I saw a Facebook page on this topic, of all things. The idea intrigued me. I think Wikileaks provides an important service to humanity and makes it harder for governments to commit atrocities, at least if they leave a paper trail(or video it.) OTOH, if governments don’t have any secrecy, it would be hard for them to operate at all. I heard a talking head on Fox call Wikileaks “information terrorism” after the Afghanistan docs were released, which made me laugh. In sum, I think Wikileaks does more good than harm and I can’t think of a better candidate. Also, the rape charges against Mr. Assange were dubious at best. If the prize still means anything, and I am not sure it does after President Obama, who I voted for and still support, received it while his country was engaged in two wars, then Mr. Assange would get my vote(if I had any say, which I don’t.)
Rape charges?
Just the other day, I went through the Wikipedia page on the released Classified documents from Afghanistan. Overall, it didn’t seem like they’d released anything that particularly needed to be known by the general public. On the other hand, they did reveal the names and addresses of Afghani informants to the US (almost certainly imperiling them) and revealed that the US is aware of Pakistan’s backing of the Taliban – which could make a lot of ambassadorial options go out the window.
And I mean, I barely pay attention to the Afghanistan and Iraq situations. If -I- found them to be fairly unrevealing, I’d have to say that they would have to be unexceptional to pretty much anyone with half a brain. So ultimately, all we’re looking at is less chance for a positive relation between the US and Pakistan, and some Afghanis getting killed for giving information to the US.
Creating peace that ain’t.
Candidate for the Peace Prize? No. Rendition? Yes.
While some minor good can be done through these leaks, the potential harm is MUCH greater. He is endangering the lives of people on both sides that are actually risking their lives to bring peace closer.
Assange is a vile, self-important human being. Whether he’s well intentioned or not, he trades information for prestige. And the result is good people who are put at risk and some, no doubt, killed.
Rendition by who? What law has he broken?
Yeah… I really think an organization that intentionally endagers people’s lives and thinks that it has a duty to create link lists to child pornography deserve recognition for all their good work…
IIRC, some were faked against him a short while back and immediately came out as fraud.
Any government that wants and is actively working toward peace. With citizens risking their lives to bring it about.
The laws of common decency, being a good person, and endangering the lives of people who are working for peace.
How it works:
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WikiLeak comes into possession of information it wants to disclose.
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WikiLeak tries to open a dialogue with the Pentagon about the information, to avoid endangering people’s lives.
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The Pentagon tells WikiLeaks to fuck off. Doesn’t even bother to look over the information for possible redaction.
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WikiLeaks says okay and publishes the info.
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The Pentagon–an organization, let’s not forget, whose activities involve going to other countries and killing the people there, whether for good or bad–blames WikiLeaks for putting people’s lives in danger. Never mind that the Pentagon itself was given full opportunity to prevent this. And to top it off, the Pentagon then blames WikiLeaks for not giving them the chance to redact, when in fact they were given the chance and told WikiLeaks to fuck off.
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A group of people who don’t know the full story, but only listen to the Pentagon PR releases as if an organization that is known for lying to the public has suddenly started telling the truth, blame WikiLeaks for “endangering people’s lives”, while simultaneously ignoring the incompetence of the Pentagon that could have prevented this very danger from occurring. The authority must always be trusted in their magical fairytale world. The “law” becomes a malleable plaything for anyone who can claim to be a “good person” with access to “common decency”. The law twists itself, minute by minute, second by second, to conform the will of the “good”–with good in this case defined by whatever random notion is passing through magellan’s head.
This is the same reason why the good guys can torture. The good guys are always the good guys, and so naturally, nothing they ever do could possibly be evil, because they’re the good guys. Good guys don’t do evil things, by definition, no matter what they choose to do. They live in a world always filled with rainbows and unicorns whose farts smell like cinnamon, and nothing they could ever do would ever ever be bad. Good is a magical a priori label given to one side, and thus becomes divorced completely from real-world actions. Anything that would be evil when the bad guys do it is not evil when the good guys do it, because the good guys can never commit evil.
Great way to completely avoid the actual issue. There is one issue at question, and one only - Did the act of Wikileaks releasing these documents put people’s lives in jeopardy. Yes. End of story.
All your blah blah about how evil and stupid the Pentagon is doesn’t change that fact at all.
At some point, there has to be a “ding” that goes off in your head that releasing some information does more harm than good. And if that harm is endangering people’s lives, then all the more reason to maybe sit and wait for that “ding”.
Why? According to Wikipedia, the peace prize is awarded to “persons or organizations in the process of resolving a conflict or creating peace.” What has Assange done on either count? Publishing tens of thousands of classified, largely day-to-day reports, assessments, and communications from the war in Afghanistan has done nothing to either resolve the conflict itself or create peace by either helping a peaceful cessation of hostilities or encouraging one side or the other to call it quits. Poking a finger in the Pentagon’s eye - and incidentally in the eyes of Afghan interpreters or informants named in the documents - doesn’t accomplish anything constructive.
I don’t know this Assange guy. Maybe he is guilty of two rapes, but he will never get to these
and these casaulties
How can a nation offer a bounty for capturing another nation’s citizens?
So-called terrorists, drug Lords and maybe wikileakers in the future must hide for their lives. $5 Million reward is not just a game of peak-a-boo, but practically a death sentence before judgement. Maybe Mr. Assange is just for the truth?
They’re still being investigated by the Swedish police, but at the moment it’s still very much a “he said, she said” thing. And since they’re obviously CIA scum, well we know how that goes.
You’re the one who’s deliberately avoiding the issue by creating a ridiculous double standard.
I didn’t say the Pentagon was “evil”. Nowhere. I’m not sure repeating myself here would help, since you appear to see fault arbitrarily, but I’ll try anyway: I wrote “whether for good or bad”. That was an acknowledgment that there are differences of opinion on the military issue. Of course, I did said the Pentagon had a history of lying. Why? Because they have a history of lying. That doesn’t make them any more evil than countless other organizations, but it does mean that anyone with more than three brain cells shouldn’t take their word at face value.
Next is the more complicated part.
If you believe that the information from WikiLeaks put people’s lives in danger, and if you believe that there was an onus on WikiLeaks–a private organization with no special military training or background–to be more careful with such information, above and beyond letting the actual experts know what they were about to do and getting told to fuck off, then it would also be an onus to prevent such a disclosure for any organization whose specific job it is to handle intelligence sources in order to accomplish its military mission (and I’m talking about the Pentagon here, just to be clear). Any fault you can attribute to WikiLeaks, who specifically requested that the Pentagon look at the material, falls also on the Pentagon, which failed to take the opportunity to, as you say, avoid the hazard of “putting people’s lives in danger”. They not only had the opportunity to redact, but they also had the supposed expertise to know what parts would demand redaction to avoid aforementioned danger. But they did jack shit.
The Pentagon allowed the information to be released, even though they had the power to make changes. They then blamed other people for releasing information that they themselves could have stopped.
They are culpable for whatever dangerous information they let through that they could’ve stopped. You can blame WikiLeaks all you want, if that’s your cup of tea. I can’t dictate your own blame-o-meter. But I can point out the ridiculous inconsistency in failing to blame the professional organization that allowed information out which–according to your own appraisal of the situation–might cost lives. You can’t blame WikiLeaks for this danger and simultaneously ignore the Pentagon’s complacency. If you want to blame, then the Pentagon deserves a full share for their own lack of action, which was at the very least–going by your own estimation of the exposure–stunningly incompetent.
To put it in terms you might understand: Did the act of the Pentagon in choosing not to redact these documents put people’s lives in jeopardy? Yes–according to you. End of story.
You’re free to blame WikiLeaks. Nothing I’ve written absolves WikiLeaks, if you feel compelled to heap scorn upon them. But if there’s an organization that’s supposed to be in charge of suppressing dangerous information, and they don’t do what they can to suppress said dangerous information, then there’s a genuine problem. And if, on top of that, they blame others for releasing information that they themselves could have redacted, then there’s an extremely big problem.
Blame away if that’s your bag. But if there actually is blame here, then the Pentagon has to eat its own share.
I suspect there may be some issues with the practice of “rendition of poopyheads” which you may not have anticipated.
I don’t understand why the Pentagon would take part in releasing classified documents to the public. Why isn’t fuck off the right, long-term, approach?
I cherry-picked your above quote to offer this analogy. “The Pentagon allowed a hostage to be killed, even though they had the power to pay off the terrorists holding the hostage. The Pentagon then blamed the terrorists for killing the hostage that the Pentagon could have stopped.”
Yes. That’s true. And it appears to be what you’re saying. But it’s not the correct long-term solution. Just like helping classified information being released is not the correct long-term solution to stopping information from ever being leaked. Once you do that, you’re giving a thumbs up that this is ok. Fuck off seems to imply this is not ok under any circumstance.
As far as the Nobel Peace Prize, sure.
Very similar to:
I’m going to rape your mother. Before I do, I’m gonna send you an email and lawyer so we can discuss which positions I use. You say fuck off, don’t rape my mother. Ok, I’ll rape her anyway I like, and blame you because you had a chance to make it easier on her and didn’t take it.
Does anyone have the names of the informants who were allegedly revealed by the Wikileaks data-dump? I’ve yet to see any actual evidence that the released data put anyone in danger. I think it’s likely that it did, mind you - but it seems people are just assuming that it’s the case.
CoolHandCox is exactly right.
It’s one thing to reveal information about the overall war effort that is being misrepresented by the government (i.e. Pentagon Papers). In that case, the normal checks and balances of democratic governance are being circumvented because the government is actively lying to the American people. It’s quite another thing to release classified information that doesn’t really contradict the official story or reveal lies that have been told to the American people. Obama has been clear that Afghanistan was a clusterfuck. Wikileaks just gave more details in a way that makes peace, negotiated or otherwise, harder.
Obama said everything he released was already in the public. I suppose he does the service of putting it in one place. The government and military make too many things classified. We have a right to know when the military goes too far. Perhaps Abu Grebe would not have happened if we had known. How many more atrocities have been hidden?