We need organizations that are true watchdogs of the government. Governments should be made uncomfortable by the press.
However, WikiLeaks lost me when they released selectively edited video, spliced in editorial overlays, registered a domain name "CollateralMurder" and advocated a position.
Don't write off Wikileaks just yet. The art of being a trusted leak distribution entity is a new one, and I expect the finesse and execution to improve as time goes on.
That said I'm glad the leak happened even if there was some hoopla associated with it.
They lost me when they published some leak involving a bank and did not blank out customer information.
If my bank does something shady, its fine for whistleblowers to expose them, but they shouldn't screw over innocent bank customers while exposing the bank itself.
"WikiLeaks lost me when they released selectively edited video, spliced in editorial overlays, registered a domain name "CollateralMurder" and advocated a position."
Showing that the U.S. Military makes mistakes helps destroy the dangerous myth that all U.S. servicemen are saints. I have no idea how this meme that "WikiLeaks is bad because it showed U.S. soldiers doing bad things" was born, but it's, frankly, really ludicrous. When you see cold-blooded murder right before your eyes, you do take a stand. If you don't, you're a monster. Or an accomplice. Period.
You missed my point entirely. If they want to leak material showing the government doing "bad things", go ahead. Leak it. All of it. The more the better.
But selectively EDITING video and hyping it under the "Collateral Murder" banner enters into ADVOCACY.
> But selectively EDITING video and hyping it under the "Collateral Murder" banner enters into ADVOCACY.
To be fair, both the edited and the complete video of the attack were released simultaneously.
Watching some 40 minutes of a clip mostly filled with inaction vs. the clip containing only the important parts with context, which would you rather watch? I know what I'll choose, time is important to me.
I can almost understand your argument against the editorializing, but the bottom line (at least to me) is that Wikileaks does eventually leak all data in its entirety, you can so choose to ignore all their commentary if you desire.
In addition, there is a lot of "context" in the edited out footage of even Wikileaks "full" version (timestamps):
0:26 The “Black van” dropping off possible insurgents.
0:46 “We got a target fifteen coming at you, it’s a guy with a weapon.”
1:05 “One of them has a weapon.”
1:27 Guy carrying AK-47, and other with RPG (no way it a tripod) that had previously fired on U.S. Troops. WikiLeak video distracts you with letter box about a camera Bag).
3:53 “Roger, be advised, there were some guys popping out with the AKs behind that dirt pile. Break.”
4:25 “Uh, location, I have about 12 to 15 dead bodies. Where else were you taking fire from?”
4:34 They had AK-47s and were to our East. So, where we were taking small arms fire, over.
4:59 “I also wanted to make sure you knew that we had a guy with an RPG crouching around the corner, Getting ready to fire on your location. That’s why we requested permission to engage.”
5:17 (IMPORTANT) “Six this is four, I got one individual looks like he’s got an RPG round laying underneath him. Break.” (Note: Four was at the scene of the shooting and found an RPG, of course wikileaks left that out).
5:43 “ I can hear small arms fire from your engagement area…”
6:10 “Right about where we engaged? Yeah, one of them with that RPG or whatever.”
6:19 “He’s got a weapon. Got an RP–, uh AK-47.”
6:34 “Roger, we have another individual with a weapon.”
Update: Wikileaks editor Jullian Assange told CNN yesterday that the 39 minute video is "everything we have. It is a continuous take except for one 20 minute interval." So, ___Wikileaks did not edit the video themselves—their source did___.
Although, the article goes on to argue whether they still can call it the "full video", but that's just a debate of semantics then. I am at the moment unsure whether the timestamped captions were a part of the original source video or not. It would be disappointing if it were, just as disappointing was WikiLeaks' decision to go by the 'collateral damage' domain, still however -- they are doing what they need to be doing: leaking material.
"they are doing what they need to be doing: leaking material."
My overarching point is they are not "leaking" raw material - they are pushing "produced" and "edited" material to advocate a single viewpoint.
Those statements (w/timestamps) were not just "boring" parts omitted by Wikileaks in the 17min version -- I actually argue they were quite interesting-- they were dropped by them because it didn't fit the narrative implied by the "Collateral" murder theme.
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to communicate here -- the Gawker article you linked to makes it clear that Wikileaks did not cut/edit the video.
Anyway, I think perhaps they do need to separate themselves into two wings and clearly mark that distinction: one that provides raw video with zero commentary, and another that puts clues together, analyzes information, etc. to make it presentable for the common consumer as 'news'.
Wikileaks presented the video as "full & uncut" and Gawker called them out on it. Notice they didn't mention the 30min was removed when promoting that video..they had to be called out on it.
Then, they hyped the 17min version and edited out all that radio traffic I chronicled (w/timestamps) - not for brevity sake - but because it didn't fit the narrative.
your are delusional about the definition of murder and war.
1. Murder is the un-lawful killing of humans by other humans.
2. Murder in war occurs when humans kill other humans by not acting within the confines of the rules of war.
Although most military bodies including US military have to follow Geneva convention that does not mean every war time act is lawful. How many unlawful military acts in Iraq/Afghanistan got prosecuted last year? More than one did.
This specific event has not been ruled un-lawful yet and reporters are always told that in battle areas if they are with the armed enemy they may risk being fired upon.
Hence, the Collateral part of the video name. However, usually in these cases its the organization workings that fail the solider in determining differences between lawful and unlawful acts not the individual solider himself or herself.
Semantics" is pretty important when talking what connotes murder. But, stepping back, your response is a bit non-sequitur. What do you mean legal?
Under Chapter VII, the U.N. doesn't "approve" wars or invasions. They "restore international peace and security." Are the US and all the other countries involved not sovereign? In the scope of the U.N., even more sovereign than most?
So, was the invasion legal in the U.S.? The Iraq Resolution passed congress.
Coalition forces (not just the U.S.) have killed civilians. All actors in the conflict have. That doesn't make it right.
Arguing legality is a bit over the top. The rationales for the beginning of the conflict (WMD, etc.) have been invalidated. But, that doesn't change the reality at hand.
Not an awful lot to do with that specific video; which is our whole point about pushing the agenda. It was twisted from an important video about the killing of civilians into a statement about the legitimacy of the war.
That is exactly what Fox or one of the other big networks do to stories ;)
So you were totally undisturbed by the video because the rules of war were followed? I though the point of the video was to shed light on what that actually means.
In this case something which looks a lot like a fairly hasty series of actions that led up to a callous killing, even though it was within the rules of engagement.
Things like the idea of the "rules of war" exist to help the public believe that war is proper, hygenic and rule-driven... not a bunch of scared-shitless adrenaline charged youth on what is essentially an unchecked rampage.
The title "collateral murder" was intended to focus the viewer's attention on the appropriateness of the killings and thus of the war.
I found it disturbing as well, even though I couldn't really find it in my heart to blame the guys who shot the journalists.
I think the point of the leak was to show the public a side of war that we don't typically see so that we might realize that war is actually quite an ugly, morally shaky undertaking.
If Fox spins the fact to sell war, why would spinning the facts to sell peace be morally wrong?
Because that way lies insanity - it also undermines any arguments against Fox's bias. In fact it becomes even more problematic; if both sides are twisting the story then that risk legitimising Fox's stance. That is dangerous.
Morally it would be... complicated but could be done in good faith. Logically it seems a poor choice.
I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I happen to think what Wikileaks is doing is important, and calling something "Collateral Murder" makes people pay attention to them. On the other, I wonder if there isn't anything else we can do to make people unwilling to read source documents do something other than herd themselves to and from each talking head who gets their attention. Is it sane, or even possible, to leak things in manner that contains no bias, and to choose what to actually leak with no bias, without becoming mostly useless noise? I honestly don't know.
But, Wikileaks does always release the full, unedited source of what they're leaking. If nothing else, it's a step above mainstream Western journalism.
Wikileaks don't need to generate publicity for stuff they leak. If it benefits left-wing talking points HuffPo will sensationalize it; if it benefits right-wing talking points Drudge will. There's no shortage of hype and sensationalization--Wikileaks don't need to generate it themselves unless they want to self-aggrandize.
Pentagon declared Wikileaks as a threat to national security.
I we look at The Apache helicopter and Australian internet plans leaks, the government was trying to do something wrong, which Wikileaks exposed. Now they have been declared threat to national security. Great progress in hypocrisy.
That's just about the most generous possible interpretation of what's been happening with Wikileaks.
A less generous interpretation:
* Wikileaks leaked the video that accompanies a detailed transcript (with quotes) of the same video that appeared in the Washington Post many months beforehand --- a PR black eye to be sure, but in no way a revelation.
* Wikileaks has in fact cultivated confidential sources inside DoD and military service agencies that are talking about forwarding cables and other TS-classified material, and is in fact part of a grave threat to national security (which, true, the real "threat" is clearly the negligent lapses in operational security that allow someone like Manning to leak cables in the first place).
In other words: Wikileaks is less valuable to society than it seems, and at the same time the government has a legitimate (if misdirected) concern with them.
I just found the whole story a quite odd - the Wired reporter and his friend's difficult to believe story, this low-level kid, the obvious desire - and leaked plans - of the US to find and punish leakers to discredit Wikileaks.
I don't care that much either. On net, I think Wikileaks is a good thing, but I've never donated and never would until they are more transparent about their own operations. Re that video, the first half wasn't what disturbed me, but rather the firing of the missiles into the building in the second half.
But there's an obvious strategy for the US to discredit Wikileaks, and that's to find someone - anyone - that appears to have leaked to them, and come down hard on them. Finding an oddball kid suits the story they want to tell, irrelevant of how guilty he may be. But the Wired stuff is just off the wall odd.
Doesn't it bother you that without reliable evidence, you can make a similarly credible narrative out of almost anything else? Maybe it was the Bush-era DoD people who leaked the story to discredit the Obama administration! You can't prove a negative.
I'm working under the assumption that someone named Manning did in fact do something stupid with Wikileaks, which did indeed encourage him to do that stupid thing. That Wikileaks is encouraging stupid people to do stupid things is something that bothers me about Wikileaks; that stupid people are given access sufficient to do stupid and damaging things is something that bothers me about the DoD.
I don't think Wikileaks encourages stupid behaviour - as I understand it, the input avenue is primarily an file upload field.
As to evidence (in the legal sense), I don't have any one way or the other that Manning had anything to do with the leak. I just have media reports, which sound really weird, which makes me not give them much weight.
Regardless of how (say) Manning conveyed files to Wikileaks, leaking classified-TS cables is manifestly stupid. One doubts most of the people who might help Wikileaks from inside the DoD have any idea what they're actually doing. My guess is that it all seems unreal, happening as it does on the always fake-seeming Internet using computers that make everything seem like chat room drama.
Do you have evidence that classified top secret cables were leaked? That one is easy to prove. A quick Google search, though, seems to only turn up rumours.
The only direct source of much of the rumours seems to be the completely unbelievable Wired story. The Salon story on Wired's reporting is the primary reason I don't trust it, nor anything implied by it on other sites:
You're saying it's easy to prove that someone likely to have classified-TS access who said they leaked classified-TS information did or did not leak information?
And to support that argument, you're citing Glenn Greenwald?
You earlier spoke of proving a negative; by easy to prove, I meant that this is a positive, and an existence proof is sufficient.
If something was leaked, but noone can point to it, or the consequences of it, is it really leaked?
The way you phrase your sentence about Glenn Greenwald, you seem to imply that I should know something about him. What are you imputing?
It also seems an ad hominem attack. I cited the article as reason to doubt the Wired story; but the article should be attacked on its own merits. And the reason to doubt the leak of TS cables is because I haven't seen evidence that they've been leaked. The video certainly was leaked - I saw it - but I've seen not a peep of these alleged cables.
It doesn't make any sense. Why would a 22-year old kid have access to thousands of top-secret cables? Why should we trust an attention-seeking ex-convict who says he had an IM with a leaker who spontaneously contacted him for the first time ever (randomly choosing him from twitter #wikileaks, of all things), and boasted to him that he leaked such cables? When Wikileaks denies that they have such cables?
When these stories come up in the news, who benefits?
I am absolutely confident that 22 year old kids have access to ridiculous information; I think that's far more of an outrage than any news Wikileaks has "broken" about the DoD.
On the other hand, I think the risk of the US to the world is greater (far greater) than the risk of the world to the US.
The US is in no danger of being attacked or invaded by anyone; one cannot say the same about other countries with respect to the US.
Even something as substantial as 9/11 was only a crime - a monstrous crime - but certainly not an act of war. There isn't any actor with the capability or will to do any serious damage to the US that wouldn't be annihilated by nuclear retribution; the US's security derives from its obvious and plain-sight strengths, not anything it keeps secret.
The real threat to national security is the predominance of special-interest groups who are currently in control of the US Military machine, having it fight un-just, disgusting wars, in the name of the United States of America.
The true threat to national security is the Pentagon itself, which simply wouldn't be necessary if it weren't creating its own reasons for war around the world.
You want real national security? Stand down your soldiers, America. That is the only true way to be secure in your beds, Americans.
However, WikiLeaks lost me when they released selectively edited video, spliced in editorial overlays, registered a domain name "CollateralMurder" and advocated a position.