WikiLeaks to Release 400,000 Secret Documents Monday

[Ben D]

lupercal, that link doesn't work for me?

[lupercal]

Hi Ben, apparently wikileaks has taken down their climate e-mails, but that's the original link from last October. Kicked up a lot of dust too. The problem is not that the material isn't real but that it's carefully sifted so as to present only info convenient to the Pentaspooks or who/whatever is behind it. There seems to be a lot of finger pointing at Iraqi torturers and Iranian weapons in this latest round for example, and so far I haven't seen anything about depleted uranium or Fallujah.

[stefano]

The lovely maps of Iraqi deaths have a total of 109,000. While that is an atrocious number...it is less than one-tenth of last year's statistic of over 1 million deaths. Interesting. Planted info to manipulate perceptions of the death toll?

The Lancet study estimated deaths as a consequence of the invasion - most of those were people killed in sectarian fighting and dying of typhus after the Americans bombed the waterworks. The 109 000 dead are the ones recorded by US troops: coalition forces killed, Iraqi forces killed and civilians or others killed by coalition troops. Definitely nowhere near the actual figure that you can reasonably say 'died in the war', but WikiLeaks hasn't claimed that.

edit- Deaths in the initial air attacks probably aren't in there either.

[seemslikeadream]

WikiLeaks Iraq war logs: Nick Clegg calls for investigation of abuse claims
Any suggestions that the rules of war have been broken or torture condoned are 'extremely serious', says deputy PM

Jonathan Haynes, Mark Townsend, Jamie Doward and Paul Harris and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 October 2010 12.45 BST


Allegations of killings, torture and abuse in Iraq contained in leaked US military logs "need to be looked at", Nick Clegg said today.

The deputy prime minister said any suggestion that the rules of war had been broken or torture had been condoned were "extremely serious".

The almost 400,000 secret US army field reports show two cases of alleged involvement of British troops in the abuse of detainees.

Clegg did not rule out the possibility of an inquiry into the actions of British forces in Iraq, but said it was up to the US administration to answer for the actions of its forces.

His comments contrasted with a statement from the Ministry of Defence yesterday, which warned that the posting of classified US military logs on the WikiLeaks website could endanger the lives of British forces.

Clegg told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show: "We can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about and they are very serious. I am assuming the US administration will want to provide its own answer. It's not for us to tell them how to do that."

Asked if there should be an inquiry into the role of British troops, he said: "I think anything that suggests that basic rules of war, conflict and engagement have been broken or that torture has been in any way condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at."

He added: "People will want to hear what the answer is to what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think everybody will find quite shocking."

Vince Cable, the business secretary, also said allegations of abuse should be investigated and criticised the way in which they were leaked. He told Sky News Sunday Live: "The Liberal Democrats were strong opponents of the Iraq war and we do feel vindicated by what's happening."

He added: "I think there have been several investigations already but I think, clearly, if there have been abuses taking place they need to be investigated – that's obvious enough."

British involvement in the alleged torture and unlawful killing of Iraqi civilians may also be the subject of legal action. Lawyers said the reports embroiled British as well as US forces in an alleged culture of abuse and extrajudicial killings in Iraq.

Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, appearing alongside the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a press conference in London yesterday, said some of the deaths documented in the reports may have involved British forces and could now go through the UK courts. The Iraq war logs, Shiner said, indicated that British as well as US commanders were likely to have ignored evidence of torture by the Iraqi authorities, contrary to international law.

"Some of these deaths will be in circumstances where the UK have a very clear legal responsibility. This may be because the Iraqis died while under the effective control of UK forces – under arrest, in vehicles, helicopters or detention facilities," he said.

The Ministry of Defence said the publication of the records was reckless and put the lives of British military personnel in danger, adding that it investigated any allegations made against British troops. It said: "There is no place for mistreatment of detainees. Any civilian casualty is a matter of deep regret and we take any incidents extremely seriously."

As Assange defended the decision to disclose the documents – saying it was of "immense importance" to reveal the truth about the conflict – the UN warned that if the logs pointed to clear violations of the UN convention against torture, Barack Obama's administration had a clear obligation to investigate them.

Manfred Novak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said: "President Obama came to power with a moral agenda, saying we don't want to be seen to be a nation responsible for major human rights violations." A failure to investigate credible claims of complicity in torture, Novak suggested, would be a failure of the Obama government to recognise US obligations under international law.

The US defence department condemned the WikiLeaks release, describing the documents as raw observations by tactical units, which were only snapshots of tragic, mundane events. Assange said the snapshots of everyday events offered a glimpse at the "human scale" of the conflict. He told the news conference his motive for the disclosure was "about the truth".

Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began in 2003, said its analysis of the logs had raised its total of civilian deaths from 107,369 to more than 122,000. IBC, which worked with WikiLeaks, said the war logs showed there were more than 109,000 violent deaths between 2004 and the end of 2009. They included 66,081 civilians, 23,984 people classed as "enemy", 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces, and 3,771 coalition troops.

John Sloboda of IBC said: "They [the documents] show the relentless grind of daily killings in almost every town or village in every province."

WikiLeaks yesterday promised to publish 15,000 more documents about the war in Afghanistan.

Brit soldier 'killed Iraq girl aged eight as she played'


By Susie Boniface 24/10/2010
MoD fury at leak claims
A British soldier shot dead an eight-year-old Iraqi girl as she played in the street, it was claimed yesterday.
The explosive allegation was made at a press conference about the secret "war logs" from the US military released by the whistleblowing Wikileaks website. Lawyer Phil Shiner said the murder happened while soldiers were handing out sweets to children.
He said: "The tank stopped at the end of the street, she's there in her yellow dress, a rifleman pops up and blows her away." The claim came among revelations that secret reports by the US military showed a total of 122,000 violent deaths in the six years of sectarian violence which followed the 2003 invasion. The Pentagon and Ministry of Defence said Wikileaks was putting soldiers' lives at risk in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The revelations show US soldiers were complicit in abuse of Iraqi prisoners, never investigating further on instruction of their superiors.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said: "We hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued since.

[seemslikeadream]

and oh yea watch out for that Daniel Ellsberg, we all know he's all CIA, after all he wears a gaberdine suit, doesn't he?

what a bunch of bullshit, I'm up to my eyebrows in it this morning

There's a spy around every corner



Michigan seems like a dream to me now

[Skunkboy]

I think I'm with HMW on this. Oh it was the horrible Iraqis that did this to themselves. Kevin Boyle has his take on it.

http://kevboyle.blogspot.com/2010/10/la ... icked.html

Shameful as the Wikileaks 'revelations' are, it is amazing that amongst all the information published there seems to be, yet again, nothing in the contents to nail a single US or UK commander or soldier for criminal wrongdoing.

We are simply guilty of failing to punish or control the murderous impulses of those evil Iraqis.

That Iraq has been an unspeakable horror, we know already.

These new leaks look very much like a psychological operation aimed at 'coalition' societies, the purpose of which is to shift responsibility for the carnage (in the public mind) onto 'the Iraqis' themselves and, if at all possible, the Iranians.

Since the October 2006 Lancet report numbering the Iraqi dead at 650,000+ the 'body count', by most estimates, has grown to exceed 1 million dead.

Here, a new US number is published; 109,000 (so they were counting after all) of which "66,081" were non-combatants.

Perhaps it is intended that the phrase "about 100,000 dead" will now become mainstream common currency when discussing Iraqi deaths?

Scaling this number up to a much more realistic figure it means (accepting [which we obviously shouldn't] US estimates of who amongst the dead are 'combatants' and who are not)....

....that in excess of 600,000 innocent civilians have been killed during the Iraq War.

Is "War" really the right word for this kind of one-sided carnage and slaughter of innocents?

So no individual Americans are demonstrated to be guilty men by Wikileaks but we learn that nearly all the torture and death have been inflicted by the Iraqis themselves.

Coalition forces have merely failed to contain their savagery.

The other important component of the leaks that will certainly be used by US warmongers in the coming weeks is that Iran has been providing extensive training to Iraqi militias.

The finger of accusation is being pointed at Iran again.

Meanwhile the "hunted" Julian (show us your bank account) Assange was interviewed on BBC News this morning about the importance of his most recent revelations.

When a much more important revelation was made by our own then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, that "There is no such organisation as Al Queda and everyone inside the intelligence services knows it", he was simply ignored. (Well, by the media.....he collapsed and died on Ministry of Defense land shortly afterwards).

The bottom line is that the BBC, CNN, Fox News and all the other serial liars on matters of great importance would not be filling every news broadcast and newspaper with the 'Wikileaks' story today had it not been approved our great friends and protectors, the Security/Intelligence Services.

Let anybody who disagrees expect that tomorrow morning's media will expose the controversial facts about 9/11, 7/7 (none of the really interesting stuff from the Inquest is making it into the papers or TV news, by the way), the true nature of the banking money-creation scam and a host of other boring irrelevancies.

If this does happen, please let me know.

I'd hate to miss it.

[Simulist]

Shameful as the Wikileaks 'revelations' are, it is amazing that amongst all the information published there seems to be, yet again, nothing in the contents to nail a single US or UK commander or soldier for criminal wrongdoing.

We are simply guilty of failing to punish or control the murderous impulses of those evil Iraqis.

What?!? The only way to draw this conclusion from the contents of the recent Wikileaks release is not to read them — or even read about them.

[seemslikeadream]

[quote="Skunkboy"]I think I'm with HMW on this. Oh it was the horrible Iraqis that did this to themselves. Kevin Boyle has his take on it./quote]

Who the fuck is Ken Boyle and why should I care?

[82_28]

It's just the general "war time" rot. We can't trust anybody when it comes to the greatest investment in anything America has ever made -- war and war alone. So, I recant now, my "you go, wikileaks" comment or whatever it was. I "recanted" it all before in the original wikileaks thread, by calling it a "double bind" and a "psy-op". This time, I momentarily fell for it.

I've always maintained that (duh) the original bombardment was obviously, as rumsfeld said and was obviously vetted, obviously meant to become a meme from which they could all hide behind, "shock and awe". What they did to the average human who was left alive from their surgical strikes was let the living see that they were dead too. No mammal, animal probably of any kind, can take living around lifeless examples of their own mortal coils. What is just most glaring and disgusting about this, and it has happened many a time before, but it was a fully FUCKING publicized attack on CIVILIANS -- not an after effect of just "simply" being at war. In my book, this shit was probably the cruelest act humankind has ever perpetrated upon itself. To think some motherfuckers were CHEERING while bombs dropped live upon millions of innocents. And worse of all, some, many were just indifferent. I fucking cried.

OK? So why, fundamentally, are they doing this? I think we all know the answers. But when it gets down to it, why in God's name are they doing this to planet Earth? I think to myself, "why can't they just solve it?" Then I realize, I've been implanted with the earlier meme, of a "final solution". Fuckin' "order out of chaos" I guess it will be. Nazi Germany is being slowly turned into a keystone cops routine, because we are living under the NEXT SOLUTION. Evil must always leverage itself -- good can just be. It does it by mean things people say, ways in which we interact in our metal, petrol powered chariots, a smiling democrat etc. But, the evil never goes away because we won't allow it to.

But this time! It is a managed and databased chaos to such degrees we have no idea. We can sit around and think about it, talk about it, post about it etc. But on the day to day level of existence, inter-human interaction and inter-species, they have destroyed us. We are still in the prison. They've just remodeled it a bit.

[jingofever]

The Lancet study was most likely bullshit.

[seemslikeadream]

We are still in the prison. They've just remodeled it a bit.

oh my 82 you are so very wrong, if you are there it is your choice

live in it not of it







We all know sometimes life hates and troubles
Can make you wish you were born in another time and space
But you can bet your lifetimes that and twice it's double
That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed
So make sure when you say you're in it, but not of it
You're not helpin' to make this earth
A place sometimes called hell
Change your words into truths
And then change that truth into love
And maybe our children's grandchildren
And their great grandchildren will tell
I'll be loving you until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky

[82_28]

But if we see our fellows dropping like flies and we're unable to do one thing to save countless millions of people's lives just by being us, being forthright, being good, speaking our minds, gathering in peace, then we are in a prison. I live just outside the walls. Well aware of it, but it isn't about myself and where I am. I can only be where you are. Should you be in prison, then so will I.

Who the fuck taught these morals? Why are they so ingrained?

While I drink beer on this fine rainy Sunday morning, I too have a good song to share:

[slow_dazzle]

Interesting take on Wikileaks here:

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/10/23 ... ickenfeed/

For a most wanted man Assange seems to manage to dodge the hit teams quite well.

[Twyla LaSarc]

I like wikileaks because it makes life interesting.

What I'm getting from this (I have not nor probabaly never will read ALL 400,000 dox), the Iraqis were torturing their own while ostensibly being supervised by the US and UK. It also sounds like we hired people who enjoyed torture at the very git-go: when you got a hammer, etc. Of course the US is a bit of a wet-works man itself, as the still unpublished Abu Garib photos still clutched in the impotent hands of congress will someday prove (BTW, Saddam's prison we were supposed to shut down, just the first of many we will never shut down as long as the empire exists).

As for the numbers, It would make sense that the counts, just like the ones I remember seeing during VN, only reflect those killed directly and verifiably 'in battle'. They are not going to show the casulaties of the poisoning of the enviroment and the devastation of infrastructure. That would have just happened on its own under Saddam, you betcha.

[Twyla LaSarc]

I will reserve judgement on whether-or-not Assange is an agent and where he fits in. I find it more interesting to see the patterns develop in the media, etc, how blantant and boilerplate the standard response has been for all sorts of things over the years: First deny and slime the messenger, call for investigations and trials which either never get going or sputter out invisibly in a few years, then, when that doesn't work- a species of character-and-worse assination that the scientologists would be proud of. There are probably any number of subtleties to the pattern, but I've noticed this one.