Hey Robert Gibbs...We KNOW...

We KNOW that some of this information could prove dangerous to troops in the field. THEY ARE IN DANGER BEING IN AFGHANISTAN IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

Now, you miserable motherfucker, let's talk about the fucking WAR CRIMES that Julian Assange says these documents reveal!

Think the press will touch on that aspect of these documents? Nah...they'll toe the admin spin: These documents place our troops in danger.

They cannot - for the sake of 'special interests'
Be allowed extra legal behavior.

"THEY ARE IN DANGER BEING IN AFGHANISTAN IN THE FIRST PLACE!"


But, oy, oh no, don't leak anything that could contribute to momentum that will remove them from Afghanistan

Whether we like it or not our troops are ALWAYS in danger ... even in peace time.

My concern is that when you release 90 THOUSAND documents, I simply can not be confident that those who did so actually know that no current American soldier, or asset, has been placed at a greater risk compared to the risk they faced the day before. If any document increased the risk to people already in the field, that is a treasonous act.

Let me ask ... were you pissed when Cheney outed Valerie Plame?? As a CIA operative, she was "already at risk" ... or ... so what if Cheney added to her risk, or to the risk of others she had worked with. We the people learned of her role ... which is good??

with an apple computer reading these documents in order to find out where the troops were in 2007?

We don't belong in Afganistan to begin with, our beef is with the guy named Osama Bin Laden that had 6 fucking guys with razorblades bring our country to a standstill. Or, we're paving the way for corporations again. Either way our presence there should not be an extended forever war.

The civilians we've killed in that endeavor deserve better than we'll ever be able to give them.

Maybe if we had an economy that was viable, our sons and daughters wouldn't have to fight a war 6000 miles away to protect our "freedoms" (like the Taliban is standing here burning books and keeping us from reading or conversing)

The question is whether the release of 90k documents could increase the risk to the troops.

And actually, the enemy does have access to computers. And the Taliban has "friends" in the Pakistan government, you know that, right?

The issue is not simply about the physical location of troops in 2007. Let's compare this to when Cheney outed Valerie Plame. Did you think that was treason? I did. By outing her, they put her sources at risk. Sources going back over her entire career.

If these documents in anyway reveal covert relationships, or methods of operation, then they would increase the danger the troops face.

While I imagine a CIA agent's identity is pretty high on the classification order. I can't compare the two because one exposes misconduct and the other.. well there was no justifiable reason to out her name.

eom

Is there an Ari Fleisher School Of Press Secretarying?

and especially the Pentagon bureaucracy than they are to the troops in the field. Trust me, the people in Afghanistan already know what's being done to them and none of this stuff is going to come as a revelation of any sort.

The gasbags will be howling into their microphones about the poor troops in the line of fire, but you know who they're really defending: the architects of this idiotic continuing occupation, the idiots who let bin Laden go nine years ago, and the idiots who are feeding off death and destruction to fatten the bottom lines of their already fat military contracts.

They didn't give a shit about military in the field yesterday and they sure as hell don't give a shit today.

Did he say? No? Did any reporters ask?

Did the Taliban not know they had access to surface to air missiles or that the US and Pakistan government were giving them assistance?

Are YOU sure that nothing in the 90k documents puts our troops at GREATER risk?

Yes ... no?

THAT is the question. Can YOU answer it?

Who "decided" that NOTHING in the 90k documents would increase the risk to specific soldiers in the field now???? Is that person accountable in ANY WAY?

I know we want these wars to end, but increasing the risk to our troops is not the best way to do it. The troops sign up to protect America, and they go where they are sent.

Because, and let's be honest, the American public is woefully underinformed about what the troops and the contractors have been doing with their tax dollars and in their name for nine years. Strangely enough, the people who are actually in the war zone have a pretty good idea whose ordnance is blowing up their houses, killing their neighbors and relatives, and otherwise making the rubble bounce on a daily basis. Many of those people have already made up their minds that they don't much care for foreign occupiers, whether the occupiers speak Russian or English. Documentary evidence of wrongdoing isn't going to suddenly make them more hostile to our troops; they already have all the evidence they need to make a decision.

Or, are you saying that documents 18 months old are somehow so current that it discloses information that hasn't already been gleaned on the ground by direct observation? That seems a bit of a stretch to me.

The first casualty of any war is the truth. The way to get past an open-ended military commitment is to get back to telling the truth again. Here's a golden opportunity for this administration to change course. Invading Afghanistan has been a crime, both in contemplation and execution; worse, it's been a blunder. It is time and past time to begin correcting that.

And yes, a document that is 18 months old can include information that would give the enemy an operational advantage.

Most Americans were pretty upset when Cheney outed Plame. One of the reasons is that by outing her, others who had worked with her in foreign countries in the past would now be suspected of having helped her or cooperated with her.

I would not be surprised to learn that one of these documents would reveal similar relationships. Or methods.

Whether one agrees with the war or not, the troops don't get to pick where they go ... they get sent. And if any of these documents increases their risk, its wrong.

I hope that there is nothing in the 90k documents that does that, but I have no confidence that that is the case. And I'm not sure how any one else does.

Is that our citizenry figures out that they and the soldiers who have volunteered from their ranks have been sent on a fool's errand for the greater profit of a few. I mean, what if the Big Money Boyz needed a war, and nobody went?

My point is that the release of these documents is only going to raise consciousness in the United States; the people whose countries we're currently occupying have already made up their minds about how they feel toward the presence of so many heavily-armed foreigners trying to order them around.

It has to do with the reality that there are troops on the ground, and their immediate risk could be increased above what it already is.

Perhaps this will make it clear ... one could be both FOR getting them out now, AND also against some one leaking documents that might increase their current risk.

These are 2 different questions.

90k secret documents came out about 3 days ago. You assume that they do no harm. I do not. I actually hope they do no harm. But that is not the issue.

If it was 5, 50, 100 documents ... and the people doing the leaking claimed they did everything they could do prevent increasing the risk ... we could discuss that.

But 90,000 documents?? Sorry. The potential for damage is too great. The potential that the COMBINATION of certain documents gives away something bigger than any one of the individual documents does is also much greater.

There are folks using their opposition to the war to defend their support for the leak. You might as well argue that Cheney outing Valerie Plane was OK because you don't like how the CIA operates.

They are distinct issues ... is the war good, yes or no ... is it OK for people to leak classified information in a way which could put our troops (anywhere in the world) in greater risk ... yes or no.

They are separate questions.

These documents have been out over 48 hours now. The pentagon couldn't even find anything that was damaging to the safety of troops.

So again, what examples do you have?

That's definitely more than enough time to review them all and determine the potential risk that one, or any of the infinite combination of them might create.

If you can try to follow the point ... the issue is not that these documents HAVE hurt the troops, but whether the necessary diligence has been done, who did that diligence, and what responsibility do they accept for the potential impact of their actions.

When the military releases documents, there are specific very rules. Those rules exist not only to ensure that information harmful to the troops is not released, but also to ensure that the decisions about how and when to release, what specific content should be redacted, and also WHO specifically made the decisions is known. With that, if a mistake is made, you can examine it and determine what to do, what procedures to change etc.

If the wikileaks folks mess up ... and some dies because of it ... what is wikileaks obligation? Are they responsible? Do they review their procedures for releasing document they don't own in the first place.

And then ... you ignored my question about Plame, using your logic, no one should be upset about Cheney outing her until there is absolute proof that some one got hurt as a result, some specific damage occurred.

Whether doing it is wrong is not based on whether something bad happens within 24 hours after the event.

Your suggestion that this the same thing as Plame is absolutely absurd. The Plame case actually put this country at risk and cost a good women her job. That leak was done not to expose crimes of the government but to cover up lies of the government. The wikileaks leak exposed corruption and lies from our government and 72 hours after the fact you can still not name any information in those documents that hurts troops.

You are also trying to suggest that wikileaks opened the flood gates with this information and just released all of it without any checking. Absolutely not true, they sat on these for months.

And it would be great if we could trust the military to release this kind of information to keep the public informed, clearly as this case (and countless cases before it) proves we can't. We need organizations such as wikileaks because of how corrupt our government is.

So I will ask again, and please answer this. How much longer do you want me to wait for you to give me some examples of information in these documents that could cause harm to our troops? Another day, another week, another month? The pentagon is reviewing these documents for that information and you know they must have hundreds if not thousands of people on it. With a hundred people that's 900 documents a person, they've had 3 days now. Anyone could review 900 documents in 3 days. Yet they haven't found anything yet which tells me they never will because nothing in these documents could hurt our troops. So how much longer are you going to carry their water for them?

otherwise your argument amounts to "well you can't prove God doesn't exist, so he must".

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"U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan could be investigated for "thousands" of possible war crimes allegedly committed when the Bush administration was running that war."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/07/26/2010-07-26_wikileaks_founder_julian_assange_documents_on_thousands_of_possible_us_war_crime.html#ixzz0uoUUnQ12

Context please. I think given the Brietbart gun jumping we should perhaps have more information before assuming this isn't another "operation" attempting to discourage Democrats this fall.

n/t

Same song, different singer.