it still called paranoia? I thought you had to have a delusional belief that everyone was after you to be paranoid.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Or are you thinking they'll magically know in 2008 where Osama is because five years earlier some other guy moved to Abbottabad for a year?
They seemed to magically know exactly where he was within a week of the Wikileak being released.
Some people argue that they knew long before and didn't want anyone to know because they were gaining valuable intel. To that I have to ask: why didn't they just perform the raid right away, capture him, gather all his materials, and take down the al Qaeda from the top?
Some people argue that they didn't know anything but what was in the Wikileak and figured everything out in a panicked rush after the leak. To that I have to ask: why did the government fail to do anything with this very important lead for the 2-6 years that they had it?
Some people argue that the government had been meticulously gathering information and was coincidentally very close to capturing him when the leak was released. To that I have to ask: would you like to buy a bridge?
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
For every improperly classified document they release, they're releasing thousands of things that should be kept secret.
They aren't competent to do what they are doing, and we're not safe as long as they are making these mistakes.
We're not safe as long as the government is improperly hiding vast amounts of information, either. The most practical solution would be for the government to adopt a trustworthy approach to secrecy and build the public's confidence in their honesty. If the people could reasonably trust that classified information legitimately needed to be kept secret and was not just hiding misdeeds, there would be no need for Wikileaks and no demand for the revelation of any classified documents. Until then, Wikileaks serves a need.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your continual Ad Hominem attacks against Manning do nothing to him, but they make you look like an asshole.
Manning was trained to betray his countrymen in the name of serving his country. He instead betrayed his fellow servicemen in the act of serving his nation.
You're pissy because he went against his training, but we should instead discuss whether he did the right thing. There are still no reports of anyone dying because of what he did. But the information he delivered contains reports of wrongful death. He did more good than harm, except to the status quo, which needs harm in the worst way.
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Exactly.
We will never know how many people were figured out and executed or worse. Worse yet is the impact to our ability to gather human intelligence.
People on Slashdot live in basements. The real world isn't all about free information. Secrets won World War II for the Allies.
Re:Still think Wikileaks knows what they're doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, Robert Gates doesn't agree with you [cnn.com]. ([more analysis [salon.com]]).
You've also failed to point out the fact that the main *innocent* people who die are not our Afghani sympathizers, but american soldiers and Afghan civilians. Want to save american lives? Get the fuck out of afghanistan. It's over.
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Regardless of ones position on the war, your analysis is pretty questionable.
"Why would the military hide information that would turn public opinion against wikileaks?"
Because it's likely that they would figure out who a mole or agent was from indirect references in the documents. They might be sure enough to eliminate them, but not completely sure, just like the US was unsure about Bin Laden being in Abbottabad.
If suddenly, the US then says "insert-name" has been killed because of wiki-leaks, they know the
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>>>Secrets won World War II for the Allies.
The difference is that we were at War and different rules apply (wartime law). At present we are still at Peace, so peacetime law (i.e. the constitution) applies in all things. the fact you are so blind as to believe you can trust the president (or congress) makes me wonder if you slept through history class.
Maybe you ought to watch the movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" so you can get a reminder. The best part is when the German judge admits he loved Hitler
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As long as governments are lying and hiding things from their people, we need someone watching the watchers. Or are you asserting that our safety is more important than our liberty? If so, then I'd need to quote an oft quoted quote that is rarely heeded.
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The government pretty sternly told Wikileaks not to release any of them, and why.
Wikileaks ignored them.
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Didn't wikileaks give the government a preview of things they were going to release?
Perhaps you missed it but ***very few*** in government knew the courier's real name and the significance of Abbottabad. However UBL's folks in Abbottabad would and thereby know to flee if they had bothered to do a "find" on the wikileak docs.
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I have zero respect for "forcing the gov's hand".
I posted a submission that hasn't been approved yet that Pakistan (and others?) were doing a masterful job of hiding him while sorta pretending to be our friends. This says that if *everybody* involved really wanted him dead, he would have been in short order. Instead, we got our ten year spree of 1984 using this as bait to "stay the course".
"Hai. $100 Million to anyone who hands Osama personally into US forces."
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If you're referring to Manning, they didn't charge him as a traitor. It's a harder case to make, and it carries a much higher penalty than what he was charged with.
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So what's the argument here? That wikileaks got the government to actually get around to going after the most wanted man in the world? HBGary? Is that you?
To play devils advocate here, there may have been indications that Bin Laden *may* be hiding there. But the US Govt might have wanted to have firmer intel on that before sending DEVGRU a 100 miles into Pakistan, wikileaks may have forced them to act on not solid intel. If Bin Laden hadn't been there, wikileaks would have caused a nice win for OBL.
Re:sorry ... what?! (Score:5, Informative)
But the US Govt might have wanted to have firmer intel on that before sending DEVGRU a 100 miles into Pakistan, wikileaks may have forced them to act on not solid intel.
I seriously doubt Wikileaks "forced" them to do anything. The document says that this guy, LY-10017, had communication with Bin Laden's courier, and that in 2003 LY-10017 lived in Abbottabad. He moved somewhere else in 2004 or 2005, before Bin Laden's compound was built. The only connections are that it lists the name of the courier, and indicates that this particular detainee once lived in the same city that Bin Laden turned out to be hiding in (but not at the same time). It's more of a coincidence, the document doesn't even draw a link between Bin Laden's courier and the town, other than a guy who once lived in the town also once communicated (indirectly) with the courier.
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They had a couple YEARS to get firmer intel. The only thing Wikileaks might have done is push the raid to "sooner" rather than "closer to the next election."
Yes, I'm that jaded about politicians. And I mean all of them, not just the person in the White House today... If WikiLeaks pushed them to actually act on the intel, then hail WikiLeaks!
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The argument is that if Bin Laden's folks had been more on the ball, Assange's indiscriminate leak would have cost us the opportunity to end Bin Laden.
Re:So it wasn't Obama, but Wikileaks that "got him (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that waterboarding gave us nothing, and it was the tried and true non-coercive interrogation methods that provided us with that information, contrary to what Fox News would have you believe.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+andrewsullivan/rApM+(The+Daily+Dish) [thedailybeast.com]
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Do you think they will drill far enough down to find this link that shows that Donald Rumsfeld himself admits the same?
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/02/rumsfeld-bin-laden-gitmo/ [thinkprogress.org]
30 days hath september, April... (Score:5, Funny)
"they planned to raid Osama's hideout on April 31"
I am sure that would have been a surprise for Osama - nobody expects to be raided on April 31