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US army’s fault if Afghans are at risk, says Assange
Wikileaks founder defends posting of military secrets as authorities pile on the pressure
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, variously accused of having "blood on his hands" and displaying "sanctimonious piety", has defended his decision to post online more than 90,000 secret US military files, in the face of increasing criticism that the lives of Afghan informants have been put at risk as a result.
The names and details of dozens on informants who have helped coalition forces root out Taliban fighters have been published unedited. In some cases, even the GPS co-ordinates of their homes have been revealed.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said: "Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his organisation are doing. They might already have on their hands the blood of a young soldier or that of an Afghan family."
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who says Assange has "blood on his hands", told ABC News: "There's a moral culpability. And that's where I think the verdict is 'guilty' on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences."
Assange's position in the eyes of Gates, Mullen and senior Nato officials in London and Kabul is not helped by his admission that he has read only 4,000 of the 90,000-plus files posted - nor by the chilling warning from Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
"We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the US," Mujahi told Channel 4 News. "If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them."
Over the weekend, Assange continued to argue that his main motivation for publishing the leaked files was to draw attention to the abuse of Afghan citizens by coalition troops.
He also claimed that if Afghan informants' lives have been put at risk, it is the US military's fault, not his. "We are appalled that the US military was so lackadaisical with its Afghan sources," he told the Observer. "Just appalled...
"This material was available to every soldier and contractor in Afghanistan. It's the US military that deserves the blame for not giving due diligence to its informers."
Assange claimed in his Observer interview that "nothing has happened" yet as far as reprisals by the Taliban are concerned. And he criticised the Times for juxtaposing two items last week to suggest that the Taliban had already killed a man as a result of the Wikileaks revelations.
"Have you see this?" he asked his interviewer, Carole Cadwalladr, waving a copy of the Times in which there was a photo of Assange below a headline reading 'Taliban hitlist row: Wikileaks founder says he did right thing' and, next to the photo, a second headline reading 'Named man is already dead'.
It was clearly imputed that the man had died as a result of Assange's actions. Only when one read the story did it become apparent that the man referred to in the headline had actually died two years ago. "It's not until the sixth paragraph you learn that," Assange said.
Meanwhile, US army investigators have been questioning people with links to Wikileaks in an apparent effort to discover whether army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning - now moved from Kuwait to an army base in Virginia - acted alone in passing the material to Wikileaks.
Several computer experts have told the US media that they have been interviewed. They include Jacob Appelbaum, a specialist in internet privacy protection, who was detained at Newark airport on his return from Amsterdam and had his laptop and three mobile phones seized by military officials.
He says he was questioned for three hours about his connections with Wikileaks and the whereabouts of Assange. Appelbaum declined to answer questions without a lawyer present.
As the Guardian reports today, the aggressive style of the inquiry is probably designed partly to discourage other would-be leakers. ·
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I risked my life to drag the wounded to safety under fire often enough to grow fatalistic about it. When your time's up, it's up. I also risked it by putting my weapon to the head of intel guys who were about to start torturing prisoners in the field. Still, they took them away and dropped them from helicopters on our perimeter. So many wasted lives and psychologically shattered survivors for what? Perhaps like me you still have dreams. You with your 20,000 disappeared and me with a million Cambodians vaporized from 30,000 ft. As for my platoon (that was as large a force as we traveled with in recon), a lot of them are either dead or in prison because they couldn't readjust. As for the 7 yr old boy, we both know this sort of thing is more common than we'd like to admit. Helicopter gunners used to brag about it. It's that slippery, blood lubed path that people take as they become more blase about the slaughter. As for the woman killed for being raped. The govt that we're trying to support agrees that she probably should have been killed. They're only complaint was that it wasn't done by them and their courts.
The Afghans never asked for our help. In fact they resent us for being foreigners in their land and I fail to find any measurable difference between a local warlord and the taliban. What's more, if we destabilize Pakistan in the process then we've only made matters worse. Nobody has ever successfully exported democracy or western humanism at the point of a gun and we're foolish to try.
Nor did I go home to be safe and moan about anything. Not long ago I was stabbed trying (successfully) to protect a homeless black vet from a gang of skinheads. I don't need to travel to distant lands to fight for those less fortunate. They're here. Now.
Only my first war was Rhodesia, after that I "wandered" a tad, and the next two hand-bag squabbles were certainly not "civil." "Don't you think it's about time to give up and admit failure?" Sorry, no, I chose to stand by those who had no defence against the likes of the Mugabes in this world, but yes it made me a "bad man," in doing so I have killed more people than most of those reading this will spill their coffee. In Zimababwe 20 000 woman, children and no doubt more than just a few men were "disappeared" down mine shafts etc by Mugabe. Should I walk away from them too? In Afghanistan recently a 7 year old was hung for being "a spy," while a woman was killed for being raped, which apparently by some is considered adultery. Should "we" leave AFGN? Ask the 7 year old, or the woman, or for that matter the 20 000 disappeared by Mugabe. We all die one day, go home, be safe, moan about your "Platoon," I hope one day you find the balls to risk dying for something or someone other than yourself.
Your war was a civil war that left very few clean hands and Mugabe as the consolation prize. Still, you were fighting for your own land. You lost, and it ended up as ugly as you said it would.
Mine was a classic war of empire using the time honoured excuse of 'helping out' in a civil war. I was not fighting for my own land and the only people that I was concerned with protecting, slept in the dirt beside me every night. We lost, and the place is just as corrupt now as it would have been if we'd won.
As I remember, we went into Afghanistan looking for bin laden. Then some kind of strange 'mission creep' took place and we find ourselves once again propping up another unpopular kleptocrat. We've been there for 9!!! years. Don't you think it's about time to give up and admit failure?
"Those who have never spent any time at the sharp end . . ." I was living in an active war-zone from the age of 10, proficient with an assualt rifle at 11, acted as shot-gun at 13, proficient with many of my opponents weapons at 14, and fired my first rounds in anger at 15. Then here www.therli.com and so on. Morality is always absent anywhere when empathy and compassion are missing, or when people are unable, for whatever reason, to connect with those we are expected to protect. It's also absent when self-hatred overcomes reason - And pulling out to leave the Afghans to sort out our mess would show real indifference, and not a lot of reason. I agree, adios to the Taliban and Al queda, but there is little point in ranting about the war if your only fix is obviously far worse for the Afghans than the problem. Afghans were being killed long before we got there, and if the Taliban are given their way, Afghans will be dying long after we have left. Whatever regrets you have over what you did thirty years ago, it won't be salved this way, the problem is not your war, the problem is what you did in it. It is the same for all of us.
Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/66625,news-comment,news-politics,us-armys-...
" And what about those who are really at risk, who also do these things sometimes because they've had family members hurt or killed by the Taliban?" I already mentioned revenge as a motivation. If they were so committed why don't they join their own armed forces?
Those who have never spent any time at the sharp end of the sausage factory that is war are quick to assign some kind of morality to those involved, when in fact the whole process is devoid of any morality outside of the consensus of the platoon. The term 'collateral damage' is inseparable from the very fabric of war and that's what these people are. If you take casualties from the same location night after night, it's very easy, even gratifying to wander over and kill everyone still hanging around. I've been there and I've spent the last 30 yrs wishing I hadn't. The innocent always die in wars and that will never change. Julian Assange broke no laws in his home country. Bradford Manning may have and will no doubt pay the price. More due diligence (top secret classification) from the military would have made the crime beyond his limited skills to commit. Personally, I'd like to see every man, woman and child of the taliban and al queda eradicated from the planet. Barring that, bring everyone home and let the Afghans sort out the mess we created. Besides, I have yet to see anyone verify that these names are even in there. Do you trust your govt? Fool if you do.
"The real crime was not keeping these 'informants' names top secret." No, the real crime was for Julian Assange not to keep their names secret at all. "The lower classification shows just how little the Americans care about the safety of their sources."
Again no, the public revelation of those sources identities actually shows just how little Assange cares about their safety. "Just because the truth is painful doesn't mean it should remain hidden." Really? Painful for who? For you? For Julian Assange? How courageous of you both. And what about those who are really at risk, who also do these things sometimes because they've had family members hurt or killed by the Taliban? Or don't they or their families matter? The world is not as simple as you. How painful is that truth?
Snitches are never heroes. They do it for money or revenge or fear of blackmail and if you think those Afghan 'informants' are any different, I envy you your innocence. Julian Assange is not a snitch, but rather a man who's pointing out the emperor's nudity by merely confirming what we knew all along to be true. The real crime was not keeping these 'informants' names top secret. The lower classification shows just how little the Americans care about the safety of their sources. Just because the truth is painful doesn't mean it should remain hidden.
Well said Andrew the man is more suited to a a mental home along with the other misguided nutters who think its clever to risk brave peoples lives.Self centred delusionists
Thanks for the laugh guys. You confirmed to me there really are some nut jobs out there. Calling someone a hero or Robin Hood, who posts out the names of people who risked their life to help the coalition make Afghanistan free really is an inverted World.
Halo- Halo, who's your fucked-up friend?! The man is nothing short of a modern day hero. So many of us stand, sit or slouch whilst longing for our very own Robin Hood. Long may J. Assange live and reign over the ever more constricted aether.
Rock on Julian...
War is huge business involving corporations and governments and the fact that people are killed is nothing more than collateral damage as long as there is profit
there is nothing to gain helping homeless sick or old people except a halo or maybe a seat in heaven in the afterlife at best
Mr. Assange is simply a brave messenger. The generals and politicians are the merchants of death. The press support them in the hope of hanging on to their news sources of security and government briefings. Lets hope Assange carries on banging nails into the coffin of that sick war that kills the huge numbers as evidenced by the paper.
The hysterical tirades eminating from the US are unreal. The US government is nothing more than a gigantic war machine and they have constructed a security apparatus of federal, military and private agencies so huge and full of internal conflict that it leaks like a sieve. If Admiral Mullen believes his own words then he is a fool or just plain ignorant. The administration should really get to grips with reality and understand that they, and US corporate media, are simply not believed, not respected, not trusted.