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The argument that leaking the documents could cost lives is disingenuous, the flawed strategy of this middle eastern effort has cost thousands of lives.

It is more likely that embarrassment for conducting such a foolish campaign that failed, the original objective of finding the men responsible for the 9/11 attacks has been abandoned.

Iraq has yet to form a government and when they do it will almost certainly be as hostile towards the US as Saddam. The people who were responsible were from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, working with those governments to reduce terrorism could have been much more successful than spending 9 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The leaked documents appear to have mostly consisted raw intelligence reports. It is these documents which are then usually filtered by analysts who know what they are about, in order to gain a (hopefully) accurate picture. The hope of Wikileaks’ founder is presumably that untrained members of the public will be able to form a better picture than the professionals by reading documents released by a self-selecting group of disgruntled low-level operatives whose reports, presumably, were rejected. This hope seems absurd.

A case in point is the included release of speculations about the attitude of Pakistan’s ISI. Whether those speculations are true or false is almost irrelevant – handing them in this way is certain to damage relations between the ISI and Western agencies (damage which has been exacerbated by David Cameron of course), which is guaranteed to cost lives. Including the civilian lives over which Wikileaks makes great show of wringing its hands.

jstaf , Bravo!

What is so bad about the truth? Since the Vietnam war we’re not told about “Body Counts” any more, so the way the new has read, there have only been coalition forces dying. It gives a more balanced picture of what’s going on to hear a more accurate acount of the conflict, and censorship only clouds that picture.
Waiting for after the war is good in theory, but when is this war going to end?

The “leaks” or rather the disclosure of information that is newsworthy, emphasizes the enormity of the funding waste, and how those tax dollars are spent. We recently committed to funding Pakistan another $7.5 billion, and Sec Clinton and Richard Holbrrok went slavering all over the Pakistanis eager to get their hands on the first installment of $500 million last week so they could “channel” it to their corrupt network, and pay a lip service to cleaning out the Taliban and fighting terrorism. How much more is spent “filtered” into the pockets of the Karzai network? How much more in to Iraq – What about some of our other large scale funding and the layers and layers of bureaucracy on the payroll in teh State Department. Wouldn’t it be better to use the funds to create jobs and skilled training for America? Vote CUTUSBUDGET – next time you see it on the ballot.

Whose Hands? Whose Blood?

http://www.truth-out.org/whose-hands-who se-blood-killing-civilians-afghanistan-a nd-iraq62058

Had the US not tried to hide the truth about these wars, this leak may not have happened. Show the casualties of war and the caskets coming home, show the babies shot up and burned up. Show the grotesquely deformed babies from DU contamination. We’re in these wars because of lies.

Freedom of information is one of the most vital underpinnig of a democratic society. It gives people the information needed to decide whether those they place in power are worthy of that power and are acting in the best interets of the majority and of the counry and of the wolrd. Seeing that the USA is a global hegemon it is without doubt that information abiut the actions of its forces in any place on earth is closely scrutinised and by the largets audience possible. One of the major reason the Nazis were able to get away with their genocidal programs for so long is becuase they kept them very well hidden from the rest of the wolrd, despite the fact that much of it was happening in other countries outside of Germany. If nothing else history teaches us that the first casualty of war is truth and the more truth we get the better.
It is truly a sign of the inadequacy of the American media that it took an Australian to bring the murders perpertarted by their government into the full light of day. By shining this light the darkness now enveloping the USA may begin its retreat. Fascism has no place in a modern America nor anywhere else in the world. This may mean that many lives may now be actually saved as the pentagon will be under more scrutiny to engage in their wars in less barbaric and careless and ruthless ways. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.