Comments on: “An AQ/Taliban Executioner’s Dream.”

By: Should Assange Be Prosecuted? By Whom? For What? : Lawyers, Guns & Money

Should Assange Be Prosecuted? By Whom? For What? : Lawyers, Guns & Money — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:56:36 +0000

[...] information (with almost no ethically significant revelatory content*), in such a way as to put numerous Afghan civilians at risk. His actions seem to have done very little good in changing foreign policy, but potentially an [...]

By: Sean Peters

Sean Peters — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:15:18 +0000

And then I’d kill whomever I could identify. Those deaths would be directly attributable to WikiLeaks.

Well, no, they’d be directly attributable to the Taliban. At best they’d be indirectly attributable to Wikileaks.

While I agree that organizations like Wikileaks should be more careful in what they release, let’s be clear about who bears most of guilt here. It’s the organization that actually does the killing.

By: Spanish Mextli

Spanish Mextli — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:22:51 +0000

Los abuelos…

I found this entry interesting and added a trackback to it on my site. Thanks…

By: Cleitus the Black

Cleitus the Black — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:36:36 +0000

Ignoring for the moment the (sigh) continued erroneous conflation of the Taliban and al Qaida (the latter of which number, in Afghanistan, no more than 50-100 if the National Security Advisor and head of the CIA can be believed) one rather supposes that the dream of these so-called executioners (and maybe the average Talib fighting man as well) is to awake to find their native country free of foreign occupiers propping up a corrupt puppet government in Kabul.

Certainly, that would be my dream if I were in their sandals.

By: Brad Potts

Brad Potts — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:16:07 +0000

Yes, I would rather a typical conservative backlash, because that neocon “national security” arguments aren’t taken that seriously by anyone outside conservative circles anymore. That card got overplayed.

If Joe Blow the moderate voter hears, “We can’t allow these whistleblowers to show the dysfunction of our government because our government won’t be able to wage war appropriately”, I don’t think he will be too interested.

Alternatively, if Joe hears “Whistleblowers are leaking information that puts our soldiers and their Afghan friends at personal risk”, they would be more likely to respond positively to the complaint.

By: Matt L

Matt L — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:50:10 +0000

I don’t really by this notion that the Taliban are going to go out and whack a bunch of informants because of the wikileaks documents. Yes, the information is there, but that does not mean that they can get to it quickly and efficiently.

To get through 90,000 documents, they would have to have more than one of two people, fluent in English, to go through the files. They’d need hundreds. Given that this movement was started by a bunch of semi-literate Koran students, I’m not sure you are going to find more than a dozen Talibs to do sit infront of a computer translating afteraction reports from English into Pashtu so that they can ‘whack Rashid.’

Second, maybe the ISI guys have more English speakers who can do the heavy lifting, but that assumes its worth their time to troll through a file that is six years old, hoping to find ‘actionable intelligence.’ The Taliban can get fresh info more quickly and easily through the tribal and clan networks.

Maybe its worth it for the Taliban to have a couple of English speakers troll through the Wikileaks documents, but if they find anything, and if anyone gets killed because of it, its going to be more a matter of bad luck.

And Finally, I am pretty sure that in the final accounting more civilians will have died as collateral damage in air-strikes and fire missions by US forces than will have died because of WikiLeaks.

End the war.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:55:35 +0000

yeah, but this is the Taliban we’re talking about, and when Rashid gets shot, it is unlikely to be much comfort to him that they got the wrong guy.

By: Simple Mind

Simple Mind — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:46:59 +0000

Charli I feel that what is going on here has nothing to do with ethics. two-faced Pakistanis or blown agents. The leak was timed to coincide with the Congressional vote on more billions for another year of war and to influence the lawmakers and their constituents. I have been reading European comment, and most observers agree that the info was not particularly surprising or revealing. Personally, I am sympathetic to the leaker for trying to raise awareness, for the longer these foreign wars last, the greater the prestige of the military and the more militarized our society becomes.

By: Simple Mind

Simple Mind — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:26:55 +0000

Damn the ethics, this war has lasted too long.