who needs a clearance? you’ve got wikileaks!
Ordinarily, if you wanted to sift through all the day to day reports of an ongoing war, you’d need to apply for and receive a security clearance, a process that involves page after page of forms signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, then buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. But now you could sidestep all that and plunge into WikiLeaks’ deluge of over 90,000 reports from Afghanistan which give readers even the most minute details of how the war effort is going. Who cares about such things as actually respecting the military’s right not to release every tidbit of information and daily logs when it’s conducting operations? Julien Assange dumped tens of thousands of pages of pretty raw, first-hand intelligence on his servers and gladly took another bow for being such a great and wonderful hero who prizes truth and transparency over everything else. Oh and also, he wants your donations to keep at it.
Here’s the issue that those cheering the tsunami of war documents seem to be missing. It’s one thing to give information about serious abuses that cause more harm than good to any war effort, like the incidents at Abu Gharib and the authorized torture of anybody suspected of having any information about, well, anything. But a wholesale release of daily reports being used to survey strategies and formulate plans in a very unstable and violent country where the military is fighting a group of fundamentalist lunatics who’ll kill people for listening to music or trimming a beard because it so offends their religious beliefs, especially by someone like Assange, is downright irresponsible. Remember that while PZ was so eagerly singing praises to WikiLeaks for “doing humanity a service” and gladly helped publicize a very controversial video showing how ugly and messy wars really are firsthand, he never seemed to mention that the video that launched WikiLeaks to household name status around the world was released when Assange was threatening to pull the plug on the whole project unless he secured a certain sum in donations. And as soon as the war in Afghanistan returned to prime time news, bam! There he is with more than 90,000 fresh, right from the field reports.
Oh and it just so happens that he probably got the video and the documents from a young analyst who had second thoughts about this whole war business and got them a while ago. Considering that little tidbit, plus my probable paranoia and pessimism from an upbringing in the former USSR, does it seem like Assange is exercising editorial control to make sure his project gets a big splash in the news at exactly the right time? He sat on this information until the right moment and released it exactly when he needed cash and publicity. If he was such a great hero rather than a muckracker with much more interesting muck than what starlet opted to leave her panties in the dresser at a Hollywood shindig, why didn’t he just release the data to anyone able to host it? For that matter, does he have leaked documents about North Korea detailing how Kim Jong Il’s family and friends are brutalizing and enslaving an entire nation so they can live in luxury? Any memos that answer the question why a fragile and old Khamenei decided to ally himself with an airheaded whack job who’s still Iran’s president thanks to an election so fraudulent, they might as well declined to have one? Where’s all that data and would it actually get published? Is WikiLeaks even trying to get it? I’ll even take details about EADS’ sweetheart deals with the EU for rockets and latest generation fighter jets getting a big buzz.
For those who blithely dismiss that releasing raw intelligence data could possibly be dangerous to the troops and their work, it doesn’t seem to matter that buried among these 90,000 reports could be names of Afghani informants fighting the Taliban, whose families may now be in danger of being killed. It doesn’t seem to be a concern that crucial supply nodes or weapon caches could be identified, or that any details on procedures or standard approaches to certain scenarios might give Taliban sympathizers an edge by telling them what they could expect in a particular combat situation. No, those reports must just be the military’s dirty laundry and an underpinning for cries against “militarism” because they seem to think that every military dollar goes directly into either killing someone or stealing natural resources. War is an ugly business, one that kills people every day on our planet and the last human war will end when the last humans go extinct. Unfortunately we can’t all gather round and peacefully resolve our differences because so many people are either willing to take those who are kind and trusting for a ride, or see their bloodthirsty ambitions as the ultimate goal in life. That’s why we’ll always have wars and while we can and should argue about their place and how they’re conducted, we also need to remember that we can’t put every single military action to a vote or a popular panel.
Really, what did we gain from Assange’s attempt to influence global politics? A confirmation that there really are civilian casualties? That the war isn’t going well, as we’re constantly told anyway? That the attempt to use Afghanistan as a bulwark against the USSR in the 1980s backfired spectacularly? What part of this is new? I mean other than sensitive data now interwoven through reports that are basically stating the obvious? I’m not going to heap praise at the altar of WikiLeaks or call them great heroes for spreading classified data in a bid to get donations, relevance and political power. How about they help dethrone a tyrant or work with the UN or the World Court to bring one of the countless war criminals or genocidal maniacs scattered across the world to justice, since they say believe in transparency, honesty, and international cooperation? Real whistleblowers want to do what’s right, not flood the web with classified or juicy tidbits and ask for your money to support their next big publicity stunt, or else they’ll shut down. And that’s why I see Assange as less of a hero and more of a wannabe politician who uses leaked information as leverage for his growing organization.
[ illustration from Square Enix's Supreme Commander ]
Assange & WikiLeaks reminds me of 4chan’s Anonymous. I like that they are challenging Scientology, and yet we all know they are a bunch of jerks. It is inevitable. Who else would be arrogant enough to put themselves out there?
“It’s one thing to give information about serious abuses that cause more harm than good to any war effort, like the incidents at Abu Gharib [...]“
You don’t get to choose, because you aren’t the one doing it. If you want someone else doing “good” whistleblowing, you have to accept that there will be stuff you disagree with. “A sword has two edges.”
Remember, there is virtually no investigative journalism any more. Murdoch and co. killed it long before the internet killed their profits. You criticise WikiLeaks for not reporting on, say, North Korea, but compared to whom? Who else is doing the job better? Hell, people learned more about the Iranian elections from fucking Twitter than from “proper” media.
The jerks are all that’s left.
Re: The 91,000 reports.
I haven’t read through them (the thought makes me dizzy.) But WikiLeaks delayed the release until info wasn’t operationally current. Plus they gave some mainstream media a couple of months access before the public release. Plus they’ve further delayed 15,000 reports they think might still be harmful. All that sounds like they took care with the risks of releasing such information, even to the point of getting a second opinion.
Plus the stuff reported by mainstream media so far, to me feels important and wasn’t being reported before. (Certainly not with evidence.) Covering up civilian deaths. Firefights between US troops and Afghan police. Pakistan intelligence supporting the Taliban. Iran supplying funds, training, weapons. Taliban getting surface-to-air infra-red anti-aircraft missiles. (It was Stingers, when supplied by the US, that turned the tide for the Mudjahadin against the Soviets. So it is a Very Bad Thing(tm) if someone is supplying similar weapons to the Taliban against the US.)
Remember, there is virtually no investigative journalism any more. Murdoch and co. killed it long before the internet killed their profits.
Now, now, that’s not an accurate statement. While I hold Murdoch and Fox in slightly lower regard than a gastrointestinal parasite, to say that he killed all of investigative journalism is rather hyperbolic. Investigative reporting died slowly in newsrooms of cable news channels and with the decay of major papers which are in a race to the absolute bottom in terms of content. Editors aren’t willing to find or fund big stories, and they always want to be first to break the news, accuracy or depth be damned.
WikiLeaks delayed the release until info wasn’t operationally current.
And when it was right back in the news. If you check out the link about Assange’s big source for military documents, you’ll find that he was detained in June and the report cache itself is pretty fresh. I doubt that a team of people who aren’t military analysts and who aren’t working for the military can ensure that these fresh files really haven’t the slightest bit of relevance to today’s operations.
Plus, censoring the unreleased reports seems two faced to me. Assange and all his reporters and analysts saw the names and numbers. What are they going to do with them? The potential for abuse here is enormous.
Plus the stuff reported by mainstream media so far, to me feels important and wasn’t being reported before.
Actually, virtually all of the stuff you list was at least prominently mentioned. It wasn’t a big feature on network news, but then again, network and cable news today are more of a circus than a news source. However, Time has done very extensive reports that hinted on these issues and Wired’s military blog, Danger Room, has been linking to all sorts of analysis about potential civilian deaths and violence in the country. I’d say that the firefights between the Afghani police and the U.S. are new to me, but I haven’t seen anything else that hasn’t at least been raised in the media.
It would be nice if all whistle-blowers, leakers, and other ‘little’ people who air the dirty laundry of the powerful were doing so for the best and noblest of reasons. Unfortunately, history shows us this is not the case. The vast majority of people who let information out; who actually challenged the basic assumptions of how things are done; have their own, often petty agendas. Just as it would be nice if every scientist was exploring and experimenting for the sheer love of knowledge, rather than the petty reasons of fame or just to keep their jobs. People are people, and more often than most would like to admit, do the right things for very personal reasons.
Lack of respect works both ways. The military-industrial complexes see no reason to share any information with the people ultimately responsible for paying for, fighting, and dying in the many wars across the globe. The vast majority of ‘sensitive’ military information is being kept from us, not the people the military is fighting. (This is true in most countries around the world; the biggest threat to North Korean’s government is not outsiders, but their own people.)
I will concede (since I have neither the time, inclination, or training to read through 90,000 documents of raw intelligence data) that it is possible that information was released that could be a threat to the well-being of allies, sources, and our own military personnel. And I’m quite sure that if Assange can be prosecuted for the release, he will be. But I think we should also consider the motivations (both positive and negative) of the person who handed over those documents.
… does it seem like Assange is exercising editorial control to make sure his project gets a big splash in the news at exactly the right time?
Of course. Perhaps an upbringing in the old USSR produces sound reflexes about how to keep your head down, but after 40 years in political activism in the US, I can tell you that there’s no point in using a lever to move public opinion unless you do so in a very public way.
Assange and all his reporters and analysts saw the names and numbers. What are they going to do with them? The potential for abuse here is enormous.
Do you think Wikileaks has been infiltrated by Taliban Central Intelligence Agency moles? If a handful of people in Sweden & Australia now know the names of some Afghan quislings, how many more degrees of connection will it take until the resistance kicks down their grandfathers’ doors?
… what did we gain from Assange’s attempt to influence global politics?
Actual attention to the war and its atrocities by a compliant media and a complaisant public which have been willing to allow this pointless bloodbath to continue indefinitely.
Even if every Republican-whine-about-the-Pentagon-Papers redux cliche you’ve recited here is correct, the “harm” done by this “stunt” is a pimple on the butt of a flea on an elephant compared to the genuine harm being done now in Central Asia – and to the United States itself – by the Bush/Obama war on Afghanistan.
War tends to produce “which side are you on?” moments all too readily, raising questions that no pose of independent intellectualism can evade for long. Recall that other cliché about forests and trees before deciding to hold the shaky ground you’re claiming here.
Besides, you’ve already outed Jonathan Burton for combining seafood with red wine – that’s quite enough scandal for one day, is it not?
Do you think Wikileaks has been infiltrated by Taliban Central Intelligence Agency moles?
I don’t see how you could come to that conclusion based on what I said. WikiLeaks isn’t exactly a little group of peaceniks running the operation out of their garage. The organization burns through nearly $600,000 a year and it does sift through intel that tends to be classified. Why would I think that people who make money from leaking secret documents and soliciting donations from those who want to see them to do it again are as pure as snow and should be trusted with top secret information?
Actual attention to the war and its atrocities by a compliant media and a complaisant public which have been willing to allow this pointless bloodbath to continue…
So now the war in Afghanistan is going to stop, the Taliban will settle down and stop killing people every time they think Allah tells them, and the DoD will grind to a halt all thanks to the gallant knight that is Assange? Oh come on! Did Abu Grahib, or secret prison revelations, or the torture at GITMO stop anything?
You can keep throwing loaded word after loaded word about what goes on during a war because it really is a very ugly affair no matter who’s fighting and why, but you’re not serious if you think that now people did a one-eighty and started paying attention to the war, all because Assange put up a link because that’s just not true. If you have a real solution that will let the U.S. up and leave Afghanistan without creating a huge power vacuum and triggering yet another civil war there, by all means let us know.
This is where Bush’s “kill everybody” policy got the military. It can’t leave the nations it was told to occupy because it was never given an actual exit strategy.
… if every Republican-whine-about-the-Pentagon-Papers redux cliche you’ve recited here is correct
Oh come off it! When the Pentagon Papers came out, they revealed that the military’s top brass and the administration were blatantly lying about what was really going on Vietnam, catching the nation off guard. These reports just reveal what we all already know or what many analysts already discussed, only with the caveat of giving minutia which may have some adverse effects on the actual war. It already has Afghanis in a tizzy since they, and you know, the Taliban, can read all those files online and analyze them for tips on how to better attack or ambush army patrols.
If St. Assange has real evidence of genuine war crimes from all sides, how about he releases the particular incidents and the supporting evidence rather than everything to make a big shock across the news wires? I have no problem with abuses shown for what they are. With what I do have a problem is Assange’s profiteering from leaks and secret intelligence reports for which he pays hundreds of thousands of dollars so he can go on news shows and ruminate on the ethics of war.
The only way he’s used the secret data he has was in a way that benefits him rather than what would benefit the victims of the war crimes he claims to be so eager to get out to the public in bulk. That’s not whistleblowing. That’s selfishness.
Now you’re resorting to hyperbole – you know better. In this country at least, people have short memories, and in order for action to take place, we need constant reminders of just what’s going on. Obama came in on a platform of changing the worst of the Shrub administration’s war abuses, which he almost immediately shoved under the carpet. Saying that we are already aware of what’s going on is ignoring the fact that far too many people in the US can’t tell Afghanistan from Iraq, and think that anyone wearing a turban is a terrorist. Frightening as it is, just someone on the news using the word “civilians” when referring to countries we have conflicts with is a necessary reminder that not everyone across those borders is an enemy combatant.
And this is one of those things that the conservative bloviaters aren’t about to remind people of. The question here isn’t whether the information is, or has been available, but whether anyone will take it and run with it as a campaign to change things. That’s the political end. I’m sorry to say that it’s unlikely to see too much action until re-election becomes the issue.
You’re conflating two issues: the first is whether Assange is acting in any way altruistically, which has some bearing but not much. The personal affront over selling dangerous information to make a profit shouldn’t be confused with any other matters.
The second is whether such information should ever be released, and that has numerous debating points. It seems pretty clear that our military complex needs a hell of a lot more oversight. So, what else would you have anyone do? Turn over the documents to the “proper authorities” and trust they’ll do the right thing? But they already had them…
The thing is, there really isn’t a safe method of drawing attention to military abuses without putting someone at risk. The alternative is to let the abuses continue, which puts people at risk. Which is worse? How do you decide – most especially without knowing what the information is in the first place? Media attention is the only way, in our current climate, to get the government to step up and address the military machine. That it’s being done from fear of blowing re-election is sickening, but real nonetheless.
Is there a way, for instance, of releasing embarrassing but “safe” information, stuff that looks terrible but is old enough that the situation has changed and no longer useful to Al Queda et al? Perhaps, and to some appearances, this is exactly what was done, and the responsibility that the major media outlets who received this information are now supposed to exert. Don’t take this to mean that I believe that this is what is happening, but at the same time I cannot say that it hasn’t either.
Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it? Bob the Angry Flower said it best. There is no way, but that doesn’t mean “do nothing” either. There will be damage from whatever is done. What’s the path of least damage? What is your suggestion? And are you willing to take the blame for the damage that inevitably occurs because someone else (i.e. the voting public) seems to think that some magical solution might have existed?
We’re in a mess, and there’s only one place to correct that. Can Assange be blamed for putting soldiers at risk? Yes. But he didn’t create the info he’s leaking, did he? It’s a bit like punishing the tattletale and letting the schoolyard bully run free.
I’m not actually defending his position, believe it or not, I’m simply trying to keep it in perspective. There are bigger fish to fry, and that’s where attention should be going.
The organization burns through nearly $600,000 a year …
Not exactly Big Money, except in the scale of your or my personal grocery budgets. A staff salary or three, some servers & a room to put them in, an attorney on retainer, a few airline tickets – poof!
Why would I think that people who make money from leaking secret documents and soliciting donations from those who want to see them to do it again are as pure as snow and should be trusted with top secret information?
Count the gaps between that and providing operational intel to the Taliban. Consider the relative trustworthiness of the people who give nine-digit contracts to the likes of Blackwater/Xe. Contemplate the metaphor of straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
So now the war in Afghanistan is going to stop…?
So no anti-war effort is worth making if it doesn’t succeed instantly & completely?!?
If you have a real solution that will let the U.S. up and leave Afghanistan without creating a huge power vacuum and triggering yet another civil war there, by all means let us know.
Geopolitically, nothing in Afghanistan is “huge” except the US/NATO aggression there. I opposed the US war against Vietnam, too, and I didn’t have a “real solution” to the Cold War except “Everybody Stop!” – should I have stopped marching and written several big fat books before picking up another sign?
Do you really subscribe to an Afghan version of the old Domino Theory?
… the military… can’t leave the nations it was told to occupy because it was never given an actual exit strategy.
I got one: systematic withdrawal. Ideally accompanied & followed by extensive civilian rebuilding aid, but we all know Washington better than to expect anything so moral or practical, don’t we?
When the Pentagon Papers came out, they revealed that the military’s top brass and the administration were blatantly lying about what was really going on Vietnam, catching the nation off guard. These reports just reveal what we all already know…
You were elsewhere at the time, but let me tell ya: millions and millions of us knew that Johnson, Nixon, & Co. were lying long before Ellsberg provided documentary evidence.
These reports just reveal what we all already know…
They seem to be news to many, particularly in the US, some of whom are reaching a “tipping point” with potential international repercussions.
It already has Afghanis in a tizzy since they, and you know, the Taliban, can read all those files online and analyze them for tips on how to better attack or ambush army patrols.
They’re already doing a bang-up job at that. The net effect on their end will be tiny; that on this end, potentially major. If, of course, we reject the administration/media efforts to focus attention on the pointing finger and actually look at the atrocity being pointed out.
Why are you scolding Toto and ignoring the man behind the curtain?
The only way he’s used the secret data he has was in a way that benefits him…
This is, to indulge in a bit of hyperbole, like criticizing Martin Luther King for hogging the stage at the Lincoln Memorial and then flying off to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars at Stockholm. Not that Assange comes up to MLK’s knees in moral stature, but King did gather spectacular personal benefits from his civil rights work. Was that the most urgent evil occurring in the US of the 1960s?!?
While I generally share Greg’s opinion of Wikileaks and Assange, I differ greatly on opinion of the repurcussions and the level of danger the leak poses.
Wikileaks does not embody any sort of journalistic excellence and I am almost sure that the cause of nobility is not the driving force behind Assange’s motives. Releasing these documents, I’ll even admit, might not have been very ethical, either.
That all said, I can’t for the life of me accept the argument that the Taliban will become even more deadly because of the details they find. It seems like an emotional plea. We are sending soldiers to the meat grinder, but don’t let the meat grinder know what color shoes they are wearing. Maybe a poor analogy, but if the safety of the soldiers are a top priority, why are we so keen on keeping them in a war zone with no major, achievable objectives in a never ending war?
Perhaps these leaks will not end the war. I doubt they will, actually. But it has made me reconsider what we hope to achieve over there. Maybe enough others will, too. Maybe enough to effect some sort of change that will slow the massive amount of resources going into this sad and protracted endeavor. It seems the moment Bin Laden gave us the slip at Tora Bora, we have been wasting money and lives.
When Karzai wants to negotiate peace with the Taliban and Obama, reportedly, is open to that, that says enough for me. What we hope to accomplish over there will not happen. We can’t rebuild what never was and exporting U.S. style democracy to other cultures and nations has a dismal success rate, it seems.
There will be no power vacuum if we leave. The Taliban will fill it immediately, just as they had before. And now we don’t have to worry about terror attacks due to Homeland Security’s effective programs that keep us safe. Okay, I was being sarcastic about that last bit.
Not exactly Big Money, except in the scale of your or my personal grocery budgets.
But plenty for a small team that primarily uses the web and its many free tools to get things done. My upbringing taught me to be distrustful of self-made whistleblowers who have a financial stake in releasing confidential information, especially so when they rush to paint their actions as humane, ethical and in the name of free press.
Count the gaps between that and providing operational intel to the Taliban.
Again, that’s a strawman of your own making. What bothers me is what they could do with sensitive information they obtained in ethically questionable ways rather than a fear that they’re going to turn on U.S. troops. If they really wanted to undermine every major U.S. initiative in Afghanistan, they would’ve withheld as many mentions as they could about the Taliban’s dirty work. Or just handed it over to the Taliban. They didn’t.
But China might be in the market for a glimpse of how the U.S. military operates and who knows if one of their contacts in Hong Kong might be swayed to give them a few personal copies of unreleased, unedited documents Assange is saving for another media blitz? Governments often pay for this kind of raw intelligence when they want to know what’s going on in other nations’ armies.
Geopolitically, nothing in Afghanistan is “huge” except the US/NATO aggression…
And a global heroin empire which is once again flourishing since the Taliban lost its ability to fund itself while enforcing their one-poppy-plant-and-we-chop-your-head-off policy. Local warlords fund their armories with heroin sales which flow into Europe, East Asia, and find their way to the U.S. through Nigeria. When it comes to the global black market for narcotics, Afghanistan is a major, major player.
Do you really subscribe to an Afghan version of the old Domino Theory?
No, I’m just thinking that packing up and leaving the nation just so it’s taken over by the Taliban and returns to the same exact state as it was before the 2001invasion is not going to end well for anyone, especially the Afghanis.
I got one: systematic withdrawal. Ideally accompanied & followed by extensive civilian rebuilding aid…
Um, that’s what the government has been trying to do. Problem is that before you’re able to build a new city or a new power grid, you have to make sure no one’s going around and knocking it down. The Taliban don’t care if the average Afghani has to sit in the dark at night and his plumbing is older than Genghis Khan’s battle armor. To them all that matters is absolute control over the populace because Allah told their clerics it was their right to rule that nation and launch wars against unbelievers.
millions and millions of us knew that Johnson, Nixon, & Co. were lying long before Ellsberg provided documentary evidence.
So what’s the big lie getting exposed here? That Afgahnistan is unstable, or that the military omits reports of civilian casualties when it can? Who are all these people to whom this is all breaking news? Do they not own a TV or have internet connections? Are these people also unaware that we now have these things called cell phones to make calls on the go and that said cell phones can now surf the web? If there really are people to whom all these documents are such a big eye-opener, it speaks a lot more about their inability to actually keep up with important current events than how much of an impact WikiLeaks is having.
Why are you scolding Toto and ignoring the man behind the curtain?
Because just like in the wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain doesn’t know what he’s going to do to fix the problem and along comes Toto and wets his newspaper. Yeah it’s annoying, yeah it’s a bit of a mess, yeah he’ll get over it, but the fact is that it isn’t going to help. I understand you have trouble with war in general, I really do. But as someone who came from a different place and a different sociopolitical climate, I learned how to cope with the fact that wars are dirty and if we were to really go down the list of all the terrible things war does, every skirmish would be followed by two or three years of trials for war crimes. The stuff with which the USSR got away in Berlin at the end of World War II would easily fill a library.
King gathered spectacular personal benefits from his civil rights work. Was that the most urgent evil occurring in the US of the 1960s?!?
Apples and oranges Pierce, apples and oranges. King fought for the rights of those who were institutionally oppressed only due to the color of their skin, trying to pave a way for integration and cooperation between whites and blacks. Assange hurls out some documents related to a major international conflict when tensions run so high the slightest wrong move could reverberate for years, does the news circuit thing to get more cash and publicity, then leaves all those involved to clean up the mess.
My upbringing taught me to be distrustful of self-made whistleblowers who have a financial stake in releasing confidential information, especially so when they rush to paint their actions as humane, ethical and in the name of free press.
What did it teach you about gratuitous warmongers?
China might be in the market for a glimpse of how the U.S. military operates…
Again, you’re reciting Pentagon-Papers-backlash cliches to a degree that makes an American anti-war activist feel the urge to visit a flashback clinic. Even if Beijing isn’t regularly hiring Talib leaders for debriefings, they’re probably behind the Pentagon database hackery of the last few years – or are hacking the hackers.
And a global heroin empire…
One which would have remained trivial (i.e., eclipsed by the “Golden Triangle” project run by nominal US allies of the Kuomintang) if not for US intervention. I doubt that by now even a return to power by Mullah Omar could stop that operation, but clearly the US has no chance of doing so with or without WikiLeaks.
… I’m just thinking that packing up and leaving… is not going to end well for anyone…
Oh boy, turnabout time!
… that’s what the government has been trying to do. Problem is that before you’re able to build a new city or a new power grid…
That’s not “rebuilding” so much as it is “westernizing”. A more appropriate type of aid immediately upon withdrawal would be to airdrop farm tools, first aid kits, local-language schoolbooks, and other immediately practical goods all over the landscape, along with radio/rechargeable-battery/solar panel packages to receive honest news, weather & other info of actual use to average Afghans.
Who are all these people to whom this is all breaking news?
The average US news “consumer” – and, I suspect, the average US “pundit”.
… it isn’t going to help.
It isn’t going to help the man behind the curtain – but then, he’s a war criminal. Sic ‘im, Toto!
… if we were to really go down the list of all the terrible things war does, every skirmish would be followed by two or three years of trials for war crimes.
Sounds wonderful!
King fought for the rights of those who were institutionally oppressed…
Sometimes I suspect you’re missing my points on purpose. The reason I compared Assange to King was not that their goals were the same, it was that in both cases, rousing the rabble requires climbing up on a soapbox and hollering as loud as possible. When did anyone not already in power accomplish anything political without seeking limelights and passing hats?
… a major international conflict when tensions run so high the slightest wrong move could reverberate for years…
This war’s been going on for nine years, and is set to drag on indefinitely: the present situation does not compare to the Berlin Airlift, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or other genuinely hair-trigger moments where popping a paper bag could launch a chain reaction.
…then leaves all those involved to clean up the mess.
Even if I agreed with all your arguments, the “mess” here is George’s & Barack’s; Julian’s share is equivalent to that of some little kid throwing up on the rubble of the WTC on 9/12/01. To squawk about WikiLeaks while remaining silent about massacre implies a moral and political obtuseness more befitting a cable news bobblehead: a Weird Thing indeed, but not one any of us seems to have expected to find here.
Ah, yes, our freedom will be our downfall.
I wholeheartedly support freedom of the press, but the press, as you state, is but a shell of its former self. The tendency to push out sensational headlines before bloggers pick ‘em up now drives mainstream news outlets more than discretion does.
Is it any wonder that internet Pulitzer-wannabes emulate mainstream media’s ethical lapses of late? It’s a downward spiral.
Like you say, I’d love to see information on despotic regimes released as well. But due to those despotic regimes’ secrecy, there’s the chance of personal danger to any blogger/internet whistleblower should any influential names/events slip out. I also see the need for transparency in our military, to a point. I mean, we’re now the baddest asses on the planet, and like it or not, the world turns to us for guidance.
I’m all for transparency as long as every other badass-wannabe country on the planet offers the same transparency. Ain’t gonna happen. Until then, I’d prefer not to know what goes on behind the scenes as we struggle to stay one step ahead of these despots. Whatever it takes, just keep those nutcases away from my white picket fence. At least until they all can become transparent too.
Unfortunately, I see the movement toward transparency at home having a stronger push than that of exposing evils of despotic regimes.
if Beijing isn’t regularly hiring Talib leaders for debriefings, they’re probably behind the Pentagon database hackery of the last few years – or are hacking the hackers.
And what better way to check their how well their hacking is working than by getting a few real top secret documents to see if they match up with what they retrieved? After all, there’s only so much that computers and hackers can do, and keep in mind that when it comes to the web, the U.S. isn’t exactly powerless to play some head games and pay off a few hackers to mislead the Chinese cyber-brigade.
A more appropriate type of aid immediately upon withdrawal would be to airdrop farm tools, first aid kits, local-language schoolbooks…
Just an FYI, the U.S. has been trying to hand out all of the above. The only problem is that the Taliban comes around and either steals it or destroys it. You can’s suddenly turn an Islamic nation into America Lite with building a reliable infrastructure, but you can make people’s lives easier and let them see that they’ll have a better life without the fundamentalist lunatics running their lives.
It isn’t going to help the man behind the curtain – but then, he’s a war criminal
Wow, you’re really quick to call people war criminals, huh? Like I said, I respect your views on war. But to be brutally honest, I find them oddly unilateral. Real wars aren’t the caricatures you seem to imagine them to be and by their very definition, they will end up with death and misery for thousands of people, if not tens of millions as was the case with the World Wars. And just like not every person across the front lines is an enemy waiting to strike, not every soldier is just a merciless killing machine with no ethics or morals to speak of.
And that’s actually the funny thing about the analyst who leaked the documents we’re talking about to Assange. He was apparently so disgusted with war, you’d think he’s right there on the ground witnessing Afghanis getting butchered. But no, he spends his time in an air conditioned office, looking at reports on his computer while sipping coffee and apparently, pontificating on the wages of war.
To squawk about WikiLeaks while remaining silent about massacre implies a moral and political obtuseness more befitting a cable news bobblehead…
Ouch Pierce, I see you’re dropping the knife and moving on to the hatchet. Note how I try to respond to your objections to the best of my ability without trying to dismiss you as a hippie or a naive peacenik. I really do respect your position on war and try to see from where you’re coming. And still, considering your long comment history here, I’m very unpleasantly surprised that when you found something in which we do disagree to any real extent, you jump to lumping me in with the likes of Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, throwing around terms like “atrocity,” and “massacre,” and “war crimes.”
Listen, if I could make a program for a smart weapon to tell civilians apart from those bloodthirsty lunatics who hide among them and use them as human shields during an armed conflict, I would. You would be surprised how much comp sci researchers have to think about how what they create will be used, and how often we have to take time to talk about the ethical issues with our work. Unfortunately, all the talking in the world isn’t going to stop a war from breaking out somewhere, somehow, and all we can really do is try to minimize the damage it does to innocent bystanders.
And I do have to note that linking to a site that comes down on the U.S. for using way too much force during a war while keeping silent about the brutalities unleashed on Afghanis by the Taliban at the same time also shows a kind of bias that can’t simply go unnoted. Just like Assange said, no one comes out smelling like roses in wars, and we really should remember that.
… what better way to check their how well their hacking is working …
Yes, intel work is mostly a matter of collecting crumbs and carefully piecing them together. Therefore the chumps who are paying for the atrocities should never get a single crumb about what’s being done to enrage the world against them? If you had a stronger argument to make, would you be reduced to clutching at such meager straws?
… the U.S. has been trying to hand out all of the above.
From the hands of soldiers, as a transparent part of mil ops, with strings attached. When I said, “airdrop… all over the landscape”, I meant in quantities too large to be 100% confiscated, even in areas where no occupation troops are demanding the locals squeal on their cousins in the resistance.
You can’s suddenly turn an Islamic nation into America Lite with building a reliable infrastructure…
Please tell that to Robert Gates and his henchpersons, I fear they’re working under a delusion.
… you’re really quick to call people war criminals, huh?
Nine years is too soon to draw that conclusion?
Real wars aren’t the caricatures you seem to imagine them to be …
After decades of studying the subject, I’ve come to one firm conclusion: pro-war types always get condescending about how much more they (think they) know than the rest of us. Hint: this may sometimes be true, but it’s never persuasive.
But no, he spends his time in an air conditioned office…
Cheap ad hominems aren’t convincing either. Last I heard, they’re fallacies.
… I try to respond to your objections to the best of my ability without trying to dismiss you as a hippie or a naive peacenik.
Except when you did.
… you jump to lumping me in with the likes of Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, throwing around terms like “atrocity,” and “massacre,” and “war crimes.”
Actually, when I said “bobbleheads”, I had in mind the Chris Matthews/Tim Russert sort of Beltway-insider “conventional-wisdom” dispenser. The Fox Noise class of pundits, though arguably different more in degree than in kind, merit (and from me, receive) stronger terms. I’m actually rather perplexed as to why you’re throwing in your lot with the Establishment position here, but I don’t think you’re in the business of throwing raw meat to the dog pack just for the ratings hits and DC mutual-backscratching points.
Otoh, “terms like ‘atrocity,’ and ‘massacre,’ and ‘war crimes’” are fully justified by the facts on the ground. If you have any doubts that I could bombard you with links to support that, just do a web search for “Afghan civilian casualties”, “Afghan wedding party”, “Bagram interrogation”, etc.
… all the talking in the world isn’t going to stop a war from breaking out somewhere, somehow, and all we can really do is try to minimize the damage it does to innocent bystanders.
None of which works worth a damn in the field, apparently. Alas, it does seem to be far too much to expect that (enough) weapons developers would exercise their consciences enough to go on strike (effectively). As mentioned earlier, I live near the University of Florida, which happens to be where a lot of the work on drones was done. Judging from the small sample of researchers in that work I’ve talked to, those who thought about the uses of their products fooled themselves into thinking they’d be deployed for disaster relief, etc, and reconnaissance at the most, even while fully aware their money came from the Pentagon. (Though even I was too naive to predict they’d hand over effective control to the likes of Blackwater/Xe).
… linking to a site that comes down on the U.S. for using way too much force during a war while keeping silent about the brutalities unleashed on Afghanis by the Taliban at the same time also shows a kind of bias that can’t simply go unnoted.
Do you really think the anti-Taliban case is underreported in the US? Or that evidence of war crimes by the American side is at everyone’s fingertips? Or that I had no reason to expect you’d call me out for using the word “massacre” without supporting evidence?
Or that “they do it too!” is a legitimate justification?
Oops, “ratings” in para 16 was s’pozed to be shown in strikethrough – I never can keep it straight which parts of html work on which sites…
But at least we’re making a little bit of progress, by discussing the war itself and not the antics by which the war was dragged to public semi-awareness.
Therefore the chumps who are paying for atrocities should never get a single crumb about what’s being done to enrage the world against them?
You just keep putting words in my mouth… In the post and in the comments I clearly said that if Assange has proof of war crimes, he should release the actual cases as well as the documents to support them rather than just spill anything and everything to take the news world by shock and awe of how many documents he could get. You can persecute someone for war crimes without giving away about 20,000 unrelated daily logs and incident reports on top of that.
From the hands of soldiers, as a transparent part of mil ops, with strings attached.
Strings like what? And are you not aware of foreign aid workers who constantly bring clothes, equipment and books with them to Afghanistan, many of them working for a charity group or an NGO with zero military ties?
Nine years is too soon to draw that conclusion?
The duration of a war doesn’t matter when determining whether someone is guilty of war crimes. It could take a day for a war crime to be committed or it could take a few hundred years. The point is what actions were taken and who was responsible.
Lining up random people against a wall in a remote village and executing all of them just because they were around at the time is a war crime. To order an attack against an enemy force with the requisite that special care be taken not to harm civilians has never been a war crime as far as I’m aware. If harming even one civilian during a real battle was a war crime, you’d have to dismantle the entire military and try every single soldier and officer as you go up the chain of command.
… pro-war types always get condescending about how much more they (think they) know than the rest of us.
Pro-war, huh? You can’t be somewhere in between, not anti-war, not pro-war, simply cognizant of the fact that there are wars and really not being thrilled that they happen, yet knowing they will anyway? You painted a very black and white picture. What am I supposed to do with it other than try to introduce the grey areas into the discussion?
Cheap ad hominems aren’t convincing either. Last I heard, they’re fallacies.
The source’s behavior and his justification for leaking the documents seem to have plenty or relevance here. If he was so anti-war and so easily shocked, why did he go and join the military? What did he think it was going to be? And why would he simply dump secret intel adding that he wanted to interfere with the U.S.’ efforts in the war? He could’ve simply quit as a conscientious objector.
I’m perplexed as to why you’re throwing in your lot with the Establishment position…
I’m siding with the Establishment? In what? In saying that publishing all this minutia was a bad idea and he should’ve focused on what he thought he could prove to be real, legitimate war crimes? By saying that he should’ve actually done something a tad more than just spew out secret intel and actually tried to get something done on the international stage other than grace newsrooms with his presence if he felt so strongly about holding “The Man” accountable in a court of law? I’d say that’s hardly the kind of pro-Establishment position you seem to have in mind.
Alas, it does seem to be far too much to expect that (enough) weapons developers would exercise their consciences enough to go on strike (effectively).
Want to make enough weapon designers leave their posts? Force politicians to give them funds through their universities with no military strings attached, pay them well and with benefits, and stop dismantling higher ed with budget cut after budget cut. If you work on certain projects, the only way you’ll ever get funding is to go through the military because no one else is willing to commit.
And for what it’s worth, despite the many downsides of militarism, the DoD gave us a lot of very important things like the internet, cellular communication, and space travel. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the R&D in the 1960s that made the U.S. a world power in science and technology was funded by the military which employed throngs of scientists and engineers working on groundbreaking technology we still use. Give today’s weapon designers the same thing in civilian form and then you’ll have a shot at steering their career path away from the Pentagon.
Oops, “ratings” in para 16 was s’pozed to be shown in strikethrough…
Just feel free to use the < del > tag for srikethroughs in comments here. It works just as well as the italics and hyperlinks.
Strings like what?
As mentioned in my previous comment: … squeal on their cousins in the resistance. Even accepting a candy bar potentially puts a villager on the resistance’s list of collaborators – there’s very little room for neutrality in a war zone.
… are you not aware of foreign aid workers who constantly bring clothes, equipment and books with them to Afghanistan, many of them working for a charity group or an NGO with zero military ties?
Are you aware of consistent US/NATO efforts to co-opt (“coordinate with”) such groups, or the Taliban pressure which forces them into the company of the occupation forces? How many Afghans, if polled, would distinguish between feranghis in or out of uniform?
The duration of a war doesn’t matter when determining whether someone is guilty of war crimes.
The war itself is a war crime: an invasion setting up a puppet regime, in violation of the UN Charter and other treaties, with no visible threat to the aggressor nation, under false pretenses, disregarding attempts at negotiation from the incumbent government. When the entire project is illegitimate, the excuses routinely evoked for “collateral damage” during “legitimate” military ops do not apply.
Pro-war, huh? You can’t be somewhere in between…
To repeat myself again: War tends to produce “which side are you on?” moments … To accept the premises of the US, as you clearly seem to be doing, or to reject them, as I and most of the world seem to be doing, leaves few other options.
What am I supposed to do with it other than try to introduce the grey areas into the discussion?
One person’s “gray area” is another person’s smokescreen. Did you hear about the case several years ago where a rapist was acquitted because he used a condom?
If he was so anti-war and so easily shocked, why did he go and join the military?
People with consciences (“idealists” & “utopians” in bobblehead-speak) are often put through some major changes when they see the discrepancies between military reality and recruitment propaganda.
He could’ve simply quit as a conscientious objector.
While allowing the butchery to continue, knowing he could have done more to stop it.
I’m siding with the Establishment? In what?
In accepting their premises & legitimacy in a blatantly imperialist war.
… he should’ve actually done something a tad more than just spew out secret intel and actually tried to get something done on the international stage other than grace newsrooms with his presence…
Just what presence do the Julian Assanges (& Cindy Sheehans & Mordechai Vanunus et al) have on “the international stage” without breaking
out of their assigned placeslaws? Remember when millions of us took to the streets in February ’03? Worked well, huh?If you work on certain projects, the only way you’ll ever get funding is to go through the military because no one else is willing to commit.
In no small part because the military dominates the government budgetarily, leaving civilian efforts (in science & everything else) gasping for oxygen. The peace movement includes a “plowshares” (military-to-civilian conversion) component, which is as puny and as thoroughly ignored as the rest of our efforts.
… the DoD gave us a lot of very important things like the internet, cellular communication, and space travel.
Two out of three ain’t bad: NASA started off as a civilian agency, only taken over by the Air Force (etc) after initial work started to pay off. I tend to agree with Chomsky’s argument (yes, probably echoing someone else) that the military budget was the tool whereby the US competed, by running a state-planned (“socialist!!1!”) industrial sector when otherwise Europe, Japan, & the USSR would’ve left our aviation & electronic enterprises in the dust.
The war itself is a war crime: an invasion setting up a puppet regime, in violation of the UN Charter and other treaties, with no visible threat to the aggressor nation…
So by simply going to war, a war crime is already committed unless you ask for the international community’s opinion on the matter and file the proper paperwork to go forward with a military operation? And do I even dare mention that the international community in question routinely ignores its own rules left and right?
To accept the premises of the US, as you clearly seem to be doing, or to reject them, as I and most of the world seem to be doing, leaves few other options.
Do we really have to cover bandwagon fallacies? Popular opinion is a terrible way to determine anything other than elections and local ordinances and propositions. And it tends to be rather fickle to boot.
People with consciences (“idealists” & “utopians” in bobblehead-speak) …
Someone with a conscience chooses not to participate in an endeavor he finds to be objectionable. An idealist or a utopian look at the world starry-eyed and wonder why a world filled with competitive, greedy and fallible creatures divided into nations, many of which have their own religious movements, cultures and very different ideas, can’t just get along. How can they if they constantly separate themselves and compete for very limited resources day in, day out?
What irks me is that in this case, you seem to be using the word “conscience” as the measure of how much someone agrees with you. If they do, they have a conscience, if they don’t, they’re heartless and shameless war criminals. Again, awfully black and white. As for the rapist anecdote, if we wanted to quote stupid legal decisions made every day, we’d need to start a whole other blog.
In no small part because the military dominates the government budgetarily, leaving civilian efforts (in science & everything else) gasping for oxygen.
See, the numbers for that don’t add up. The federal government is spending roughly $3 trillion per year, out of which the DoD gets just over $410 billion. Social Security is even bigger than that, closer to $450 billion. We still have more than $2.1 trillion and much of it is going to be wasted on pork barrels, sweetheart deals, $600 hammers, and $1,500 toilet seats. Are you telling me that you can’t free up a paltry 1% of all the cash being wasted on those who bribe… err… donate to politicians for $100 billion or so in scientific funds that could be allocated among hundreds of research colleges, public schools, and other educational pursuits?
Like Napoleon once said: “There’s no need to attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.” The reason why the military can spend so much on R&D and scientists is because Joe Politician lacks the brainpower to realize that a scientific grant will yield enormous returns on investment and cowers whenever an angry mob of dullards accuse him of wasting money of “those elitist, godless, know- it-alls” if he does have a sudden moment of clarity and considers an R&D fund. So while civilian funds dry up, the military still has the cash to invest in science.
NASA started off as a civilian agency, only taken over by the Air Force (etc) after initial work started to pay off.
Um, actually, NASA was spun off from DARPA and worked with the USAF and Naval missile test labs when it was first created. The technology it used all came from the experiments conducted by the military and engineers like Von Braun, who started to work for the U.S. thanks to Operation Paperclip.
So by simply going to war, a war crime is already committed unless you ask for the international community’s opinion on the matter and file the proper paperwork to go forward with a military operation?
Yup. Them’s the rules, written before I (or GW Bush) was born. The only exception is if your nation is under direct military attack.
And do I even dare mention that the international community in question routinely ignores its own rules left and right?
America, we are told, is better (even if most of those selective breaches are US-directed).
… bandwagon fallacies…
Not my point. Failing to object when objectionable actions occur is implicitly supporting the perpetrator – that’s the point.
… you seem to be using the word “conscience” as the measure of how much someone agrees with you.
My measure is whether they agree, or disagree, with the pointless slaughter of thousands of civilians.
… if we wanted to quote stupid legal decisions made every day, we’d need to start a whole other blog.
When a science blog introduces a political topic, who could complain if the discussion becomes political?
The federal government is spending roughly $3 trillion per year, out of which the DoD gets just over $410 billion.
On the books. Except for additional billions which go to veterans’ programs (if you hired someone who billed you once for the job and again for his employees’ benefit program, would you count only the first invoice as the job cost?); the “emergency supplemental” expenses for the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq (not officially part of “Defense” budget); the unknown billions consumed by the “intelligence community”; and numerous other incidentals (nuclear weaponry eats about half the Energy Dept’s money; Dept of Ed helps with ROTC; sorting out NASA’s expenditures is quite confusing, but who’d be surprised if a chunk of their overhead goes to Pentagon/NSA/NRO/etc projects not covered by said agencies’ payments?; etc).
… a paltry 1% of all the cash being wasted on those who bribe… err… donate to politicians for $100 billion or so in scientific funds …
We could do a lot better than that – but first we’ve got to abandon the imperialist attempt to control the world by real and threatened violence.
The reason why the military can spend so much on R&D and scientists is because Joe Politician lacks the brainpower to realize that a scientific grant will yield enormous returns on investment and cowers whenever an angry mob of dullards accuse him …
That’s only one of many reasons the Pentagon controls the budget. Read up on the military-industrial complex, its lobbies, campaign contributions, and methods of spreading expenditure (very inefficiently, for production purposes) across multiple Congressional districts. See also memoirs by Robt McNamara and others who knew that the war against Vietnam could not be won, but that any party which admitted as much would be mugged by political opponents and media motormouths (also aware of the war’s futility, but unable to resist partisan opportunity). Thousands of troops, millions of Indochinese civilians, and US military power were all sacrificed to the dynamic of avoiding calculatedly dishonest jingoistic hysteria – exactly as is happening now.
NASA was spun off from DARPA and worked with the USAF and Naval missile test labs when it was first created.
Follow the money over the years – after a certain point (a few years after Apollo, IIRC), NASA’s money came less from its own appropriations and more from (in effect) contract work for the Pentagon.
… Operation Paperclip
Now there’s an interesting intersection of science and politics. Would you have objected if a whistleblower leaked the dirty details on that one as it proceeded?
America, we are told, is better (even if most selective breaches are US-directed).
A quibble there. The United States at least makes a showing to the world and states its intentions. Many other nations just do whatever they want and until it’s covered by the international media and their representatives are called up in the UN, the whole thing just gets ignored. Were the brutalities in Chad, Sudan, Congo, and Rwanda on the agenda at the UN before they happened? No. And now, as three of these nations are still in dire, violent turmoil, and Ethiopia is trying to invade Somalia and vice versa in an undeclared war, how much attention does the global community pay to them?
Failing to object when objectionable actions occur is supporting the perpetrator…
Hey, remember I’m the one saying that I’d be ok with Assange releasing proof of real abuses and specific cases, then coming with them to the UN or the World Court. But that’s not what he did. Now, the Taliban is telling the BBC that it’s going to be looking for names of informants and composing a hit list, the U.S. has a temporary black eye in the news, and Assange returned to his perch and is asking for money, making the I-wash-my-hands-of-this gesture. Gee Julien, way to hold everyone accountable.
My measure [of conscience] is whether they agree, or disagree, with the pointless slaughter of thousands of civilians.
I know plenty of soldiers and people who either work, or worked for the military. Of all of them, I’ve yet to find a single one who didn’t feel remorse for civilian casualties and wish that “the bad guys” were easier to identify so they didn’t place such a burden on innocent bystanders who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seems rather callous not to mention that while the U.S. tries to minimize its impact, a squad of Talib things has absolutely no such concerns and is very happy to sacrifice their own people “in a holy war.”
And if you want to reference the Christian zealots in the Army who think they’re called by God to fight the Muslims in Central Asia, I’m right there with you. If I were a general and a team of them volunteered for a mission, I would immediately send them home rather than let them indulge their holy warrior fantasies. It’s not that there aren’t “holy warriors” out there already…
If a science blog introduces a political topic, who could complain if the discussion becomes political?
No, I’m fine with political discussions here, otherwise I wouldn’t start them. What my reply meant is that there are so many terrible legal decisions out there, we could do an entire blog on them alone if we really wanted to delve into the topic of law.
Read up on the military-industrial complex, its lobbies, campaign contributions, and methods of spreading expenditure…
You’re talking to me as if I’m not aware of the defense ecosystem. Even the highest estimates of all defense related spending in the U.S. peak around $500 billion. Yes, it’s a lot, but it’s not so much that there’s no money for anything else. Social Security and welfare expenses including Medicare are an even bigger chunk of the budget. In stark contrast, education gets just a few times the budget of NASA and that’s usually used to fund administrators’ salaries and mandatory expenses rather than actually improving any educational standards.
Would you have objected if a whistleblower leaked all the dirty details on [Operation Paperclip] as it proceeded?
Wow… That’s a tough one. On the one hand, the scientists themselves weren’t Nazi war criminals and were barely even Nazis by the technical definition. But they used slave labor supplied by sadists from concentration camps and benefited from mass theft of those the Nazis enslaved and murdered. Without them, the U.S. may not have had a truly viable space program, but then again, it might well have since von Braun’s designs borrowed quite a bit from U.S. rocketeers.
Of course the word did get out during the project anyway and started a debate about why former card-carrying members of the Nazi party were being trusted with rockets and other important projects, so the leak you’re talking about already happened to an extent and the program wasn’t completely derailed…
Greg, Pierce – fascinating read. Just saw something where you two may be arguing at cross purposes…
Pierce:“The war itself is a war crime: an invasion setting up a puppet regime, in violation of the UN Charter and other treaties, with no visible threat to the aggressor nation…”
Greg:“So by simply going to war, a war crime is already committed”
Greg, I believe Pierce meant literally “The War” is illegal. Not war in general. (Although as part of the peace movement, I suspect he would be happy to argue the point more broadly…
Personally, I thought the invasion of Afghanistan was legitimate, but grotesquely mismanaged by psychopathic arseholes. Iraq OTOH was clearly a crime. I also think much of the US military’s culture is incompatible with these types of messy wars, especially the Marine Corps. As illustrated in the leaked reports. And something I don’t believe anyone in the US government can possibly address because of that very same culture.)
Changing topics slightly, Greg, I’ve noticed you berate the original leaker, PFC Manning, for joining the military if he disagreed with US policy. However, his actions are consistent with someone who believed that America was something special and under attack after 9/11, and signed up to “defend it”; then found out that the war was, in effect, being sabotaged by it’s own commanders and allies; decided to do something to reveal that incompetence (via WikiLeaks); then, feeling like a “big man”, bragged about it to a mongrel dog who set him up.
He tried to fight for something he believed in, found out it wasn’t true, and kept fighting for the thing he still believed in. (If you get what I mean.)
(Of course, it’s also consistent with being a giant egotistical jerk, pissed off because he was overlooked for promotion again – because his superiors thought he was a giant egotistical jerk. But his actions don’t require it.)
The United States at least makes a showing to the world and states its intentions.
F’rinstance, we state that Israel can get away with anything, and so it does. We give ourselves the same license, maybe even more so.
… the Taliban is telling the BBC that it’s going to be looking for names of informants and composing a hit list…
The traditional fate of collaborateurs, after all. Since you seem to accept the processes of warfare in general, why object in this case?
… the U.S. has a temporary black eye in the news…
Very temporary in our own media, quite lasting worldwide.
… while the U.S. tries to minimize its impact…
There you go accepting what known liars tell you, again.
… the Christian zealots in the Army who think they’re called by God to fight the Muslims in Central Asia…
Are they so different from the nationalistic zealots who feel called by their “duty to the flag”?
What my reply meant is that there are so many terrible legal decisions out there, we could do an entire blog on them alone…
Whereas what my comment meant was that “shades of gray” can be a smokescreen for the unambiguously wrong.
Even the highest estimates of all defense related spending in the U.S. peak around $500 billion.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Military expenditure of USA In local currency ( m. dollars ) … 2009
661,049 [Intelligence apparently not included; not sure about the VA, etc - prb]
… the scientists themselves weren’t Nazi war criminals and were barely even Nazis by the technical definition. But they used slave labor supplied by sadists from concentration camps …
Peter Black, “Forced Labor in the Concentration Camps, 1942-1944″ (in Michael Berenbaum (ed), A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis): “… during the initial stages of underground tunnel construction at Dora, prisoner mortality was extremely high due to lack of ventilation and severe cold. In the first six months of the camp’s existence, 2,882 prisoners died out of an average total of around 10,000.” (I’m not sure just when von Braun took charge at Mittelwerk, so perhaps not all of those deaths can be laid directly to his account.)
Paul: Greg, I believe Pierce meant literally “The War” is illegal. Not war in general.
Thank you! While I would like to see war effectively banned, I concede we’re not there yet – and that invaded nations and their citizens do have a right to self-defense both morally and under international law. However, the conditions defined for legitimate war in the UN Charter and other treaties do not apply to the aggression currently under way by the United States – though they do seem to fit for the resistance movements (“insurgents” is another dishonest term I refuse to use) in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
And I agree that neither Assange nor Manning are saints – but why should they need to be?
You seem to accept the processes of warfare in general, why object in this case?
So do you mind that thanks to the WikiLeaks documents, people who don’t want the Taliban in power and will give information to the U.S. are now going to be hunted by people who think they’re holy warriors? Do you think they have it coming? And what prompts my objection here is that a group which lacks the backbone to take a stand on the very war the course of which it’s trying to change is carelessly releasing this information in the name of “accountability” and it’s defenders loudly proclaim that we can’t possibly criticize them for this because they’re “just exposing the immorality of wars and American aggression.”
I don’t require either Assange or Manning to be saints, but I would like to see a little less hypocrisy and a little more accountability from them. So far, all they’ve shown is that they’re really good at making a mess and telling everyone else to clean it up.
There you go accepting what known liars tell you, again.
And nobody in the anti-war movement exaggerates civilian losses or the costs of war in general? There’s nothing to gain with civilian deaths and way too much to lose. So please, do consider that before making such unilateral proclamations.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: USA Military expenditure in local currency ( m. dollars ) … 2009 – 661,049
Considering that they don’t really reveal their sources, just saying that they’re “open,” I’d have to ask for something more detailed and transparent. This number might be inflated with all sorts of expenditures they might classify as “related” for any reasons they want. If you really try, you can tie your local Radio Shack to military spending.
Greg: “I don’t require either Assange or Manning to be saints, but I would like to see a little less hypocrisy and a little more accountability from them.”
You seem to be holding the guys with a website to a vastly higher moral standard than you do the guys with an army.
If your (paraphrasing) “in war, things are messy” excuses actual military slaughter(*) of civilians, why doesn’t it also excuse a mere risk of reprisals against US collaborators when trying to expose US (and other nations’) wrong-doing?
(* For example, US Marines laying down cover fire during a retreat, into a crowd of unarmed civilians. Killing 16, wounding 50. Then exonerate themselves in a show-trial when criticised by non-Marine commanders. All over a single wounded Marine.)
“So far, all they’ve shown is that they’re really good at making a mess and telling everyone else to clean it up.”
Showing everyone a photo of a horrible mess, previously hidden, didn’t create the mess. And demanding that those who did create the mess clean it up, isn’t shirking your responsibilities.
(Speaking of cleaning up someone else’s horrible mess, thanks for fixing up my last message!)
Pierce: “However, the conditions defined for legitimate war in the UN Charter and other treaties [...] do seem to fit for the resistance movements (“insurgents” is another dishonest term I refuse to use) in both Afghanistan and Iraq.”
No. Targeting civilians is illegal and grotesque. The Taliban and their allies, and the Iraqi insurgents and theirs, are war criminals. “Oh noes, our country iz been invaded. Oh look, I asplode a shopping centre!” No. Just no.
If your (paraphrasing) “in war, things are messy” excuses actual military slaughter of civilians, why doesn’t it also excuse a risk of reprisals against US collaborators?
I really don’t remember saying that the messy nature of war somehow excuses any case of negligence towards potential civilian casualties, and excessive force. In the example you cite, I would need more information to have an educated opinion about what actually happened (what were the Marines doing on the scene and how one of them was wounded).
Likewise, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the cavalier attitude you and Pierce seem to have towards Afghan informers who could’ve had a thousand reasons to get back at the Taliban by collaborating with the U.S. You both know that the Talibs’ cruelty is boundless and countless Afghanis were either hurt by their repressions or lost their family members to the Taliban’s campaign of repression.
Showing a photo of a horrible mess, previously hidden, didn’t create the mess.
No, but showing the photo and casually identifying everyone in it, opening them up to reprisal by half of those responsible for making the mess in the first place is making this mess much, much worse. And then shirking any responsibility for this with vague statements about “just holding everyone accountable” is downright spineless.
So do you mind that thanks to the WikiLeaks documents, people who don’t want the Taliban in power and will give information to the U.S. are now going to be hunted …
I “mind” the whole damn war.
… a group which lacks the backbone to take a stand on the very war …
I’ll admit I haven’t looked much into the WL crowd themselves, but I get the impression that their mission is pulling back the curtain on concealed info regardless of type – rather like the ACLU defending the free speech rights of Nazis without necessarily supporting Nazism.
…it’s defenders loudly proclaim that we can’t possibly criticize them for this because they’re “just exposing the immorality of wars and American aggression.”
Whether or not they’re beyond criticism, that is what they’ve
exposeddragged into the spotlight.And nobody in the anti-war movement exaggerates civilian losses or the costs of war in general?
[citation needed] This sounds like you’re slipping into “balanced” journalism.
… they don’t really reveal their sources, just saying that they’re “open,” I’d have to ask for something more detailed and transparent.
Start here.
Paul: The Taliban and their allies, and the Iraqi insurgents and theirs, are war criminals.
Since a bit of nitpickery seems to be the order of the day, I’d like to clarify a bit. Due to their attacks on civilians and their fellow nationals, the jihadi factions in both US-occupied nations are clearly guilty of crimes against humanity – but in terms of the laws of war, so far I see no basic illegality in their attacks against their foreign invaders, and (uh-oh, gray area!) possibly not in their violence against the collaborationist governments created & maintained by said invaders.
Greg again: … the cavalier attitude you and Pierce seem to have towards Afghan informers …
Those who criticize years of serial massacres are “cavalier”, while those who perpetrate same are just “conducting operations”?!?
I was in Afghanistan before (or perhaps during) the time when Z. Brzezinski had the brainstorm of pushing that pawn at the USSR, and was immensely impressed at the way multiple tribal groups functioned together in a heavily armed but mutually respectful society. The explosion of psychopathology which has occurred in that nation since 1979 does not have local roots.
You both know that the Talibs’ cruelty is boundless …
What bounds have we seen on American ruthlessness?
… half of those responsible for making the mess in the first place …
In what way are the Taliban – which did not exist as an organization, and most or all of whose members were very young or unborn when Jimmy Carter played the Afghan card – responsible for “half” of the current nastiness?
I get the impression that their mission is pulling back the curtain on concealed info
And asking for money to keep doing it. Don’t you find it odd that they never take a real position on a topic, that they never try to advocate anything, that they just leak and try their best to solicit donations to keep on doing it? Why isn’t it a team of people who’ll do it in their spare time, ask for nothing, and try to do something more than post very loud, attention-grabbing links, then act as if they’re the CIA or the KGB… err… FSB?
in terms of the laws of war, so far I see no basic illegality in their attacks against their foreign invaders
But… but… they haven’t filled out the proper forms with the international community. I mean, they’re supposed to file their military actions for the world’s approval to have a legal war, aren’t they?
Oh and funny thing, many of these attacks against foreign invaders seem to have no worry about their countrymen and women as they plant bombs or go around killing a family because they think someone in a household might not be happy with how the former regime treated its people and doesn’t mind the change in power. And you’re saying that’s “legal”? The double standards you employ are pretty amazing…
And what, pray tell, is your take on the Sunni oppression of the Shi’a based on their theological and cultural differences? As long as the “foreign invaders” are in the way of their bombs, it’s legally fine and dandy?
The explosion of psychopathology which has occurred in that nation since 1979 does not have local roots.
Really? So it’s the American’s fault that the Taliban went on a rampage? True, money and training funded by the U.S. through Pakistan created the Taliban, but the fact that they decided that repelling the Soviets wasn’t enough and started picking new targets in their war for Allah is a testament to their religious intolerance more than anything. I seem to remember that the theme used to recruit Talibs had something to do with an appeal to their duty as Muslims to defeat the armies of the unbelievers…
In what way are the Taliban … responsible for “half” of the current nastiness?
Where do I begin? First off, your definition of very young may be rather flexible. During the war with the USSR, Osama bin Laden was in his late 20s and he was the typical jihadi of the time. The Taliban was created from a militant fundamentalists who were spread across the Middle East and Central Asia and had already been looking for a shot at fighting those they saw as infidels.
After the war was over, they plunged Afghanistan into a civil war and helped create a little group known as al-Queda with government money and resources being used to arm, train, and recruit young Afghanis and jihadists across North Africa and much of the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Sudan. Their targets were both Westerners and Shi’a Muslims against who they committed numerous acts of terror, targeting primarily civilians and justifying their actions by declaring anyone they really wanted to kill “foreign invaders” and “enemies of Islam.”
Then, after 9/11, when asked to expel and hand over bin Laden, the Taliban told the United States and the rest of the world to come get him if they wanted. And after they were ejected from power, they made deals with local warlords and began terrorizing their former subjects with bombs and executions. So yeah, killing civilians because they were in reach and killing those who didn’t want to be under their rule contributes greatly to civilian casualties in the ongoing war and ignoring that, or saying that it’s a “legal” action, undermines your claim that you abhor war in general and doesn’t do a whole lot for your arguments that I’m being too nice to one side of the conflict…
p.s.: I’m sorry about the issues you’re having with the HTML tags, but I just really don’t have a chance to look into a preview feature in the immediate future. It’ll take time to develop and test, and between work, study and research, there’s only so much of me to go around.
Don’t you find it odd that they never take a real position on a topic, that they never try to advocate anything, that they just leak and try their best to solicit donations to keep on doing it?
The politics and economics of the Web regularly strike me as odd, particularly all things “Wiki”.
And I’m losing track here – are you saying the WL people are usurping the roles of spooks, and the problem is they’re not independently wealthy as they do so?
… they’re supposed to file their military actions for the world’s approval to have a legal war, aren’t they?
The UN Charter seems to give primacy to “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs”, at least until the Security Council intervenes. The inability of the SC to act against the blatant (proxy) aggression of one of its own veto-wielding members was craftily worked around in the case of Korea, but no such option seems to have been found this time.
… many of these attacks against foreign invaders seem to have no worry about their countrymen and women as they plant bombs …
You did notice that I distinguished between resistance to invasion and crimes against humanity in my previous comment, right?
And you’re saying that’s “legal”?
See preceding. Also note that I don’t see “legal” and “admirable” or “ethical” as synonymous.
“Legal” is what’s spelled out in the applicable treaties (though of course both Obama & Bush seem to consider “applicable” to mean “at White House discretion”). Back in 1946, vigorously celebrating the heroism of guerrilla resistance from France to Vietnam (China’s already having slipped into that damn gray area), the Allies neglected to spell out rules concerning civilians on blown-up trains. Consequent international case law latter, insofar as anyone is paying attention, has no doubt been rendered into a fine muddle by diplomat-lawyers from The World’s Sole Superpower™.
The tribal, religious, and warlord politics of both US-occupied nations are not aligned with the framework of the Charter (which, after all, was set up to regulate nations, not factions), so the match of law to facts on the ground is as much of a tangle as everything else over there. Nonetheless, whether you or I may think it “right”, resistance is within the locals’ rights.
Their violence with each other is, on paper, the responsibility of their own national governments. That the legitimacy of each of those is on a par with their effective control of their nominal citizens – i.e., close to nil – leaves the whole situation on a law-of-the-jungle level. Not even those of us who predicted this fiasco thought it would drag out so long. The quickest solution, seems to me, would be immediate withdrawal of foreign militaries; a better one would be a negotiated withdrawal, with all possible bloodbath-reducing incentives, but the one nation with the power to do that seems to prefer a long drawn-out bloodbath instead.
So it’s the American’s fault that the Taliban went on a rampage?
It’s Americans’ fault the Taliban exists. In particular, had Bush Sr. actually put some thought & money into this “cleaning up the mess” business you prioritize so highly (rather than proceeding to trigger another mess in Iraq), both Afghanistan and Pakistan might today be something you could call “stable” with a straight face.
I seem to remember that the theme used to recruit Talibs had something to do with an appeal to their duty as Muslims to defeat the armies of the unbelievers…
I seem to remember much of that call to renewed pan-Islamic jihad was inspired and funded as part of the CIA’s most expensive operation in history. Since that wasn’t part of the Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson’s War) version, though, perhaps it never really happened, just like the US slaughter of Mogadishu residents that provoked the Black Hawk Down incident.
During the war with the USSR, Osama bin Laden was in his late 20s and he was the typical jihadi of the time.
The Taliban are, by and large, of the next generation, and include very few Arabs. ObL, almost all agree, is a has-been.
The ensuing history is tangled and bloody, with very few good guys and none among those on any “side”.
… the Taliban told the United States and the rest of the world to come get him if they wanted.
They offered to turn him over if the US would present evidence that he was responsible for 9/11. The US declared they didn’t need no steenking evidence, preferring to bomb & invade cuz that’s, like, how we roll. I have no doubt that Omar & friends were just being coy, and that cash – say, in the amount required to field a US platoon in the Afghan field for a year – would have been more than enough “evidence” to persuade them to deliver ObL wrapped up in a pretty pink ribbon.
Instead, bin Laden’s calculated bet paid off, probably beyond his expectations: the US took the bait and dove headfirst into the quagmire. (Of course, even without the Bush-Cheney factor, how much of a risk is it to gamble that imperial America will follow the path of maximum greed? Bin Laden & Brzezinski’s ploys were almost identical; they really should do a Bloggingheads.tv session together sometime.)
… ignoring that, or saying that it’s a “legal” action, undermines your claim that you abhor war in general …
Where did I say that the categories of “legal” and “abhorrent” have no overlap?
Re: html etc – is WoWT a hand-rolled project, not a prefab package with more features just waiting to be unwrapped? I’m impressed you have so much functional as you do.
And here’s a working version of that foo link: American.
… are you saying the WL people are usurping the roles of spooks?
Usurping? No. But they are performing a role analogous to the NSA or the CIA, with a marked difference of strategically revealing what they gather. To a point. I suppose. It seems that WikiLeaks does hold on to some secret documents longer than others, and what they do with them is something that only Assange really knows.
You did notice I distinguished between resistance to invasion and crimes against humanity in my previous comment, right?
You certainly tried, but what you’re not addressing is that the Taliban says that pretty much anything it does is a resistance to invasion, even when the only people in the line of fire are their former subjects.
I seem to remember much of that call to renewed pan-Islamic jihad was inspired and funded as part of the CIA’s most expensive operation in history
Inspired? No. Funded? Yes. The CIA simply used an existing reason for Talibs to get together and funneled the money to Pakistan, which ran with the theme and whipped their new recruits into a homicidal frenzy. Which hasn’t stopped since then.
They offered to turn [ bin Laden ] over if the US would present evidence that he was responsible for 9/11.
Everyone knew it was Osama. There were memos in 2000 from both Moroccan and Saudi intelligence services saying that al-Queda was targeting the U.S. The Taliban gave him the money to do it for crying out loud. It’s like an arms dealer saying that he has no idea where his best friend’s guns came from and even less of a clue why the very same guns are missing from his collection. The U.S. did present the memos to the world and the Taliban still refused. When the war began and the Talibs appealed to the UN about the “illegality” of U.S.’s actions, they failed. Yes, Afghanistan was an accepted war and I think you’re confusing it with the invasion of Iraq.
And here’s another interesting point you may want to consider. Your links about how the U.S. military operates according to stories on sites which aren’t known for their… how should I say it… objectivity say that as soon as a single civilian is killed during a battle, that’s it, it’s curtains for the war and the U.S. may as well be admitting a defeat and withdrawing. But again, what about the Taliban? How many of their own people did they kill? You know, the people who didn’t want them in charge in the first place? People who had to put up with those maniacs because of the intervention during the nation’s war with the Soviets you were just condemning?
is WoWT a hand-rolled project, not a prefab package with more features just waiting to be unwrapped?
It’s half and half. I bought a template and have been hacking it to fit closer to what I’d want the blog to look and function like.
… they [Wikileaks] are performing a role analogous to the NSA or the CIA…
Eh? Providing a venue for wannabe whistleblowers to make public what was concealed is comparable to wiretapping, subverting, and overthrowing on behalf of an entrenched power structure – how?
… the Taliban says that pretty much anything it does is a resistance to invasion…
So, the Talibs lie as blatantly as any other government – how long since any organization pro/con -fessed any but the highest and purest of motives?
Inspired? No. Funded? Yes. The CIA simply used an existing reason …
I’ve done some digging into this one, and so far have found no cause to disagree with, e.g., Robert Dreyfuss (in Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam) that the idea of Pan-Islamism was practically moribund through the 20th century, until one Great Satan started mobilizing cannon fodder against the other.
Everyone knew it was Osama.
That was my suspicion on the morning of (before any of the talking heads apparently received permission to mention his name), even though the intel agencies you name were too slack to CC: me those memos. It should, therefore, have been quite easy for Dubious ‘n’ Dick to call Omar’s bluff, except they were deathly afraid of anything that might entangle them in that icky diplomacy stuff instead of nice clean wholesale mayhem.
The Taliban gave him the money to do it …
Rarely if ever has Osama bin Laden suffered from a paucity of funds.
When the war began and the Talibs appealed to the UN about the “illegality” of U.S.’s actions, they failed.
In which alt.cosmology universe is the UN – and the Security Council particularly – independent of the influence of the Sole SuperDuperPower?
Your links about how the U.S. military operates according to stories on sites which aren’t known for their… how should I say it… objectivity…
Of that last blast of four links, two were from frankly anti-war sites, two from establishment papers notorious for carrying water for Bush & Blair. One is even a Murdoch property, so I have to concede the “objectivity” point there.
Show me a major news site without stories of US atrocities against Afghan civilians, and I’ll show you an untrustworthy news site.
But again, what about the Taliban?
But again, are you really taking a stand on they-did-it-too-and-worse!!!-ism? A poor tactical position, just to start with…
Providing a venue for wannabe whistleblowers to make public what is concealed is comparable to wiretapping, subverting, and overthrowing on behalf of an entrenched power structure?
WikiLeaks collects secret intelligence and confidential data which it releases when and how it sees fit to influence current events. The principle is the same as the NSA wiretapping to fish for leads and evidence, much like Assange tries to get hackers to send him juicy tidbits. Again, just because he says he’s doing this to stick to The Man or whatnot, doesn’t mean he is. In fact, people like him often become The Man.
the idea of Pan-Islamism was practically moribund through the 20th century…
Actually it still pretty much is. The notion that al-Queda wants to return to the days of a single Islamic Caliphate seems to be more of a fixture of the conservative press. Just like all organizations which rely on propaganda, Islamic terrorist groups use religious calls for a global Muslim brotherhood to find recruits and cover up their attacks on all those they don’t like as justifiable in the name of that goal. All they really wants in the power to call the shots in their region.
It should, therefore, have been quite easy for Dubious ‘n’ Dick to call Omar’s bluff…
And they did. The Taliban simply denied everything and said that if anyone wanted to get Osama, they had to come get him themselves. And so NATO tried.
Rarely if ever has Osama bin Laden suffered from a paucity of funds.
No and that’s why. He has lots of friends willing to give him money to accomplish his missions, including the Taliban and Pakistani warlords with whom he schmoozed in the days of the Soviet quagmire in Afghanistan.
But again, are you really taking a stand on they-did-it-too-and-worse!!!-ism?
Oh they objectively do far worse. Your denials that the U.S. wants to minimize civilian deaths and attempts to gloss over the fact that the Talibs far more than their share of civilian blood on their hands before and during this conflict only prompt me to bring it up again. While you’re busy trying to pull the U.S. out of Afghanistan, what pray tell do you want to do about the Talibs? We already agreed on the fact that they’re a product of American intervention. Doesn’t it seem rather unfair to saddle the Afghani citizens with them, especially when they’ve killed far more civilians than the U.S. over the last three decades or so?
WikiLeaks collects secret intelligence and confidential data which it releases when and how it sees fit to influence current events.
In this case, the backstory behind the story seems much more complicated – but in ways neither sinister nor heroic.
The principle is the same as the NSA wiretapping to fish for leads and evidence…
In about the same way as my asking you to defend the apparent pro-war position you’re taking would be the same as me burglarizing your home and copying your hard disks.
The notion that al-Queda wants to return to the days of a single Islamic Caliphate seems to be more of a fixture of the conservative press.
Al-Qaeda is a poorly defined and steadily mutating little monster, and I agree that the wingnuts & their ilk enjoy magnifying it beyond recognition. The “Caliphate” seems as much a fantasy as Aztlan (it’s greatly amusing, in a sick way, to watch the teanuts conflate the two), but the idea of pan-Islamic jihad still lives. The CIA did succeed in recruiting fighters from Detroit to Indonesia to join its jihad in A’stan, and alumni of that adventure have popped up from Algeria to Bosnia to Chechnya to … to Yemen to Zamboanga.
All they really wants in the power to call the shots in their region.
That seems to be the current state of play, but the players are more cosmopolitan than they were. They’re acting locally, but some are thinking globally.
And so NATO tried.
They tried force, in violation of multiple treaties. I still maintain that if they had tried
briberydiplomacy, it would have worked (in the sense of nabbing bin Laden – not in the sense of establishing an imperial foothold bordering Iran, China, and the Caspian-area oilpatch).I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority. — George W. Bush, March 13, 2002
[ObL] has lots of friends willing to give him money to accomplish his missions, including the Taliban and Pakistani warlords …
I get the impression that most of his baksheesh came from his homeland, including family, checkbook muhajideen, and “protection” payments. Of course, by now the “AQ” network is thoroughly decentralized, and I doubt much cash touches ObL’s hands. US news about contraband drugs has never been honest, but I don’t doubt the Talibs and the opium honchos have, ah, understandings (including exclusion of AQ whenever possible).
Your denials that the U.S. wants to minimize civilian deaths and attempts to gloss over the fact that the Talibs far more than their share of civilian blood …
“This conflict” started circa 1979, many years before “Taliban” meant anything other than “seminary students”.
Do you doubt I could multiply my citations of US-caused Afghan civilian casualties (WikiLeaks is rumored to be sitting on details of a major atrocity – would you be willing to bet the story isn’t true?) almost as easily as I could find DoD denials of same? Which reports have consistently been found more factual?
Yes, most stories of Talib massacres have been verified as well. Nonetheless, I suggest you read up on independent reports out of the Marjah and Kandahar areas: their bloodthirst notwithstanding, their consistency (clear rules, even if oppressive, are often preferable to random-seeming bombs out of the sky) and lack of corruption (compared to the Karzai regime) seem to make them preferable to many locals.
The South Vietnamese also suffered when Hanoi won what they call “the American war” – but how many do you think would rather that the US had continued its savage assault on their nation for another decade or longer to prolong the reign of Nguyen Van Thieu?
In about the same way as my asking you to defend the apparent pro-war position you’re taking would be the same as me burglarizing your home and copying your hard disks.
Your analogy is incomplete. It’s more like you burglarizing my home, releasing all of my personal information while walking away, and saying that you’d certainly want the people to have a look at what I’m doing and hold me accountable for my actions. Oh and make sure you call it a leak and yourself a whistleblower.
not in the sense of establishing an imperial foothold bordering Iran, China, and the Caspian-area oilpatch
I again nod to Napoleon’s infamous words about attribution of certain events to the realm of conspiracies. To set up an “imperial foothold” in a nation ravaged by angry and violent “holy warriors,” with well known mineral deposits that couldn’t be mined for decades (yes, the Afghan mineral wealth story is very, very old news in reality), for a shot at being within a few hours travel to oil reserves requiring World War III to pry from their owners? That must be the worst attempt at a imperial conquest since the aforementioned French ruler tried to take over Russia…
Oh and note that your quote from Bush hails from something he said after he failed very publicly and very embarrassingly to catch bin Laden, backpedalling on the head of al-Queda’s importance in the whole war. Remember that as he failed to reach his goals, he would come up with more and more excuses for why his original intention wasn’t really important in the grand scheme of things.
I get the impression that most of his baksheesh came from his homeland, including family, checkbook muhajideen, and “protection” payments.
At first, yes. Osama was a son of a very wealthy businessman and he did get plenty of financial support from his family and family friends for a while. Then, when he got into the groove of running a terrorist organization and showed up on the news for his bombings and threats, his family disowned him.
[Talib] consistency … and lack of corruption (compared to the Karzai regime) seem to make them preferable to many locals.
Yes, Karzai is pretty much incompetent as a leader and did pretty much nada to help stabilize the situation. If he actually did something more than help his cronies, there may have been no need for the U.S. to have as much of a presence in Afghanistan’s cities. However, do we really want to topple the regime we helped install and whose responsibility should it be to pick an interim one while a new one is elected? And on top of that, how do you provide transparency in those kinds of elections without a big and potentially suspicious military effort to deter fraud and Talibs?
Your analogy is incomplete. It’s more like you burglarizing my home…
Uh, did you notice that I was pointing out that the NSA/CIA spooks are the ones operating intrusively? At any rate, Assange’s latest ploy blows away all the analogies I can think of.
To set up an “imperial foothold” … for a shot at being within a few hours travel to oil reserves requiring World War III to pry from their owners?
The Great Game of imperialism is often played by advancing pawns & knights wherever possible. Especially given that we’re talking about a move made during the Bush/Cheney years, I think that bracketing Iran was the key goal in setting up a permanent US military presence in Afghanistan – but pipeline politics was clearly part of the motivation.
… your quote from Bush hails from something he said after he failed very publicly and very embarrassingly to catch bin Laden…
Public embarrassing failures are just part of the routine Bush modus operandi – but the quote was too apropos to pass by, even if it wasn’t part of a candid confession.
… his [bin Laden's] family disowned him.
For public consumption, anyway: there have been enough reports of sons & other family members paying a visit to support the case that at least some of them are still in touch. Nor is it implausible that he salted away family funds before 2001.
… Karzai is pretty much incompetent as a leader …
Actually, not as much as I’d expected from a man who’d never run an organization before. Venal to the marrow, yes, but he’s stayed on top of a real snakepit for years, even when his sponsors seemed to be hinting they’d welcome a
coupreplacement. Afghans would probably be better off if Ahmad Shah Masood were in office, but he was assassinated shortly before 9/11; I know of no other potential leader who might do much better under the circumstances. (Which is not to say futile attempts to preserve Karzai’s power are worth the effort either morally or geopolitically.)Meaningful elections seem a hopeless, quixotic, and arguably meaningless goal in the current conditions of Afghanistan. A Vietnamese-style “solution”, with all its bloody drawbacks, at this point seems like the most optimistic scenario that doesn’t require the arrival of Mohammed, Jesus, Elvis, ET, or other saviors from the sky.