Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks
Guardian said:
and I think that identification is limiting your ability to look at this situation with fully open eyes.
Of course that's always possible, but it's also equally possible that I'm just sick and tired of people who spew completely baseless slander before they even bother to TRY an "look at this situation with fully open eyes?"
Guardian,
I think Anart's point is that these "leaked documents" present a complex situation, one that requires better use of the thinking center rather than letting the the emotional center dominate. It's pretty clear from your posts in this thread that you are emotionally invested in this. While, I don't hold that against you - there are certainly things to be upset about wanton murder - we're all trying our best to understand what information we have in front of us given our own personal limitations and such. Becoming emotionally invested in Julian, Wikileaks, or any of the players in this game doesn't help to see the situation clearly.
There is certainly some slander out there directed at Julian, but there are also a number of criticisms, which are not baseless. While these might just be simple character flaws on his part and not part of some deviant action, they are still flaws and are still important to take into account when viewing the overall picture. Anart can correct me if I'm off here.
Guardian said:
The discussion here has one purpose and that is to try to approach the objective truth of this situation.
So far the only objective truth we have is that Wikileaks has posted 91,000 military documents on the net that BOTH the victims and the perpetrators have publicly authenticated to an unprecedented degree.
Anything else at this point is pure speculation devolving into baseless accusations.
I don't consider it unobjective or accusatory to consider all of the possibilities of "how?" or "why?" or "who benefits?" from the AWD. Maybe there is nothing we can prove at this point (maybe there never will be?), but over time as facts come out, they will either confirm or deny one hypothesis or another. And there is no reason why we can't start doing this now with what has been written so far and then narrow things down over time.
Guardian said:
It is not to vilify Assange,
Could have fooled me. :(
I will defend him as long as I believe he is trying to help bring a truth to the world. I would do no less for any one of you.
Why does he need to be defended? Wouldn't it make more sense to defend the Truth?
We have to get to the bottom of what the Truth is here to be able to do that and sometimes that means seeing past our own emotional attachments and sacred cows.
Guardian said:
When a person is just so sure that someone is a 'good guy', they can no longer see things as they ARE.
When a person is just so sure that someone is a 'bad guy', they can no longer see things as they ARE either.
In short, it appears to me that your emotional investment in the idea of wikileaks and Assange is blurring your vision.
Appearances can be deceiving...but the good news is that even if I'm totally wrong about Julian and WL, a meticulously documented, cross referenced, 6 year history of the atrocities committed against the Afgan people is still on the net.
I hear bringing war criminals to justice can take a long time.
Just as a thought experiment, try to imagine that the thousands of other cases in these leaked documents that haven't been read so far actually JUSTIFY the war. I don't mean in any logical or emotional way - there is plenty of evidence to show that this is an unjust war mostly directed at killing civilians. But if one takes reports selectively, right-wing groups could gather up all the evidence they see to support their myth of a terrorist boogieman behind every corner. They wouldn't be saying anything counter-factual, it would be the truth as they see it and they might say "Ahh Ha! See, we were right all along, we really do need to support our troops fighting the Taliban!"
_http://www.counterpunch.org/forte08022010.html
[quote author=MAXIMILLIAN FORTE]
New support for fighting the Taleban.
Julian Assange assumed his intentions were good enough that they could control the narrative that would be constructed around these records. He may learn differently. Assange told Der Spiegel that he enjoys “crushing bastards,” and he later told CNN’s Larry King that by “bastards” he meant U.S. forces in Afghanistan The problem is that the news media have already made the question of who is a “bastard” more complicated and ambiguous, for showing the atrocities which the reports allege have been committed by the Taleban. The Guardian was first, speaking of the Taleban’s use of “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs): “the IED…not only strikes foreign troops on ground patrols and in road convoys, it is also an indiscriminate terror weapon killing and injuring thousands of civilians…. Taliban fighters appear to have been prepared to blow up large numbers of people in order to assassinate a single target, such as a high-ranking government official or police chief,” and the article says the reports show that the Taleban are responsible for the majority of civilians killed in Afghanistan.
We might suspect that some elements of American public opinion will use this kind of information to renew the call for crushing the Taleban, the only group that patriotic Americans would ever call “bastards,” as if fighting the Taleban was an end in itself, one worthy of so much American blood and treasure.
Support for expanding the war to Pakistan and Iran.
Is there a straight, logical line from these records to greater popular support for the anti-war movement?
Clearly, there is not. Indeed, some of the first newspaper reports dedicated themselves to showing that Pakistan’s intelligence services and military cannot be counted upon as a good partner for the U.S.
For some, that will mean pushing to have more American covert forces in Pakistan, thus further widening and Americanizing the war, the same way as happened in Vietnam and the region around it. Personally, the big shock for me was this article in The Guardian: “Afghanistan war logs: Iran’s covert operations in Afghanistan.” According to the article, “Iran is engaged in an extensive covert campaign to arm, finance, train and equip Taliban insurgents, Afghan warlords allied to al-Qaida and suicide bombers fighting to eject British and western forces from Afghanistan.” A connection between Iran and Al Qaeda?
Was it not the suggestion of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda that was used by the Bush administration to successfully capture American public support for the Iraq invasion? And now that the U.S. and the European Union have escalated sanctions against Iran to a point beyond which the next steps can only lead to war,
do these records not serve to provide a service to pro-war propagandists? As I write this, the very pro-war Fox News has fixed its attention on this very aspect of the Wikileaks records.
The incomplete and fragmentary nature of the records.
In my own research with these records, involving the use of American social scientists in units known as Human Terrain Teams, I have come to some important realizations. These records are only some of the records that we might have had.
They are incomplete and fragmentary. Can anyone believe that the records Wikileaks obtained, almost 110,000 of them, are all the records produced by the U.S. military in a period covering six years of war?
If not, then what was left out? Why were these records released, and not others? How can we make any credible claim based on these records, without knowing what has been kept from our view? What if what we do not have would somehow modify or reshape what we now claim to know?
The records are not the same as “the truth.”
These are records written by combatants on one side in a war. They are written by elements of the American military, with a military audience in mind, and to suit the purposes of that military. That many of the records are based on hearsay, rumours, and unsubstantiated allegations that would not survive review at higher levels of military intelligence, is also the case. The records lack context and often lack depth: short, terse bursts of information. Information is not the same thing as meaning, nor is it understanding.
It is just data, and data is dead until an analyst gives it life by adding value.
The worst thing that could happen would be to have great masses of people insisting that something is true because it was reported in these records. To add depth and context, one has to cross check these records, examine other records, interview the key participants, understand the larger aims and narratives. The people writing these reports are neither infallible nor objective. If few people understand this, we could end up with arguments that seem to be factually muscular, and yet are intellectually malnourished.
[/quote]
So, you can see that TPTB can play out the AWD in any number of directions - all with the push for "more war" :(
I personally don't see this leading to arresting war criminals anytime soon, if ever. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't do things to try to bring this about or bring about positive change, but I think it has more to do with raising the Being of humanity instead of trying to throw the Truth at them. If one is not internally prepared to see the Truth, one will never see it.
Yes, this war is horrible and downright gut wrenching. Anything to end it would be more than welcome. Maybe the AWD will help end it, maybe they won't? I truly hope they will, but at the same time, I'm not going to get lost in false hope. I'd rather SEE the stark reality than live in a dream.
