niceguyrichy

American officials are searching for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks in an attempt to pressure him not to publish thousands of confidential and potentially hugely embarrassing diplomatic cables that offer unfiltered assessments of Middle East governments and leaders.

The Daily Beast, a US news reporting and opinion website, reported that Pentagon investigators are trying to track down Julian Assange – an Australian citizen who moves frequently between countries – after the arrest of a US soldier last week who is alleged to have given the whistleblower website a classified video of American troops killing civilians in Baghdad.

The soldier, Bradley Manning, also claimed to have given WikiLeaks 260,000 pages of confidential diplomatic cables and intelligence assessments.

The US authorities fear their release could "do serious damage to national security", said the Daily Beast, which is published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and New Yorker magazines
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read more: Guardian

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Tyrsonswood

US "Officials" do not like getting their hands caught in the cookie jar........

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BlueMak

What the fuck was that soldier thinking? Traitor if you ask me.
How many American lives are going to end because of this?

Stupid man.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

mkk

LeanWolf

thinking with his wallet no doubt. if it leads to less atrocities being committed for fear of possible consequences then it's not all bad

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Sihastru

I agree that any country in the world has it's right to privacy and has the right to protect it's secrets.

However, this is not about clasified information that would endanger the national security, it's about slowly but surely losing support from the US electorate for the so called "war on terror".

It's one thing for people to see on TV a number displayed on screen of collateral casualties, and there's another thing to see it how it went preserving the timeline, and how wrong and "stupid" it all was. Dumb people can fly helicopters, dumb people can shoot automatic weapons, perhaps dumb people can push the red button too.

And when it comes to war, innocent people are going to die or get seriously hurt, and we know this, but we never visualize it. We are immune when we hear that "two children were hurt during a military incursion" but when we see it with our own eyes and when we hear the dialog, it all becomes very real and we can't just accept it as "the price of war".

I think it's this what they are trying to prevent, and not the fact that some "classified" information that contained "state secrets" was leaked. All they know is how to control and manipulate, and when that fails, they shoot you.

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The Captain

I have been reading up on this Bradley Manning fellow and the information he leaked, so I'll try to make a more nuanced appraisal of the situation.

From what I have read, Bradley Manning was a low ranking intelligence officer who had access to a large amount of classified information. It would be one thing if he, during the course of his daily work, came across information which showed war crimes or wrong doings of American soldiers and then decided to leak such information. However, this does not seem to be the case. All evidence, including quotes from chat logs, seem to indicate that he ACTIVELY sought out said information. He went searching for incriminating information without any authority or permission to do so. He searched personal directories and cracked passwords. The famous helicopter video was in one such directory and was encrypted with some form of AES.

As I said before, the situation would be different if he came across some kind of incriminating evidence by accident. In such a case, it would be his duty to leak said information and expose those responsible. In contrast, he engaged in espionage against his own country. The only word that can describe this is treason.

As for the diplomatic cables and intelligence assessments, there is no evidence to suggest that Manning found some kind of incriminating data or malfeasance in these documents. Rather, it sounds like he merely found the directories where this information was stored and smuggled it out of the network wholesale without even really looking at it. I mean, really, is there any way he could have gone through 260,000 documents in such a short amount of time?

In short, Bradley Manning is anything but a hero. He was given access to certain intelligence assets and betrayed those responsibilities. He actively sought to undermine US forces, and he will probably succeed if those documents are ever published.

Now, let's talk about the helicopter incident. There were two phases to the attack: the initial bombardment of the civilians/reporters/insurgents and the followup attack on the people who tried to remove the injured from battlefield. The first attack, although regrettably a mistake, was legal in regards to international law and rules of engagement. Given the chatter of the soldiers, they really believed those people were armed and dangerous. There is no evidence to suggest they believed otherwise. Even though they were mistaken in this assessment of the situation, they still made the right call. That's war. If you don't like it, then maybe you shouldn't support such wars in the Middle East .

The second attack, however, was illegal under international law and rules of engagement. Soldiers are not allowed to engage people who tend to wounded or try to remove the wounded or dead from the battlefield. This rule was made specifically so that groups like the Red Cross could tend to wounded (civilians, soldiers, or otherwise) and not have to fear being targeted or killed themselves.

In conclusion, the soldiers in the helicopter video need to be tried for war crimes for the second attack, but not the first.

SeraphicSorcerer

Sorry, but as a veteran, while he may have broken laws, I can say, I'm all for it if it shows Our Country being stupid, why? Because it's exactly this shit that makes "them" hate us in the first fucking place. am I for nukes, and wars and shit to defend yourselves? Yep. But I'm also for not shooting fucking wounded people and kids in trucks either. It would be different if it was one bomb, and verifiable intel, and kids accidently ran into it, these jackasses (watch the video) were so unprofessionable BEGGING TO SHOOT that they ended 2 embedded journalists lives.

So Neither situation is excusable. Period.

Not to mention we are also suppose to have whistle blower laws.

Oh, and this shows that our pentagon is inept at any kind of actual security.

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The Captain

I pretty much agree with what you said, but I tried to come at the situation from a legal perspective, rather than a moral one. Still, I don't see this kid as some kind of hero.

Sihastru

I'm not sure how legal war is. You go to war when all other avenues (including legal) have been expended. This war is supposed to be against terror, so it's more about morals then legalities (not that it is legal to engage in terrorist activities).

Others may say it's about resources (like control over oil planes and mineral deposits), but who knows...

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SeraphicSorcerer

That's why I said neither is acceptable. But Trained soldiers acting like retards is far from acceptable either. It only leaves the people I tried to help with a bad taste. And more fuel for the terroists propaganda, You have to fight modern wars on 2 fronts, Psychologically, and Physically.

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Judas

what he did wasn't treason at all.. it's however treason against the people to continue to ignore and not investigate anything that is criminal if you have such clearance to do so...

to many people doing so little, not providing any form of tranlucency, going unchecked, and resulting in outright full corruption.

Anyone have ANY idea how many hundreds if not thousands of soldiers and millitary personel there are that are biting their tongue because of threats about things that are clearly totally AGAINST everything they swore an oath to protect? hypocrits ....... The whistle blowing is getting to be more and more and it's starting to get to a point where even the media black out on it is having a hard time ignoring it all....

Like i've said before and i'm going to keep saying..

it's all a frigen joke.

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OmegaRED

Government would hide this video and others like it from the public forever; if you would rather they stay secret then you're part of the problem.

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