Claimed US Military Wikileaks Source Arrested 698
svelemor writes "A 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst was ratted out by a fellow hacker, accused of providing the Collateral Murder video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to Wikileaks. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait."
Re:Feh (Score:5, Interesting)
What a dumbass.
There are ways, such as Congressional investigations, to out that sort of stuff. Plastering it on the web works but isn't exactly brilliant.
Example:
Find Congresscritter(s) with adequate security clearance and appropriate record of stirring shit. Give them a detailed verbal brief including the docs and their location. Have THEIR legal eagles work out a procedure for accessing the material.
Re:Feh (Score:5, Interesting)
I loved how nobody bothered to point out that there were rocket launchers and AK-47's in the collateral murder video.
Did you bother to point out that there were children in a van that was being loaded with a wounded journalist that got blasted to hell?
Anti war people are so gullible.
And pro-war people aren't? "Iraq has WMDs! Oops, we mean they don't." "If we go to Afghanistan, we can capture and/or kill bin Laden! Oops, I mean we can't."
Come on. Seriously? You're acusing anti-war folks of being gullible?
Re:Feh (Score:5, Interesting)
There was never any doubt about the authenticity of the videos - the military admitted they were real. What they argued was that the videos didn't show the context in which there had been combat nearby.
Now, how nearby combat affects whether you can shoot at people retrieving the wounded without violating the Geneva Conventions is a different question. What is very clear, though, is that this is a small taste of what the Iraq War really looks like, and that some soldiers under the sort of combat pressure end up thinking along the lines of "Anyone who runs is an insurgent. Anyone who doesn't run is a well-disciplined insurgent."
I Think He Lost This Gamble (Score:2, Interesting)
Honestly. For standing up for what is right instead of doing what he's told. If there isn't a medal for that, there fucking should be.
He gambled with his access to this data and, in hindsight, I think it was a very imprudent thing to do that might result in espionage or treason charges. The documents he released would have to have had such a profound impact on the American people, the American press and the rest of the world that his imprisonment could only be seen as an Imperial action committed by a war hungry country. This, however, would require that politicians become involved and pardon him from any persecution instead of a military level court decision. And for that, I think we would have to be talking about more than a few accidental killings in a war zone. We would have to be talking about an unacknowledged war crime [wikipedia.org]. The Garani video listed in the article might be a war crime but it sounds like the United States has admitted to it in the press, thereby removing the blunt effect it might have or the super valuable phrase "cover up".
Unfortunately for Manning, none of this went down to the degree he needed it to. I don't mean to sound apologetic or like lives are trivial things to be dispatched with at the push of a button but the American people seem to be okay with the fact that hell is visited upon two other nations by way of their tax dollar. If they want to, they can watch journalists being killed in Iraq. It's been available for several months with little impact. The justifications of these wars range from 9/11 to 'they got our oil' but it seems that anything Manning leaked has failed to leave the impact it needed to in order to ensure his freedom. That's my opinion from watching the media circus so far anyway--his only hope seems to be that the Garani video has much more of an impact. The 260,000 diplomatic cables are not going to have the impact he'll need them to. I can understand selected videos of unacknowledged journalist killings but why the cables? I don't think the politicians will appreciate that at all and it will do nothing for his case.
Wikileaks claims not to have the embassy messages (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Feh (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No charge (Score:2, Interesting)
Because they're doing a proper investigation first. This isn't a civilian under the jurisdiction of normal criminal laws.
Would you not agree that given the nature of the actions he is believed to have committed it was important to get him out of circulation ASAP?
Seriously though- what do you expect to happen to a traitor guilty of espionage while in uniform? We're not talking about prison sentences here- shouldn't caution be the word?
Re:Why Was He Discussing Operations? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you know, in addition to the videos and diplomatic cables he was out and about bragging about this and discussing major operations and their code words.
The same article states that Adrian Lamo is a journalist. We have no idea what the context of their talks were, or whether Agent Manning was bragging or not. It is entirely possible that he was merely talking to a journalist that he thought he could trust, and Lamo thought he would get a better story by burning his source.
Re:Feh (Score:3, Interesting)
I watched the full video.
Thoughts:
1. The adage that aerial forces cannot take or hold terrain remains true.
2. Higher resolution cameras or operating at closer range could have changed the outcome of this.
Re:Feh (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it me or is it patently DUMB to wear a bright, red "shoot here for best effect" aiming mark?
But aside of that, the problem here is that we don't want this to be a war. War is where people die. You can't really wage war these days. So you have to kinda-sorta play some sort of heavily armed police ... kinda force. Which is quite STUPID to start with.
But hey, fighting an asymmetric war is stupid in the first place. So far, I cannot remember one where the "orderly" army won against the insurgents. From the US independence war to Vietnam. Name one war where an organized army was successful against a loose group of people who have no fixed command structure you could strike at to make the rest give up.
You cannot win a war against people who are willing to trade their life for their goal. Which is, most of the time, being free from you. Not necessarily being "free" as we understand it, but being not subject to your interests. How do you want to win that war?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:War is not pretty (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:*applause* (Score:2, Interesting)
The people who then decided to put two children in a van to collect the bodies should be shot if they survived. It should go without saying that the US troops would want to examine the bodies of the dead enemy, to see who they were, if there were any documents on them, etc. Every army in the world would do that. And anyone in the "insurgency" would be criminally stupid not to know that.
The Germans had no American embed journalists on D-Day in 1944. The Americans and the British bombed Caen to smithereens. Thousands of French died as "collateral damage". Should the Allied have refrained from going into France, against the express will of the Vichy government? Should they have refrained from invading Germany because it was "their country"? And should the New York Times have published the invasion plans for D-Day because "the public has the right to know"?
Frankly the Army owes the guy a medal (Score:3, Interesting)
If WW2 showed us anything, it was people are capable of atrocities if ordered to do so. Read the book "Ordinary Men" (I think that was what it was called). Almost to a man, the excuse will be "I was ordered to do so, I was doing my duty".
If we took anything away from that war that was positive it was even within a strict command structure, one does not have to follow orders he believes to be illegal. I think you can also extend that to information. If you know of something that went on that you felt was illegal, I think you are OBLIGATED to report that information. I have no idea if this guy tried to use the usual channels of communication to report this incident, but I don't think it is a bit stretch that if he did, that the proof would "disappear" and he would be "reassigned". He may have felt he had NO choice but take the action he did, in good conscience.
Now, it is also reasonable to say if you refuse what you think is an illegal order, or release information in the way he did, there will be a price to pay. There would certainly be an military court decision, that would say one way or another, if you made the right choice. Likely regardless your life as a military professional would be over no matter what, a sad, but likely true outcome.
However even with that, years later when shit might be going down, you can say with some self respect, that you did no follow that order you believed to be wrong, or that you tried to let people know the truth at your own personal cost. "I was just following orders" is a horrible thing to say, though even I can have some empathy when the outcome was they would be shot for not following orders.
Anyway as someone who isn't in the military, I am glad someone like that was in it, and I think he thought he was doing the right thing. He will be judged one way or another, and likely we don't have all the facts, but I would hope that if nothing untoward complicates the issue that the military court will absolve him, maybe even give him a medal (and then likely discharge him). I also think that as much as this is bad PR for the Army, it is also potential good PR. As I don't think anyone is too surprised that this sort illegal action or accident took place, however I know I would feel more comfortable, and confident knowing that there are good people within the Army that are also trying to do the right thing.
Someone Felt the Consequences Were Worth It (Score:3, Interesting)
Having served, all I can say is that this young man is either an idiot, or his beliefs were strong enough he felt the consequences were worth it. Regardless what right and wrong are on in the videos and documents he disclosed, this young man will bear the full consequences for his actions. One can only hope he is comfortable with trading his freedom or even his life for disclosing what he did, because it was a federal felony, a violation of the UCMJ and likely will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Re:War is not pretty (Score:3, Interesting)
a) some members of the group were visibly armed with small arms
I've heard this is extremely common in Iraq, and is no reason to assume someone is an insurgent.
b) they were approaching a US position on the ground.
I've also heard that this was several blocks over. The people in the video are walking along as usual, clearly not in the middle of a firefight, nor are they running toward anything as if to participate.
For extra credit, discuss the gunner's proven unwillingness to fire on targets which he could positively discern were civilians
To play devil's advocate, maybe he just knew he couldn't get away with it in that case.
Re:War is not pretty (Score:2, Interesting)
Ground troops reported taking fire from that direction. It is possible that the fire they took was from a different group.
This is salient. Extraordinarily so.
Label me however you like, but this single statement belies the truth of the situation more than any apologetic position you can muster after the fact.
If the fire was taken from a different group then it is likewise possible that the people were armed to protect themselves from that group. This would be legal under Iraqi law. Since they had not definitively fired upon anyone, sniping them from well beyond the effective range of any RPG is not within the rules of engagement.
I am certain there are a plethora of honorable military activities that a patriotic person can support. Unfortunately the events in the video are not among them.
B) They're brown people and we're simply better. Because they're Arabs, Muslims, or whatever racial handle you'd like to apply, we superior people can simply kill them until they stop resisting being killed.
Okay, so you're not even trying to conceal the fact that you're trolling. Douchebag.
I see, so you're going to purport that I'm inventing the racism angle, because I'm a troll. If it helps you sleep better, go nuts, but even the most casual google searching will show that this concept did NOT originate with me.
Re:War is not pretty (Score:3, Interesting)