The NYT is a liberal rag that’s essentially dropped all pretense of being anything other than that at this point. So you quoting their opinion on issues like this isn’t all that surprising or helpful.
Thank you, Randall. We’re all well aware that you’ve got nothing.
You think perhaps the soldiers in the field know what weapons the Taliban and insurgents have. They are the first to know. This revelation is for the American citizens who don’t know anything the military doesn’t tell them. The military lies. they always have. This is not new.
Right. Lots of folks are posting in this thread about how the leaks were no big deal, and somehow I’m the one that’s got nothing. I’ve made zero unprovable assertions.
I won’t bother with a quote-by-quote response. However, our civilian oversight (in my case, the Harper government; in yours, the Obama administration) has a profound interest in making its decisions look rosier than they actually are. You’re right, the information is not all that shocking, in the details —but it does provide some information and insight that could easily change people’s opinions about the war.
As for voting out the Democrats, that is an entirely legitimate response for Americans, sure*. But how could they make that choice without knowing that they’re being misled?
As for your concern about endangering the troops, I’ll let MOIDALIZE take you on. He doesn’t need any help.
*I wouldn’t, but I’m Canadian, so it’s not my problem. I could get on board with voting out Harper though.
Because they are LOGS, that have details in them about what was happening, what the enemies response was, what we did about it, etc. Go and read the article, man.
Seriously, did you think they classified this stuff on a whim?
If you seriously think that all the hoopla from 90k documents is simply prosaic BS like your quote here, then all I can say is…well, actually I don’t know what to say.
Because it details what effect they had on our systems, which, to the keen eyed Taliban might show them what they are doing wrong and how to correct the situation. If nothing else it will tell them whether or not to put their resources into getting more of the things, or whether their resources would be better spent doing something else to kill our troops.
This all seems obvious to me, but I guess maybe it’s not?
Let me turn this around, since essentially you’ve asked the same thing over and over and I’ve given why I think it is. Why do you think Obama and the Dems THINK these things should continue to be secrets? I mean, you read the part of the Guardian article I quoted that was the White Houses response. THEY seem to feel that these things should have remained secret. John Kerry is also quoted as feeling this was a pretty grave breach. Why? Just to cover up the military? Make Obama et al look good?
-XT
nm
What the hell are you talking about? This isn’t 11 dimensional chess. If they have a weapon, they can see for themselves if it works or not. They don’t need to read an account in the New York Times to conclude “Hey, these missiles are pretty effective!”
In many cases, yes. Point something out to me that provides damaging levels of access into the strategic or tactical mind of our military leadership. I’m not demanding it right this instant, but I’ll need something significant to conclude that the American people should not have access to this information.
Yes! That’s precisely why. You really think the government is willingly going to provide the ugly truth about themselves?
You shoot a missile. It hits the helicopter. It doesn’t kill it. Why? You shoot a missile, it misses the helicopter…why? You shoot a missile, another helicopter that you didn’t see blows you away, you never know what it does or doesn’t do because you are dog food…
etc, etc etc. If you are a Taliban leader who didn’t personally shoot the weapon, or you are a Pakistani who is deciding on whether or not to ship more heat seekers or perhaps IED materials, this information might have some value, no?
And they would just know this how exactly? Even assuming the shooters are actually making detailed reports back to their command and control system, and such reports are being widely disseminated (both of which are extremely unlikely), how the weapons operate from OUR perspective might be useful to the leader types, and certainly to other people who may not have access to all the detailed reports coming back from the field by the literate and earnest Taliban fighter types.
-XT
Oh, and this is not especially a propos, but somebody asked earlier whether WikiLeaks would leak its own information.
Gee, I don’t know…Maybe they could if the missile knocks a helicopter out of the air and causes it to nosedive into the ground.
This explains how heat-seeking missiles work, just in case you weren’t aware.
I won’t be getting cracking on any such thing. I have made no assertions in this thread, thus I have nothing that I need to back up.
Thus far you have made assertions, and when asked for cites, you present your ignorance and ask others to do your fact checking.
What I’ve read of and about the documents so far.
While that may true, it’s also unrealistic to pretend this has no real world consequences. If 90 percent of the documents were unnecessarily made secret, that’s still thousands of now-public documents that might’ve been secret for a legit reason. Like several of us said upthread, the name of informants were published. Someone who was sufficiently dedicated could review the names and kill those people. Being an informant in Afghanistan is already risky, I am sure. I think the secrecy issue here is a really vital one and I am glad more information is public but we shouldn’t pretend there could not be any consequences. There are more options than just “this is like the D-Day location being leaked and the war will be lost” or “the military lied to keep all of this secret and none of it could possibly be used to harm anyone.”
Heat seekers have been used in every conflict around the globe since the vietnam war, when the soviets and or chinese gave the NVA the SA-7 strela. The US and other powers gave Stingers, Redeyes,Blowpipes and probably knock off copies of the major weapons from the rest of the world to the original afgan resistance back in the eighties.
Depending on when the report came out that the Taliban were using Heat seeking missiles, people are at least assuming it was the stinger. We were talking about it on the dope at least a couple of years ago, I remember a conversation with Airman Doors about the relative merits of the weapon and how the Taliban were likely to employ it.
So if the report came out in 05 that someone was taking potshots at Allied helicopters with heat seekers, no big deal. They would have been in Taliban weapons caches and probably in the arms bazzares.
If on the other hand , the reports were 09/10 vintage, then those missiles are newly supplied and someone is selling them, Pakistan, Iran and Russia come to mind. Its not that its anymore dangerous for the troops, than exists currently to acknowledge that the weapons are on the street so to speak. But it may be highly embarrassing for the folks who were extremely distressed to learn that a whole boat load of documents from the state department, that may have corralated evidence that the heat seekers were supplied to the Taliban, by Pakistan , who recieved those same missiles from the US aid.
Declan
It’s a leading question, to which I will respond in kind: based on history, are you confident that the unilateral power of classification is always used to protect soldiers and national security, and never to conceal misdeeds and obfuscate unpleasant political truths?
That was me. Thanks, it answered my question. Your link showed WikiLeaks makes it money on donations and yet they leaked their own donor list. Donors were at risk.
I’ve seriously edited your previous post, but just wanted to answer this one question. If my editing was Moore’ish’ let me know.
First, all information the Gov’t has is presumed unclassified. Use FOIA, and it’s yours. However, classified info is off limits (for 10 years. But, if requested/granted, then no more than 25yrs max). I’ve learned/heard/been told though that when in doubt, err on the side of classify (secrecy). I’m not saying that in an evil way, it’s just easier and less overall work in the long run to classify. Personally, I think most of what was classified (top secret, secret, classified) should have been.
I’ve looked through (less than 100/out of 76k total, but they are sorted by "topic’) documents and it got really boring and I stopped and posted this. “One detainee is sent to Bagram” same report x1,000 “Suspicious vehicle is looked at, it ultimately drives away with no incident” same report x# ect, ect. What’s been reported in the NY Times (like 15-20 documents) is the absolute minimum of what’s interesting/reportable. I’m not sure why the they needed to leak 76k/92k documents. Donations will come with just what the Times reported on. I guess. Maybe it looks more damning with a big number.
Should it be classified. Like you, I err on agree. However, it’s not earth shattering stuff. Personally, my winning, and I want to win, depends neither with or without this leak.
[Verse three of the flow]
I agree. The enemy knows what weapon they are using (Stinger or it’s cousin) and know whether it in fact worked or not. The document releasing it’s use (see below), just reports what they already know.
Now, xtisme, (I’m thinking) is saying not everyone, outside a small circle that fired it, knows that. But I dunno, just watch Charlie Wilson’s War…it’s the same weapon. Do the documents empower that use? I’ve read that document here. If there’s more to it than that one document, let me know; seriously, I haven’t read everything. I just don’t see anything in this one instance that’s being debated throughout this thread, that’s life or death for coalition forces in future situations.
Nope; I’m for honesty and openness. The fact of the matter is that we can no longer depend on some honor system/veil of secrecy to “protect” us, so there’s no use getting all bent out of shape anymore when that flimsy veil is drawn back. This is something that happens easily, and our methods must be able to withstand it.
And there are some things we knew were true, but wouldn’t officially admit. Like the Pakistan’s secret service’s relationship with the Taliban. It’s out in the open now.
Honestly, honesty is the best policy. And becoming as bad as the enemy in order to beat them, is totally counter-productive for the human race, but extremely beneficial for those with shares in The War Machine.