Wikileaks Defends Release of Afghanistan War Logs Documents

Julian Assange defends the release of secret military files on the war in Afghanistan. Plus, an update from the Russian news channel:

I'm still working through the information, but see my earlier entry, "WikiLeaks and the Afghanistan War Logs." Also, at Politico, "W.H. condemns 'irresponsible' leaks, dismisses stories." And especially, Blake Hounshell, "The logs of war: Do the Wikileaks documents really tell us anything new?":

Three news organizations -- the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel -- today published explosive reports on a treasure trove of more than 91,000 documents that were obtained by Wikileaks, the self-proclaimed whistleblower site.

I've now gone through the reporting and most of the selected documents (though not the larger data dump), and I think there's less here than meets the eye. The story that seems to be getting the most attention, repeating the longstanding allegation that Pakistani intelligence might be aiding the Afghan insurgents, offers a few new details but not much greater clarity. Both the Times and the Guardian are careful to point out that the raw reports in the Wikileaks archive often seem poorly sourced and present implausible information.

"[F]or all their eye-popping details," writes the Guardian's Declan Walsh, "the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity."

The Times' reporters seem somewhat more persuaded, noting that "many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable" and that their sources told them that "the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence."

Der Spiegel's reporting adds little, though the magazine's stories will probably have great political impact in Germany, as the Wikileaks folks no doubt intended. One story hones in on how an elite U.S. task force charged with hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda targets operates from within a German base; another alleges that "The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict," and that northern Afghanistan, where the bulk of German troops are based, is more violent than has been previously portrayed.

Otherwise, I'd say that so far the documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, Atheist Gay Loner, Hailed as Antiwar Hero in Criminal WikiLeaks Case

The antiwar left embraces misfits when it needs them, uses them up, spits them out, then moves on to the next target of destruction. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is the next Cindy Sheehan. He's an atheist gay loner who never fit in. He's being used now by the anti-American crowd, including Code Pink and International ANSWER, and they'll suck him dry and flatten him — he'll be dead to them like a honey bee after stinging. NYT posted a sorry essay previously, "Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case." It notes there that classmates in Oklahoma "made fun of him for being gay." Poor guy. I guess that makes it okay then to criminally leak classified information that puts American and allied lives at risk. Radical leftists don't care, of course. He's the new big guy of the movement. See WaPo, "Army Analyst Linked to WikiLeaks Hailed as Antiwar Hero" (via Memeorandum):

For antiwar campaigners from Seattle to Iceland, a new name has become a byword for anti-establishment heroism: Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning.

Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst, is suspected of leaking thousands of classified documents about the Afghanistan war to the Web site WikiLeaks.

The breach has elicited a furious reaction from national security officials, who say it has compromised the safety of U.S.-led forces and their Afghan allies.

Yet, since his arrest in the spring, Manning has become an instant folk hero to thousands of grass-roots activists around the world, some of whom are likening the disclosure to the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers or the anonymous tips that helped uncover the Watergate scandal.

Neither Manning nor his attorney have commented on the WikiLeaks dump -- and WikiLeaks has not identified Manning as its source. But chat logs released by an online confidant suggest that the intelligence analyst was as disturbed by U.S. foreign policy as many of the strangers now supporting him.

In the logs, Manning said he had seen "incredible things, awful things" in classified government files. It's "important that it gets out . . . I feel, for some bizarre reason," he said.

The Pentagon has played down the significance of the files disclosed by WikiLeaks. But that has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of Manning's supporters.

And according to the article, one of his antiwar support groups, Courage to Resist ...

... developed a line of Manning memorabilia, replete with images of the boyish-looking private. There are "Save Bradley Manning!" badges, posters and T-shirts. The products' tagline: "Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime."

Yep, using him up. That's sick.

John Bolton Hammers Obama Administration WikiLeaks Response — Barack Obama Especially — For Placing America's Interests at Risk

Well here's an appropriate follow-up to my previous post, "WikiLeaks Reveals Millions of Dollars Flowing to Extremists Worldwide: President Obama 'Less Critical' of Terror Financing Than Predecessor."

At The Guardian, Ambassador John Bolton takes issue with the Obama administration, "WikiLeaks cables: Barack Obama is a bigger danger — WikiLeaks harms the US. But the president's refusal to acknowledge the threats we face is a bigger danger" (via Memeorandum and Weasel Zippers):

This sustained, collective inaction exemplifies the Obama administration's all-too-common attitude towards threats to America's international interests. The president, unlike the long line of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt, simply does not put national security at the centre of his political priorities. Thus, Europeans who welcomed Obama to the Oval Office should reflect on his Warren Harding-like interest in foreign policy. Europeans who believe they will never again face real security threats to their comfortable lifestyle should realise that if by chance one occurs during this administration, the president will be otherwise occupied. He will be continuing his efforts to restructure the US economy, and does not wish to be distracted by foreign affairs.

The more appropriate response is to prosecute everyone associated with these leaks to the fullest extent of US law, which the justice department at least appears to be considering. Next, we must stop oscillating between excessive stove-piping of information, as before 9/11, and excessive access, as demonstrated by WikiLeaks. There is no one final answer, but the balance must be under constant analysis. Finally, the Pentagon's cyber-warriors need target practice in this new form of combat, and they could long ago have practised by obliterating WikiLeaks' electrons. Had we acted after the first release in July, there might not have been subsequent leaks, and lives and critical interests would have been protected.

RTWT.

Progressives and the Julian Assange Rape Allegations

I thought I really had no meta-theoretical update to my previous comments on developments. Yet it turns out l that I did have something in mind, especially after seeing Richard Adams' essay at The Guardian, "#MooreandMe: the hashtag that roared." It's not easy, but I'm genuinely flabbergasted at progressives' uncritical and superficial response to Sady Doyle's campaign. And Adams here is just prostrate. It's almost comical. I'm picking him as he explains Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann's responses:

For a week, Moore didn't respond to the tide of protest. Olbermann did, foolishly and petulantly, only to make matters worse – boasting that "Feminism has no greater male supporter in TV news than me", and at one point proclaiming he was suspending his Twitter account "until/if this frenzy is stopped", although he failed to take his own good advice.

Other writers waded in and got caught in the fallout: the journalist Moe Tkacik posted at the Washington City Paper, describing #MooreandMe as "near-homicidal #rage" while naming the two women (something the Guardian and New York Times have avoided as a matter of policy), only for her editors to yank the piece. The blogging pioneer Dave Winer produced an artless car-crash of arguments that might have worked as parody. Naomi Wolf continued her upside-down defence of Assange – as can be heard in her debate with Jaclyn Friedman on Democracy Now. And so on.

In the end, though, it was Moore – without addressing #MooreandMe directly – who gave way, with his appearance on Rachel Maddow's show. Olbermann ...

RTWT at the link.

And notice Adams' mention of Moe Tkacik. I had a revealing Twitter exchange with her, and wrote it up here. What I like about her is that she wants to think things through --- to put intellect over ideology --- and to resist the obtuse and frequently mendacious herd mentality of the hardline feminists. That's something we don't see much of in political debates these days, and it takes a lot of courage. Moe of course paid with her job, and Sady Doyle's bleating non-apologies after the fact are now legend. And now I'm seeing this piece at New York Times, which is refreshing, "Is It Rape? It Depends on Who Is Asking" (via Echidne and Memeorandum):

Is it rape when you have sex with someone who didn’t tell you it was O.K., but told you it was O.K. earlier that night?

The allegations of sexual assault by two Swedish women against Julian Assange, the founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, have raised a series of questions, some silly (Is a broken condom a criminal offense?), some preposterous (Were the two women on the C.I.A. payroll?), but at least one worth mulling: What, today, constitutes sexual violence?

According to a leaked police report, Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr. Assange on allegations of rape in only one of the two cases: The woman in question, a WikiLeaks groupie, let him spend the night at her apartment and had consensual sex with him at least once (reportedly with a condom). She then testified to falling asleep and being woken later by him penetrating her (without a condom).

She only went to the police days afterward, when she discovered by talking to another woman with whom Mr. Assange had stayed that the second woman, too, felt violated after he was reluctant to use a condom and then allegedly “did something” to make it break. (The allegation here is sexual molestation.)

In recent conversations, reactions among my girlfriends — all in their 30s, and most in steady, heterosexual relationships — were forceful, and almost unanimous.

“It cheapens rape,” one said.

“Why get the police into the bedroom over something like this? Grow up,” said another.

“He sounds really sleazy,” said a third, “but not exactly like a rapist.”

That's just the introduction (so RTWT). But this reminds me Andrea Grimes' essay, "Girl Talk: Who Will Rape Me?" Whereas those at the New York Times essay take the big picture, progressive feminists make essentially extremist arguments that in the end work primarily to shut down competing perspectives. And this is what I find so fascinating. I don't doubt that Assange may have committed rape (especially if he pinned down Ms. A). But to even raise the point is to summons the progressive left's neo-Stalinist commissars, most prominently Sady Doyle. Here's the query from a woman on Twitter I last night:

That's a really powerful question-cum-indictment, and it triggered a series of Tweets from Ms. Doyle (scroll down to December 28th). Basically, she claims she's a victim. After being called "hundreds of names" she snapped, because "I thought feminists had my back." The problem, of course, is that if you're the bully you can't expect folks to "have your back." If coercive power isn't enough, "friends" will defect. Ms. Sady's effective, though, and persistent. And she's obviously impressed loads of less aggressive women who wanted to be a part of the "movement." And apparently this movement is way more "revolutionary" than what Assange has on offer, at least to hear this guy Bill Weinberg make the case:

Demonizing "revolutionary feminism"

The most blatantly irritating thing is abject demonization of the women who have made the charges of sexual abuse against Assange. In any other context, the summary dismissal of a woman's rape accusations would be seen as utterly politically incorrect. But Assange gets away with anti-feminist rhetoric that would do Rush Limbaugh proud. In an interview now receiving widespread coverage in the British press (e.g. The Telegraph, Dec. 26), Assange says: "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism... I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism." Assange added that one of the women who said she was assaulted took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed. (TMI, Julian.)

Especially sickening is Naomi Wolf, who sneers in Huffington Post at the international "Dating Police" that have snared Assange. Flaunting her supposed creds as a "longtime feminist activist" in the opening sentence, she writes that "Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two women, in one case using a condom that broke." A Dec. 17 account in The Guardian (based on Swedish police documents that were—ahem—leaked) paints a rather different picture. (E.g.: "She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs.") John Pilger, who presumably wasn't there when the putative leg-pinning took place, nonetheless told ABC Sydney on Dec. 8 the case against Assange is a "political stunt." Wolf's glib dismissal of the allegations is especially ironic in light of her own sexual harassment claims against Harold Bloom, which many had similarly dismissed as spurious (e.g. Meghan O'Rourke in Slate, Feb. 25, 2004).

I've covered much of this already, but Weinberg's links open to news windows, so cruise around.

There are still some commentators who continue to go big on WikiLeaks' power to destroy sovereign state power, especially Glenn Greenwald. He's gotten so hysterical that he's now gone after Wired Magazine with a series of sensational allegations essentially claiming that the magazine's a tool of the national security state. The editors have responded here: "Putting the Record Straight on the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs."

So here we can see the big picture coming together again. Radical feminists have put progressive solidarity against rape culture to the forefront of the cause. Meanwhile, an anarchist-libertarian-progressive alliance of sorts has been promoting WikiLeaks as the model of 21st century quasi-journalistic accountability. And to be sure, there's been some extremely revealing --- and perhaps even worthwhile --- findings with this last batch of cables. But for the most part we've seen something of a nihilistic destruction of ordered relations among states and their agents. Just yesterday we learned that WikiLeaks had compromise the opposition movement in Zimbabwe. See, "How WikiLeaks Just Set Back Democracy in Zimbabwe," and "Morgan Tsvangirai faces possible Zimbabwe treason charge." And some say WikiLeaks is here for good? At this point I'm simply hoping for Assange's extradition. He can go up on charges under the Espionage Act as far as I'm concerned. The outcome wouldn't make me any more likely to take serious the left's charges of a "CIA honey-trap operation."

Image Credit: American Digest.

Afghanistan War a Mistake?

"Another of our country's children, giving his life for our freedom from terrorism. God bless you, soldier, thank you for your ultimate sacrifice. You will never be forgotten." --- From the comments at the Orange County Register.

The photo shows U.S. Marine Michael Chang grieving at the memorial for his best friend, Army Sgt. Daniel Lim. The Orange County Register has the front-page story and slideshow, "O.C. soldier's love for family and friends ran deep." A picture of Chang is also on the front-page of the hardcopy edition of today's Wall Street Journal. Looking at the images from the Sgt. Lim ceremonies, can we really believe the war was a mistake? Have the lives of those who've sacrificed been for naught? I don't believe so. But at almost 9 years, the war in Afghanistan may be stretching the limits of America's patience.

The partisan political splits have been longstanding. The Democratic Party used the war for cheap political purposes during the Bush administration. Democrats argued that America was fighting the wrong war in Iraq, that Afghanistan was the "good war" in the post-9/11 era. But as soon as it looked like the U.S. has secured a lasting stability --- if not all-out victory --- in Iraq, the Democrats' political calculus turned to antiwar mobilization against the Afghanistan deployment. Sober analysts are correct to contrast and justify the commitment of U.S. resources with the war aims in Afghanistan. They've suggested that U.S. goals have not always been well-defined and that nation-building seems supported more by U.S. contingents on the ground than the Afghan political officials being propped up by American power. Then you have the neo-communist leftists, who have two political cards against the modern capitalist system: "racism" and "neo-imperialism." Some of these folks have in fact given direct support to our enemies, treasonous behavior that sadly reaches to the Obama administration itself. Not far behind the left are the "realist" paleocons, who for my money are not much better than the neo-communists in their wild conspiracies of alleged U.S. neo-colonial adventures. Such talk ultimately aids and abets our enemies. It places such a narrow desideratum on our interests that basically the U.S. would never intervene abroad unless a couple of our largest cities were incinerated by nuclear mushroom clouds.

In any case, I'm prompted to this discussion by today's front-page report at USA Today, "Poll: Waning Support for Obama On Wars," and more specifically, the Gallup Poll behind it, "In U.S., New High of 43% Call Afghanistan War a 'Mistake'." Ed Morrissey focuses on the political angle, and the likihood the USA Today buried the lede on Obama's collapsing numbers. That's important, although it's the Gallup entry that's more interesting to me, since the poll cites WikiLeaks as a reason for the declining support:

After the Internet publication of tens of thousands of leaked classified documents on the war in Afghanistan, 43% of Americans now say the United States made a mistake in sending troops there, up slightly from just before the release (38%). While Americans are still more likely to support than oppose the war, the percentage who say it was a mistake to get involved is at a new high ....

The 43% of Americans calling the decision to send U.S. military forces into Afghanistan a mistake marks the high point in the nearly nine-year war, although a slight majority continue to support the decision. Public support persists even though for most of the last several years Americans have generally thought the war has been going badly for the United States, and many more currently disapprove than approve of President Obama's handling of the situation.

Thus, the leaking of the documents may not be providing new information to the general public about the progress of the war. And given Americans' subdued attention to the story, it's also not clear that Americans are highly familiar with what information those documents reveal.

But the documents do remind Americans of the challenges the United States is facing in Afghanistan, and they may have caused an increasing number to question whether the efforts there are worth it. Last week, Congress approved President Obama's request for continued funding of the war, though by a narrower margin than last year.

That sounds like a decent assessment. I'd simply add that most MSM outlets are in the tank for WikiLeaks, and this despite the fact that Julian Assange is almost certainly running a criminal enterprise. I think at this point the U.S. is now to a point of winding down the Bush-era wars. President Obama has never embraced them as his own. Of course he campaigned vociferously against Iraq in 2007-08 and is today claiming credit for victory there; and on Afghanistan he's been at most lukewarm in his support, while some of his decision-making has in fact put U.S. troops in greater danger. But there's more to the WikiLeaks story than meets the eye. American interests remain great in Afghanistan. Despite the increasing drumbeats for a precipitous withdrawal, AfPAK will remain a top global security threat for years to come. We'd be foolish to cut and run. On that score, I'll give the last word to Thomas Jocelyn at Weekly Standard. See, "The Taliban's Savagery: The Documents Released by WikiLeaks Say Much About the Evil of Our Enemies":

When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the massive leak of more than 90,000 classified documents, he claimed that he was exposing “thousands” of possible American war crimes. The documents show nothing of the sort. Some of the documents do detail the brutality of war, and the unsurprising fact that mistakes are made. Assange’s anti-American myopia prevented him from seeing what the documents really demonstrate: American-led forces face an especially savage enemy.

Of course, we didn’t need the WikiLeaks cache of documents to tell us this. There is plenty of evidence for the whole world to see. Still, the documents demonstrate just how pervasive the Taliban’s brutality is in this fight. The Taliban and its jihadist allies have an unparalleled lust for blood, beheading their enemies (both real and imagined) on a regular basis. It is difficult to think of a more savage act.

Here are just some examples, chosen from many, found in the documents released by WikiLeaks ....

RTWT.

WikiLeaks Communist AGITPROP Escalates: More MSM Outlets Fall in Line; Bravo Company Trooper is Left's Latest ... UPDATED!!!

While highly critical of the Pentagon, Danger Room emphasizes key information that hasn't been reiterated enough elsewhere:

According to an investigation by the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade (.pdf) , the aircrew “accurately assessed that the criteria to find and terminate the threat to friendly forces were met in accordance with the law of armed conflict and rules of engagement.” The report concluded that the attack helicopters positively identified the threat, established hostile intent, conducted appropriate collateral damage assessment and received clearance to fire.

What’s more, the military indirectly blamed the reporters for being in the company of “armed insurgents” and making no effort to identify themselves as journalists. An investigating officer with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 2nd Infantry Division, concluded that “the cameramen made no effort to visibly display their status as press (.pdf) or media representatives” and added that “their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.” A long telephoto lens, the officer says, could have been mistaken for a rocket-propelled grenade.

Meanwhile, the communist AGITPROP campaign continues, with Marxist revolutionary commentators weighing in from all sides. For example, at CounterPunch, "Dracula's Army: The Veils of Illusion":

In Afghanistan and Iraq the invaders have committed numerous atrocities: shooting unarmed locals at check points, on the street, even while they're tilling fields. We've bombed wedding parties, raided homes at midnight and murdered occupants of all ages, lying about it. We've stormed hospitals in Fallujah, unleashed chemical weapons (phosphorous), left a trail of depleted uranium … We've flattened the offices of Al Jazeera (twice), shoved “suspects” in dungeons, hid inmates from the International Red Cross and tortured prisoners to death …. and it’s still happening, day after day, with Drones wiping out remote villages, shredding their families, assassinating anyone we choose.

Actually, as I've repored here, the norm of non-combatant immunity has been universally internalized in the U.S. armed forces, and civilian casualties have been lower in America's current wars than any wars in U.S. history. But "imperialist atrocities" sell on the hypocritical neo-communist left. See also, at Workers World, "Leaked Pentagon Video Reveals Occupation’s Brutality in Iraq":

It is an absolutely chilling demonstration of cold-blooded murder. A U.S. Apache gunship circles a Baghdad neighborhood looking for “targets” — people to kill. A military video shows the intended targets through superimposed crosshairs: a group of men dressed in civilian clothes, no masks, no apparent weapons, casually sauntering along a street and into a small square.

The film is eerily silent except for staccato radio messages between the helicopter, command headquarters and nearby troops on the ground.

This is so poorly informed it'd be laughable, if it wasn't for the fact that the media's enablers won't debunk this communist bull, and the lies will be passed down the proletarian ranks. And from the International Committee of the Fourth International, "Leaked video shows US military killing of two Iraqi journalists." Plus, at the Committee to Protect Journalists, in a backgrounder, "Technicalities: 10 Questions on WikiLeaks," spread the lie that convicted communist Julian Assange is a "journalist.", And at the leftist London Independent, an absurd commentary from Joan Smith, "Now We See What War Does to Those Who Wage It."

Back stateside, CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom, offers a report on the children injured in the attack:

And New York Times' piece is here, "For 2 Grieving Families, Video Reveals Grim Truth."

And the video and illustrated photo are added just for idiot Barret Brown, who like all hardline leftists, denies truth for a manufactured reality. Here he quotes me at my original entry, then responds (highlighted in bold):

I’ve watched the “Collateral Murder” clip above. Seeing the video and listening to the combat audio, the crew in the Apache are engaging an insurgent contingent, and at the distance the transmissions identify the fighters as clearly armed with AK-47s and RPGs.

Except that they’re not clearly armed with RPGs; there were no RPGs. Two of the men, like many Iraqi men living in cities in which violent things happen, are equipped with AK-47s.

No, Barrett, you ignorant prick. Behold:

And god, that's the lefty line du jour, "everyone carried a Kalashnikov." Wake up, Barrett. Even WikiLeaks has moved on. It's not whether there were armed insurgents, but whether the troops observed ROE. And on that point, when ALL the video and circumstances are included, there's no question.

But that doesn't stop the left's useful idiots. At the hard-left Common Dreams, we have the statement from Josh Stieber, who claims he was deployed with Bravo Company 2-16, "whose members were involved in the incident captured in Wikileaks' “Collateral Murder” video":

Josh Stieber, who is a former soldier of the “Collateral Murder” Company, says that the acts of brutality caught on film and recently released via Wikileaks are not isolated instances, but were commonplace during his tour of duty.

Obviously a tool.

In contrast, compare Stieber's statement to the online chat Tuesday with WaPo's David Finkel, who was embedded with the same Army Battalion 2-16 during "the surge" in 2007-2008." Check the link. But on the scope of civilian casualties in Iraq:

What's helpful to understand is that, contrary to some interpretations that this was an attack on some people walking down the street on a nice day, the day was anyting but that. It happened in the midst of a large operation to clear an area where US soldiers had been getting shot at, injured, and killed with increasing frequency. What the Reuters guys walked into was the very worst part, where the morning had been a series of RPG attacks and running gun battles.

And on the troops' adherence to ROE, especially with respect to the "rescue" van:

More context -- you're seeing an edited version of the video. The full video runs much longer. And it doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, in this case zooming in on the van and seeing those two children. The helicopters were perhaps a mile away. And as all of this unfolded, it was unclear to the soldiers involved whether the van was a van of good samaritans or of insurgents showing up to rescue a wounded comrade. I bring these things up not to excuse the soldiers but to emphasize some of the real-time blurriness of those moments.

And on the alleged bestiality and inhumanity of U.S. forces:

I remain in touch with many of the soldiers from that battalion, including one who picked up and held one of the wounded children, and he has been having a difficult time ever since he made the discovery. I won' go into details without his permission, but I can assure you that in his case he is haunted.

And on whether cameramen and insurgents on photography equipment of RPGs:

If you were to see the full video, you would see a person carrying an RPG launcher as he walked down the street as part of the group. Another was armed as well, as I recall. Also, if you had the unfortunate luck to be on site afterwards, you would have seen that one of the dead in the group was lying on top of a launcher. Because of that and some other things, EOD -- the Hurt Locker guys, I guess -- had to come in and secure the site. And again, I'm not trying to excuse what happened. But there was more to it for you to consider than what was in the released video.

I'm editing here for brevity, so readers should go back to the link and get the full context. Clearly, Finkel's not out to excuse the actions of any involved in this firefight. His recollections are extremely damaging to all of the allegations and talking points of the communist media-industrial-complex.

CNN IMAGE CREDIT: Voting Female Speaks!

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UPDATE: Barret Brown has made a correction to his posts on Wikileaks, "WikiLeaks Editor Lies to Stephen Colbert, World; WikiLeaks Necessary Nonetheless."

Iran May Have Missiles From North Korea, WikiLeaks Show

The report's at Bloomberg.

And at Guardian, "US Embassy Cables: Browse the Database (via Memeorandum and Techmeme).

Some other interesting reports: * "Australia To Back Legal Action Against WikiLeaks Founder."

* "WikiLeaked Diplomatic Cables Confirm China's Politburo Was Behind Google Hacking Incident."

* "Israel says Wikileaks vindicates its Iran focus."

* "WikiLeaks and the future of the newspaper."

* "Around the World, Distress Over Iran."

RELATED: From John Hawkins, "Reactions To The Wikileaks Document Dump From Around The Right Side Of The Blogosphere."

Edward Snowden's Mysterious Flight to Cuba

Folks thought that dude boarded an Aeroflot jet to Havana, but there was no sign of him when the thing landed, making the media entourage look like a bunch of blithering idiots.

Here's WikiLeaks' statement:

And at Mother Jones, "WikiLeaks: We Know Where Snowden Is, But We're Not Telling You."

WikiLeaks statements on Snowden asylum | SBS http://t.co/2HjWAXCr6i

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2013

And at the New Yorker, "Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On?" (via Memeorandum).

Confidential Police Report Leaked in Julian Assange Sex Assault Case

At The Australian, "Lawyers cry foul over leak of Julian Assange sex-case papers" (via Memeorandum).

Plus, at NYT, "Confidential Swedish Police Report Details Allegations Against WikiLeaks Founder."

And at WSJ, "New Details Reveal More About Problems Assange Faces":

New details of the Swedish sexual-misconduct accusations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shed more light on the deepening and complex legal problems he faces over his conduct with two women during a short stretch in August.

Mr. Assange was released on bail in the U.K. last week following his Dec. 7 arrest on a European arrest warrant issued by Sweden. Now, the WikiLeaks founder finds himself in the middle of a multifront legal battle stemming from two seemingly disparate events: WikiLeaks' release of thousands of classified U.S. documents, which has angered U.S. officials and sparked a broad U.S. federal investigation; and the sexual-misconduct case in Sweden, where prosecutors want to extradite him to answer questions regarding accusations of rape and molestation by two women there.

Mr. Assange has denied the sex allegations, and his attorney, Mark Stephens, has suggested that the Swedish criminal case is a ruse to keep Mr. Assange in custody while U.S. prosecutors consider whether to bring a criminal case against him or WikiLeaks.

But as more details about Sweden's criminal case against Mr. Assange emerge, through interviews and the leaking of a Swedish police report to the U.K. newspaper the Guardian, the sexual-misconduct allegations have come into fuller view.

And at The Other McCain, "Julian Assange, Victim?"

RELATED: From Kash Hill, "Julian Assange Knocks Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday Night Live."

CNN, NYT Boost WikiLeaks War Crimes Gambit, Downplay/Omit Key Evidence: MSM Joins Daily Kos, Neo-Communists in Renewed 'BushCo' Recriminations

I don't normally attack CNN as the "Communist News Network," but this time the epithet sticks. See, "Video Shows Deaths of Two Reuters Journalists in Iraq in 2007." The story went live at Noon today, but there's no mention of the fact-checking by right-bloggers such as Jawa Report. And note this passsage:

The U.S. investigation into the attack found that the helicopter gunship's crew mistook the journalists' cameras for weapons while seeking out insurgents who had been firing at American troops in the area. The fliers estimated they killed 12 to 15 Iraqis in the attack.

This is falsely reported. The insurgents were armed, which was seen clearly at Jawa Report and in the Pentagon's own internal intelligence memo as well. That document includes pictures from one of the Reuters photographers, which shows a U.S. Army humvee just down the road from the battle scene. Leftists claimed no on-the-ground contingents were in close vicinity, and left-wing media reports have refused to correct the initial disinformation:

Since all evidence shows the ROE were observed, the left plans to trump up war crimes on the basis of the attack on the rescue van (and this second strike was also completely within the ROE, as reported here earlier), and the alleged cover-up by the military. WikiLeaks posted this tweet today:

And here's Joan McCarter at Daily Kos, "The Fallout from Collateral Murder":

The killing of innocents is the collateral damage that is inevitable in war, and what makes a war of choice rather than necessity that much more immoral. That this was a war of choice creates even greater responsibility on the U.S. to be honest in how it conducts that war, and honest with the American people who are sending their sons and daughters to fight it.

There's also the practical fact that cover-ups are almost always far more damaging than the event they are meant to hide. In this case, because two of the innocents killed were connected with a media organization, it was inevitable that the truth would come out. But it's compounded when it sustains the myth that war is not hell and that the U.S. doesn't conduct war that way ....

Nothing about this war was done right by the Bush administration, from making the choice to go to war against a country that did not pose a threat to us, to creating a vast fabric of lies to justify that choice, to deciding to torture to back up those lies. These were dangerous, immoral, and extremely damaging decisions. That damage can't be undone, but it can be mitigated. The only way to do it, though, is with sunlight, even if that means looking backward.

The "looking backward" remark is a rebuke to President Obama, who pledged his administration to looking forward when pressed with demands for indictments of former Bush administration officials.

Note how the New Yorker has gotten into the act as well, "The WikiLeaks Video and the Rules of Engagement."

And scheduled for tomorrow's New York Times is this breathless report, which pooh-poohs evidence of armed insurgents with the Reuters photographers, "Iraq Video Brings Notice to a Web Site." The newspaper's screencap shows the targets taking fire, not the images of RPG toting combatants:

I'm also embedding additional videos, including more WikiLeaks propaganda, etc., to give an indication of how the press has sucked down the neo-communist party line without criticism. All of this at NYT, "Wikileaks Defends Release of Video Showing Killing of Journalists in Iraq. But see also, "Military Can't Find Its Copy of Iraq Killing Video":

Finally, here's more of the meme, from Stanley Kubrick, that radical leftists are spreading:

Julian Assange Alleges U.S. War Crimes in Afghanistan

At WSJ, "WikiLeaks Founder: Documents Suggest Evidence of War Crimes":

The Afghan war documents published by WikiLeaks appear to contain evidence of war crimes, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a news conference in London Monday.

"There does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material," he said, adding that it would be "up to a court" to make judgements on any crimes.

He cited in particular Task Force 373, which he described as a U.S. military "assassination unit" that he said killed seven children in a "botched raid."

He strongly suggested a coverup of civilian deaths during the war, pointing to U.S. military reports on the number of people wounded or killed during specific incidents. In some of these, a high number of those killed or wounded are classified as "enemy" while very few are classified as "civilians," which Mr. Assange called "suspicious."

Asked how many incidents could potentially be investigated for possible war crimes or other reasons, he said "thousands," adding that the U.S. military would probably be forced to investigate some. "You need enough investigated to create deterrents" against similar behaviour in the future, he said.

Mr. Assange added that the information in the documents "really doesn't paint a flattering picture of the Taliban, either," noting that there are many reports of Taliban-planted explosive devices resulting in "significant loss of human life."

He said the documents don't just "reveal abuses" but paint a detailed picture of "the last six years of war," including the kinds of weapons used and the progress or setbacks experienced.

There's more at the link.

Noteworthy is Assange's claim that "he doesn't 'really have an opinion about whether the war should stop'."

Actually, he does care if the war stops, because his whole agenda is to stop the United States, and he's backed by the global transnational network of neo-communist activists who're gunning for America.

That said, lots of folks are unimpressed (and hence it's a media hayride mostly).

See Jawa Report, "Noted Liar and Conspiracy Theorist Leaks Documents Which Shock and Awe No One." And at Abu Muqawama, "Scoop!":

Here are the things I have learned thus far from the documents released via Wikileaks:

1. Elements within Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) support the Taliban.
2. The United States integrates direct action special operations into its counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, targeting insurgent leaders through capture/kill missions.
3. Civilians have died in Afghanistan, often as the result of coalition combat operations.

I'm going to bed, but if I were to stay up late reading more, here is what I suspect I would discover:

1. "Afghanistan" has four syllables.
2. LeBron is going to the Heat.
3. D'Angelo Barksdale didn't actually commit suicide in prison. Stringer Bell had him killed.
4. Although a document dated 17 October 2004 claims the Red Sox were down 3-0 in a seven-game series with the Yankees, they actually went on to win 4-3.
5. Liberace was gay.
6. The Pathan remains wily.
7. Julian Assange is a clown.

But more seriously, see this piece at Mother Jones (of all places):

The other interesting data are notes from what the military calls KLEs—key leader engagements. Military officers, as well as officials from State, USAID, and other agencies regularly meet with important players in a war zone to get their take on the situation. Often they're dull and tell the interviewers little they didn't already know; sometimes, though, they give insight to "atmospherics"—how Afghan locals feel about US forces or the Taliban. Many of these key leaders take their lives into their hands; from my experience in Iraq, I know that numerous Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds with high standing among their tribes—and among our enemies—took time to brief US officials, often to dish dirt on crooked or violent elements in their vicinity. If they were ever outed as collaborators with American forces, they'd be as good as dead. And Wikileaks has 16 pages of secret military KLEs with individuals and groups in Afghanistan, spanning six years. No names are redacted. In this case, what retired general James Jones, the White House national security adviser, said yesterday is correct: WL is putting some lives at serious risk with that particular data dump.

WikiLeaks Syria Emails

The news on WikiLeaks' Syria emails has rekindled everything about Julian Assange, the rape allegations, and the U.S. government's effort to indict the cyber-terrorist on espionage charges. FYIW, Glenn Greenwald lays out the stakes at the video. Unlike (the goon) Greenwald, I'd love to see an indictment. And see also Telegraph UK, "Wikileaks begins release of 2.4 million emails from Syrian government."

And if you stay with the video to the second half, Greenwald slams the Obama administration on the SB 1070 immigration decision. It's interesting that Greenwald stresses a major victory for Arizona, as the Court upheld the so-called "show your papers" provision of the law. The administration, goes the argument, was hindered in making the case against that element of the law because it has followed an aggressive deportation program, and hence could only oppose SB 1070 on federalist grounds, not on substance. What Greenwald implies, but doesn't say, is that therefore the Justice Deparmtent's attack on Arizona was purely political, since the administration is already working with local law enforcement to apprehend illegals. Of course, Jan Brewer's been arguing along similar lines the whole time, but it's great to hear the admission from an America-bashing leftist.

Anyway, LAT has more on WikiLeaks and I expect there will be much more news on this throughout the day: "WikiLeaks has data from 2.4 million Syrian emails."

Birgitta Jónsdóttir

I saw this on Twitter last night, and no denying her updates are fascinating (here, for example). So is her homepage. She's a political radical and former WikiLeaks activist who co-produced the "Collateral Damage" propaganda video, and a Member of the Icelandic Parliament now in the spotlight during the latest turn in the ongoing WikiLeaks investigation See NYT, "U.S. Subpoenas Twitter Over WikiLeaks Supporters" (and Memeorandum):

The move to get the information from five prominent figures tied to the group was revealed late Friday when Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks activist who is also a member of Iceland’s Parliament, said she had received a notification of the subpoena from the social networking site Twitter.

The United States government, she said in a subsequent message, “wants to know about all my tweets and more since November 1st 2009. Do they realize I am a member of parliament in Iceland?”

The subpoena, obtained by the Web site Salon.com, was issued by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia on Dec. 14 and asks for the complete account information of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the United States Army intelligence specialist awaiting a military court martial under suspicion of leaking materials to WikiLeaks, as well as Ms. Jonsdottir, Mr. Assange, and two computer programmers, Rop Gonggrijp and Jacob Appelbaum. That information includes addresses, screen names, telephone numbers, and credit card and bank account numbers. But the subpoena does not ask for the content of private messages sent using Twitter.

It was unsealed, allowing Twitter to inform those concerned, on Jan. 5.

RELATED: From Jónsdóttir last January, " A Call to the People of the World to Support Iceland Against the Financial Blackmail of the British and Dutch Governments and the IMF."

Max Boot, the Perpetually Unhappy Camper

Honestly, if I was Max Boot, I'd just focus on writing books and academic scholarship. Since the nomination (and then election) of Donald Trump, Boot's been publishing one piece after another bemoaning all the old institutions to which he had ties, first it was the GOP itself, now it's Fox News.

He's really pathetic. And that's the saddest thing. I used to find him interesting. I used to respect him. Now look what's happened. All because of President Trump. I don't know. Chalk it up to "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

In any case, here's Boot, at Foreign Policy, "The Seth Rich ‘Scandal’ Shows That Fox News Is Morally Bankrupt":

.@MaxBoot: Fox News has allowed itself to become a sensationalist information weapon for the Kremlin. https://t.co/mIkK8Ecz1y

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) May 22, 2017

The network I once respected as a necessary antidote to liberal media now peddles craven lies and Russian disinformation.

It was just a coincidence, but a telling one, that Roger Ailes died on May 18 just as the television powerhouse that he created, the Fox News Channel, was propagating a conspiracy theory involving a Democratic National Committee staffer named Seth Rich, whose murder in Washington, D.C., last summer remains unsolved.

If you don’t watch Fox News, read Breitbart or the Drudge Report, or listen to Rush Limbaugh, you likely don’t have any idea who Seth Rich was. If, however, you are a devotee of those dubious news sources, you have been fed a grab bag of unsubstantiated allegations designed to make you think that Rich was murdered by some kind of Democratic Party cabal for having revealed the party’s secrets to WikiLeaks.

These spurious insinuations have been put forward (before being largely recanted) by a sometime Fox News contributor named Rod Wheeler. Never mind that Rich’s family, the Washington police force, CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among others, have debunked these conspiracy theories, showing there is no evidence that Rich was a WikiLeaks source, much less that his murder has anything to do with the stolen Democratic Party emails. Sean Hannity, one of the last of the old guard hired by Ailes to rule prime time, nevertheless devoted three separate segments of his show last week to the “DNC murder mystery.” On Sunday morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was pushing the same allegation about Rich’s “assassination” on Fox & Friends. Lou Dobbs has spouted these theories on Fox Business Network, too.

Fox’s tasteless conspiracy-mongering has been denounced by the Rich family, which wants the far-right to stop exploiting their son’s tragic death, but it has found support in an unlikely quarter. Ever happy to play the troll, the Russian Embassy in London tweeted: “‪#WikiLeaks ‪informer Seth Rich murdered in US but MSM was so busy accusing Russian hackers to take notice.”

I'm not up on the Seth Rich story, and that's not by accident. I personally stay away from conspiracy theories. That said, I distinctly remember Julian Assange saying, at the time of Rich's death, that he suspected that his sources were putting their lives in danger. I don't recall him conceding that Seth Rich had leaked documents to WikiLeaks. He simply said that powerful people had an invested interest in making those leaks stop. Assange and WikiLeaks (one and the same, as far as I know) have stated consistently that they do not divulge the names of their sources. But that's about as far as I'll go.

Oh, well, that, and Max Boot is a special snowflake neocon wienie.

BONUS: At the New York Times, "How the Murder of a D.N.C. Staff Member Fueled Conspiracy Theories."

WikiLeaks Trove Plunges Democrats Into Crisis on Eve of Convention

Heh.

Here's more on the story, via WikiLeaks:

WikiLeaks trove plunges Democrats into crisis on eve of Convention https://t.co/pqWuWfFQckhttps://t.co/kpFxYDoNyX

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 23, 2016

The AfPak Non-Pentagon Papers

As I reported earlier, the WikiLeaks document dump hasn't generated spectacular revelations. Certainly, from an intelligence and government secrecy standpoint, it's a really big deal. By now, though, most analysts have actually kinda yawned at the whole thing. But for leftists, WikiLeaks is pure gold. Recall that Julian Assange denied that his goal was to bring an end to the war. That's pure bull. I've paid too much attention to this creep since the bogus Apache Reuters video ploy a few months back. These people are out to damage the U.S. big time, and all the hardline leftist organizations go into overdrive when a new doc-dump/video exposé goes live. Case in point is the hyperventilating coverage at Democracy Now!, "The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War." Amy Goodman's a commie, and communists have two big attacks on the West: "Wars of imperial aggression" and "hegemonic racism" (Israel demonization falls somewhere in between both of those, as the Jewish state is the racist outpost of American-led neo-colonialism in the Middle East). And of course, MSNBC's more of a "commie" network than CNN, and these folks are creaming over WikiLeaks, for example, Cenk Uygur at this clip featuring Matt Lewis of Politics Daily:

On an interesting related note, the Wall Street Journal sees a silver lining in the release of the documents, and the editors debunk the "Pentagon Papers" analogy at the same time. See, "The AfPak Papers":

We've long believed the U.S. government classifies too many documents as secret, and now we know for sure. How else to explain why Sunday's release of some 92,000 previously confidential documents reveals so little that we didn't already know about the war in Afghanistan? This document dump will only matter if it becomes an excuse for more of America's political class to turn against a war they once supported ....

Far from being the Pentagon Papers redux, the larger truth is how closely the ground-eye view in these documents reinforces what U.S. officials were long saying: that the war wasn't going well, the Taliban were making gains, and a new and invigorated strategy was needed to combat them. Both the Bush and Obama Administrations made the same diagnosis in recent years, neither one kept it secret, and this year Mr. Obama followed through with an increase in troops levels and a renewed counterinsurgency.

The most politically explosive documents concern the conflicting loyalties of Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Nearly 200 reports allege that the Pakistani military intelligence arm is in cahoots with the Taliban, despite claiming to side with America. This is undoubtedly true but also no surprise.

The ISI helped the U.S. arm and organize the mujahideen against the Soviets, and it kept doing so to fill the Afghan power vacuum after America abandoned the region in the early 1990s. The reports released this week allege—often citing a single source or uncertain information—that the ISI helped train Afghan suicide bombers, plotted to poison beer slated for GIs, and schemed to assassinate President Hamid Karzai. It isn't clear how many of these plots were ever attempted, but there's no doubt that many Pakistanis doubt U.S. staying power, fear Indian influence in Afghanistan, and want to use the Taliban to shape events on their Western border.

Then again, we also know that Pakistan has shifted its behavior in a more pro-American direction in the last 14 months as the Taliban began to threaten Pakistan's own stability. Responding to a surge of terrorism against Pakistani targets, the Pakistani army has pushed Islamist insurgents from the Swat Valley and even South Waziristan. It has taken heavy casualties in the process. Islamabad now actively aids U.S. drone strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in the mountains along its Afghan border.

Pakistan can and should do more to pursue the terrorist enclaves along the border, as well as in Quetta and Karachi. The question is what's the best way to persuade their leaders to act. U.S.-Pakistan cooperation has been one of the Obama Administration's foreign policy successes, and it would be a tragedy if the leak of selective documents, often out of context, would now poison that cooperation.

That's the most sober thing I've read on foreign policy in weeks (be sure to RTWT). WSJ points out that the documents indicate that Iran is cooperating with al Qaeda and related Sunni extremist groups, another fact that puts the lie to the promise of diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

RELATED: "Why WikiLeaks' ‘War Logs’ Are No Pentagon Papers." (At Memeorandum.)

Case Closed on 'Collateral Murder' -- UPDATED!!

Jawa Report has the definitive entry, "Case Closed: Weapons Clearly Seen on Video of Reuters Reporters Killed in Iraq."

Click on the report right now (here). The piece features a dynamic vidcap demonstrating -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- the insurgents' RPG capabilities. In addition, here are images from the unclassified Pentagon investigation. "AIF" designates "ANTI-IRAQ FORCES", i.e., insurgents:

And here are screencaps of key sections from the Pentagon's internal investigation ("AWT" designates "AERIAL WEAPONS TEAM", i.e., the U.S. Apache helicopter):

See, "Legal Review of AR15-6 Investigation..."

It's not as if the antiwar activists and their media enablers don't have this information. Jawa Report noted this buried passage from yesterday's NYT hit-piece:

Late Monday, the United States Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released the redacted report on the case, which provided some more detail.

The report showed pictures of what it said were machine guns and grenades found near the bodies of those killed. It also stated that the Reuters employees “made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives and their familiar behavior with, and close proximity to, the armed insurgents and their furtive attempts to photograph the coalition ground forces made them appear as hostile combatants to the Apaches that engaged them.”

The full story is here, "Video Shows U.S. Killing of Reuters Employees." Memeorandum posted the story last night with a bit less emotion-inducing headline. Now it's not the "photographer" -- who chose to embed with armed insurgents -- but the "Reuters employees," which implies a "civilian" massacre:

And that's just the beginning. Despite the availability of information to the contrary, media reaction has been entirely predicable. Here's Dylan Ratigan's episode from last night, featuring WikiLeaks' America-bashing Julian Assange and anti-American Glenn Greenwald. Talk about fair and balanced!

Assange decries the "moral corruption" of U.S. forces, and useful idiot Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer argues that American forces should have captured the insurgents captured rather than kill them (i.e., U.S. forces were to use "minimum force"). And Greenwald goes on to extrapolate that America's "imperial" interverntions are all about killing indigenous civilian populations, blah, blah. Only Brett McGurk of CFR, who spoke after Assange, possesses anything near an objective take on what happened.

Now, taking a look around the 'sphere, here's Greenwald's entry this morning, "Iraq Slaughter Not an Aberration." See what I mean? (And this despite rigorous empirical evidence showing that the norm of non-combatant immunity has been univerally adopted in the U.S. military, and that Iraqi civilian casualties have been historically low compared to previous U.S. wars.) And an update from Greenwald, "N.Y. Times, Weekly Standard Join in a Falsehood." Then Greenwald links approvingly to this, "Neo-Cons Defend Massacre of Iraqi Journalists, Children":

Bloodthirsty neo-cons who would defend barbecuing Arab babies on the White House lawn if they were told it was part of the “war on terror” are disgracefully scrambling to defend a shocking video released by Wikileaks which shows U.S. Apache helicopters massacring Iraqi journalists and children in Baghdad while laughing about it.

And while I almost forgot about him, Barrett Brown demonstrates utter fail while adding a catchy title, "Fascist U.S. Bloggers Come Late to Game, Announce Score":

The entire video is inconsistent with the military’s report. These Apaches aren’t responding as reinforcements to an ongoing firefight in which this particular spot has been identified as containing insurgents who have just fired off RPGs. None of these people had RPGs, for one thing.

Sorry, Barrett, don't pass go, don't collect $200. Better go back and visit Jawa a bit more.

Okay, what about Matthew Yglesias? It's not like we don't know which side he's on:

I watched this gruesome video yesterday of US military personnel in Iraq gunning down a group of people, including two Reuters employees, based on the notion that they’re carrying AK-47s and RPGs. I can’t see clearly enough to tell whether or not some of the men in the group are in fact armed, but it’s clear that one of the so-called RPGs is actually a camera. And it’s also clear that whether or not anyone in the group was carrying weapons, that possession of a firearm is not cause for summary execution either in Iraq or the United States. My understanding of the rules of engagement is that soldiers are not supposed to fire unless there’s a hostile act or a clear sign of hostile intent ...

The confusion or whatever about the weapons is bad enough, but the people on this recording don’t seem to have any idea what the rules of engagement they’re supposed to be operating under are, or else they don’t care.

Not only is Yglesias wrong about the armed insurgents and RPGs, he's lying as well. The video clip repeatedly shows communications between the AWT and ground forces, and no shots were fired without both proper identification and permissions from U.S. personnel in the immediate vacinity. And recall that Yglesias is an author of a book on the war? Hmm, you'd never know ...

And hatemaster Larisa Alexandrovna claims that Americans targeted Reuters journalists all along, "Would you put it past the likes of Dick Cheney to have a policy of getting rid of pesky journalists too near a big story?"

Marcy Wheeler plays up the civilian angle, "“Well, It’s Their Fault for Bringing Their Kids into a Battle” – Wikileaks Tape Shows Civilians Killed by US Troops."

And Crooks and Liars takes it from there, "Death, Lies and Videotape":

What truly bothers me is the absolute callousness of the conversation going on in the Apache helicopter. Beyond the 'fucking prick' and the 'bastards' comments, it's the laughter, particularly during the shooting as if it's all just a video game, cheering each other on as the wounded journalist crawls on the ground, willing him to reach for a ‘weapon’ so they can shoot him again, laughing when his body is run over by a military truck. The comment when the crew realized children have been wounded was shocking: ‘Well, it’s their own fault for bringing their kids to a battle.'

Of course, American forces are fighting a war, and, frankly their language is cleaner than construction guys I've worked with. Free Market Miltary responds:

I can see and understand some people’s comments ... that the Soldiers (Pilots) were a bit blood thirsty, callous, and a little to casual with humor in killing the insurgents. I think their wrong! Frankly, I’d never hold it against anyone in taking enjoyment out of their job. You might find that callous as well. Tough. If your living this 24/7 I doubt you would spend a year without laughing and having a good time. This is war, the thing video games are based upon and billions of dollars are spent for enjoyment.

Once again, these pilots did their job. They probably even saved American lives that day.

Also, I left the link to yesterday's AmPower report at Crooked Timber, but that didn't make folks too happy:

Americanmoralcretin, fuck off.

Wars of choice ARE criminal precisely because this kind of stuff is guaranteed to happen.

**********

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit links, "Confirmed: Media’s Military-Hating America-Bashing Allegations Proven False & Misleading (Video)." Added: The Rhetorican links!

**********

UPDATE II: Barret Brown has made a correction to his posts on Wikileaks, "WikiLeaks Editor Lies to Stephen Colbert, World; WikiLeaks Necessary Nonetheless."