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kame
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 2566
Location: Alba Nuadh
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 Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:03 pm Post subject: The War Logs |
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90'000 records of the Afgan War Leaked
A few of the good bits:
- Taliban has heat-seeking missiles, American helicopters just as susceptible as the Russian ones were.
- Pakistas and Iran are suspected of aiding the insurgency.
- Afgan Intelligence services and police inept, corrupt, prone to desertion, as well as abuse of power.
And I love the boilerplate reply from some random general:
| Quote: | General Jones also condemned the decision by WikiLeaks to make the documents public, saying that “the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.”
“WikiLeaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted,” General Jones said. |
I'd like someone to explain to me how this makes any sense, given that any data that could endanger current operations has been held back.
But anyway, lets see if the world gives a shit about this. |
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nathan
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 5:51 am Post subject: Re: The War Logs |
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| kame wrote: | | I'd like someone to explain to me how this makes any sense, given that any data that could endanger current operations has been held back. |
Assuming A) Wikileaks knows as much about all current operations as the government itself, and B) Wikileak's estimation of "endanger" is 100% consistent with the government's... then no, it doesn't make any sense. Otherwise, there's a shit-ton of room for argument.
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Thy Brilliance
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3661
Location: Relative
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:05 am Post subject: Playing God, judging all. |
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| Until I see some form of a metric as to how the hell wikileaks decides what info to publish and what not to publish, I can't fully trust them. |
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Sam the Eagle
Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 2277
Location: 192.168.0.1
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:39 am Post subject: |
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That madea good read, nothing really new, or earth-shattering, here though.
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Him
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 4197
Location: On edge
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:41 pm Post subject: Re: Playing God, judging all. |
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| Thy Brilliance wrote: | | Until I see some form of a metric as to how the hell wikileaks decides what info to publish and what not to publish, I can't fully trust them. |
YES I DEMAND A METRIC!
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tinkeringIdiot
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 1057
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| him wrote: | | YES I DEMAND A METRIC! |
No way in hell! My car gets 90 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I like it! |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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it will be interesting to see how this plays out. there's really nothing here that we didn't know already - even the fact that the taliban has heat-seeking missiles is not that much of a surprise, since they were using them against the russians. and as npr pointed out - this is pretty low-level stuff, raw reports, so some of it is unverified.
but i wonder if seeing it all together in one steaming heap is going to mean some changes - like, say, a big push to just get us out. i really hate the idea of leaving the place to the taliban, especially since a lot of the reasons for our failure go back to the criminal incompetence of the bush admin - all that time, all that money, all those lives, and bin laden ends up winning, and everything is back as it was. but you see all that stuff about the incompetence/corruption/sheer lack of interest by the afghan police and military....we can't win if we want it more than the afghans do. we should have learned that, at least, from viet nam.
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Willem
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 6306
Location: wasteland style
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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Bin Laden has already won ages ago.
The Taliban =/= Al Qaeda btw.
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nathan
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 6282
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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Most insightful piece I've read yet.
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All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. - Marky Mark Proust |
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kame
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 2566
Location: Alba Nuadh
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:53 pm Post subject: Re: The War Logs |
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| nathan wrote: | | kame wrote: | | I'd like someone to explain to me how this makes any sense, given that any data that could endanger current operations has been held back. |
Assuming A) Wikileaks knows as much about all current operations as the government itself, and B) Wikileak's estimation of "endanger" is 100% consistent with the government's... then no, it doesn't make any sense. Otherwise, there's a shit-ton of room for argument. |
The Wikileaks people state that they have a 'Harm Minimization' protocol to well, minimize the potential harm of releasing sensitive information. They also state that they have held back many documents to assess the potential harm in them, and that names may have to be redacted in the interest of protecting the safety of said people.
Also, all this information is at least 7 months old, so I have to question the White Houses statement that leaking this information endangers peoples lives. I'm sure the people in Afghanistan are well aware of the things that occur in their own country, and a lot more besides. |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 17855
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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well, as i said - the average consumer of non-fox news knew all this, we just didn't have actual incident reports or see the whole thing as one whole sum.
i must say, though - "names may have to be redacted in the interest of protecting the safety of said people. " suggests more a concern on protecting the safety of the whistle-blower, rather than the troops in the field. not the it's not good to protect the whistle-blowers, but it's sort of a different notion of "safety".
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ShadowCell
Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 6260
Location: California
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:02 pm Post subject: Re: The War Logs |
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| Quote: | | General Jones also condemned the decision by WikiLeaks to make the documents public, saying that “the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.” |
not according to the Pentagon, so far. |
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Willem
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
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Location: wasteland style
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| mouse wrote: | | well, as i said - the average consumer of non-fox news knew all this |
Did they? There's a whole area between well informed person and fox news viewer.
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Mizike
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 5146
Location: Iowa City
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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If you watch/read/listen to the news (other than Fox) and you didn't know this stuff, then you're blind deaf and dumb - not mute, just dumb.
It's still damned depressing.
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Willem
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 6306
Location: wasteland style
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| Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Mizike wrote: | | If you watch/read/listen to the news (other than Fox) and you didn't know this stuff, then you're blind deaf and dumb - not mute, just dumb. |
You're forgetting about the many, many people that don't care enough to find this type of information. Not everybody watches the news or reads papers. And if they do, they might not read the bits about Afghanistan.
They may vaguely know that Afghanistan isn't going very well, but anything more than that? I doubt it.
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attitude of a street punk, only cutting selected words out of context to get onself excuse to let one's dirty mouth loose |
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