U.S. government and military, who have a track record of
keeping horrifying, god-awful secrets regarding their own
misconduct.
This is true. However Assande and Wikileaks have put over a hundred peoples lives directly in danger through their leaks as well as potentially thousands more. Which effectively puts them all the way on the other end of the spectrum. Your saying that putting 100's of peoples lives at risk in the interest of shining a light on Government secrets is acceptable. Are you sure that's what you mean to say?
Theres nothing wrong with pointing out that one way is just as bad as the status quo. Telling people they can't object without proposing a solution won't change the fact that your solution is still wrong.
In my short lifetime, hundreds of thousands of people, many of them civilians, have died in Iraq. Tens of thousands, many being civilians, have died in Afghanistan; we continue to kill several civilians per day. We have spent God knows how much money to date on both combined. They have completely undermined our moral standing in the world. Those are not potential costs. Those are the real costs of our military's actions, and I honestly can't imagine how anyone could defend them as being justifiable or reasonable. Nothing we even dreamed of accomplishing is worth that much.
That seems to me like a really big destructive force, and barely anything stands in opposition to it. It's a lot bigger than 100 Afghan informants who are at risk of retribution. If anything can put the fear of God into the people responsible for making these decisions, it's worth a huge price, and I think that shining a huge light on the military's actual actions is a pretty good start.
Wikileaks fucked up badly, in my opinion, by not redacting identifying details from the documents. They will indeed have some blood on their hands if retribution arrives. However, it seems to me like the benefit of Wikileaks' continued operation dwarfs the cost of their fuckups.
I hate to put people on the spot with "well, what would YOU do." But Daniel's post implies that there is some wise oversight that can expose just the right secrets, without exposing the dangerous ones. I don't think that's realistic, unless he has some particular scheme in mind. I think the choice is between total control and some degree of anarchy, and I would take as much anarchy as I could get on that spectrum.
> Theres nothing wrong with pointing out that one way is just as bad as the status quo.
Neither way is perfect - but that's far different from your equivocation. "Hundreds of people" possibly identified through the Wikileaks release pales in comparison to the tens or hundreds of thousands collaterally killed by the U.S. military.
Unless you can prove that the military is unnecessary and their absence would not prevent more bloodshed than they cause then I would say my equivocation is right on the money. So to echo the previous poster do you have an alternate solution to the military that doesn't involve an impossible mass change to the entire worlds mental and emotional state.
The military is an unfortunate but necessary evil that involves bloodshed for as long as people stay people.
Unless you can prove that the military is unnecessary and their absence would not prevent more bloodshed than they cause then I would say my equivocation is right on the money.
I disagree. Rather, I would suggest that the burden of proof should rest on those who claim the right to kill others, rather than those who wish to deny others that right. Which is to say, unless you can prove that the military is necessary and its non-existence would result in more deaths than its existence, it should not exist.
I'll bite. There exist in the world countries and people who would like to kill me (not me personally but me as in the citizen of a rival nation/ethnic group/race/...). The military prevents them from doing so. Therefore the military is necessary. History has numerous examples supporting this fact.
The Iraq war is often considered a war that never should have taken place. Is it possible to prove that it cost more lives than it saved? No. Should that be the beginning and the end of the justification for the war? Absolutely not.
Your rationality rationalizes 100% war 100% of the time. I cannot prove that any person in some location is not planning on attacking, therefore, by your logic, all people are better off dead - for my safety.
Clearly that rationality is illogical.
Specific to the point you were attempting to make previously, however: you cannot prove that the possible identification of hundreds of people is equal to the known death of tens of thousands of people, though you claim they are equal. In fact, a sane analysis of the two points shows that they are not equivalent.
>This is true. However Assande and Wikileaks have put over a hundred peoples lives directly in danger through their leaks as well as potentially thousands more.
Read the article one intelligence officer and hundreds of Afghani informants have been revealed to the world including the folks who want them dead. Before the leak their potential killers didn't know who they were now they do. Assande has no intention of not revealing more information of the same sort in the future.
There are no specifics mentioned and the article the AEI member links to doesn't have much in the way of specifics either. If the US military is concerned about those involved in the death trade having their identities revealed they would do well to make Wikileak's public role redundant and tell the truth about their actions.
So say I'm a dirt poor farmer in Afghanistan. I spent most of my time being terrorized by the Taliban (say for example, they burned my sister alive after they found out I taught her how to read). Now the NATO forces arrive, kick those assholes out, along the way they shell my barn and accidentally kill my brother.
I'm pissed off, but on the balance, I know the NATO forces feel bad about my brother and they at least tried to get him some medical care (which is pretty different from the Taliban's response to my sister's last gurgling breath which was to drag her behind a truck and hang her burnt body in the middle of the village as a warning to everybody).
So when SGT Smith asks me, "do you know where any Taliban are around here?" I tell him. Because someday NATO will be gone and I can finally get around to growing something in the piss poor soil of my farm and get on with my life. While the Taliban hunted us ragged when they were in charge.
Now I find out that my name and coordinates to my village were released into the wild and the local Taliban commander found out about it. I and my family are running for our lives and all some thoughtless jerk on a message board can say about it is that it serves me right.
Just playing Devil's advocate here[1], but consider this scenario
Most Taliban commanders and fighters are part and parcel of the population, as is typical in any foreign invaders vs home grown guerrillas war - As an Afghan village elder said in Kandahar - "the people you call Taliban are my sister's son and his friends, they are our people" - and the Taliban have informants in the Afghan National Army and other departments of Karzai's government, and one of the main difficulties the American forces have is to identify the Taliban leadership.
If Assange were to get a list of Taliban commanders and informants and were to publish them and / or send them to the US army so the Special forces "death squads" could eliminate them/ drag them off to Guantanamo/rendition them to "friendly" nations to be tortured, he would be a hero to all the people decrying them here.
So the leaks are bad only if they target one side in a war? This assumes one side is "good" and the other "evil".
Patriotism is well and good but it shouldn't interfere with clear thinking.
Why exactly should Assange take sides in this war or try to avoid setbacks to the US effort?
As to the fictional "dirt poor farmer in Afghanistan" scenario. Here is an alternate scenario.
I am a dirt poor farmer in Afghanistan. My father fought in the Jihad against the evil Godless Russians and lost a leg and now I have to support him from my meagre poppy farm - the product of which is bought for hard cash by the Taliban btw. When the Russians left (Glory be to Allah) instead of establishing a government as sanctioned in the Holy Koran (remember I am illiterate and never read the Holy Book All I know is what the village mullah tells me) warlords fought over my village, abducted and raped girls and young boys, taxed us mercilessly and made our lives hell. Then the Taliban came and enforced Islamic Rule and we had relative peace and justice. (The shadow courts of the Taliban still provide us Islamic justice based on the Holy Quran and thh HAdith as opposed to the corrupt Karzai government's "courts", whose judges hide behind American guns and where you can buy judgments in your favour if you are rich, and whose writ doesn't run beyond Kabul anyway).
My son now fights for the Taliban against the evil American invaders (whose drones blew up my cousin's wedding party and killed dozens of my relatives btw) just as my father fought against the evil Russian invaders. The Taliban are Afghani (and Islamic) patriots.
The Americans are invaders who have no business here. (Osama? Who Osama? oh you mean the great Islamic hero who struck a blow - I am fuzzy on the details, no cable TV in my village- against the infidel West)
Of course I support the Taliban. You want me to be a traitor to my own people? Of course such people exist but they are all traitors and Allah's judgement will be on them soon enough.
More practically, the Americans will go back home in a year or two, just like the Russians did. The Taliban will still be here.Karzai's writ (as long as the Taliban doesn't hang him from a lamp post like they did Najibullah)won't run beyond Kabul. And as long as the Pakistanis support the Taliban (with American money they say) the Taliban can never be defeated.
So when Habibullah, The shadow Taliban governor of my province asks me , "What did the Americans say and do in your village?" I tell him. Because someday NATO will be gone and the Taliban will rule and I can finally get around to growing something in the piss poor soil of my farm and get on with my life. At least they won't blow up any wedding parties looking for imaginary "terrorists" "
So much for trying to explain the motives of people who live a world away and whom you've never met ;-). They are easy to make for each side of a conflict, depending on what your intended rhetorical effect is.
I could use your justification to defend the Russian invasion. If the welfare of Afghans (vs winning the cold war) was an American priority they should have just left Afghanistan alone. The Taliban were nurtured in Pakistani madrassas, armed by Americans and brainwashed by the Saudis. And now Pakistan is using them for its own ends and playing a double game with the Americans? That was unexpected! ;-)
[1] I personally would rather the Americans win than the Taliban. But then I am not an Afghan so I don't need to have any conflicts of loyalty.
In this non Afghan's opinion, a successful American occupation is probably the better alternative in the long run for Afghanistan, as would probably have been the case if the Russians had ruled without being interfered with for a decade or two. But then I am a certified "Islamophobe" who'd rather see all religions wither and die, particularly Islam. An (inevitable imo) Taliban victory would just empower the Islamic radicals and we in India would have another round of terrorist bombings and shootings as a result. But that can't be helped at this stage.
I (like much of the world) think the American effort is doomed to fail and President Obama (rightly imo) is just trying to redefine "success" and get out asap with some kind of face saving device - ideally the capture of Bin laden and/or Mullah Omar - which is probably where the focus should have been all along vs trying to rebuild Afghanistan as some kind of Jeffersonian democracy.
The idea that the American invasion is somehow for the benefit of the Afghans is hilarious and the apparent concern for Afghan informants by people of a country that let its leadership declare two foolish wars is somewhat surreal. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people died due to American actions. Where was the outrage then?
Without going into a point-by-point agreement disagreement. I actually largely agree with your characterization of the situation. Which is the most powerful argument for why NATO must remain in Afghanistan for the time being. Until the situation is improved to the point that we can be reasonably sure that the festering cancer of the Taliban is no longer a threat to you and me, we have to try and improve the conditions there.
>Until the situation is improved to the point that we can be reasonably sure that the festering cancer of the Taliban is no longer a threat to you and me, we have to try and improve the conditions there.
Realistically, the Taliban is only a threat to you and me if the US state apparatus allows it to be (for strategic reasons, such as justifying the invasion of a country like Iraq, or economic reasons, such as feeding the hungry mouths of defense contractors).
Even the most recent bombing attempt seems to have been conducted with the approval of the state apparatus (Wikipedia: "State Department had wanted to revoke Abdulmutallab's visa, but U.S. intelligence officials requested that his visa not be revoked": http://bit.ly/amFHQn).
> Realistically, the Taliban is only a threat to you and me if the US state apparatus allows it to be
So wait, let me get this correct. Your world-view is that a decade of NATO actions in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, capture/kill Al-Qaeda and emplace a system of stable national governance, improved civilian security and improved economic conditions (regardless of how bungled or successful that process has been) is not the process of Western state apparatuses attempting to take groups like the Taliban off the threat list through proactive policies?
You have just gone on my list of people who suffer from an insatiable thirst for Hollywood conspiracy theories. Enjoy the time-cube. http://www.timecube.com/ You'll feel right at home.
> is not the process of Western state apparatuses attempting to take groups like the Taliban off the threat list through proactive policies
My guess is if the US didn't want the Taliban to exist they wouldn't have trained them and sold them arms (http://nyti.ms/ddOTcu) in the first place. Zbigniew Brzezinski puts it fairly bluntly: "The secret operation was an excellent idea... What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" (http://bit.ly/tPpQJ).
>You have just gone on my list of people who suffer from an insatiable thirst for Hollywood conspiracy theories. Enjoy the time-cube. http://www.timecube.com/ You'll feel right at home.
The belief that an empires acts for the benefit of civilians is about as believable as the idea that oil companies act for the benefit of those who buy petrol. Grown-ups have beliefs founded in history, not fantasies promoted by vested interests.
I'm not sure how anything that you've just said has any relationship to what we're talking about. If you like I suppose we could have a sidebar communication on the influence of Buddhism in Afghanistan pre-Taliban and on the influence of the Greeks before that.
What he still has a family? - I say this lightly because it clearly is fiction.
Firstly, the Taliban must be very busy if all they do is go around burning little children who learn how to read. Also, this breadwinner must be quite relieved that his son was killed in a nicer way.
Seeing as the Taliban took the trouble to burn his daughter just for reading, I suppose they would consider the father to be their friend, because, well they only burned his daughter. Of course in no way would they think that he hates them to the gut and would happily go along to the guys who kill people in a nice way.
I am sorry, there is a serious point there, but do try and make it.
Have you ever read anything about conditions inside Afghanistan under the Taliban? I mean this as a serious question because by your response you seem absolutely ignorant.
Common, they not in the business of burning people for - - - reading! You know they have a war to fight and that probably keeps them very busy. Also, by freaking burning a person is a sure way to make enemy of the entire village, so they better go and find some other village. And I think they probably depend to a great extent on the goodwill of the village which probably shelters them and does not hand them over to the soldiers. By burning someone for - reading - is a sure way to vanish that good will and turn it into hate.
Now, burning someone as some sort of revenge or punishment for perhaps being and informer might make sense.
Yeh sure man they are really bad people, but none of the article is about reading, or maybe it is because I only skimmed them.
I did say that there is a serious point there, and suggested that you make it. Coming up with such things as they killed him in a nicer way, the Taliban would consider him to be his friend after burning his daughter, rather than probably thinks he really hates them and will inform on them on any chance he has, so really I doubt he is the kind of person the taliban would hardly suspect that he would inform on them, and taking the extreme action of burning a person for reading really are not serious points.
"I hate to put people on the spot with "well, what would YOU do." But Daniel's post implies that there is some wise oversight that can expose just the right secrets, without exposing the dangerous ones. I don't think that's realistic, unless he has some particular scheme in mind. I think the choice is between total control and some degree of anarchy, and I would take as much anarchy as I could get on that spectrum."
How about not including names? They obviously knew it was an issue because they attempted to contact the government to have some of the names removed. Instead of doing the right thing and removing all names, they released them all with this "any deaths are worth the information" attitude.
Between Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years arguably the US military has put millions of lives in danger, against their wishes. If releasing some documents might lead to a 100 deaths that would not otherwise have occurred is evil/criminal then how does that not pale in comparison to the field deployment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and weapon systems in a foreign country which go on to cause 1000's of deaths that would not otherwise have occurred. If Assange's actions are reckless to any extent surely the US government's actions have been 100x+ more reckless and damaging.
No the logic is, let's get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan first, and let's stop killing innocents/civilians in Afghanistan, and then, maybe, we'll worry whether it's "right" or "wrong" to publish these pieces of paper.
You're a genius, you should publish a strategy paper and send it to President Obama on a realistic strategy for counter-terror operations that don't involve killing people. Please put a link up on HN because I'm sure the community of experienced Generals here would love to give it a read.
Theres nothing wrong with pointing out that one way is just as bad as the status quo. Telling people they can't object without proposing a solution won't change the fact that your solution is still wrong.