WikiLeaks Releases Cache of 400,000 Iraq War Documents 676
Caelesto writes "Today around 21:00 GMT, WikiLeaks declared an end to their media embargo of over 400,000 Iraq War documents after Al Jazeera released their story 30 minutes ahead of schedule. These documents, which have been kept under wraps by WikiLeaks for months, may reveal tortures and murders ignored by coalition forces during the fighting and occupation in Iraq. The Pentagon maintained that releasing these documents represented a danger to US troops, but already dozens of news outlets are scrambling to report on what could be a devastating blow to the US Armed Forces' already tattered image." Reader Entropy98 points to the BBC's coverage, as well. If you care to download the collection of files, it's available as a torrent.
The irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
...of people like this complaining about "collateral damage" is so thick you could drive a truck across it.
Re:The irony... (Score:5, Informative)
Source: WikiLeaks & ABC News (Al Jazeera claims to have found far more embarrassing records but I went with ABC for obvious reasons.)
Putting soldiers lives at risk (Score:5, Insightful)
The documents reportedly also tell about incidents of torture by coalition forces, and of civilians being killed at checkpoints (for speeding to get their wife to the hospital). There is an incident described where a single terrorist on the roof of a building caused the military to obliterate the entire building and everyone in it (civilians).
Time to queue up the politicians whining about how evil it is releasing secrets about the torture and murder or civilians and at no time admitting the real evil was in the acts themselves.
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a bullshit notion about Iraq situation I see again and again. It is NOT a war, that is a lie. It is an ongoing atrocity against mankind for the purpose of lining the pockets of elite and increasing their power. Just as our arming and support of Saddam was. We have the blood of Saddam's actions on our hands as well as the blood being spilt now.
We lied that we would liberate the people from Saddam, instead nine years later our military and contractors are slaughtering, raping, and murdering innocents for amusement.
We lied that Al Qaeda was in Iraq or aligned with Al Qaeda, and then through deliberate poor strategy turned the place into magnet for Al Qaeda and recruiting ground.
We lied that Saddam was making new WMD.
We lied that this is war, by Constitution it is not. By purpose it is not.
We lied that we would bring freedom and democracy to the middle east, instead we force our puppets at gunpoint and have rigged elections.
Afghanistan is the same thing, those who attacked us aren't there and the elections are fake and not the people's choice. Those who don't go along with our farce are labeled "Taliban" and murdered.
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is, it was supposed to be a liberation, not a war.
When the WMDs didn't pan out, Bush went on and on about the glorious democracy they were going to bring by deposing of the evil tyrant. Well, just look at it. Isn't the guy who was driving his wife to the hospital glad you set things right?
I'll grant you that ignoring a checkpoint in wartime isn't the smartest decision one can make, but chances are under Saddam he would still be alive. And I thought that the whole point of this was making things better.
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we're now the radical left if we think that a whole building full of people don't deserve to die because there is a sniper there? Great. Hope you weren't anywhere in DC when there was a sniper there...
Invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and no WMD is not a valid military tactic. To compare the invasion of Iraq with liberation of Europe is laughable. Would you suck it up with "War is hell" if they did this in your country? And "muslims killing muslims" - well, what if I invaded and put the KKK in charge of the US - would that be OK as "Christians killing Christians"? When you remove power and authority and hand it to psychopaths you are NOT absolved of whatever they do.
So FUCK YOU armchair warrior. Your "War" was illegitimate, the hell you brought with you is horrendous, and if it makes me a radical left winger to say so, we DO need to see what the results of our "War on Terror" are and become outraged that thousands of civilians have been killed FOR NOTHING. I don't want to be desensitized. I don't want to get used to it. I want it to stop happening, unless it's the absolutely fucking last resort, which it was not in this case.
Diagnosis is the first part of the cure (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not being divisive to diagnose the problem correctly. AC is spot on.
The problem with the radical left wing is that it is measured in distance from the right. Which keeps moving to the right. In the 1960's you had to be a hippie in a minivan or a communist or a black panther to be called radical left wing. These days all it takes is for you to say "gee blowing up children might not be a good thing."
If you want a serious dialog on this, I'll tell you what. We of the left will happily become more centrist. Just as soon as you put down the Fox news driven fear and paranoia, and really think about what is best. A good start would be to just simply head to youtube and watch a few recordings of the Dalai Lama speaking.
I've done my part. I'm a registered Democrat and I'm pro second amendment. And guess what? My head didn't explode. So that's my first step. What will yours be?
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
Bringing your wife to hospital? Did you grow up in a movie? In reality, there is no emergency. Labour lasts hours even with mothers who had babies before.
Okay, this may run completely contrary to your worldview so it may be best to sit down and steady yourself : giving birth is not the sum total of a woman's existence. If someone is rushing their wife to hospital then there is a very good chance that it has nothing to do with making babies. And yes, in reality, it may be an emergency. People use hospitals in emergencies. Even women who aren't giving birth. Does that make any sense to you at all?
Playing devils prosecution (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that pointing out the bad things that happen in war is wrong because in war they are inevitable, well they are not. The real issue is that the war was illegal, injustified (unless lies are currently a justification for anything), and in direct violation of international law. Even enemy soldiers getting killed is a tragedy and worth speaking up about, let alone pregnant women on their way to hospital, and for the record labour is quite often an emergency, especially where poverty and bad hygiene are involved. Ask a doctor if you doubt this.
I have a joke for you: A man breaks into a house and starts raping a woman living there. Her husband interferes. In the ensuing struggle the husband and wife are both killed. In court the rapists lawyer says: "Rape is a messy business, that's the reality. People get killed sometimes." So the judge lets him off the murder charges.
Also, the idea that you should silence the critics of war in order to have a rational debate about atrocities committed is absurd, I hope you realise this.
Now that the silliness is out of the way, can we talk about REALity?
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:5, Informative)
>>>The real problem is that the right.....
I wish you (and other posters) would stop saying "the right" as if we all think with one hive mind. I'm on the right (tenth amendment constitutionalist) but I'm anti-"war on terror", and always have been since the towers collapsed. Stereotyping is a bad thing to do.
If you want to denigrate, then be more specific with your targets. "The real problem is that the Bush/neoconservative Republicans from 2001 to 2008 were pro-war and..." i.e. Don't include me in your 2-minute hate, because I was NEVER sided with them. And there's lots more like me (Ron Paul, Judge Napolitano, Harry Browne, et cetera) who also were against the war.
Re:Playing devils advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW there are also a lot of people on "the left" who were pro-war.
Go back and look at the Congressional Authorization for War in 2001.
The Democrat representatives voted near-unanimously to go to war.
Even now the Democrats continue forward with war, even though they've held Congress since 2006 and could have ended the war anytime they felt like it. IMHO they should have ended it then, or immediately after Obama became inaugurated.
All war, all the time (Score:5, Interesting)
A coalition of groups in the U.S. wanted the Iraq war:
The U.S. government has killed an estimated 11,000,000 people since the end of the 2nd world war, by invading or bombing or causing political problems in 24 countries.
Irony indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
I liked this one:
I think the whole world already knows how we operate. This only proves the point.
I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Interesting)
But I just donated 50 EUR to WikiLeaks.
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Informative)
But I just donated 50 EUR to WikiLeaks.
Just letting you know you might be on the no fly list now
-Uncle Sam
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Insightful)
Having worked in the U.S. before and having an SSN and all that, I actually got worried about this (I'm not American). Regardless, I went ahead and used Paypal.
I figured that if I actually get in trouble with TSA and all that, then they would be doing me a favor, and I would be better off not entering the U.S.
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Informative)
I've been around peace activists all my life. Contrary to what you might think, especially in light of much of the propaganda about peace activists, they have absolute respect for the soldiers and why they joined. What they're against is idiots ordering them into combat for no good reason.
Here's the other piece of the puzzle: Soldiers who join up with the best of intentions often have severe psychological problems while serving and after their service is up. 40 years ago, there were plenty of decent men who went to Vietnam to serve and protect their country, and while they were there they found themselves doing things to civilians that still give them nightmares. Many of the guys who committed the My Lai Massacre were perfectly decent and loyal folks before they left their home.
In short, war is hell, and peace activists are trying to prevent soldiers from having to go through it. In addition, they are generally supportive of efforts to help veterans deal with both the physical and psychological damage that all too many come home with (which is a point of disagreement with the Pentagon brass).
Re:I've never given money to a web site before (Score:5, Insightful)
Do two wrongs make a right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Posting these may be wrong but it does bring to like some abuses by all the groups involved which have either never been discussed or their existence never known before. Personally bringing abuses to light which were previously hidden makes this partially right.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize you are trying to justify WikiLeaks, but they aren't the ones shooting guns and launching bombs. Our starting supposition should be that humanity has an intrinsic right to enforce transparency upon power wielders, particularly governments and militaries, so that the may be held to account for the efficacy and morality of their actions. Here, WikiLeaks serves the public good, and--excepting gross violation of journalistic ethics--we must credit with them doing somethi
Re:Do two wrongs make a right? (Score:5, Insightful)
But blaming in on telling the truth is just bullshit.
The beauty of not reading the actual article (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that you can just categorize based on Slashdot's summary, and just vaguely use it to go on a soapbox about what you want to make a bunch of noise about.
Even the summary uses phrase "Iraq war documents". Good reason - the Wikileaks release dealt with documents that often referred to what the Iraqi police/forces were doing, and what the US forces knew about. Not that the US forces were doing those actions themselves (though you could argue that allowing such actions were as bad as doing the actions themselves...) Nevertheless, we can't on one hand say we should withdraw and then say that we should keep the Iraqis from doing things we think are bad - good or bad, Iraqis hurting Iraqis is a possible outcome of self-government.
can't have it both ways (Score:4, Informative)
after the 2009 SOFA, i was told that i was to "advise" IP and IF that torture was counter productive and then promptly leave the area so as not to be involved with anything the did. it's their rules, once we give them self government. sure makes the bad guys pine for the days when the "evil" americans were in charge.
Tattered Image (Score:5, Interesting)
"scrambling to report on what could be a devastating blow to the US Armed Forces' already tattered image."
Am I the only who didn't think the first release left the US Armed Forces with a tattered image? These are huge volumes of reports from the US Armed forces about the actions of the US Armed Forces (good, bad, etc) the fact that all actions of the armed forces are so carefully logged leads me to believe that despite issues and anecdotes the US Armed Forces are actually pretty damn professional... Top level officials not wanting these documents publicly released is unfortunate but the fact that these documents even exist is a testament to professionalism on the part of the Armed Forces.
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
After seeing the gunship video they presented... and then later the way it was torn apart by others examining the film I no longer get too worked up over anything Wikileaks has to say. It's sad really but they will do just about anything they can to skew what they present :-(
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people might say that these things inevitably happen in war. That's exactly the reason things like this should be made public. People need to know that things like this happen. Right now I get the impression that most Americans believe war is like a hollywood movie where the good guys never kill innocent people.
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
The video shows that the army has very low standard of proof in deciding whether someone might be a combatant, and that innocent people die because of it.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know anything about war. What kind of standard of proof would you expect? Land the helicopter and ask each person to show their terrorist ID card before they can be engaged? The US soldiers see a group of men on the street. They confirm that they are not US or friendly Iraqi personnel. They confirm that some of them are armed (lookup blown up stills from that video. AK47 and an RPG are clearly visible). They suspect hostile intent as some of the men are peering around the corner in the direction of US ground forces. They ask higher ups for the permission to engage and get it. The film and document every detail of the operation (though not necessarily release to the media). No other army does anything remotely close to that. Russians would have carpet bombed the entire city block like they did in Chechnya and nobody would have ever known anything about it. Same with Chinese. The most tragic part of it was the van but even that was not strictly speaking a violation of the rules of war. Anybody helping the enemy (while not clearly marked as a medic) is a fair target.
Re:Tattered Image (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, you're an ass.
It doesn't matter what the fucking standard is, if it results in destroying innocent children in vans driving by, the AMERICAN PEOPLE THINK IT IS TOO LOW.
If you can't fight a war without following that standard, perhaps the American people should be apprised of this fact so they can, before the war, debate 'Hey, should we kill some innocent children or not?'. And if they aren't willing to accept that, perhaps they should, I dunno, decide against said war.
This democratic concept, that American people should decide if the horrors of war are 'worth it', only fucking works if the American people know what war looks like.
You don't get to whine and bitch that they were actually, finally, shown that and think it's outrageous. Please direct your whining and bitching to the media and government that sanitized the war for almost a decade.
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
heya,
If you're referring to that stupid incident involving the embedded AP reporter, then I'm sorry, that myths already being debunked.
AP has a reputation of embedding its reporters within insurgent groups. The AP reporter in question here was a Iraqi local who decided to hang with an insurgent group...gee...whodee damn doo, I wonder what happens when you decided to embed yourself inside an insurgent group, trying to kill Americans, in order to be "on the ground", and get the other side of the story. Seriously guys, blaming the US for killing an embedded reporter in enemy forces is just plain stupid.
And the van issue, with kids? Right, so the US just had a firefight with some insurgents armed with AK-47's and RPGs...so what do you do? Gee, drive an unmarked van, with kids *inside* the van, to go take a closer look? *sigh*. Even if you were allegedly picking up wounded insurgents (gosh, I wonder what side that makes me look at), has anybody considered that it's frigging retarded, if not bad parenting, to drive a van with your kids into the aftermath of a US versus insurgents aftermath?
I mean, if you yourself want to basically commit suicide, and paint a big target on your head saying, please, please, shoot me, then at least leave your damn kids out of it.
Urgh, seriously guys. Take off your ANTI-US DOWN WITH THE IMPERIALIST blinkers, and actually apply the logic. I dislike the US for other reasons, but at least I can apply some common basic sense here.
I bet if it was any other two forces, we'd be like...yeah...that is a pretty retarded thing to do. Vote them for a Darwin award...
Cheers,
Victor
Re:Tattered Image (Score:4, Insightful)
And the van issue, with kids? Right, so the US just had a firefight with some insurgents armed with AK-47's and RPGs...so what do you do? Gee, drive an unmarked van, with kids *inside* the van, to go take a closer look? *sigh*. Even if you were allegedly picking up wounded insurgents (gosh, I wonder what side that makes me look at), has anybody considered that it's frigging retarded, if not bad parenting, to drive a van with your kids into the aftermath of a US versus insurgents aftermath?
The driver in all probability didn't know any of that. The helicopter was at least a kilometre away and the wounded man he stopped by was unarmed. (Had he been armed the helicopter would have fired, as is demonstrated by the comments by the crew; they goad the wounded man crawling along the street to pick up a weapon so they can open fire).
Also, you are conducting a war in someone's neighbourhood. (Compare the British squaddie joke of renaming FIUBA, "FISH" - "Fighting in somebody else's house.") Of course there are going to be civilians with children around. Civilians that might want to aid what they perceive as their countrymen laying wounded in the street. Civilians who weren't there when the fight actually happened, and may not even be aware of one taking place (esp. with the prevalence of IEDs targeting the civilian population). Don't you think people came running/driving/ when the Oklahoma city bomb went off? It wasn't as if a Bradley was parked in the middle of the street just as he came around the corner.
A helicopter crew should and did knew all of this. As is witnessed by their lying to their chain of command in describing the situation, one can only assume to knowingly and illegally secure permission to fire.
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
Why in hell is this classified as 'Troll'? Didn't the Germans keep exceptional records during World War II, for instance? How about the Japanese? How about the United States during the Vietnam War... was its campaign with agent orange meticulously planned, implemented, and documented? I'm betting all the above is true.
"Professionalism" has NOTHING to do with social ethics; they are not synonymous, and that was precisely the point of the parent post by moortak. Professionalism merely implies a certain degree of diligence and attention to detail.
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
These documents, which have been kept under wraps by WikiLeaks for months, may reveal tortures and murders ignored by coalition forces during the fighting and occupation in Iraq
*May* reveal? What, didn't you read it? They *may* reveal that Elmer Fudd is God, too, you never know. Or that aliens landed and the government is covering it up. Stop the sensationalism (although I understand why they are sensationalistic, and it's a fairly normal human failing so I don't begrudge them that).
Re:Tattered Image (Score:5, Insightful)
Top level officials not wanting these documents publicly released is unfortunate but the fact that these documents even exist is a testament to professionalism on the part of the Armed Forces.
At the risk of invoking Godwin, it's worth pointing out that the Nazis maintained meticulous records on the operation of their extermination camps that make these documents look like scribbling on the back of a napkin. Professionalism is value-neutral. You can be perfectly professional about both good and evil, and it has no effect on the moral value of what you're being professional about.
In short, if what you're doing is torturing people and murdering civilians, professionalism is really neither here nor there. Whether our forces a) stop doing these things, and b) hold accountable the people who did them (and their superiors) is the issue at hand.
I'm not holding my breath about either one. My guess is that instead, we'll be treated to a bunch of bloviation about WikiLeaks' danger to our national security, what an exception to the professionalism of the armed forces these thousands of anomalous incidents are, and, if all else fails, a tour of historic military atrocities aimed at arguing that everyone else does it, too, only with more words and no awareness of the consequences of letting our morality be determined by the lowest common denominator.
Oh, and that word you're using, "unfortunate"? It's not actually a synonym for "criminal coverup".
Some are guilty, but all are responsible. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Pentagon would say mass (Score:5, Informative)
> The Pentagon maintained that releasing these documents represented a danger to US troops
Yeh, but the last time they said that, they lied:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/10/17/170227 [slashdot.org]
Re:The Pentagon would say mass (Score:5, Insightful)
And this time, all names (except for well-known and obviously non-secret names like names of commanders) have been removed.
It's still going to be a game of blaming the messenger, and very little focus on the atrocities that the mercenaries have wrought.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Go back and read that article. They didn't counter the statement that there is a risk. What they did state was that no intelligence sources or methods were uncovered. And an un-named NATO official noted that there are no cases of an Afghan needing protection or relocation.
That does take some of the fire out of the made-for-Fox-News bite "they have blood on their hands." But it doesn't eliminate the issue of providing enemy forces with intelligence.
nothing's going to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikileaks released 400,000 more dox that will shake the very foundations upon which the Middle East War rests upon and the news organizations will just sit around masturbating over "Was this ethical? Are people really endangered? What does this mean in regards to bloggers vs. journalists" but never looking at a single document or citing it for the sake of delivering news instead of the storyline which has been perpetuated for the last ten years.
Facebook Censoring Torrent Link (Score:3, Interesting)
I just tried to post the link to the torrent on my facebook, and got this:
This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error.
Hmmmm... the link hasn't even been up that long, has it? Me thinks Zuckerberg and company are staying on Uncle Sam's friendly side...
Re:Facebook Censoring Torrent Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Me thinks Zuckerberg and company are staying on Uncle Sam's friendly side...
Or maybe it's a general block on that kind of file type?
Re:Facebook Censoring Torrent Link (Score:4, Informative)
Ahhh! Good point. I just tested it with another random link from TPB and got the same thing. Its still censorship, just of a more generalize kind. ;)
Re:Facebook Censoring Torrent Link (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah at least the Libyans are trustworthy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you sure it's Facebook-the-company doing this, and not Facebook-the-social-community-site with plenty of people who disagree with WikiLeaks' publishing of these documents who can hit a "flag this message as ..." button?
what goes around, comes around (Score:5, Interesting)
many of us think this is a key point in history where freedom is clashing with government invasion of privacy. we see escalating levels of snooping on the part of 'the officials' and the people are forced to endure this treatment under the guise of 'making us safer'. we know its not for that purpose but we are told we have to give up our privacy to the government.
well, wikileaks is giving them a taste of their own medicine. not for that reason primarily, I don't think, but its in there to some extent.
its a statement of: if you are going to dish it out, you BETTER be ready to take it.
the governments (all over the world) are trying to limit free speech (the internet) and seem to have fallen in love with keeping detailed data on all its citizens. they want a one-sided arrangement.
its not fair but there was nothing the little guy can do, no matter which country you are in. (name one that is really 'free' these days. please.)
wiki is sort of a dose of 'fuck you right back'. again, even if not fully intended, it kind of comes off that way.
sort of like a big bully getting a dose of medicine.
Wikileaks should win the Nobel Peace Prize (Score:3, Insightful)
At least the money would be very welcomed, since it seems no corporation wants fund such organization.
And, of course, it would be fun to see they winning the same prize Obama won a few years ago.
Horrible csv file handling (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Odd write up (Score:5, Insightful)
These documents, which have been kept under wraps by WikiLeaks for months, may reveal tortures and murders ignored by coalition forces during the fighting and occupation in Iraq.
While there's been some speculation that Wikileaks has an anti-US bias, I don't see that. You're not going to get leaks from non-democracies. Nor are you going to get incriminating leaks from democracies that aren't engaging in significant combat (especially with an insurgency that blends in with the general population). So it'd be natural for them to get such documents from the US.
Having said that, the Slashdotter who submitted the story had a blatant anti-US bias. Hyping the release as "may reveal" bad things (even worse, "ignoring" bad things which somehow got documented anyway) is irresponsible, not that we had any expectation of responsibility from this guy. It's almost like the Slashdot editors picked the juiciest bit of flamebait they could find to dangle before the slavering hordes.
Who's going to read it? (Score:5, Insightful)
400,000 documents? We couldn't get people to read the 1000 page health care bill. Who's going to read these?
Disgusting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
Looting. Rape. Killing. This is normal. This is what war looks like up close.
Short glance through the articles reminded me of few things my grand-father were telling about WWII (who fought on Russia's side).
Over time I have developed the opinion that glorification of a war is the sign of corrupt and evil state.
Two Words : Pat Tillman (Score:5, Insightful)
Your international rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Now let's suppose a group of Canadian terrorists bombs a building a China. You couldn't complain if the Chinese consequently invaded the USA because you are harboring Canadians. The Chinese could march up to Washington, catch Bush, Obama and friends from pits in the ground, and execute them after a fake trial. While hunting the terrorists, they could kill innocent civilians with a ratio 5:1. These events, they could hide them actively from the media and from being ever discovered, because it is the patriotic thing to do and to protect the Chinese freedom fighters. If your family was killed at a checkpoint, you could witness people on Chinese internet forums discussing that it is irresponsible to have information about this incident released, that this would be anti-Chinese and evidence of a strong bias and sensationalism of the person of organisation releasing that secret info. There will be much torture, and those who expose it will be branded traitors, while the torturers walk. Many Americans and Canadians will be shipped to a remote prison. The new Chinese ruler who will keep everything the same will get the Nobel Peace Price.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
cappp (1822388) writes on Friday October 22, @09:38PM: "It's a fact that I spent the morning having one of my best orgasms in a while. It's also a fact that I was jerking off."
The internet never forgets. You are screwed if you ever want to run for office. And you will be doing the screwing *ducks*
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
You should never Slashdot after a few pints
Jerking off probably isnt the best example of a fact
My presidential slogan "Capp, He Jacks Off So You Don't Get Fucked" probably needs some revision
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure that would be Masters and Johnson.
You know, you're right about that. Johnson and Johnson is the manufacturer of hand lotion.
No idea how I got those two confused.
Thanks.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Except all the "other side" of the 'truth' has already been published. It's actually the ONLY fact presented so far.
If nobody ever had said anything anywhere about the US military, and wikileaks published this, then it might have been a half truth, or at least something to be taken with a grain of salt. But what actually happens is that everyone, always and everywhere is fucking talking about the "heroes" that are "fighting for freedom" over there at the "axis of evil". Everything we've heard so far is their side. So, accusing wikileaks of being one sided is fucking stupid. The other side is the whole fucking media. All the fucking media against a single fucking website. Don't be such a fucking hypocrite.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
None of what you said changes the fact that sanctions under Clinton killed more Iraqis than war under Bush. Pointing out that Saddam was culpable is the same as me pointing out that the insurgents are culpable in civilian deaths by a) not wearing uniforms b) deliberately mixing with civilians, c) killing hell out of of a lot Iraqi civilians themselves. Are you aware that by far most of the civilian deaths in Iraq have come from the insurgents, not from the US?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with facts is that they're easily picked and attached to dubious endevours - Wiki has been unabashed about holding a specific philosophical view - which is admirable really especially given that they're so honest about it - and that viewpoint has an effect on what they chose to present as the truth.
If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts.
If you have the law on your side, pound the law.
If you have neither on your side, pound the table.
Claiming bias makes it rather transparent that you're pounding the table.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the released reports are biased, the government will give us the whole story, right?
Right?
Wikileaks may have a bias, but they also know their message is destroyed if they are shown to censor data for their effort. The 'Collatoral Murder' fisasco showed that. Even there, they provided the full video but put the focus on where *the issue* was for a short attention span viewing crowd.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Wikileaks may have a bias, but they also know their message is destroyed if they are shown to censor data for their effort. The 'Collatoral Murder' fisasco showed that. Even there, they provided the full video but put the focus on where *the issue* was for a short attention span viewing crowd.
The "Collatoral Murder" video is a really great example. That wasn't simply pairing down the information to cater to short attention spans. It was a nicely done propaganda piece. For me, that propaganda effort over-shadowed the opportunity to hold the US Military accountable to mistakes made. But then, it also played very well with the anti-war movement. I'd hazard to guess Wikileaks gained more supporters than they lost for their efforts.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
all this shows, is that the USA, like other nations, does terrible things sometimes. the difference: somebody took a stand and disagreed with what they were being told to cover up.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's too bad Wikileaks has such an obvious agenda. I like the idea of them, but that the same time, knowing they have such a clear agenda, makes me wonder what they decide not to release because it doesn't flow with what they want the world to think.
Why is it too bad? What the fuck are you talking about? Would you rather have them have a hidden agenda? Like the government bullshit they expose?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason why The Daily Show often tops the polls as the most trustworthy news source on television.
It's because they're upfront with the fact that Jon is liberal, and also they're upfront about their agenda: to tell dick jokes and poke fun at the absurdity of the system - often by using dick joke.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Weird. The country with the world-record in political assassination is the US. Explain to me why I should be more scared of the shitty remains of the USSR than of your chacals?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
America: Better in some ways than Russia
You should start an advertising company.
Drink Dioxin! It's less poisonous the strychnine.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's too bad Wikileaks has such an obvious agenda.
Really? You mean to publish leaks? Or do you think it is something else?
Because if you think it's to paint somebody as good and somebody else as bad, I don't see it.
If you think it's to specifically paint the US government as bad, well there is at least one leaked document that does the reverse: [nytimes.com]
One of the most infamous episodes of killings by American soldiers, the shootings of at least 15 Iraqi civilians, including women and children in the western city of Haditha, is misrepresented in the archives. The report stated that the civilians were killed by militants in a bomb attack, the same false version of the episode that was given to the news media.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
We have bias on two sides: Wikileaks, and the US forces who wrote the reports.
The facts in them, though, should be fairly accurate.
If the reports aren't factual, I think it is far more likely that they were falsified by those who wrote them in the first place than by Wikileaks.
You can make a different interpretation of them if you think the reports are too biased (by either side).
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
It's very typical, the "%%%" are WikiLeaks censoring information; dates, places, times, names, even things you would think wouldn't matter to release. They really censor a lot of info, and the majority of reports are pretty mundane, probably giving a fairly good idea of the documents they received.
Good Direct Link (Score:3, Interesting)
It is still getting WorldDotted at the moment though.
Re:the US and Israel butchers assassins torturers (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans are complicit in all their government does since they do not stop it.
I do what I can: I vote for candidates who are not from the demonstrably corrupt main parties, or who have a proven track record of doing good (despite their party allegiance). As such, I reject your accusation that I am complicit in my government's actions.
Re:the US and Israel butchers assassins torturers (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's how we got a second term for GWB instead of Al Gore - all you folks who voted for Ralph Nader and so on handed the White House to the Republicans.
And vice-versa. All you folks who voted for Gore instead of Nader handed the White House to the Republicans.
Re: (Score:3)
And vice-versa. All you folks who voted for Gore instead of Nader handed the White House to the Republicans.
In a practical sense, complete bullshit.
Gore lost by a very slim margin, where Nader and the rest of the fringe had no chance at all.
Re:the US and Israel butchers assassins torturers (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the 40 million or so people who voted for Dubya had nothing whatsoever to do with his win.
But could you explain to me again how it is Ralph Nader's fault that the Democrats have the White House, the House of Representatives and a super-majority in the Senate and still can't get much of anything worthwhile done?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The US around the world (and its mini me Israel) stand for only injustice, pain, suffering, oppression, torture, murder, evil.
Same could be said for a dozen other countries. China. North Korea. Iran. Somalia. Uganda. Etc
Americans are complicit in all their government does since they do not stop it.
That is vague. Americans in general are not for the above statements. It is the global interest and reigning plutocracy that has led us to the state of New Rome. Because of the wealth gap, money buys power, and the wealth distribution controls what really happens in America. I am not talking about middle upper class folks, I am talking about the old money families with hundreds of millions. New money not so much, b
Re:the US and Israel butchers assassins torturers (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it's the Iraqis that are the butchers. Clearly you didn't read the article.
Now that opens up the question of what exactly the US Army is supposed to do if the local Army is up to no good. Are we supposed to "reconquer" them again and start over from scratch and prolong the occupation of Iraq even longer than it would be otherwise?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You broke it, you bought it
- Colin Powell
Powell sold us out (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact it doesn't matter who says what !
"you broke it, you own it"
- pure propaganda; I wonder if Powell even came up with it.
This is not a business... well, in a way our wars are big business and that dictates our policies; but corruption aside, comparison of geopolitics to crap like that is just false reasoning. We have no obligation to fix Iraq because we made a bad situation even worse by trying to fix it. Clearly, by "fixing it" we made it worse! Common sense says do not continue to fix the me
Re:the US and Israel butchers assassins torturers (Score:5, Informative)
"Actually" apparently means different things to different people.
I've grepped the documents themselves, and they tell a different picture. The colour designations indicate that there are far more "blue white" than "green white" incidents, which is scary considering that there are far more green than blue people.
(And there more "blue blue" and "blue green" casualties than "red blue" (a.k.a. "friendly fire") incidents, which is even more frightening. Most of which are marked secret with the justification of potentially inciting public/media unrest, which is downright chilling)
For those who don't know the colour designations:
Blue = US and allied forces
Green = Native "friendly" forces: military, police and mercenary
Red = Enemies
White = Civilians
"blue white" or "blue on white" means an incident where US and/or allied forces engaged a civilian target. One is one too many.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:its called war (Score:5, Insightful)
War is nasty. Lets think this shit through next time. If diplomacy is not an option, and all other options have failed, and there will be an provable danger to us or our allies by not acting, then bomb the motherfuckers. Otherwise can we please just stay out of the rest of the world's business? Do it quickly, cleanly, with a solid plan, with an exit strategy, accomplish the goal, and move on. War cost money, and between the MID profiteering it, the globalist loving it, the extremist encouraging it, the only people that lose are the taxpayers and the unnecessary casualties.
Why is that so hard?
If our civilization overcomes the thread of annihilating itself, I hope dearly that it becomes peaceful and moves away from dogmatic BS and more towards science and reason. I don't care if it is after I am dead. I just would sleep better knowing that the human race will make it over the next 1000 years. It really doesn't look so good. I don't think the idiots can handle the fruits of the scientist labor in a responsible manner.
How to reduce unwanted wars (Score:5, Interesting)
But you can still have leaders lead the frontline in spirit.
Basically, if leaders are going to send troops on an _offensive_ war/battle (not defensive war) there must be a referendum on the war.
If there are not enough votes for the war, those leaders get put on death-row.
At a convenient time later, a referendum is held to redeem each leader. Leaders that do not get enough votes get executed. For example if too many people stay at home and don't bother voting - the leaders get executed.
If it turns out later that the war was justified, a fancy ceremony is held, and the executed leaders are awarded a purple heart or equivalent, and you have people say nice things about them, cry and that sort of thing.
If it turns out later that the leaders tricked the voters, a referendum can be held (need to get enough signatures to start such a referendum, just to prevent nutters from wasting everyone elses time).
This proposal has many advantages:
1) Even leaders who don't really care about those "young soldiers on the battlefield" will not consider starting a war lightly.
2) The soldiers will know that the leaders want a war enough to risk their own lives for it.
3) The soldiers will know that X% of the population want the war.
4) Those being attacked will know that X% of the attackers believe in the war - so they want a war, they get a war - for sufficiently high X, collateral damage becomes insignificant. They might even be justified in using WMD and other otherwise dubious tactics. If > 90% of the country attacking you want to kill you and your families, what is so wrong about you using WMD as long as it does not affect neighbouring countries?
Re:Just us, or ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just us, or ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just us, or ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious why we've not seen any releases of Russian actions in Chechnya, by these folks.
Is the implication here that records of (frankly, very well-known) Russian atrocities in Chechnya would somehow make it okay for us to do similar things? Everything will be alright if we're not as bad as the Russians?
Well, we aren't as bad as the Russians. And I'll bet that comes as a huge relief to the victims of our war crimes.
Re:Just us, or ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlikely. It's a rhetorical question as the obvious answers are... obvious.
A. It is intended to make you think that maybe WikiLeaks has something against the Western world.. or at least against the U.S.
B. It is intended to make you remember that other countries do atrocious things, too.. thus on some level, to some people, mitigating the fact that `we're` doing so now.
C. It is intended as a troll to invite such east vs west, Russia vs U.S., U.S. vs the world, etc. debates that serve only to muddy the waters.
D. any combination of the above.
Move along, nothing to see here but flamebait.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If Obama wasn't such a coward, the last president would be behind bars (along with most of his cronies), we'd have single-payer-for-all health care, and Wall Street would actually be held responsible for treating the economy the way Michael Vic treats dogs....
FTFY
Re:If Obama wasn't such a coward... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Obama wasn't such a coward, Guantanamo Bay would be closed, habeas corpus would be restored, our former president his vice president, and a few other select members of his cabinet would be behind bars, and the people responsible for the economic meltdown would either be up on fraud charges, no longer running their companies, or the heads of bankrupt companies.