One of the most disappointing things about Wikileaks is that the release of documents about the U.S. torturing people and the war going badly hasn't had any adverse affect on the support for the war. It's proof that people just don't care. It's depressing.
The need by governments to keep everything secret is a bit irrational. People don't care.
That's sadly true. Same goes for WL's recent policy of sensationalism; in their early years, they simply released documents. Now it's dramatic titles, commentary, expensive media deals. I have nothing against WL for this; it's simply a sign that, unless things are made dramatic - indeed, even if things are made dramatic, after the first few weeks - the public no longer care.
But you have to acknowledge the fact that more people are now exposed to the Wikileaks data precisely because of Wikileaks's "dramatic" release announcements.
I actually care less when things are made dramatic. When WL was a repository of truth, I supported it. As its mission changes to become an agent for change, I support it less.
Change comes from truth and truth leads to change. I do not quite understand your argument either. Are you unable to stick to the "truth" part and ignore the "agenda" part.
It is like in literature classes when you start talking about the personal life of the author. Does it matter what he does or is, or is the book and the book alone that matters?
The main thing about the Iraq War Logs was that there was nothing particularly new or surprising or shocking. Details about incidents, but nothing war critics didn't already assume had happened many times.
When someone says "We've got horrible things to reveal", your imagination fills in the blanks, extrapolating from what we've already found out to even more horrible extremes.
But then what Wikileaks revealed didn't live up to that. It was pretty much more of the same things we already knew.
It's no wonder the reaction was subdued. It doesn't mean people don't care, it just means we're too burnt out to work up a rage about the sorts of things we already knew were happening.
With regard to torture, first there was denial. Then we were told it was rouge elements of the military that did these things. Then came rationalization. We had to do it. After Wikileaks proved beyond a doubt the scope of the crimes there's apathy. The country has gotten so apathetic that Bush admits to his crimes in his memoirs and yet has no fear of prosecution.
It's sad that many Americans see ourselves as a force of good and when confronted with irrefutable proof of our crimes the nation, for the most part, just shrugged it's shoulders. I agree with your analysis. I wish reality were different though.
Do you seriously believe the whole "the leak is very serious, but at the same time trivial"-story? It's a classic defense mechanism or tactic, depending on who you ask, in crisis management. I don't know any good English sources for this off the top of my head, but I it's called "trivialization", "minimization" or "disavowal". You can also google "crisis communication", "crisis management" or "image restoration" and you'll probably find something interesting like http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/98A1/Benoit.htm
This is really the key and why I've never liked the comparisons to the Pentagon Papers. Wikileaks may have changed the narrative at the margins, but overall the leak didn't reveal much about the big picture that hasn't been common knowledge for a good while.
The Pentagon Papers, on the other hand, revealed that multiple presidential administrations had deliberately lied to the public about what was going on in Vietnam. The Downing Street memo is probably the closest Iraq war analogue.
The Wikileaks Iraq leak (apparently) predominately documented torture by Iraqis. If anything, it enhanced the US narrative, in part by documenting belligerent activity by Iran, and in part by creating a contrast between our professional military and their abusive militias.
Part of the US narrative about Iraq (a part that I completely believe) holds that however bad Iraq is now, it's got to be better than decennial waves of genocide punctuated by monthly feedings of dissidents through industrial paper shredders.
I'm not a supporter of the Iraq war, but I'm not naive enough to think that Iraq was a playground before we got there. I have a hunch I may speak for a fair portion of the "depressing" majority of people who are not outraged by this last disclosure.
Iraq was a mess before we invaded. Saddam was brutal. We, apparently, have been less so but not by too much. It's a pretty low standard to have that we just be better than Saddam. We should also keep in mind that in the 80's it was we who supplied Saddam. It was we who turned a blind eye when he was using chemical weapons to gas Kurds.
Our whole involvement with Iraq over the past few decades has been revolting.
It did enhance aspects of the US narrative, and diminished others. This is a good thing, since it added to the overall truthfulness of the narrative.
US strategy has been to hide the proxy war it's fighting with Iran from the American public, while increasing the rhetoric/rancor against Iran, so that eventually if/when there is more open conflict, the American people already view the Iranian people as barbaric subhumans.
Your second paragraph doesn't make any sense to me. It seems to suggest that Americans would look more favorably on Iranians if we knew they were helping kill American teenagers.
I feel bad for taking even a baby step further into this political tar pit, but my nerd brain lacks an exception handler for the weirdness it just encountered.
That is not the intended implication. The US is not currently powerful enough to add a full-fledged war against Iran to its docket of wars.
Military power = technology * money * public will
Since the public would not accept the sacrifices necessary to engage in an all-out war with Iran, the US is hamstrung. How to fix this? Simple, increase the public will toward war with Iran. Since the American public is growing skeptical of warmongering claims, and Iran actually has the moral high ground in this case, the US has no choice but to keep from the American people information that would cause some parties to demand a war that could not actually happen.
Politico called it a "devastating portrait of apparent U.S. indifference to a pattern of murder and torture." BBC said the memos "Show U.S. 'ignored torture'". I only remember the New York Times anything that could be construed as favorable to the U.S. and I'm guessing that your impression was shaped by the NY Times article by Sabrina Tavernise and Andrew W. Lehren.
Anyway, the reports of U.S. indifference and maybe even complicity in Iraqi acts of torture is not enhancing to the U.S. image, which isn't to say misleading reporting couldn't enhance our image after the fact.
Do you have a specific example of this? Every instance I have seen or heard about refers to the actions of Iraqi security forces.
hasn't had any adverse affect on the support for the war. It's proof that people just don't care.
At the risk of being mistaken for some kind of right-wing buffoon, I have to say that what I've gleaned from the Iraq war leak has had an adverse effect on my opposition to it. The sketch of what Iraq will be after the US withdraws is there and I'm not convinced it's any better. I still don't know what to do with that, but perhaps it's a sign of why many or most people don't care: there is no simple answer. That is, you can't just release a bunch of documents and end a war, because such documents will only give you a higher resolution picture of a complex reality.
I think that Wikileaks has sort of hobbled itself by relying on document bombs and overt political objectives instead of just focusing on sensemaking. They get a lot more attention this way, but much less capacity to change minds.
The need by governments to keep everything secret is a bit irrational. People don't care.
You're basing that on the mistaken assumption that the intent of all military secrecy is to withhold information from the citizens it serves and not enemies current and potential. The widespread appeal of that assumption is what WIkileaks depends on for donations but it's still bonkers.
Long before the Wikileaks report there was the report by Major General Taguba which included in it the fact that a man was forced to rape his son while under U.S. custody. In the Wikileaks documents we come to know that the Iraqi forces routinely torture. Our leaders knew this and yet did little to stop it. They refused to allow Red Cross personnel to have access.
One can hide behind the fact that it was Iraqis doing this but given our sway over their forces this doesn't hold water with me. We did nothing to stop these abuses. We turned over detainees to people we knew were going to torture. It makes us just as guilty as the ones who were doing the torture. Getting other people to do the dirty work is no less reprehensible.
The leaked documents show that our forces deliberately killed people while in the process of surrenduring. Our forces have executed civilians. The picture painted by these document is indeed a bleak one. It also demonstrates that we, as a nation, have no moral authority. The meme that we are good and they are bad is a false one that has been destroyed by our actions in this war in the minds of the rest of the world. It just hasn't sunk in with the average American.
I don't advocate that we leave Iraq right now. It's a mess. I do advocate that generals and former Presidents be arrested for war crimes though. It's sad to me as an American that we have sunk so low so fast.
> One can hide behind the fact that it was Iraqis doing this but given our sway over their forces this doesn't hold water with me. We did nothing to stop these abuses.
Realistically, I'm not sure there's a lot the USA could do. When US forces arrest an Iraqi within Iraq, then it's a violation of Iraqi sovereignty not to hand him over to the Iraqi authorities. Given where Iraq is now (a history of repression, just becoming democratic), it would be extremely naive to expect Iraqi forces never to violate human rights.
Unless the USA wants to stay in Iraq forever -- which would be unacceptable to both the American and Iraqi publics, and would make the situation worse anyway -- they have to accept that some torture and other human rights violations will occur.
...there was the report by Major General Taguba which included in it the fact that a man was forced to rape his son while under U.S. custody.
There is no such finding in the Taguba Report.
One can hide behind the fact that it was Iraqis doing this...
Being accurate is not "hiding". The assertion that I read was that Wikileaks had released "documents about the U.S. torturing people". That assertion is false. The distinction is absolutely crucial to what can and should be done about it.
General Taguba's report showed that a man was forced to have sex with a teenage boy.
It did not. Please do not mistake me for someone unwilling or unable to do my own research, or someone interested in being lied to. This will be my final comment.
The finding that you are misreporting is on page 17, item I, under the heading "I find the intentional abuse of detainees by military personel included the following acts": "Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee and then photographing him naked;"
If you believe that events transpired differently, that is your right, but it is not supported by the report you cited.
The distinction is meaningless.
Let me reiterate with different emphasis: The distinction is absolutely crucial to what can and should be done about it. Having a clear picture of the problem and being accurate and precise about what is actually going on is essential to finding a solution. Obscuring the problem under a blurry haze of blame is not a solution and doesn't get you any closer to one. It's like trying to untangle a knotted mess of cables by trying to decide which cable's fault it is and then pointing at it harder and harder in the hope that it will resolve itself.
My mistake again. I misread what was meant by "forcibly rape". I took forcibly to mean he was being forced. However, there are many other things in the report detailing out torture and abuse of prisoners. The point I made stands and is correct. We torture people and the nation, for the most part, doesn't care.
The distinction is meaningless in a moral sense. Our actions are morally reprehensible. I wasn't proposing a solution. I was merely stating facts. We send people to Iraqi security forces knowing they will be tortured. This is reprehensible.
Using your analogy, one must first determine the cables are tangled before a solution is sought. Americans aren't demanding a solution because they aren't aware of it or just don't care.
I'm not sure if you're only referring to WikiLeaks, but as for torture:
The CIA's waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown.
"Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus."
...
In October the group released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with major commercial media organisations.
7 x 400,000 = 2.8m documents?
You don't change people's minds by releasing 2.8 million pages of documentation, you change it by repeating your slogan over and over and over.
Wikileaks leaking such documents makes it possible for the actual media to make fresh and truthful presentations with their data (thus maybe repeating your slogan again and again).
Wikileaks is no longer about the content of the leaks anyway; it's all about the process of leaking them. Given the assumption that nobody's going to read the leaks anyway, a bigger number is better. New! Now with 7x more leaks!
I can pick up that the intent of the poster of this was to imply that this promise was simply to gain donation money. While I don't know overly much about how such issues are typically handled in these communities, I'd far rather donate to Wikileaks's "secret docs coming over, keep us strong" then Wikipedia's "look at me, I'm Jimbo Wales".
I am extremely suspicious of wikileaks and its motivation. For example, they believe that WMD were found in Iraq. I won't be surprised if we find out in 15 years the whole thing was a DOD disinformation campaign.
I am having the very good pleasure of speaking to you as Head of Wikileaks site for bad information on countries! Our previous Head has been removed for bad touching of females leaving Wikileaks with all his 2,800,000 seekrits but we cannot touch them!
All his seekrits are belong to you because our panel decided your are super most trustworthy of all on teh internets. All you must be doing to access your seekrits is by making donation first of small $10,000.00 and seekrits are in you hard drive!
42 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 69.7 ms ] threadThe need by governments to keep everything secret is a bit irrational. People don't care.
It is like in literature classes when you start talking about the personal life of the author. Does it matter what he does or is, or is the book and the book alone that matters?
When someone says "We've got horrible things to reveal", your imagination fills in the blanks, extrapolating from what we've already found out to even more horrible extremes.
But then what Wikileaks revealed didn't live up to that. It was pretty much more of the same things we already knew.
It's no wonder the reaction was subdued. It doesn't mean people don't care, it just means we're too burnt out to work up a rage about the sorts of things we already knew were happening.
With regard to torture, first there was denial. Then we were told it was rouge elements of the military that did these things. Then came rationalization. We had to do it. After Wikileaks proved beyond a doubt the scope of the crimes there's apathy. The country has gotten so apathetic that Bush admits to his crimes in his memoirs and yet has no fear of prosecution.
It's sad that many Americans see ourselves as a force of good and when confronted with irrefutable proof of our crimes the nation, for the most part, just shrugged it's shoulders. I agree with your analysis. I wish reality were different though.
All I know is that nobody looked through the leaked material and found something beyond what we already knew about.
The Pentagon Papers, on the other hand, revealed that multiple presidential administrations had deliberately lied to the public about what was going on in Vietnam. The Downing Street memo is probably the closest Iraq war analogue.
Part of the US narrative about Iraq (a part that I completely believe) holds that however bad Iraq is now, it's got to be better than decennial waves of genocide punctuated by monthly feedings of dissidents through industrial paper shredders.
I'm not a supporter of the Iraq war, but I'm not naive enough to think that Iraq was a playground before we got there. I have a hunch I may speak for a fair portion of the "depressing" majority of people who are not outraged by this last disclosure.
Our whole involvement with Iraq over the past few decades has been revolting.
US strategy has been to hide the proxy war it's fighting with Iran from the American public, while increasing the rhetoric/rancor against Iran, so that eventually if/when there is more open conflict, the American people already view the Iranian people as barbaric subhumans.
I feel bad for taking even a baby step further into this political tar pit, but my nerd brain lacks an exception handler for the weirdness it just encountered.
Military power = technology * money * public will
Since the public would not accept the sacrifices necessary to engage in an all-out war with Iran, the US is hamstrung. How to fix this? Simple, increase the public will toward war with Iran. Since the American public is growing skeptical of warmongering claims, and Iran actually has the moral high ground in this case, the US has no choice but to keep from the American people information that would cause some parties to demand a war that could not actually happen.
Anyway, the reports of U.S. indifference and maybe even complicity in Iraqi acts of torture is not enhancing to the U.S. image, which isn't to say misleading reporting couldn't enhance our image after the fact.
Do you have a specific example of this? Every instance I have seen or heard about refers to the actions of Iraqi security forces.
hasn't had any adverse affect on the support for the war. It's proof that people just don't care.
At the risk of being mistaken for some kind of right-wing buffoon, I have to say that what I've gleaned from the Iraq war leak has had an adverse effect on my opposition to it. The sketch of what Iraq will be after the US withdraws is there and I'm not convinced it's any better. I still don't know what to do with that, but perhaps it's a sign of why many or most people don't care: there is no simple answer. That is, you can't just release a bunch of documents and end a war, because such documents will only give you a higher resolution picture of a complex reality.
I think that Wikileaks has sort of hobbled itself by relying on document bombs and overt political objectives instead of just focusing on sensemaking. They get a lot more attention this way, but much less capacity to change minds.
The need by governments to keep everything secret is a bit irrational. People don't care.
You're basing that on the mistaken assumption that the intent of all military secrecy is to withhold information from the citizens it serves and not enemies current and potential. The widespread appeal of that assumption is what WIkileaks depends on for donations but it's still bonkers.
One can hide behind the fact that it was Iraqis doing this but given our sway over their forces this doesn't hold water with me. We did nothing to stop these abuses. We turned over detainees to people we knew were going to torture. It makes us just as guilty as the ones who were doing the torture. Getting other people to do the dirty work is no less reprehensible.
The leaked documents show that our forces deliberately killed people while in the process of surrenduring. Our forces have executed civilians. The picture painted by these document is indeed a bleak one. It also demonstrates that we, as a nation, have no moral authority. The meme that we are good and they are bad is a false one that has been destroyed by our actions in this war in the minds of the rest of the world. It just hasn't sunk in with the average American.
I don't advocate that we leave Iraq right now. It's a mess. I do advocate that generals and former Presidents be arrested for war crimes though. It's sad to me as an American that we have sunk so low so fast.
Realistically, I'm not sure there's a lot the USA could do. When US forces arrest an Iraqi within Iraq, then it's a violation of Iraqi sovereignty not to hand him over to the Iraqi authorities. Given where Iraq is now (a history of repression, just becoming democratic), it would be extremely naive to expect Iraqi forces never to violate human rights.
Unless the USA wants to stay in Iraq forever -- which would be unacceptable to both the American and Iraqi publics, and would make the situation worse anyway -- they have to accept that some torture and other human rights violations will occur.
Ha. Funny.
"...they have to accept that some torture and other human rights violations will occur."
I'm reminded of Bush writing, "Let freedom ring" on the memo he got after the new Iraq government was instituted.
There is no such finding in the Taguba Report.
One can hide behind the fact that it was Iraqis doing this...
Being accurate is not "hiding". The assertion that I read was that Wikileaks had released "documents about the U.S. torturing people". That assertion is false. The distinction is absolutely crucial to what can and should be done about it.
Delivering prisoners to people who you know will torture them is the same as conducting the torture yourself. The distinction is meaningless.
It did not. Please do not mistake me for someone unwilling or unable to do my own research, or someone interested in being lied to. This will be my final comment.
The finding that you are misreporting is on page 17, item I, under the heading "I find the intentional abuse of detainees by military personel included the following acts": "Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee and then photographing him naked;"
If you believe that events transpired differently, that is your right, but it is not supported by the report you cited.
The distinction is meaningless.
Let me reiterate with different emphasis: The distinction is absolutely crucial to what can and should be done about it. Having a clear picture of the problem and being accurate and precise about what is actually going on is essential to finding a solution. Obscuring the problem under a blurry haze of blame is not a solution and doesn't get you any closer to one. It's like trying to untangle a knotted mess of cables by trying to decide which cable's fault it is and then pointing at it harder and harder in the hope that it will resolve itself.
The distinction is meaningless in a moral sense. Our actions are morally reprehensible. I wasn't proposing a solution. I was merely stating facts. We send people to Iraqi security forces knowing they will be tortured. This is reprehensible.
Using your analogy, one must first determine the cables are tangled before a solution is sought. Americans aren't demanding a solution because they aren't aware of it or just don't care.
The CIA's waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/03/09/waterboarding_f...
"Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus."
Wikileaks: http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/ Diary dig: http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/iraq/diarydig War logs: http://warlogs.owni.fr/
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq-war-logs Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/iraq_war_logs/ Bureau of Investigative Journalism: http://www.iraqwarlogs.com/ Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/
Video - Bureau of Investigative Journalism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDxADbXhuU Al Jazeera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU718vXkrwY
7 x 400,000 = 2.8m documents?
You don't change people's minds by releasing 2.8 million pages of documentation, you change it by repeating your slogan over and over and over.
Welcome to my quotes file. Do you want a name on that in case I use it sometime?
I am having the very good pleasure of speaking to you as Head of Wikileaks site for bad information on countries! Our previous Head has been removed for bad touching of females leaving Wikileaks with all his 2,800,000 seekrits but we cannot touch them!
All his seekrits are belong to you because our panel decided your are super most trustworthy of all on teh internets. All you must be doing to access your seekrits is by making donation first of small $10,000.00 and seekrits are in you hard drive!