Any propaganda victory emboldens and strengthens the enemy. This is inarguable. It will also cause easier and more rapid recruitment of soldiers to fight in the cause. This is also inarguable. For crying out loud, look up the flooding of our own recruiting offices after Top Gun hit the theatres. And we weren’t even at war with anyone then.

Couple that with revised rules of engagement which *will* cause soldiers to err on the side of caution and you have a prescription for increased casualties of American service people. Period. End of Story. Full stop.

Clrly, y mst b jkng. Lt m knw whn y wnt t hv srs dscssn.

This is inarguable…This is also inarguable…which *will* cause…Period. End of Story. Full stop…Let me know when you want to have a serious discussion.

A serious discussion is impossible when one of the speakers adopts a defensive posture of unassailable dogmatic ineffability. You don’t want to have a discussion, you want to be right. Have fun with your impenetrable shield make-believe veracity, I’ll be here with the grown-ups in Reality, where there are precious few inevitabilities to cling to.

I see what your saying, that publishing this information may encourage enemy troops and demoralize friendly. But that doesn’t make it OK for government/media agents to project a contrary or positive picture of a war that has cost so many lives (Innocent or not).

This is a propaganda war. And if few or many die because of this leak, it does not effect the weight of truth over lies. Or is truth (like health care) not a basic right in america?

Afghanistan was undoubtedly brought to the attention of the Americans simply because the Russians set up a puppet government there. However, what that attention saw was the biggest post-WWII genocide underway.

So, what do you call Cambodia under Pol Pot then?

Protecting the troops who may be involved in current operations that may be compromised.

So you say.

But I have not seen anything to suggest that this is Wiki’s motivation. If Im wrong please provide an example?

What I’m wondering (out loud) is if Wikileaks are more self serving than they’d have us believe?

Sorry, and sure, call me paranoid (just another form of awareness bub), but Im not especially willing to take information gathered by this group at face value. This has lots to do with the transparency they espouse for the rest of us, but not, perhaps, for themselves?

So they ‘leaked’ these documents. Do any one of them offer anything so shocking that it will get our asses out of there?

Will the massive leak just because of the weight of documents get our asses out of there?

When these guys & gals burp do bird feathers pop out of their mouths?

These guys are the side show freaks in a tent off to the side of the Big Top. A huge distraction of our attention. The only thing that this is going to accomplish for the American people is this:

“Oooo shiny! What’s this over here?”

When George W. Bush in Black Face actually changes our current Foreign Policy – our World Occupation Policy – give me a call and wake me up. Until then enjoy the farce!

Also, perhaps the release of this info will reduce the number of incidents such as this.

This information certainly wont help public opinion of the war.

Let’s not forget what this is actually about. This information shows that we have been lied to about how things are going in Afghanistan. Billions of tax dollars have been spent on this effort, and the facts have been misrepresented since the beginning.

Maybe it doesn’t make the government budge in terms of getting out of there. But wouldn’t you want to know if you’ve been had?

Not a damn word about the people who will pay the price for this : the troops on the ground.

I don’t think this changes their situation at all. They were well aware of this. It’s their intel that was leaked.

What this will do is give the people with the power to vote for Commanders in Chief a clearer view of the situation, so that they can vote for authorities that reflect their views.

Care about the troops? Don’t waste your vote on any president, senator, representative, judge, or city comptroller who wants to send them to die in meaningless wars. Make this an issue.

I’m generally pro the Afghan war, but I think an informed populace is a populace more likely to make considered decisions. The troops are safer because of this, because we are less likely to waste their lives frivolously. When a soldier is sent to die in a desert somewhere because a president put them there, it’s important to realize that we gave the president that power. We can take it away.

Leaked War Files Expose Identities of Afghan Informants

Yeah, the link is FOX, but it’s a recap of a Times of London story which is behind a paywall. According to them, the names of Afghan informants are included in the documents. Those individuals are now at risk of reprisal. More generally, people will be less willing to come forward if they believe their identities cannot be kept secret. Less solid intelligence means more mistakes. Mistakes lead to deaths, mostly civilian. Assuming the Times article is accurate, the release of the documents can cause real harm.

The real shame of this is that the documents released tell us little that is new about the war strategically. It’s a bloody mess, probably unwinnable, whatever winning means. Anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last two years could tell you that. This gives us more specific examples of the way in which the war has gone badly over the past six years, but we already knew the broad strokes. Furthermore, if people can’t be bothered to read a well-written newspaper article to get informed, why would they ever bother wading into the impenetrable thicket of military lingo WikiLeaks published?

The reasons the Pentagon Papers were so compelling were, one: they were a professionally written history, easily digestible by anyone; two: they directly contradicted the public claims of the government and showed the reasons for the war were built on a scaffold of lies and wishful thinking. The documents released here are neither easily understood nor revelatory.

ok, put yourself in Applebaum’s shoes.

Option 1 – accept the documents with the redactions asked by the source, and publish them for the world to see.

Option 2 – tell your source “sorry. It’s Wikileaks way, or the highway” and watch those documents go back into deep storage.

Sorry. But I’m not sure that your either/or scenario holds much weight. Primarily because I have to doubt the credibility of an “organization” that by definition is secretive and pretty un-transparent.

I don’t know the veracity of the Source information.

I do know that Wikileaks have proven to be very comfortable distributing secret and illegally obtained information. So I think it’s reasonable to ask what else they are comfortable doing?

Skepticism is not a moveable feast yes?

I believe there are major hurdles to be crossed before any claims of “data journalism” can be made. For instance, Who is vetting the material? When sent to the (selected) press, how does the synopsis read? How can we know the material is being accurately represented from the whole?

As I said, I really do believe in the core principals of this group. I think transparency is the cornerstone of any great democracy and I have no problems whatsoever with the leaking of “sensitive” information. WikiLeaks has paved the way and they should be given credit, but I hope they are not the ideal. Ideally, all material should be made available at the same time to all press and the press should be the ones determining what the information means (not given an overview). There also should be no need for a press conference to give your view on what the information means. By putting out commentary the organization is just becoming part of the problem they are trying to help solve. If you truly believe in transparency and freedom of information , be more open in your process and let the information stand on its own. There are some things that should have no agenda attached and information is one of them.

1. Increased radicalism caused by propaganda victories.

2. Increased hesitation to return fire, even at the cost of life.

Here is the simple logic of the situation : a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If you are Taliban in Afghanistan, the simple fact is they haven’t invented numbers low enough to describe the probability of you getting your hands on G.W. Bush or B.H. Obama. So who are you going to take out your anger on?

Contradict that.

Can I contradict MSNBC? Yes. As former US Military (Navy) I can state with 100% confidence that reviews of the rules of engagement for Afghanistan are going on right now. You can bet the changes will not enhance the safety of our troops. You can bet the rule changes will make our troops less able to return fire. You can bet more American service people will die as a result of it. All in the name of political correctness. It’s much easier to hold your beliefs when you aren’t being shot at, or the target of a suicide bomber. When you aren’t taking fire it is easy to sit back and forget the troops, or the effect your words have on them.

I wonder what happened to Liberal Democrats. It used to be criticism of Bush was the highest form of dissent, but with Obama – not so much. Where are all the war protests that were legion under Bush? The weight of evidence shows that modern Liberalism is rife with hypocrisy, heavily laden with emotion and oh-so-weak on intellectual pursuits. You know – like thinking : if I say this, could this possibly harm the troops in the field? Sadly, the question will never be asked by Liberals simply because they do not have bullets whizzing around their heads.

Not so long ago, absolute moral authority was granted to the person in the situation. If you didn’t experience it first hand, the Left tried to suppress dissent because of alleged lack of standing. Yet we now question that same moral authority so eagerly granted then. Truly, the Left actively undercuts that self-same moral authority because it does not suit their purposes anymore. And that’s a pity, but again illustrates the lack of thought, hypocrisy and raw emotion that passes for modern Liberalism.

Oh wait….Bush is out of office now??? Sorry, missed the memo.

-1 for 1MacGeek.

So your argument is that the people we are already at war with will be angrier at us, therefore somehow more able to bestow harm, now that the entire world knows what they already knew?

To suggest that the “Taliban” or “AlQaida in Afghanistan” are our enemy, while pretending that Pakistan is our ally, is a recipe for another decade of no-win skirmishes and a few dozen caskets flying home every month, to no purpose. So I am reluctantly forced to admit that opening up classified information about Pakistan’s involvement is probably a Good Thing.

We should either go after the enemy’s enablers full bore, or go home. Unfortunately Obama is perpetuating the previous administration’s policy of stepping on a rattlesnake, but not killing it.

The second point about propaganda seems naive. The only thing that radicalizes Afghans further is our continued presence in their country. The leaks themselves suggest one of the most effective times to recruit mujaheddin is at a civilian funeral – the collateral damage as they say. People are radicalized one way or the other by personal experience usually accompanied by violence and poverty, not by an article they read on the web (does an Afghan poppy farmer really get information that way? I’m pretty sure they are aware of what’s going on without a western reporter telling them). Unfortunately the only propaganda war going on is focused on Americans, and poor folks like you who blindly sign up for service and somehow still believe Tennyson’s couplet: “Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do and die.”

Interesting interview, interesting times. (But isn’t that supposed to be a curse? ;) )

How will they pay?

1. Increased radicalism caused by propaganda victories.

2. Increased hesitation to return fire, even at the cost of life.

That’s been the situation for 9 years, man. Extra info on how the fight is hard and Pakistan is acting like a git isn’t going to cause any more radicalism in Afghanistan than shooting families and bombing wedding parties already has, and soldiers who are in a place to return fire don’t have the luxury of thinking or hesitating, that’s for their commanding officers to do.

Here is the simple logic of the situation : a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If you are Taliban in Afghanistan, the simple fact is they haven’t invented numbers low enough to describe the probability of you getting your hands on G.W. Bush or B.H. Obama. So who are you going to take out your anger on?

Same people they’ve been taking it out on for about two decades: whoever they can intimidate. Mostly, innocent bystanders, since those don’t shoot back.

You can bet the changes will not enhance the safety of our troops. You can bet the rule changes will make our troops less able to return fire. You can bet more American service people will die as a result of it. All in the name of political correctness.

…and there you’ve clearly jumped the shark. I don’t know why you’d think that any commanding officer would put more lives at risk for some political expedience, or why this would even change the rules, since it seems like the White House believes they’ve already changed, and it’s not like this massive leak shows any unusual or outrageous civilian deaths.

I wonder what happened to Liberal Democrats.

If all you see when you look at this is a political talking-point, you need to get your perspectve-specs updated.

If wikileaks can trace any of THAT drug money it would be telling… might have to call in Lester Freamon to set up a wire…