Why WikiLeaks Is Worth Defending 257
SomePgmr writes "By now, anyone with even a passing interest in the WikiLeaks phenomenon is familiar with most of the elements of its fall from grace: the rift between founder Julian Assange and early supporters over his autocratic and/or erratic behavior, the Swedish rape allegations that led to his seeking sanctuary in Ecuador, a recent childish hoax the organization perpetrated, and so on. Critics paint a picture of an organization that exists only in name, with a leadership vacuum and an increasingly fractured group of adherents. Despite its many flaws, however, there is still something worthwhile in what WikiLeaks has done, and theoretically continues to do. The bottom line is that we need something like a 'stateless news organization,' and so far it is the best candidate we have."
Internet, not necessarily Wikileaks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Wikileaks is a bit like Anonymous. Anybody can just pick up a Wikileaks-like sounding domain name and claim to be working for "Wikileaks". So in that sense, it can never really be destroyed.
That being said, any government could just create a fake Wikileaks organization, infiltrate an existing one, or coerce existing members, so for some types of whistle-blowers, the only branches of Wikileaks that can be trusted are the ones that keep on publishing negative embarrassing materials against their own governmen
Re:Internet, not necessarily Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom to post whatever you want in a public forum is important in our world today. Wikileaks seems to self destructing and isn't necessary in the grand scheme of things.
Came here to say this. There will always be a vacuum for leaking facilitators, especially with the vast-reaching scale of the Internet and strong cryptography and anonymization technologies, and it will always be filled. Even without Wikileaks, there are other sites like Cryptome [cryptome.org]. Hell, even Gawker's [gawker.com] filling that role. Hell, here's a compiled list [leakdirectory.org]. With decentralized file-sharing sites, any torrent tracker or public file server can operate as a host for information. As Brand famously said, "Information wants to be free" [wikipedia.org], and the "99%" of any country will continue to be hungry consumers of that information.
It doesn't matter if Assange wants to be a showman or douche things up. He doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. He's merely the current public face of a system that has always existed and will always continue to exist. You can't make an example out of a thing like that.
The Powers that Be aren't stupid. They have to know this. Our job as the Public is to systematically remove any alternatives that they have to being good and respectful to their fellow man, and leaking is a critical and and inevitable part of that mission. With the Internet, we are closer than ever to having the tools to actually accomplish this. This doesn't mean that all leaks are good and noble; it does, however, mean that we need to respect their role in making the world a better place. It also means that legislating against this inevitability is both futile and self-destructive in the short term.
Re: (Score:3)
We don't need Wikileaks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We don't need USA (Score:2, Funny)
I corrected that for you.
(PS Valerie Plame ring a bell?)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, what about her?
I think you just proved the opposite of what you wanted to prove. She got her message out. She testified before the Congress, Press and the American people. Its just that no one cared enough. Democracy is about freedom, but it is not free. It takes a lot of hard work and no one is going to hand it to you.
Re: (Score:2)
Right!
And? What happened? Where was the outcry? Scooter Libby and Karl Rove walk the Earth freely. Why are they not rotting in a jail cell? Ah, yes, presidential pardons.
Re: (Score:3)
Scooter Libby and Karl Rove walk the Earth freely. Why are they not rotting in a jail cell? Ah, yes, presidential pardons.
You misspelled Richard Armitage. And really who cares about a spook being outed?
Re:And a secret agent was named (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares about a spook being outed? The spook and her family. Outing Plame was a lot more reckless than anything Wikileaks ever did.
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is rich. In the US we don't have investigative journalism anymore and haven't had it since Iran-Contra for political and Vietnam for war coverage. In both circumstances, the government learned not to allow the media too close. That is why reporters were not allowed to investigate Iraq and Afghanistan on their own without being "imbedded". That is why you have no focus on the trillions spent on these war efforts and no reporting on the corruption of our government by the deep pockets of those who financially gain from fear (read Homeland Security) and war (read military industrial complex). Instead what we get for "news" is spoon fed us by the Pentagon and the White House and taken as gospel. It then gets repeated by every new organization without a single fact verified. In short, what we got for new organizations are merely propaganda machines.
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I started to find you some links to big important national issues that weren't reported on the major evening news outlets... Then I gave up because:
0. I realized it wouldn't matter, you'll never change your mind. Protip: Chinese news and the BBC have better coverage of what's going on in America, give international news a watch from time to time, you'll see the blatant discrepancies; You can even do your own fact checking. Oh that's in line with what you just said, eh? No, it's not. I personally think
Re: (Score:2)
But the BBC is broadcast in the US! From my local npr station: midnight-5am 7 days a week "BBC world service", m-f 5am-6am "BBC World Update", m-f 9am-10am, m-f 8pm-9pm "The World"[a collaboration of the BBC and PRI]. That's 1/3 of the programming time monday through friday including 2 prime hours. It's on pbs on tv 7:30pm-8pm. And of course its on BBC America. So you can hardly say the BBC is better than news broadcast in the US when the BBC itself broadcasts in the US.
Have a crush on George Will, do ya? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
Re: (Score:3)
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is rich. In the US we don't have investigative journalism anymore
Wikileaks was neither investigative nor journalism. It was a data dump of sensitive information. Anyone that doesnt know the difference, such as apparently yourself, can offer no opinion that would be worth consuming on the subject. You are already too far gone to have any real grasp of reality.
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:5, Interesting)
GP wasn't claiming Wikileaks is investigative journalism (at least that's my reading of it), it was claiming that it fills a similar role that investigative journalism used to. Back in the day investigative journalism used to be used to hold governments to account a lot more effectively than it does now - without it being effective, the government has carte blanche to do what they like and control the media. Wikileaks and sites like it, whether you love or loathe them, do mean governments are more accountable for their actions. Without both sites like these and investigative journalism, governments could be completely unaccountable to the populace.
Re: (Score:2)
It provides source material to investigators. Think of it as a division of labor.
Re: (Score:2)
Wikileaks was neither investigative nor journalism. It was a data dump of sensitive information. Anyone that doesnt know the difference, such as apparently yourself, can offer no opinion that would be worth consuming on the subject. You are already too far gone to have any real grasp of reality.
This is a straw man as big as a house! The GP never said that WikiLeaks was investigative or journalism.
Re: (Score:2)
>>> That is why reporters were not allowed to investigate Iraq and Afghanistan
Sorry, this is a load of drivel. We know more about those two wars than any war before it. The problem might be, might be, I said, that we know too much about it. War is an ugly mess and most can't deal with the reality of it.
If you really believe that you have not gotten anything about the war, except what the US Government wants you to hear about, then you have not been looking too closely. There are a lot of non-US
Re: (Score:2)
Back when Louis Brandeis wrote, Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It, people had at least an inkling of who owned anything, and everything. Today, the typical Ameritard stooge is clueless as to who owns JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil, GE, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, BP, etc., ad nauseum. They just appointed retired ExxonMobil stooge (CEO) Lee Raymond to "investigate" JPMorgan Chase (and I believe Raymond still sits on the
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that they can't help us. For democracy to exist there they have to do it their way, which is what Pussy Riot was attempting to do. For democracy to survive in the West we have to defend it our way because freedom has potent domestic enemies. The truth hurts those enemies and neither you or I am innocent whilst we are choking on apathy and ignorance. This isn't a question of Nation or Party. The corruption that poisons our world governments seeks to crush any freedom of speech and expression of democracy anywhere. That's the reality we live with everyday.
If a man hiding in a Embassy because he faces life imprisonment for standing up for the truth in the face of corruption isn't exactly that then who is? Murdoch, Faux News? Ok he has flaws, what human doesn't? Does that mean Wikileaks is tarred by his iniquities? Whose opinions sway judgement and control rhetoric, the corrupted organisations that own the media outlets around the world whose interests are at stake?
The irony in all of this is astounding. An Australian, is a refugee in an Ecuador embassy, on British soil who seek to extradite him to Sweden where he fears extradition to the United States where he faces life in prison for exercising freedom of speech and defending democracy.
Wikileaks is the front line for the war on freedom, all our freedom. While the lies rule our governments we are all slaves.
Re:We don't need Wikileaks (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a reckless, amoral organization, that doesn't care who it hurts, doesn't care if it gets blood on its hand [sic]
Yes, that is true of the US Federal Government. That is what you meant, isn't it?
and could care less about the fate of the people who supply its documents.
Now maybe you are referring to Wikileaks. But your argument is disingenuous in the extreme. Ever hear the story about the mice who decided to bell the cat? A wonderful idea in principle, as then they would always know when the cat was approaching. Only one small practical problem: who gets the honour of actually belling the cat? Knowing that the odds of dying horribly are very high. My name for someone who deliberately volunteers for a mission like this is "hero". The fate of the people who supply the documents is altogether, and solely, the responsibility of those who inflict that fate. Your government.
Remember what Benjamin Franklin said, back when there was some hope that the USA would actually become a free country? "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety". Well, Bradley Manning refused to give up his liberty in order to obtain safety - and now he is being punished for it. Assange has laid his life and liberty on the line, and he may very well be next.
What the world needs, and still has plenty of, are people of good moral character, who will fight for what's right, who will take stands, and who will take risks.
I have way more respect for the three young women of Pussy Riot and what they have accomplished than anything Wikileaks has done.
I'll assume you are misinformed, rather than anarchically vicious. Read this, and say that again:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/the-secret-history-of-pussy-riot/ [counterpunch.org]
Enemy of the state (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Right that! But Julian Assange is still a sack of shit. WikiLeaks on the other hand is a great idea that should be in the hands any one person. Especially Assange.
Re: (Score:3)
Only a person like Julian Assange would have the balls to lead WikiLeaks. People who better fit into society tend to... yes... rather try to fit into society.
Re:Enemy of the state (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, a person can do good things *and* bad things? Stop it, you're hurting my simple brain! Can't conceive of two such concepts about the same person at the same time!
Re: (Score:2)
But Julian Assange is still a sack of shit.
So now we know your opinion about that. Do you have any facts with which to support your dismissive condemnation?
Re: (Score:2)
There are far to many strange things going on with this whole thing to believe it to be only about the rape charges.
Um...... no (Score:2)
Submitter's idea of "need" and mine are apparently worlds apart. I need Wikileaks like I need a shovel for that big steaming pile of dragon shit in my front yard that doesn't exist.
Re:Um...... no (Score:4)
You only need food, shelter, water and a hole to excrete your waste into. All of which can be provided in a concrete cell, which does exist. Living life only worrying about your utmost needs is a recipe for disaster. You may not need Wikileaks, but we would really like some of the corruption going on to stop... Pointing out the disparity between what we believe about our rulers and what is actually going on is important. We may not need Wikileaks precisely, but we do need the service they provide.
#1 Reason - Pentagon Papers (Score:2, Insightful)
#1 Reason - Pentagon Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers [wikipedia.org] .
When the USA keeps secrets, the entire world suffers. Sad, but true. There probably isn't a single country that the USA hasn't screwed over in one way or another, including herself.
To the rest of the world, it is the government, not the people making these dangerous decisions. It has happened with both political parties. JFK lied and every President since has too. The military has kept many secrets.
Re: (Score:2)
Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy presidency, by Donald Gibson
Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, by David Talbot
JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass
A Terrible Mistake,
Yes. Wikileaks is worth defending. (Score:5, Insightful)
But not Assange. He's not WikiLeaks. Simple as that. He betrayed them with this massive stunt.
Re:Yes. Wikileaks is worth defending. (Score:5, Insightful)
> He betrayed them with this massive stunt.
Massive stunt? He has offered to go to Sweden if he is not extradited to the US [google.com]. And the whole handling of the rape allegation is obviously related to WikiLeaks. This is an attack on WikiLeaks, not a stunt by Assange.
Bullcrap and stick to the facts. (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
Easily swayed? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are the kind of person who's easily swayed by the media's depiction of Assange, then yes, you most definitely need wikileaks
Good point . . . . (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
The problem with ideologies.... (Score:2)
The problem with most ideological stances, is that they only work if the ideolody is applied to everyone else
Hence, Wikileaks stands for openness and public scrutiny of everything and everyone except Wikileaks. How much money has Wikileaks received in donations, and how much of it went in to Assange's pockets? Maybe an insider could post the answer on Wikileaks. No, wait...
Communism works great if everyone is equal and everything is shared equally... unless you happen to be a Party Member, in which case yo
Re:The problem with ideologies.... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with most ideological stances, is that they only work if the ideolody is applied to everyone else
Hence, Wikileaks stands for openness and public scrutiny of everything and everyone except Wikileaks. How much money has Wikileaks received in donations, and how much of it went in to Assange's pockets? Maybe an insider could post the answer on Wikileaks. No, wait...
No, wait... Indeed. They already posted financial transparency reports on Wikileaks by the Wau Holland Foundation [wikipedia.org], in the form of a press release [wikileaks.org] no less.
Freedom of Information is a great idea, until you realise that all governments and companies need to undertake certain discussing in private in able to function effectively.
While that is true in the general sense, there is also the fact that governments describing themselves as democratic (let alone shining examples of that) should be as diplomatic and as open as possible. And at least our Western governments have not been all that great about that lately, ranging from ACTA, to war crimes (Abu Grahib, "Collateral Murder"-the-full-version-and-not-the-Wikileaks-edit), to unsavoury governmental-corporation incest (STRATFOR, News Corp), to ...
Wikileaks (even if it remained as effective as in its heydays) would never be able to get its hands on every piece of confidential information nor be able to publish it. Just like the fact that we beat ACTA doesn't mean that the IP-crazies are suddenly completely stopped in their tracks. Or just like the fact that we get to vote doesn't mean that corruption doesn't exist nor that we live in an ideal representative democracy.
However, society always has been and presumably always will be a melting pot influenced by everything that happens. Wikileaks, beating ACTA and voting are all part of that. In the grand scheme of things, I see them as counteracting forces against wrongfully denied freedom-of-information requests, warrantless wiretapping, trying to get IP-legislation enacted under the guise of free trade agreements without public oversight, ... I don't see that in the sense of fighting fire with fire or an eye for an eye, but as opposite influences that affect society as a whole and how it will continue to evolve.
And the problem appears to be that without actions that "open up" things, the natural reaction of many people in power appears to be to keep much more secret than is warranted or than is a good idea. Reasons could be because that is the way of the least resistance, or because those people at large probably often genuinely believe that they do know best, and that public debate would only slow down things and/or muddy the facts.
That behaviour however has to be counteracted and compensated for in some way to keep a democratic society healthy, and as far as I'm concerned Wikileaks is one expression of that in its own unconventional and loose-cannon way. I don't think Wikileaks is dangerous to a healthy society though. It will obviously cause at least inconveniences and may even lead to deaths or other catastraphies, and there are many more desirable ways to achieve the same goals (such as freedom-of-information requests, and the normally automatic public oversight over creating any kind of legislation). However, I think Wikileaks' wide general public support (or at least sympathy) is mainly a reaction to the failure of exactly these more convention means of openness in democratic governance.
If you're doing no wrong, you have nothing to fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Why we need WikiLeaks: Remember the article on the Australian tax authority the other day where they want expansive powers to snoop on businesses on the off-chance they might be paying less taxes than the government would like?
OK, then, we the citizens need powers to snoop on government bureaucrats on the off-chance they're doing something illegal. If they're not doing anything wrong, they should have nothing to fear.
Re:If you're doing no wrong, you have nothing to f (Score:5, Insightful)
The disturbing thing is that you see a few people in every Wikileaks story saying that we have no right to know what our government is doing. We are the government! We have every right to know, and I firmly believe that politicians should be hounded by investigative reporters like paparazzi hound vapid celebrities. However, as a society, we are more interested in who Tom Cruise is currently dating (or if he's secretly gay) than we are how much money a state Senator is embezzling. Even when we do get any kind of investigative reporting, it's usually just sex scandals. Wikipedia even keeps a list of them [wikipedia.org].
Wikileaks isn't exactly my ideal candidate, but it's one of the few organizations that's willing to actually shine a light at something important. Everyone else is either too scared or compensated not to do so.
Re: (Score:3)
We need a new movement.
The first phase of government transparency was the Freedom of Information Act, followed by similar acts at the state level.
The next phase needs to be cameras installed in every government official's office, running all the time, and accessible via web (defense excepted).
Backroom deals, sweetheart contracts, all that stuff: either capture on camera or prevent it from happening or make it much more difficult.
2nd Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
All finance should be open right down to the paperclips. Wasteful spending can't happen if everyone can take a peek into their area of expertise and say, "Whoa there cowboy. You don't buy laptops for $2000 and a service plan of another $1000 per year." Or "That isn't the right concrete for an overpass. It will fall down in 10 years."
Think of the steps that had to be taken in private in order to create the Dick Murtha Airport.
Keep in mind that there are Nordic countries where they publish income tax records onto the internet. They do record who looks though. So you can see your neighbour's taxes but they can see that you are a nosy bastard. The result has been some fantastically rich people somehow claiming around $100,000 in income being busted by people finding this and then it becoming front page news.
How many times have the police gotten out of control where the whole thing was dealt with "internally"? Open government would end this.
governments succeed at ruining Wikileaks' name (Score:2)
And the world is full of fucking idiots for being duped once again.
EXACTLY (Score:3)
Doesn't anybody remember the leak describing how they were going to destroy wikileaks? They've been doing it.
Wikileaks is being made a negative example of what free press gets for doing it's duty to mankind. It needs to be a positive example and that is enough reason to defend Wikileaks. Furthermore, the illegal and high disregard for the meaning of law (by using twisted technical letters of the law) HARMS everybody going forward not only the press but it terms of how far officials can acceptably abuse the
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
Recommended reading:
Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy presidency, by Donald Gibson
Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, by David Talbot
JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass
A Terrible Mistake, by H.P. Albarelli
The Yankee and Cowboy War, by Carl Oglesby
Echo F
No, it's not worth defending. (Score:2)
You answered it yourself in the summary, SomePgmr, we need an outlet for discovery and whistleblowers that is neutral and independent. Once you become the news (thank you, Julian Assange, for being a douchebag and completely screwing over the organization that was once yours), you are neither neutral nor independent, because now you have a foot in the game.
We need a faceless, boring, monotone organization where the only intriguing elements are the documents and information it provides to everyone. No stupid
Best WikiLeaks report ever ..... (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
This report covers the facts and only the facts, including why the UK arrest was illegal form those rules and laws governing an European Arrest Warrant (EAW). They didn't cover all the surrounding and important stuff, as I would, namely that all those anti-Assange players in Sweden are connected financially in one way or the other with the rightwing Bonnier family, owner of one of the top 10 global media compan
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, Godwin, no and maybe!
Re:childish swine (Score:4, Funny)
even if the USA has become corrupt and every bit as criminal as the nazis were during WW2?
I guess I missed the part where the US has annexed sovereign states by force, or systematically imprisoned, impressed into forced labor, and murdered millions of people based solely on their ethnicity.
Although, our economy would probably be in a lot better shape if we had someone like Albert Speer. That man did wonders for Germany's wartime economy.
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I missed the part where the US has annexed sovereign states by force, or systematically imprisoned, impressed into forced labor, and murdered millions of people based solely on their ethnicity.
That was during the 18th and 19th century (you know, the Indians, slavery, annexation of Hawaii, etc.) so it's understandable why you missed it.
As far as world domination goes, the US has far surpassed the Germans, and even the British -- that's why there are hundreds of military bases all over the world, and why there's one set of rules for countries in the imperial fold (e.g. Israel's nukes) and those outside (e.g. Iran's legal nuclear program).
True, the U.S. empire is "softer" than the German one -- it doesn't need mass extermination camps, it merely needs to imprison over 2 million of its own citizens, and apply surveillance over the rest, in order to keep the lid on things. That plus mass narcotization of its population via consumerism, entertainment and actual pharmaceuticals has proven a more effective form of centralization of power than the crude 20th century models.
Re:childish swine (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is one of consent. Poland did not consent to German military bases. Nations benefit heavily from American military bases on their soil, that's why they're there. The only exception I can think of where a nation doesn't want an American military base on their soil is Cuba, and even there Guantanamo was put there pursuant to (at the time) Cuba's consent.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And when that consent was withdrawn, they did not leave...
Re: (Score:2)
That's not how leases work. The treaty requires both sides to abandon it for the lease to end.
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Informative)
Just like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which the US has occupied since a "treaty" in 1903... and they won't leave in spite of Cuban government requests.
Re: (Score:2)
The 1903 treaty was willingly signed. It also fell far short of the four bases the US sought, but the US settled for two, Guantanamo Bay and Bahia Honda, the latter returned to Cuba in exchange for more land at Guantanamo.
The treaty was replaced by another in 1934 that affirmed the conditions of the prior treaty and required that both parties agree to the US leaving Guantanamo. Technically, should a friendlier government come to rely on the US base and would the US want to leave, Cuba could force it to ma
Re: (Score:3)
Spanish-American War, heard of it? Since when are treaties signed under duress (or by a puppet government) counted as "willingly"?
Re:childish swine (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
and even there Guantanamo was put there pursuant to (at the time) Cuba's consent.
More like an offer they couldn't refuse. It was one of the conditions of removing the occupying force.
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Are you saying that your history class literally failed to cover the Mexican American War, slavery, and the systemic genocide of the native population? These were standard topics in American History when I was growing.
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Informative)
These were standard topics in American History when I was growing.
Yes, those are all standard topics, but what is not a standard topic is the conflict you omitted: The American invasion, conquest, and pacification of the Philippine Islands [wikipedia.org], which may have killed more people than all those you mentioned combined. This conflict has mostly been dropped down the memory hole, and few Americans have even heard of it. The Nazi's got many of their ideas for their death camps by looking at the concentration camps that the USA ran in the Philippines, although the British concentration camps [wikipedia.org] in South Africa were an even bigger influence.
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I missed the part where the US has annexed sovereign states by force, or systematically imprisoned, impressed into forced labor, and murdered millions of people based solely on their ethnicity.
Then you must be Rip Van Winkle. There is an element of truth in your assertion, in that - since the 19th century, as others have pointed out - the USA has not seen fit to annex other nations in the sense of adding them to its own territory. Instead, it finds it more convenient to invade them, destroy their existing political systems, and set up puppet "Quisling" regimes. But dead people are dead however they got that way, and wherever the US armed forces have gone there seem to be an awful lot of "excess deaths". Maybe the liberated brown people simply die of excessive joy at their newly-conferred rights and freedoms.
Re: (Score:2)
Armed conflict always results in more fatalities than had the conflict not occurred.
I believe the salient point is that civilian deaths pretty much always vastly outnumber those of combatants. It was true before the rifle was the primary weapon of war. It's still true in the age of "smart bombs" and drone strikes. Even if we are to believe that an enemy combatant (or whichever colloquialism you prefer) cannot be safely detained or assassinated^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H engaged by any other means, and that the
Re: (Score:2)
Re:childish swine (Score:4, Insightful)
Feel free to compare the United States to any other nations they express a serious interest in from a military, economic, or overall political standpoint. Try living in both nations for five years apiece. Then report back on your findings, provided you have the spine to actually try this for yourself.
And the point of this is what?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The point is Godwin's law [wikipedia.org].
More importantly, comparing the USA today with Nazis during WW2 is like saying the Nazis weren't all that bad, and that the genocide of millions of people is comparable to modern Western civilization.
The USA isn't perfect by any means, and there have been innocent lives lost due to unnecessary wars. But Nazi Germany? Get real. This is more like "hindsight is 20/20" than "the USA is specifically targeting millions of a particular race for death due solely to their race". And the
Re: (Score:3)
Your point of view typically comes from the extreme left wing which is responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths. You have those like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, etc., etc. who not only have war time body counts, but much of the count comes from 'peace time' genocide of undesirables in the population.
That's a straw man argument [wikipedia.org]. Killing people is bad. War is bad. Lying about motives for war (i.e. Casus belli like the threat of WMD) is evil.
Of the five you name only three are considered "left", two were prototypical for the exact opposite. Better example would be the Khmer Rouge (but then again they were supported by the UN, including the USA after the Vietnamese had driven them from power)
Re: (Score:2)
The only thing anyone is proving is that it's impossible to own the moral high ground. Many seem to assert that there is nothing worth fighting for. Yet when you actually speak to someone from, say, behind the iron curtain or from someplace like Vietnam, suddenly the picture changes. Even with Iraq. messy as it was, there was twenty years of almost cartoonishly bad oppression that included the actual use of WMD, yet the anti US crowd dismisses it all with the wave of a hand.
What is worth fighting for? S
Re: (Score:3)
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Funny)
I would but last time I did the comment section was closed when I got back.
Re:childish swine (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny, until the "anti-American" bit, I could have sworn you were talking about the US government. Amend it to "anti-American people", and you still could be.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Anti-American Agenda, what is that? Is that like Alcoholic Anonymous Association?
Hi, my name is Julian Assange and I used to drink a lot, I mean I used to be pro-American, but I've been sober for 5 years now, so sorry, for all my 'anti-american agenda'.
WTF does that mean? Is it un-American to point out that the government is now essentially tyrannical? How is it un-American to be politically active, to bring to light all the transgressions of the powerful elite running the system?
Is telling truth to power a bad thing somehow? How about telling truth to majority [youtube.com].
Re:childish swine (Score:5, Informative)
You don't get it, don't you? Lets say, you have some important information to reveal. If they make the Republicans look bad, put it into the NY Times! If they make the Democrats look bad, put it in the Wall Street Journal! If they make the lower classes look bad, put it into !Forbes. If they make the upper class look bad, put it in the Daily News!
You see the pattern? Whenever you find a larger group in the U.S. who likes the information to be known, you will find a news outlet to publish it. Only if no news outlet in the U.S. will publish it, because it makes nearly everyone look bad, where do you go? - Tada! Whichever news outlet will publish it, to the U.S. as a whole it will look as if it has an anti-american agenda - just because it publishes the stuff, no other news outlet will publish, because they fear the anger of nearly all groups in the U.S.
No, a news outlet like WikiLeaks will always look as if it was anti-american. If the news was somehow neutral or pro-american, it would have been published in the U.S. already. So your "anti-american agenda" just turns into "I don't like the information to be known, because they make me look bad."
Re: (Score:2)
Only if no news outlet in the U.S. will publish it, because it makes nearly everyone look bad, where do you go?
Exactly. News organisations are not objective. The style of reporting and even whether a story is reported at all depends on who it damages. So if some Iranian police are beating protesters, an American newspaper can really go to town on the story, using emotive language etc. If some US police beat protesters in the same way the story (if printed at all) would have a much more neutral tone and probably would downplay any police violence.
Getting angry about issues which make an enemy look bad but downpla
Re:childish swine (Score:4, Insightful)
Irwin Schiff went to prison for not paying his taxes. I don't fault him for that. Civil disobedience, is after all, a noble act of defiance. However, as such, you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences. The US Government is what the US Citizens decide it should be. Who's fault is it that the American people are too lazy to fight for what they want? Oh, too busy working to put food on the table. What crap! The average person watches some 20 hours a week with their eyes glued to the TV watching vacuous nonsense.
Imagine what one could accomplish spending half those hours engaged in some aspect of civics. Oh, that's right, no one remembers that along with their rights, they have certain duties and responsibilities.
I wonder how different the US would look if Martin Luther King had sat back and watched Real World.
Re: (Score:2)
Only the simplest minds cannot tell the difference between healthy criticism and anti-patriotism.
Re: (Score:2)
Snrk. Pffft. Gnnn. Bwahaahahaa!!! (Score:5, Informative)
"When they start leaking the secrets of our enemies as well, I'll consider getting behind that."
Wikileaks cables reveal China 'ready to abandon North Korea ...
www.guardian.co.uk News World news China
WikiLeaks Spurs On Protests By Releasing New Egypt Corruption ...
articles.businessinsider.com/.../30066985_1_police-brutalit...
Wikileaks Goes After The Saudi Royal Family - Business Insider
articles.businessinsider.com/.../29970450_1_saudi-prince-sa...
and so on....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
BTW, am I the only one amused by the fact that Wikileaks supporters champion "the embassy cables", the release of every private thing US embassies around the world have done.... while getting furious about the possibility of violating the privacy of embassies by shutting a single one down, giving the diplomats a week to leave with all their papers, then entering the building?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You just critisized the repressive government of China (by calling them repressive), and you are still breathing. See, how easy that is? How much courage did it take you? Nothing! It just came out of your fingers without much thinking.
And that's exactly your problem. You demand from WikiLeaks things, that happens everywhere anyway. Atrocities in Syria? Open the next newspaper! Torture in Iranian prisons? Switch on the TV evening news! Propaganda trials against critical voices in Russia? Read it up on the In
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, Assange's claims that the Americans are out to get him are ludicrous, and I think he knows that.
Au contraire: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
How exactly could they help and protect Manning? You think they have the power to convince the US government not to prosecute him?
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly, yes. It's bad enough right now, but if they openly help Manning that will surely help the US charge Assange with conspiracy.
Re:Really food for thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Julian himself is an arrogant fool. Did he ACTUALLY think he'd get away with releasing truckloads of U.S. intelligence info? And when it was pointed out to him that he may well have killed people who were working with us, he said that anyone working with the U.S. deserved to die (yeah, he did. it was in an interview broadcast by the BBC).
An exact quote, preferably with a source, would be preferable. Then we would have some idea what it was, exactly, that Assange said.
Maybe it was something like, "Anyone who participates in what the Nuremberg Tribunal described as the supreme war crime - unprovoked aggressive war - deserves to die". After all, the USA and its allies hanged a lot of Germans and Japanese for exactly that crime. And if they shot them before they had a chance of a trial, no one shed any tears.
"The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which followed World War II, called the waging of aggressive war "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I wouldn't hold that up as an example of any great juris prudence other than victo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Julian himself is an arrogant fool. Did he ACTUALLY think he'd get away with releasing truckloads of U.S. intelligence info? And when it was pointed out to him that he may well have killed people who were working with us, he said that anyone working with the U.S. deserved to die (yeah, he did. it was in an interview broadcast by the BBC).
An exact quote, preferably with a source, would be preferable. Then we would have some idea what it was, exactly, that Assange said.
Maybe it was something like, "Anyone who participates in what the Nuremberg Tribunal described as the supreme war crime - unprovoked aggressive war - deserves to die". . . .
It would be better of it was that, I suppose, but chances are you'll be sorely disappointed.
The treachery of Julian Assange [guardian.co.uk]
As soon as WikiLeaks received the State Department cables, Assange announced that the opponents of dictatorial regimes and movements were fair game. That the targets of the Taliban, for instance, were fighting a clerical-fascist force, which threatened every good liberal value, did not concern him. They had spoken to US diplomats. They had collaborated with the great Satan. Their safety was not his concern.
David Leigh and Luke Harding's history of WikiLeaks describes how journalists took Assange to Moro's, a classy Spanish restaurant in central London. A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind. . . .
James Ball joined and thought that in his own small way he was making the world a better place. He realised that WikiLeaks was not what it seemed when an associate of Assange – a stocky man with a greying moustache, who called himself "Adam" – asked if he could pull out everything the State Department documents "had on the Jews". Ball discovered that "Adam" was Israel Shamir, a dangerous crank who uses six different names as he agitates among the antisemitic groups of the far right and far left. As well as signing up to the conspiracy theories of fascism, Shamir was happy to collaborate with Belarus's decayed Brezhnevian dictatorship. Leftwing tyranny, rightwing tyranny, as long as it was anti-western and anti-Israel, Shamir did not care.
Nor did Assange. He made Shamir WikiLeaks's representative in Russia and eastern Europe. Shamir praised the Belarusian dictatorship. He compared the pro-democracy protesters beaten and imprisoned by the KGB to football hooligans. On 19 December 2010, the Belarus-Telegraf, a state newspaper, said that WikiLeaks had allowed the dictatorship to identify the "organisers, instigators and rioters, including foreign ones" who had protested against rigged elections.
Taliban prepare to punish WikiLeaks Afghan informers [telegraph.co.uk]
. . . The threat echoes similar warnings made after the release in July of 92,000 intelligence reports and field assessments on the Afghan war.
Those documents named informants who had revealed the names, locations and details of Taliban commanders and their operations.
Hamid Karzai at the time condemned the disclosure of informers' details as "extremely irresponsible and shocking".
In a sign of American's disquiet at the potential diplomatic and security impacts of the leaks, the State Department released a letter sent from its senior lawyer to Mr Assange.
Harold Koh wrote that the release of 250,000 diplomatic cables would "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals," "place at risk on-going military operations," and "place at risk on-going cooperation between countries."
Taliban Seeks Vengeance in Wake of WikiLeaks [thedailybeast.com]
After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.
The violence may just be beginning. According to Agha Lali, the deputy head of Kandahar’s provincial council, threatening letters have been delivered to 70 elders in Panjwaii district. While it is unknown whether any of the men were indeed named in the WikiLeaks documents, it’s clear the Taliban believes they have been cooperating with Western forces and the Afghan government. . . .
. . . Locals have long known that the Taliban deals harshly with those it suspects of working against it: the ruthless guerrillas have assassinated scores, if not hundreds, of tribal elders and Afghans of all ages for their alleged cooperation with the coalition. In one particularly gruesome case a few months ago, according to the intelligence officer, the Taliban discovered that a group of recent high-school graduates in Ghazni province had been feeding information to the Americans. The youths were arrested, and around 10 of them were hanged. . . .
.
Five human rights groups slam WikiLeaks for endangering lives. [techeye.net]
A number of human rights groups have criticised WikiLeaks over potentially endangering the lives of Afghans who helped the US military.
Amnesty International, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), the Open Society Institute (OSI), the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and the Afghan office of the International Crisis Group (ICG) all joined together to send WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a letter voicing their concerns, criticising his approach and pushing for a redaction of documents to omit identifying information that could risk the safety of US sympathisers in Afghanistan.
“We have seen the negative, sometimes deadly ramifications for those Afghans identified as working for or sympathizing with international forces,” they wrote, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites an anonymous source. “We strongly urge your volunteers and staff to analyze all documents to ensure that those containing identifying information are taken down or redacted.”
This adds to a growing list of groups calling for WikiLeaks to be more careful in how it does its business. The Pentagon has already criticised the website for its potential to endanger lives and demanded that the documents, which number into the thousands, be handed over.
Assange was clearly miffed at this latest volley of attacks, responding by asking if the human rights groups, Amnesty International in particular, were prepared to fork over some manpower to get the job done. Effectively he claimed that Amnesty was good at criticising, but not very good at helping with the problems it finds objectionable. . . .
Life and death under WikiLeaks: what we learnt in Kenya [crikey.com.au]
Answering questions about the morality of WikiLeaks, Assange has also made reference to Kenya. In August Assange told The Guardian: ”1300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak. On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased.”
These comments were made in defence of WikiLeaks, but some commentators—particularly on the right—have labelled them a “shocking admission”. And to a certain extent they have a point.
In his op-ed for The Australian, Assange states: “We have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed.” On the face of it this would seem to flatly contradict his earlier statement on Kenya. If WikiLeaks is responsible for the election outcome—as Assange claims—then surely WikiLeaks must also bear some responsibility, even if indirectly, for election-related violence.
Re: (Score:2)
A "stateless news organisation" is exactly what we nerds would like to have (in both sense of the word). If you're too wrapped up in pedantry to grasp what possible good an instantaneous anonymous information dissemination service would provide then you don't deserve to be an engineer, nerd, or citizen.
Re: (Score:2)
That's ok according to Whoopi Goldberg, it wasn't rape-rape either. Just ask Roman Polanski.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf [www.nnn.se]
Re: (Score:2)
I found Assange appears to be biased and targets democracies, not they don't need some oversight but seems to not want to expose the secrets of totalitarian regimes such as China, North Korea, Russia etc etc.
In that he has a program on Russian state TV which is 100% under the control of Putin, a former KGB officer, who has the opinion that the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet Union -- which happens to have been one of the most brutal authoritarian regimes of the 20th century.
It seems he has no issues tieing himself with an totalitarian head of state Putin, and also went to seek assylum with a country that has a poor human rights record for media freedoms (Ecuador) according to Amnesty International, makes me suspect he either has extremely poor judgement or has an anti-western democracy bias. The sexual assault allegations seem to suggest he does have poor judgement.
I suspect he will have no desire to release state secrets from Russia, China and other totalitarian regimes, thus my belief he is ideologically biased thus has no credibility.
We wouldn't need wikileaks for that. Simple as that. If Russia, China, North Korea or any similar countries play false simply sending the info to any major western news outlet would do. They'd be happy to publish it. But what happens if you know the US killed journalists and tried to hush things up? How can one get that info out? A democracy requires the voter to be able to judge those he needs to vote for. It is therefor important to know what happens within our governments. I would prefer every politician
Re: (Score:2)