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Who is really culpable for the release of these names? Here's an excerpt from an interview with Assange... http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s296834

by jawn 16y ago

Who is really culpable for the release of these names? Here's an excerpt from an interview with Assange... http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2968342.htm http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2968342.htm TONY JONES: Well, not according to the Pentagon. They're accusing you of revealing the identities of Afghan informants and putting their lives at risk. Afghan's president, Karzai, agrees with that he says 'the breach is extremely irresponsible and shocking.' Your response to those comments. JULIAN ASSANGE: Well we have yet to see clear evidence of that. I mean the London Times is also making this allegation today and in a quite disingenuous way, for example they mention some informers' names they say they had found and with a headline Afghan informer already dead, but when you actually read the story what you see is in fact that individual that they're mentioning died two years ago. So there's a little bit of media manipulation occurring here. In terms of the Afghan government, it's in their interests to sort of play up the irresponsible, irresponsibility of the United States that they say has been involved in sort of collecting and permitting this data to release, be released. Now we contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the White House did not accept that request. TONY JONES: So you're saying that you offered the White House a chance to go through the documents, or officials from the White House a chance to go through the documents and single out names of people at risk. Is that correct? JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah that's right. Now, of course we did not offer them a chance to veto any material, but rather we told them that we were going through a harm minimisation process and offered them the chance to point out names of informers or other innocents who might be harmed and they did not respond to that request which was mediated through the New York Times who was our, acting as the contact for the four media groups involved in this.

elblanco 16y ago
"Who is really culpable for the release of these names?" The person who released the information.
- jawn 16y ago
  It's not that cut and dry though, the white house had an opportunity to minimize the damage and did nothing about it.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Even if they didn't want to cooperate with Wikileaks by singling out names (that would give WL the extra bit of info on the importance of each name), they knew for sure who should be removed from the field. If their handlers did nothing to protect their field agents, it's not completely WL's fault they get killed.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  elbanco I have no idea why, when I read your comment, you're at -2. I don't read a lot of HN lately, but this is the most irrational thread I have seen on HN for a long, long time. Quite frankly it makes me sad. I'm not going to wave my hands around and say we're turning into reddit. I don't see the need.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    I think what I'm most troubled by is two things, 1) The level of false amnesia regarding all things Taliban, Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. There are some very not nice people there that would kill rape and murder every single person on the planet until they could convert the survivors to their particular brand of Islam. This is not a fantasy, this is their stated intent and has been demonstrated throughout the world for at least the last 10 years through a policy of terror attacks against soft targets from subways to nightclubs that have killed thousands of civilians. Anybody who pretends otherwise is a moron. I'm sorry to go to name calling, but I simply cannot have a productive debate with anybody too stupid to understand this. 2) The same idiots who think that our collective response should be...? What exactly? Whatever it is it certainly shouldn't be a military response followed by nation building. The number of people here, right here, on Hacker News of all places, who obviously have commanded military and intelligence operations against non-uniformed combatants blended in to the local populace (and by the comments we have quite a few 3 and 4 star super generals with decades of counter insurgent operations experience), who know exactly the capabilities and limitations of not only the modern armed forces of industrialized nations, but all of the intelligence capabilities of the target countries. This is not a board about startups, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies should come on here and discuss serious strategy, this place is a gold mine! Imagine, all these experts, on one board, and all they want to do is startup tech business and make iPhone apps! Amazing. By the number of these self-same experts, my reading of their comments is that apparently the response to a global terror campaign is supposed to be a petition and letter campaign, sent to the Taliban HQ and 12345 Terror Lane, Springfield, Afghanistan, asking them to please kindly reconsider a policy of killing the infidel in foreign lands as part of a plan to establish a global Caliphate. Apparently this kind of thing is not only possible, but works! With the vast historic precedent put forth by all the experts here, it's amazing how misguided NATO is with their silly sniper teams and drones. Silly NATO! Anybody who wants to talk about how Iraq was a stupid war and diverted resources from the real problems will find my agreement. Likewise if you want to talk about how the Afghan war was mismanaged, underfunded and stupidly run by incompetent bureaucrats for the better part of a decade. But the response to the wikileaks leak should not be "OMG You mean when we conduct counter-terror operations with the combined might of NATO forces civilians might die! Holy crap, I didn't sign on for that! Let's pull the hell out and resume being terror targets because that was so much better!"

by jawn 16y ago

elblanco 16y ago

"Who is really culpable for the release of these names?" The person who released the information.

jawn 16y ago
It's not that cut and dry though, the white house had an opportunity to minimize the damage and did nothing about it.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Even if they didn't want to cooperate with Wikileaks by singling out names (that would give WL the extra bit of info on the importance of each name), they knew for sure who should be removed from the field. If their handlers did nothing to protect their field agents, it's not completely WL's fault they get killed.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
elbanco I have no idea why, when I read your comment, you're at -2. I don't read a lot of HN lately, but this is the most irrational thread I have seen on HN for a long, long time. Quite frankly it makes me sad. I'm not going to wave my hands around and say we're turning into reddit. I don't see the need.
- elblanco 16y ago
  I think what I'm most troubled by is two things, 1) The level of false amnesia regarding all things Taliban, Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. There are some very not nice people there that would kill rape and murder every single person on the planet until they could convert the survivors to their particular brand of Islam. This is not a fantasy, this is their stated intent and has been demonstrated throughout the world for at least the last 10 years through a policy of terror attacks against soft targets from subways to nightclubs that have killed thousands of civilians. Anybody who pretends otherwise is a moron. I'm sorry to go to name calling, but I simply cannot have a productive debate with anybody too stupid to understand this. 2) The same idiots who think that our collective response should be...? What exactly? Whatever it is it certainly shouldn't be a military response followed by nation building. The number of people here, right here, on Hacker News of all places, who obviously have commanded military and intelligence operations against non-uniformed combatants blended in to the local populace (and by the comments we have quite a few 3 and 4 star super generals with decades of counter insurgent operations experience), who know exactly the capabilities and limitations of not only the modern armed forces of industrialized nations, but all of the intelligence capabilities of the target countries. This is not a board about startups, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies should come on here and discuss serious strategy, this place is a gold mine! Imagine, all these experts, on one board, and all they want to do is startup tech business and make iPhone apps! Amazing. By the number of these self-same experts, my reading of their comments is that apparently the response to a global terror campaign is supposed to be a petition and letter campaign, sent to the Taliban HQ and 12345 Terror Lane, Springfield, Afghanistan, asking them to please kindly reconsider a policy of killing the infidel in foreign lands as part of a plan to establish a global Caliphate. Apparently this kind of thing is not only possible, but works! With the vast historic precedent put forth by all the experts here, it's amazing how misguided NATO is with their silly sniper teams and drones. Silly NATO! Anybody who wants to talk about how Iraq was a stupid war and diverted resources from the real problems will find my agreement. Likewise if you want to talk about how the Afghan war was mismanaged, underfunded and stupidly run by incompetent bureaucrats for the better part of a decade. But the response to the wikileaks leak should not be "OMG You mean when we conduct counter-terror operations with the combined might of NATO forces civilians might die! Holy crap, I didn't sign on for that! Let's pull the hell out and resume being terror targets because that was so much better!"