WikiLeaks leaking 400,000 classified Iraq War documents.

[Pinky]

The site will soon publish 400,000 secret documents that are expected to give a never-before-seen, uncensored view of the Iraq War. A source close to WikiLeaks said the material covers the period from 2004 through 2009 -- nearly the entirety of the conflict, which began in 2003. On August 31, President Obama declared the combat mission in Iraq over.
The number of documents in this anticipated leak could dwarf the Afghan War Diary which WikiLeaks published in July. The massive, searchable database containing more than 70,000 classified documents about the Afghanistan War is regarded as the biggest intelligence leak in U.S. history and garnered international headlines.
The ground-level view of the war was a much bleaker portrait than the official one from Washington.
This impending leak could be just as revealing.
The Pentagon, which was surprised and furious about the Afghan document leak, says it's prepared this time. It's assembled a team of 120 experts who are poised to immediately begin reading any documents on the WikiLeaks site, said spokesman Col. Dave Lapan. [...]

Read more here (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/10/22/wikileaks.iraq.documents/index.html?hpt=C1). [CNN]


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There's a video here (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/10/20101022184243877818.html). [Al Jazeera]

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In what is being described as the largest release of secret U.S. military documents ever, the whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks has released a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq, including a secret U.S. government tally that puts the Iraqi death toll between 109,000 and 285,000, according to news sources that received advanced copies of the documents.

Those documents include evidence of state sanctioned torture by the Iraqi government, new evidence of Iraqi government death squads, and Iran's involvement in funneling arms to Shiite militias, according to Arab news channel Al Jazeera, which has been able to review the documents before their release.[...]

More here (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikleaks-dumps-thousands-classified-military-documents/story?id=11949670). [abc news].

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Quite surprised there hasn't been a topic on this.
Personally, I'm going to hold judgement until they're all posted and I've read some. I'm hanging out on wikileaks chat (the site is down, and I'm assuming there will be a DoS attack as soon as it gets back up) and reading most of the links posted there. It's worth a look.
Now all we need to do is to get the British Government to release the real David Kelly files.

EDIT: They're up! Right here (http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/). I'm off to do some reading.

[WashingtonBay]

I'm not sure what to say about it. I haven't wanted to read it. I'm not sure what it should mean to me or how to put any of it in it's proper perspective.

My first question would be "Is it real?" and if yes, "How the hell does wikileaks get this stuff?"

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

They did the same thing with a bunch of Afghanistan documents before, which fortunately turned out to be a big yawn. Hopefully that's the case this time too.

But Treason isn't determined by the damage done. It's any aid and comfort to the enemy. It's a willfull compromise of classified information. The proprietors of Wikileaks should should be arrested and summarily shot. Immediately. That's the penalty.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

whoops. double-posted. Have had some wicked access troubles. Nevermind....

[twofingers]

I don't believe their "leaks" per Se. these are supposed to be secret documents? how secure do you feel knowing how easily they were obtained.
I think the administration needs a villain- you know make us look the other way. and everybody's favorite villains are Bush and Cheney and those evil murderous military demons...
:poo:

[Tiz]

The problem, two, is apparently information in these papers confirm Saddam had WMD. Or so I hear. I'm not sure that will stoke the hatred on the left very well, if that's the case. But no worries, the hatred on the left is raging plenty high anyway. I do agree that it's most likely happening now as a distraction.

The guy in the military that gave this information the Wikileaks is the one who should be shot. What is taking his trial so long to put together?

[natisha]

What I don't get is why they can't figure out who is doing this? Maybe they should put WB on the case, she can figure out who is who.

[Pinky]

What is taking his trial so long to put together?

I think I read (could be wrong) that he committed suicide not long after releasing the documents and owning up to it.

I've not had time to sit down and properly read the documents yet but if they prove that Saddam had WMDs then I'll actually be relieved - at least it'll prove that governments are willing to do the right thing with little/no monetary gain.

[natisha]

I think the WMD are the terrorists themselves.

[WashingtonBay]

I think I read (could be wrong) that he committed suicide not long after releasing the documents and owning up to it.

Well... generally that will get a guy out of a trial. I haven't heard what happened to him.

[FredRock]

My understanding of the leaks is that the US blatantly ignored investigating crimes committed by Iraqi soldiers on Iraqi civillians (so torture and like crimes). It also proves we tortured Iraqis, and killed many more civillians than we claimed. Also there's a video about a "lawyer" claiming that the targets could not surrender to a hellicopter, and ordering the soldiers to kill everyone. It also has evidence that we committed war crimes. I personally don't know much more about this, just what was on the show and what we talked about in class.

For whatever reason, the link my professor gave me isn't working. But if you go to democracynow.org and look at the show for October 25th, it's about the leaks. It shows the video of the hellicopter and explains the leaks more.

[natisha]

Well... generally that will get a guy out of a trial. I haven't heard what happened to him.:hysterical:

[WashingtonBay]

My understanding of the leaks is that the US blatantly ignored investigating crimes committed by Iraqi soldiers on Iraqi civillians (so torture and like crimes). It also proves we tortured Iraqis, and killed many more civillians than we claimed. Also there's a video about a "lawyer" claiming that the targets could not surrender to a hellicopter, and ordering the soldiers to kill everyone. It also has evidence that we committed war crimes. I personally don't know much more about this, just what was on the show and what we talked about in class.

For whatever reason, the link my professor gave me isn't working. But if you go to democracynow.org and look at the show for October 25th, it's about the leaks. It shows the video of the hellicopter and explains the leaks more.

I will preface my statement by saying I haven't read any of the documents, and don't really intend to.

It's my belief that documents in secure files may allege and make a lot of claims. Even unproven, contradicted, and false documents would be kept and filed as a matter of intelligence and record keeping, would they not?

The key to making useful interpretation of documents and files is the big picture. Skilled eyes with proper perspective making a learned judgment about them and their voracity. And that's not me.

It is also my belief that in modern war we go to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties and as a matter of policy, conduct a just war. We are probably much more focused on that than in any war in history. But war is messy and dirty, and very necessarily, things get broken and people get killed. It's what war is. It's what we accept will happen and why the decision to go is a grave one. We made that decision.

[Tiz]

The guy isn't dead. He's in the brig in Virginia.

The Rules of Engagement in both of these wars have been so strict, we've lost soldiers as a consequence. Is there any mention of that fact in your class, Fred?

[WashingtonBay]

The guy isn't dead. He's in the brig in Virginia.

And I'd already fully grieved him - well, I guess he's back on the hook then. ;)

And yes, in all seriousness, the punishment in his case needs to be grave. It has to be.

[FredRock]

The Rules of Engagement in both of these wars have been so strict, we've lost soldiers as a consequence. Is there any mention of that fact in your class, Fred?

I'm in Ethnic Diversity and we're studying the Declaration of Human Rights put forth by the UN. The angle the teacher had was more geared toward how awful the government was for doing this, and how it was hypocritical and there was conspiracy in the government. He's very anti-torture and anti-war. One guy spoke up about torture, and the teacher proceeded to rip him to shreds. He didn't mention how we've lost soldiers at all, he was more focused on how many civillians we killed in the process. He said that we're committing genocide.

He didn't want a discussion as much as a lecture about his personal views. I don't even understand why this was brought up, as I see no relevance from this to ethnic diversity besides the fact that torture breaches Article 5 of Human Rights. But that isn't law in the least.

As for the leak, I don't want to make an opinion on something when I obviously don't know that much about. I mean I watch the news and saw the clip I mentioned but the media is so biased and the information is so telescoped. I was just stating what I'd garnered from the clip.

I think it's rediculous to try to keep soldiers to our standards for moral conduct, because we're not getting shot at on a regular basis and we don't have to fear for our lives 24/7. No one can understand a situation like that until they've experienced it.

[WashingtonBay]

Are you going to The Evergreen State College?

Sounds like their output.

Lovely.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I'm in Ethnic Diversity and we're studying the Declaration of Human Rights put forth by the UN. [...].

[sigh] This is an actual college class? For credit?

[FredRock]

[sigh] This is an actual college class? For credit?

It's required for me to get my Criminal Justice and Criminology degree. Most of it is Intro to Sociology rehashed, but then we got into this and I'm confused as to where we're headed.

No WB, I'm at Keuka College. I've found a lot of...well I can't really think of the word to describe them all at once. Eccentric might work, I suppose. Some are great and really love what they do. Others...well they make me wonder why I'm here.

[WashingtonBay]

Well, it's too bad, when someone who has been hired as a teacher of a subject, doesn't have the perspective to appropriately assess politically based conspiracy theories and understand the definition and appropriate use of a word like genocide. Historical perspective is vital to such a position, and to usage of such words. It'd be grounds for firing if I were in charge.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

If you really want to see a liberal prof's head explode... show him this:
YouTube - Pallywood - truth in the middle east hollyland, what goes behind the scenes and for the cameras

But wait until after you get your grade.

(Apologies for the vile comments on that youtube. Seems it can't be helped.)

These same tactics-- in fact the very same video crews, sometimes-- were at work in Iraq, supporting the insurgents.

[FredRock]

Well, it's too bad, when someone who has been hired as a teacher of a subject, doesn't have the perspective to appropriately assess politically based conspiracy theories and understand the definition and appropriate use of a word like genocide. Historical perspective is vital to such a position, and to usage of such words. It'd be grounds for firing if I were in charge.

In his defense, he is normally very neutral. This was something totally out of the blue, from the human rights to politics. Human Rights aren't even in our textbook and politics rarely ever enter the class.

There are people that believe in a very loose definition of genocide. I lost the weblink a different teacher gave me about that point of view. I'm going to see if I can find it (I was trying to find it before I posted). But the person's view was that any intentional act of violence against women and children in war is genocide. There were at least 20 events that were considered genocides following the line of thought. Interesting take, even though I don't agree with it.

But I don't think calling it a genocide is a fireable offense. It's his opinion and he has a right to it, however deviant it may be. College is a time to broaden exposure to different opinions, even if they're considered the "wrong" ones.

Ragnar:

Well that clip blew my mind. My jaw was dropped through the majority of it.

[mare]

Very good video, RD. I'm sending it on to some who believe everything they see on popular media.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Very good video, RD. I'm sending it on to some who believe everything they see on popular media.

There's so much stuff out there that journalists don't even bother to check out. For another example, here's a well-known photo that accompanied an AP story about Iraq, during the height of the insurgency. The caption was that this woman was holding "two bullets that hit her house" and of course they narrowly missed her children:

Can anybody spot the possible weak spot in her story?

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Oh... while I'm at it... here's yet another AP story at another time, about a woman in Iraq who's distraught over the bombing of her neighborhood.

Notice anything?

[WashingtonBay]

I know... ;)

[Tiz]

I guess someone fired those bullets kind of like Nolan Ryan would fire a fastball.

I can't see much in the second picture, too little.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I guess someone fired those bullets kind of like Nolan Ryan would fire a fastball.

I can't see much in the second picture, too little.

Re: the first pic: yes. unless somebody was throwing unexpended rounds at houses...

Re: the second pic: it's the same woman.

[twofingers]

I believe it is also a construction staging site. Note the new HAVAC unit behind her

[Tiz]

Yes, just like Nolan. No gun involved.