Posted on 10/26/2010 9:39:34 AM PDT by shortstop
This Wikileaks guy should become a casualty.
Seriously.
It's not journalism, it's not activism, it's war.
He's releasing information that's killing people and endangering our troops. And what goes around comes around.
I hope I don't sound like a savage, or some kind of politically incorrect beast. But there are real lives on one end of this occasion, and if he can decide that they have to die, isn't it at least worthy of considering that maybe that should be a two-way street?
You know what I'm talking about, right? There is this hippy group called Wikileaks. It supposedly is about helping oppressed people by publishing their secret messages without them having to fear their oppressive governments. That's what it's supposed to be about. But what it's really about is attacking our country and our military. Everything the Wikileaks people do, time after time, is directly aimed at not only embarrassing the United States, but at getting our troops killed.
And that's not cool.
Sure, hating America is in vogue these days. Even the president hates America.
And that's his right. That's anybody's right. Freedom includes the freedom to be stupid, ingrateful and treasonous.
You can run down America all you want, that's no skin off anybody's nose.
But when you give out information that gets people killed, all of a sudden, that's not free speech.
That's murder.
And this Wikileaks guy has blood on his hands. That is not a figure of speech, it is not an exageration, it is a fact proven by the grieving hearts of loved ones.
First, he gave out a bunch of information about Afghanistan, and American operations in that nation. Lots and lots of situation reports and action reports, detailing American tactics as well as giving out the names of various Afghan people who had helped the Americans.
That information was put out and some of the Afghan people named turned up dead.
Literally. No exageration.
Wikileaks guy gave out their names, the Jihad boys saw their names, they turned up dead. That's not activism, that's homicide. That's getting people killed for no reason. He could have blacked out the names. He could have held back documents that identified people.
But he didn't.
And people died.
Now he has done the same with vastly more documents from Iraq. Thankfully, some of these have the names blacked out.
But not the tactics and operating procedures.
Because while the Wikileaks material endangered Afghans specifically, it endangers Americans generally. Specifically, Americans in the military.
Those documents were classified in part because they show how America fights. They show command structure and communications capability and the processes by which our military operates. That information is of great value to our enemy. It allows our enemy to predict our actions and decisions, and it pinpoints for them our vulnerabilities.
Releasing that information puts our troops at a disadvantage on the battlefield. It makes them more vulnerable to IEDs and snipers, to ambushes and interceptions.
It gives the enemy the edge, and that puts GIs in their graves.
And that's not tolerable.
So I'm wondering why this guy doesn't have an accident. I'm wondering why had hasn't become a casualty in the war he seems so intent on fomenting.
No, I'm not against free speech. And I've spent virtually all my adult life working in a free press. But speech and press have limitations, and they kick in when your decisions cost other people their lives.
Those Afghan people killed because of Wikileaks were loved by their spouses, parents and children, and are mourned by the people they left behind. They were not faceless nobodies on a far-distant battlefield. They were real human beings. They cannot be literally sacrificed in the name of some anti-imperialist good by some guy who hates Americans.
Neither can he be allowed to increase the number of American families who know the pain of military officers knocking at the door. If he is going to give out information that leads to the death of one American servicemember, that's cause enough.
It's self-defense.
If there is a war, and you take an action relative to that war which leaves people endangered or dead, then you are a combatant.
And combatants can be casualties.
So I wonder why this guy is still alive.
You'd just think, with all the secret agents out there, with all the guns and poison capsules, how is it that this guy is isn't room temperature by now?
Assante is just a figurehead. In fact, many dislike him for it, and think he is just promoting himself while many anonymous people do all the work.
Bob (and everyone else) needs to calm down and check their facts before putting a fatwa on someone that would only become a martyr.
Why does no one consider the possibility Wikileaks is yet another CIA front, or being fed by the CIA or etc etc. Why do people not accept the fact that we rank and file know about 10 % of reality, and if you are seeing it on TV and in print, there is usually a REASON you are seeing it on TV which may or may not have anything at all to do with what you think you are seeing.
Note: Every picture I see of him he is looking over his shoulder.
I seriously doubt it is to see his friends but rather his enemies.
The guy that actually leaked the information is in jail. He's the only one that committed a crime, because he agreed to not disseminate information that was provided to him.
If you don't have a security clearance, you can't commit a crime for simply distributing classified information. You must be instead prosecuted under the Espionage Act, and that's a much higher standard to meet.
Finally, the person "representing" Wikileaks is not a US citizen, and is unlikely to ever set foot in this country. He is nothing but a figurehead anyway -- all the work is being done by other anonymous people behind the scenes.
Bumping the facts.
I hear the Chilean mine has recent vacancies.
Because Barky likes it that way, that’s why.
I would love to be able to believe that our government was actually that efficient and effective. Unfortunately I think I know better. :-)
Dennis Miller also asked this rhetorical question on his show yesterday.
By his willful and direct actions he has caused the deaths of a number of people. Not much different than what Charlie Manson did. He should meet an untimely end.
Granted I understand this sentiment and almost agree with it...except for one key thing.
We are being systematically lied to by our government about all of this stuff. We are committing ourselves, brothers, fathers, mothers, etc to the cause and we are being fed a bunch of crap both by the Bush admin and now the Obama admin.
If we were told the truth and allowed to have an honest discussion about these huge issues WIKILEAKS wouldn’t even exist!!!
This is the case where if we shoot the messenger we clearly allow the violations of the public trust being committed by those in charge.
This is exactly what the founding fathers warned us about...
because we don’t have the sorts of presidents we once had and there is no Cold War
Paging Colby and Helms.
The US hasn’t done a treason tril in a while but the military clerk who leaked these documents should be tried and then executed.
As for the blogger - I’m fine with him simply vanishing off the street one fine day.
I would not be shocked if it were someone at the "highest levels".
Calculus.
For every crumb of disinformation there must be information, verifiable and actionable. Sometimes much more than the false leads, enough to bury the few seminal things which will pop up somewhere else and confirm networks, trace information flow, or foil efforts which might have otherwise been successful.
Maybe those are there, maybe not. Some may be truth, some fiction. I do not know, nor am I in any position to.
Intelligence is an onion, though, often layer wrapped upon layer, with deception sandwiched in between.
Fonts of ‘classified’ information can be used as fonts of disinformation, too. With a ‘good enough’ track record, the disinformation will enter the sysetem well accepted.
Besides, I thought we declared a moratorium on ‘wet work’.
Maybe a Letter of Marque or Reprisal?
When I think of all the decades I withheld the very nature of my classified USAF mission (even from my own wife and family) — and then read about this tratorious WIKILEAKS puke — my trigger finger starts to squeeeeeze...
Got it now. Thanks for the info.
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