I can’t help but think the release of all this information is somehow good. I certainly don’t feel less safe. I do worry about informants being outed and killed. But are they? And other than that, wouldn’t it be better if our government was more open? I mean, has anybody learned anything we didn’t already know? If so, maybe this will lead to some diplomatic breakthroughs somewhere.
Or maybe, like Iran said, the leaks are all an American plot! I like that idea.
What are your thoughts?
The only leak of any importnce was the "collateral murder" one from this summer, which should be required watching in every high school civics class. To me, that video is iconic and emblematic of the current war as the photo of the naked Vietnamese girl running down the street was of a previous war, or the photo of the soldiers raising the US flag on Iwo Jima was of a war before that. I don't think the group of men shot toward the beginning of the "collateral murder" leaked video has weapons, although there was hot debate on that point. whether they did or not, it is kind of a side point in the context of the whole video.
I suspect that the US government is behind the leaks, although the business with Assange makes that slightly less likely.
Most people don't know what their looking at in that video. I do. You see, that was my sector, my deployment, and I personally worked with those pilots on multiple missions. That was an all day firefight, cleverly edited to make it seem as if it was a quick "unjustified" kill. Read "They fought for eachother" if you really want to see what that sector was like for us.
Guess who clears the streets during all day engagements? Civilians. Guess who doesn't think much of bringing children to a gun fight? Insurgents.
Those pilots rarely fire in our support, and when they do, sh*ts hit the fan.
"It wasn't an RPG, it was a camera tripod.." that one still makes me giggle.
-Pat
When I see what Wikileaks has produced, my first thought is that the government classifies too much stuff. A lot of what was in there was insignificant, but potentially embarrassing to someone. Unless that embarrassment could place people in imminent danger, the document didn't need to be classified.
The term "national security" has been almost without meaning since the Vietnam era.
Gates himself has said that he's seen no evidence that the wikileaks have caused any damage or potential harm to U.S. forces or anyone else who helps us out. He has testified on this and you can find his writings online.
The fact that so much "classified" information has been released and the reaction from people like Bob Gates is a big yawn really shows how much stuff is classified just to avoid personal embarrassment rather than harm to national security.