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Post by Chesapeake on Jul 26, 2010 21:52:43 GMT -5
I can't believe nobody's posted about this yet. Okay, here goes.
I'm beginning to think the whole thing is a CIA black-op intended to rally support for putting more troops and money into the effort to win the war. So far, the conservative talking-heads I've heard aren't so concerned about giving away secrets. They're more interested in shaking their fingers at the camera and saying this just proves what they've been saying all along, that the Obama administration isn't putting enough effort into it.
Who benefits from these leaks? We shall see.
Putting on my flak jacket and going to my bunker now.
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Post by Village Idiot on Jul 26, 2010 22:06:48 GMT -5
What are you talking about? I honestly don't know.
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Post by omaha on Jul 26, 2010 23:25:26 GMT -5
Rush Limbaugh was slamming the leakers today.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,910
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Post by Dub on Jul 27, 2010 0:04:12 GMT -5
I say hurray for the leakers. Every time our government gets us into "another fine mess," it turns out there were a lot of hidden things that, had they been out in the open, might have led us to demand that our government follow some other course of action. - Dub
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Post by paulschlimm on Jul 27, 2010 1:09:08 GMT -5
Interesting side note - we fielded an e-mail today asking us not to download any of the leaks onto our government 'puters as we may inadvertently load classified material onto unclassified systems. Sheesh.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Jul 27, 2010 4:40:34 GMT -5
As an editor of the New York Times said, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Government had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance". They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war would not likely be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed a deep cynicism towards the public and a disregard for safety of soldiers and civilians.
oops, sorry, wrong war. That's what they said about the Pentagon Papers and the Johnson administration and Vietnam.
Back then Haldeman was recorded on one of the White House tapes commenting about those papers, "It shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong."
The guy who leaked the papers was Daniel Ellsberg
Right wing poster boy G. Gordon Liddy, with the assistance of future Watergate burgler Howard Hunt, broke into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in search for papers to discredit his mental state and him. The government tapped Ellberg's phone without a court order.
During Ellsberg's trial, all the dirty little secrets of break-ins and illegal wiretaps came out and not only was Ellsberg's charges all dismissed due to gross misconduct on the part of the government, but Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Kleindienst and John Dean were all forced out of office over their rolls in the break-in. They later were also charged with crimes associated with Watergate, but the Ellsberg mess was what got them fired.
I don't knwo if the guy who leaked all this stuff did was right. Some information will probably hurt us and some may help enlighten the the debate. I just hope the 'official' reaction to this isn't anywhere near as destuctive as the reaction was 40 years ago.
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Post by millring on Jul 27, 2010 5:36:20 GMT -5
I'll be interested to see who the leaker is. I hope we find out.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Jul 27, 2010 6:12:11 GMT -5
We alread know. It was the same guy who leaked those videos of the attack that killed the UPI photographer. ---- June 6, 2010 - Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned. SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged. Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians. He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.” “Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Jul 27, 2010 7:09:03 GMT -5
I may have spoken too soon. I assumed the guy they already arrested who claimed to have delivered thousands of documents to wikileaks was the same guy. Seems the Pentagon is still looking for the guy responsible for this latest leak.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jul 27, 2010 7:19:40 GMT -5
Tramp, I read yesterday that it was the same guy. Now they're not sure?
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Post by Supertramp78 on Jul 27, 2010 7:55:16 GMT -5
The issue is that a lot of people had access to the same documents so they aren't sure. It just might be the same guy but they want ot be sure.
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Post by Hobson on Jul 27, 2010 9:50:35 GMT -5
Perhaps it's because I once worked for the Defense Department, but I have a tough time seeing any justification for leaking classified documents.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 12:46:41 GMT -5
Perhaps it's because I once worked for the Defense Department, but I have a tough time seeing any justification for leaking classified documents. Doesn't that merely invite a government to simply declare any information adverse to its efforts as "classified"? I'd go for a different approach. Leaking information that may endanger covert operatives, or identify the current position and strength of forces is BAD. Everything else is fair game, and SHOULD be leaked. Hey, the very WORST that will come from these leaks is that some personell may get embarrassed, or have to further explain the documents. No big deal. Much like the thread on videotaping cops in public.
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Post by theevan on Jul 27, 2010 12:53:56 GMT -5
Who decides?
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 27, 2010 13:33:21 GMT -5
Much like the thread on videotaping cops in public. That's a very astute observation, IMHO, and pretty much the stance that julian assange takes on the documents. I caught an entire interview with Assange and whomever is the chief editor of the UK guardian, and they both subscribe to dharma's viewpoint. Assange did say that he withheld 15k (IIRC, I was in drive time) of the documents because they either gave specific names of villagers, coordinates, or whatnot that would put people in direct danger.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 27, 2010 13:51:23 GMT -5
At this point, it appears that duty falls upon wikileaks and their contributors.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Jul 27, 2010 13:53:52 GMT -5
The historical answer to this is the newspaper publisher. back when Russia was sending nukes to Cuba, the news picke dup the story and called the White House for confirmation. Kennedy called them back and basically told them that he was in the process of setting up a blockade and that he needed them to sit on the story for a few days until that blockade was in place or things would start to really suck for the Nation. The media sat on the story. It all falls under what was once called journalistic ethics which is what they teach in journalism school but something they don't teach in blog school. I still remember discussions at the Morning News when we would have some story with rather far reaching issues and there were quite a few people involved in whether or not the story should run and if so, what should be in it or not. This could be something as simple as a closeted City Council woman being caught in a parked car with a naked female staffer to leaked documents in a the OK City bomber's trial. Some thing would rise to the level of "News" while others would not. I can't imagine any blogger out there trying to make a name for himself going through the same exercise. As much as current state of affairs has placed such a low value on 'news gathering' and 'journalism', in most news orgs those discussions still take place and may things that should not be reported are not. Fact of the matter is, in about 5 minutes you can set up your own blog on wordpress or google or somewhere else and publish your own leaks if you want to. It might be easier to have someone shut it down, but the need for a media outlet to leak something is a think of the past.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 27, 2010 14:51:08 GMT -5
So long as we are on the topic of who needs leaks, journalistic integrity, and the effects of those leaks, it might be worth hearing a little from the man himself. Most of you are probably familiar with TED, but I suspect that not so many are familiar with Assange and wikileaks, and how they work, and some of the effects they've had on world events and policy.
He's not the most engaging interview, but if you can gut it out far enough to get to the passage of Iceland's recent freedom of press laws, you'll see what the BFD about wikileaks is. Along the way, you'll get documented murder of journalists by US forces, changed outcomes of country's elections, and revelations of corporate guerilla sabotage between competing oil companies. Compelling stuff, regardless of how one feels about whistleblowing in general. This is serious, world-changing activity we're discussing here.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2010 15:51:45 GMT -5
The historical answer to this is the newspaper publisher. back when Russia was sending nukes to Cuba, the news picke dup the story and called the White House for confirmation. Kennedy called them back and basically told them that he was in the process of setting up a blockade and that he needed them to sit on the story for a few days until that blockade was in place or things would start to really suck for the Nation. The media sat on the story. It all falls under what was once called journalistic ethics which is what they teach in journalism school but something they don't teach in blog school. I still remember discussions at the Morning News when we would have some story with rather far reaching issues and there were quite a few people involved in whether or not the story should run and if so, what should be in it or not. This could be something as simple as a closeted City Council woman being caught in a parked car with a naked female staffer to leaked documents in a the OK City bomber's trial. Some thing would rise to the level of "News" while others would not. I can't imagine any blogger out there trying to make a name for himself going through the same exercise. As much as current state of affairs has placed such a low value on 'news gathering' and 'journalism', in most news orgs those discussions still take place and may things that should not be reported are not. Fact of the matter is, in about 5 minutes you can set up your own blog on wordpress or google or somewhere else and publish your own leaks if you want to. It might be easier to have someone shut it down, but the need for a media outlet to leak something is a think of the past. A cause and effect dilemma. At some point, popular media essentially stopped any pretense of investagatory journalism, and retreated to safe money stories that were sensationalistic, and cost nothing to gather. Meanwhile, too many reporters assigned to cover such events as business regulation and war began (or resumed) satisfying themselves with a hastily reworded press release and a early shot at happy hour. Heck, the USSR can suddenly collapse, and the guy covering Moscow is in the bar. The economy can collapse, while our "journalists" covering Wall Street urge us NOT to sell our Bear-Stearn stock. If some president makes up a wild-ass story about evil saddam's empire, nary a reporter will check the spelling on his press release before he publishes it, and heads to the golf course with his friends from the DOD. All war coverage is essentially a pentagon production, tending to focus on the brilliance and compassion of the good guys. Good entertainment, great editing, and high production values. And, nearly everyone recognizes it is second-hand bullshit. But, at least the anchorwoman is a babe. To be fair, some of the retreat of popular journalism from any meaningful watchdog role was economic. Also, I can't help but think there was some well-earned shame over the 60 Minutes-style ambush interviews where some intrepid reporter was getting the goods on some small time con man at a used car lot. Perhaps, in popular media, investigatice journalism became kind of sleazy and anoopy. So, for a generation, we've substituted Geraldo Rivera for Woodward and Bernstein. You know what they say about vacuums, Tramp. I think the bloggers have been assigned all the slaezy/snoopy roles, while Geraldo heads to happy hour, after broadcasting some salacious leak a blogger sent him.
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Post by theevan on Jul 27, 2010 16:20:38 GMT -5
This is not an issue that readily lends itself to for/against, helpful/harmful, etc.
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