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I've noticed on my Twitter account that opinion on the information contained in the leaked Afghanistan documents obtained and released by Wikileaks varies between "yeah, we knew that. So?" to "Oh my God!".
I think there is much more to this whole episode than whether or not you knew civilians were being killed in Afghanistan and former ISI officials were giving advice to insurgents in Afghanistan. This is about public opinion. Measuring what the public thinks and predicting how it might react to events is an imprecise science (much like the related fields of economics and sociology). But it's still very real. You might not know how it works but you can feel its effects when governments start clamping down on banks, launch military campaigns or pull troops out and come home.
And when it comes to public opinion, lots of vagaries start making a huge difference - like how you found out. When George Galloway suggested that British MPs were greedy, people rolled their eyes, nodded or smiled. The general thought was, "yeah. But they are politicians, what do you expect?" However, once the British MPs expenses scandal hit the headlines with details of taxpayers coughing up for duckhouses and flatscreen televisions, the result was a national political crisis.
For Western news organisations, unsustainable losses over the past decade or two have meant the degredation of the kind of infrastructure that allows the media to act as a check on executive power. At the same time, the medium that caused the decline in traditional news ogranisations - the Internet - is also picking up the slack. The Telegraph's coverage of the expenses scandal was built on extensive groundwork done by independent journalists who write extensively on the web. Most conflict coverage since 9/11 has been done through embeds with Western military forces. (the stand-out exceptions here are people like Nir Rosen, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and Mitch Prothero) While this is great in the short term for those prosecuting the war, after a while, militaries start to believe their own hype, which actually does longer term damage as it makes PR disasters such as prisoner abuse and the Nisour square incident more likely.
I'm not into offering "big thoughts" or indulging in grand "blue sky thinking" but there does seem to be a growing trend internationally away from control and direction by organisations and governments towards impetus for action coming from groups of individuals who are somehow harnessing technology. Organisations like Wikileaks leave grand old names like Reuters, BBC and the New York Times rewriting news they didn't break. (That said, the NYT is one of a few organisations investing heavily in original reporting, which shows in their output.) At the same time, a leaked video of a girl getting beaten by the Taliban in Swat presented the Pakistani government with the political cover it needed to launch a campaign against the Pakistani Taliban last year.
What makes any difference here is whether any of this changes anything. Does public opinion get swayed? Do politicians feel the need to react? Do insurgents find a sense of justification for their actions (or fall in support when they screw up)? The answer to all of these questions is yes.
So the response here isn't, "yeah, whatever, we know this" or "OMG! why did no one tell me?!". The question to ask is how the information is being digested. That was the question I wish I had asked more thoroughly on the night of September 11, 2001, when I went out and about in Cairo to ask people what they thought.
Can I recommend Nick Davies' book "Flat Earth News" to you? It's a great thesis which demonstrates that the Internet had very little to do with traditional news media's downfall, and that quality was already falling in the 1980s with a focus on reducing costs and increasing profits. This reduced costly investigations and increased rewriting of press releases and agency copy to fill pages.
Also, the Telegraph may have broken the expenses scandal, but it was only thanks to the work of Heather Brooke, who started her quest to get the expenses published in October 2004. One theory is that the expenses were leaked to the Telegraph to deny the scoop to Brooke and her paper, the Guardian, to discourage future muck-raking.
I also note that your article hints that what sways public opinions is evidence, not allegations; specific details, not general claims. Perhaps this is the difference between leaked documents about specific events and digested statistics of civilian deaths.
I know I'm not even going to waste my time going to this website. Although, I do hope someone from NSA puts an ELP out front Wikileaks HQ and fries all their electronics or gives them a nasty virus. That would be comical.
But I digress.... Whoever from DCIS or CID that investigates this case and the Magistrate that sentences Private Bradley E. Manning...I hope they crucify him.
I hope Pvt. Manning spends the remainder of his life in Super-Max Prison in Colorado, a floor below Robert Hanssen and I hope he never sees his family again. I hope he finds out what it's like never to breath free air again or never feels the sunlight on his face in the slam.
F U Manning! You were born from your mother's a-hole! Hope you rot in hell.
OK, that was liberating! Hope everyone has a nice day! Cheers and God Bless America!
God bless Iceland, who has used its newly found status as a third world country with a 1st world infrastructure to pass the most permissive whistleblower laws of the universe, and has offered to be home to WikiLeaks. Guess you US guys should have kept on to Keflavik...
"That was the question I wish I had asked more thoroughly on the night of September 11, 2001, when I went out and about in Cairo to ask people what they thought."
Whoa, what? Talk about a head-swiveler. That wasn't the note I expected this to go out on. Is this a story from your book or something? Or familiar to VERY-long-time blog readers? Care to enlighten the rest of us (year-or-two-long readers who haven't picked up the book)? What went down 9/11/01?
For those interested in where your next invasion may come. Good luck doing COIN in Reykjavik.
http://www.techeye.net/internet/iceland-says-yes-to-wikileaks-law
Very trenchant analysis of current trends in news organizations.
Lefties, you are really not being an adult here. It's not "news" that war is ugly and means killing.
Iceland is so desperate for any source of income they'd give shelter to Hitler (who at least was man enough not to run).
Also, people are indeed upset that now the intel sources - which mean people and their families - will now be hunted, tortured, raped, killed thanks to Manning and Assange. This is as if the Rosenbergs gave Stalin the bomb and he used it . That's the morality of WikiLeaks.
Wiki I wanttokillpeoplebutdon'thavetheballsmyself would be more accurate.
I have said for years and posted here that the modern Left is animated by the soul of Nero. Who almost destroyed his country, and was heard saying he wished he could kill all the Romans.
Eventually they sickened of him, and he died almost alone, deserted, afraid to kill himself, the Legions sneering at him.
And the Nero Left will meet the same miserable fate, at least here in America.
So you have to decide whether your want the fate of mad dogs, or men.
Civis Americanus Sum.
Elf: The Wikileaks story was filtered through the Guardian, NYT and Spiegel, who should know a thing or two about protecting individuals, no? (Ah, I forget, they are the LeftistMediaConspiracy (LMC) who wants to kill everybody). We have had this debate before, it grows stale. But from a pure cost/benefit ratio, you may start to ask how many soldiers and informants lives will be lost if we "stay the course" vs. if such a leak makes the course change.
Mistake me correctly, Im no fan of the hysteric left who wouldnt know the difference between strategy and tactics, just as Im no fan of the rightist spew you come on with that the informed left are all traitors etc. But if my choice is to die "like a dog" (wich means like a man) in the face of the new Palin/Gingrich military theocracy or accept the omnipotence of the state in all matters, then count me in for the firing squads. My mum can afford the bullet, bless her, and would not want it any other way. Especially these days when the dogs are baying for an attack on Iran, Wikileaks seems more and more important as a counterweight. Its what the media should be doing, but dont. So someone has to do it, info is like water, it always finds a way to the sea.
The information is valuable.
As for Assange, he has created the template for an effective check on government and corporate action. I am not applauding him or criticizing him. I am merely observing the clear truth that Robert Gibbs and the FSB and MI6 and JSOC and Chavez and La Familia are going to have to accept. Wikileaks is a model that sidesteps PAOs and beers on the table arrangements. If some government takes Assange into custody, other believers in the necessity of transparency will take his place, and another, and again. Control of information is moving away from governments. This is obvious.
Also remember, American readers sent pounds of hate mail to the thirty-six papers that published Sy Hersh's account of the My Lai killings of March 16, 1968, calling Hersh anti-American and pro-VC.
JMO, but any of us who post here have spent to much time over the last (near) decade following this stuff to make anything more than an informed guess as to how this plays out publically. We're too set in our ways at this point.
After reading the "highlights" last night in the NY Times article my first instinct was for the "well no $h!t sherlock" group. But assumming the rest of the 92k pages are simliar stuff, I see a lot of picking through the pile, asking in indignent tones "what is this!" and then petering out. What I want to know is if there is more. If this is it, then it was a gift in a sense it won't drag on all summer. Just dump it all at once.
Plus, what audience are we talking about? I'm sure as Londanstani so eloquently reports, it will make good fodder for the conspiracy theorists in Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world, and even here at home. It will give more "proof" to those here who want us to pull the plug (Oliver Stone probably starts writing his next movie script this week). For joe american, who by the way is far more worried about jobs and the economy, the national debt and entitlements (thank you baby boomers) my gut says that without a summer of this continuing to come out, the US at large will move on. This morning I was reminded I was too young to remember the Pentagon Papers, but I don't think this is anywhere near that because for one as others point out, we've known for awhile it hasn't been a pretty sight in Afghanistan.
So I'll make two predictions: (1) I agree with Elf, more than anything this will get more of our people killed. (2) Manning just got another 20 years. He just got Walker-Lindh emiritus status if he hadn't already. Only he's not lucky enough to have received the "welcome aboard Johnny" treatment what saved Johnny Taliban from life in prison. In fact he may be more John Walker than Johnny Walker-Lindh.
What did the Israeli wonks say after Petraeus warned about reckless Israeli behavior increasing risks for American soldiers serving in the region, and that was picked up by the news organizations?
"All Americans support their troops. This is worrisome."
Now, let's talk public opinion. First, if thousands of documents start showing up on the doorstep of Wikileaks, what that says to me is that at least a few soldiers are so pissed off about the course of events that they're risking careers and imprisonment to dump information before the public. No, it's an Al Qaeda mole, you say? Bullshit.
1) Forget about 9/11 and recall that U.S. gave $43 million to the Taliban in 2000-2001 in an effort to establish diplomatic ties on Unocal's behalf, so that Central Asia fossil fuel resources could be exported to global markets while bypassing Iran and Russia.
2) Why did we go into Afghanistan so low-profile in Fall 2001? Why weren't airborne troops used to block off the Afghan-Pakistan border when the joint CIA-Delta-Afghan national group went after Osama bin Laden, as described in Kill Bin Laden, by Dalton Fury? Why did someone in the White House cancel the group's top two preferred plans for capturing bin Laden?
It's not irrelevant - and the only plausible answer seems to be that Bush and Cheney didn't really want bin Laden, because that would have undermined their real goal - opening the road to the Iraqi oilfields. Rumaila is now in BP's hands (well, jointly with China) - mission accomplished? "It was worth it" says Blair...
In particular, it seems these documents will form the basis of "Ghost Wars II" - for whatever journalist wants to wade into the story. However, if the revelations of the Taliban-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia link hold up, then the truth is clear: every tank of gas Americans buy, at least a few dollars out of that is going into efforts to attack U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Get off the oil teat, addicts.
The little twit has his own website to raise support and money for his defense? HA!
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
I might consider sending some of my used toilet paper.
I bet Manning gets Plato Cacheris for his defense and then he's sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Any takers .... ?
Will probably be a few weeks before someone dies from the information he's provided. Then additional changes will come.
Really dumb kid... his family must be so ashamed. Wouldn't doubt he tries kills himself in lock-up, but he would probably screw that up too.
Hey, doesn't Manning look like he could be the hermaphrodite cousin to Pvt. Lynndie England? The Army sure knows how to pick'em!
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41101000/jpg/_41101141_england_get...
http://media.syracuse.com/haveyouheard/photo/2010-07-06-ap-bradley-manni...
What strikes me is Admiral Mullen's response. Is he a soldier or a marketer? Is he willing to stand behind the actions he sends our soldiers to perform? Or is he more interested in selling the Long War to the American public?
I swear some of you people would have loved living in Stalin's Soviet Union, where secrecy was the norm, and was enforced with lethal action.
I think what the Pentagon and the White House need to be concerned about as a consequence of the release of these documents is not so much American public opinion about the war but the opinions of the troops on the ground, who are telling us clearly that Af'stan is FUBAR at all levels and sectors. Total chaos.
Indeed, what I'm really waiting for is a contemporary, 21st century term that reflects that things are worse than FUBAR.
Sounds like a contest to me--replace SNAFU and FUBAR with something snappier, modern.
RH
PS. If I get the chance to meet Julian Assange, I'm gonna buy him a drink. Wild Turkey, no less.
What pisses me off is - well, actually, a number of things. But let's just say that Assange releases military incident reports, which are (a) of little or no historical value, (b) likely to get Westerners killed, and (c) not really embarrassing to anyone.
And as for those 260,000 State cables? Which are of (a) enormous historical value, (b) unlikely to kill anything Western that isn't a career, and (c) enormously embarrassing to the real TPTB? Well... the motherfscker denies even having them. But we know from Manning that he got them. It wouldn't be surprising to me if he got a visit from some Soros crony who explained how this would harm the cause of global democracy, civil society and human rights, etc.
So if I get the chance to meet Julian Assange, I'm going to take him down to the Jaguar to get banged in the ass by huge vicious bikers with AIDS. Unless he posts those cables. But you know (a) he won't, and (b) he wants it.
I mean, come on. Would the Times even think of leaking a State cable? When was the last time the Times leaked anything from State? The Times and State are like this [crosses fingers]. They share bodily fluids on a regular basis. If you called in an airstrike on the one, the rubble would be littered with the bodies of the other. Ah. An airstrike on the Truman Building. Now that's a nice thought. It makes me think of cute fluffy bunnies.
Yes. Afghanistan is fscked. But not despite the world's Assanges - because of them. Whoever restores order in Afpak is going to have to commit some serious human-rights violations, and the anarchists of the world are all working together to ensure that whoever that is is the sickest, baddest son of a bitch that can be found.
And where does Assange end up? Iceland - the last place on earth that will be ruled by Caliph Omar. And even when Afghan savages conquer Reykjavik, Assange will be way too old for Bacha Bazi. It's a damned shame I say.
Perhaps, the most chilling aspect of this story is the reaction from a certain political tendency in the USA.
Which may suggest that the greatest threat to our liberties is a homegrown Taliban, wrapped tightly in the American flag and reciting rather unpleasant verses from the Old Testament.
From the comments so far, what I've learned:
1. My idea that Elf is mortally terrified of nasty turbaned men who want to hurt him is a sound one, he reaffirms it with every word he types. Elf, hoss, you embody the idea that America is a fraidy-cat nation.
2. In people's anger to seize on something they launch ad hominems on Assaunge's peculiar physical features. Ok, he looks sort of like Jabba's majordomo, and he hasn't been hitting the irons lately. So what? Shall I begin a discussion of the various physical deficiencies of the interventionist crowd?
3. I'm less afraid of hordes of Caliphate warriors coming down my street than I am of the US becoming a star-spangled Air Strip One, which some commentators seem entirely too cool with. If this country loses its greatness and we abandon the Enlightenment it will only be because the very worst of us use terrorism as an excuse to get the totalitarian, alpha state they dream of, and the apathetic philistines that for the majority of the population allow them to.
Visitor @1:59, the US has already lost "its greatness." Like Wile E. Coyote, it just hasn't realized it yet. American greatness in the last century was made of two ingredients: bombs and dollars. We still have the balls to drop the former and the gold to print the latter. But both are looking a bit thin from where I stand. Definitely best to not look down.
Elf and I respect wogs and their turbaned wog ways. When they kill us, pwn us or even try to, we listen. We do not believe that they are just wogs in turbans, and therefore exist only to be laughed at, like an 8-year-old with a plastic pirate sword. Your American arrogance is showing. So 20th-century.
The Enlightenment? Heck - the Reformation? Humanity's greatest disaster so far, still unfolding. Perhaps civilization will survive it. Perhaps not. Forget the stars and spangles - give me a white square crossed with red. Or a gold iris. Or a two-headed black eagle. It's never too late for America to apologize for wrecking Europe. Not to mention the rest of the world. George Fitzhugh had it right. What comes around goes around - give it time, it'll come for you.
@159,
Let me clarify who's going to get hurt by nasty turbaned men. The not so nasty turbaned men who trusted us. Along with families. That's whom I'm worried for. I suspect I've put more on the line for the "wogs" than you. And yes, I do respect them as men. Even when they're trying to kill me.
@Fnord,
"Elf: The Wikileaks story was filtered through the Guardian, NYT and Spiegel, who should know a thing or two about protecting individuals, no? " Fnord - the information gives away the individual. But since you ask, no - I don't trust one news organization, never mind three. You must be kidding. The Guardian?
Sara Palin and the bwig bwad right wing aren't coming to Norway to impose Christian theocracy on you. Or our fellow Americans. You can't really have a limited government tryanny, Fnord. And American Protestants in particular aren't interested in a central Church (or Central anything when you speak of the Evangelical variety).
Render Assange to the ISI. Then we can see how big he is on "crushing bastards".
The problem is we've lost sight of the fact that Democracy means the people have the power, and with power comes responsibilities. The Press certainly acts as if it has none.
As do individuals like Julio A.
Self Government requires self discipline, also virtue.
And certain segments of our society, and as far as I can tell most of Europe, and all of the Progressives, don't have either.
How Democracies Perish.
"Indeed, what I'm really waiting for is a contemporary, 21st century term that reflects that things are worse than FUBAR. "
Total Rumsfeld? As in "Its all total Rumsfeld down here" or "And then it went all Rumsfeld"? Seems appropriate that he should have some lasting memory. Can be abbreviated to "All Condition Rumsfeld" - ACR. Or slanged down to "All Donny" - AD. "It was a total AD..."
Elf: As written elsewhere, if someone can point me to a intel analysis of the leaked documents and point out real cases where informers are implied in a identifiable way, then I agree with you that its way way past due dilligence. So far I have seen none of that. Im aware of the fact that war is pretty violent as well, the question is not about that. The question is to what extent the people in a democracy has the right to make informed decisions based on facts and if individuals have the right to share info outside state control. As you write, in a democracy individuals have certain responsibilities, but so do politicans when it comes to available info and honesty of discourse. As a citizen, it is part of my duty to affect politicans decisions, what H.S. Thompson calls "controling your enviroment". If politicans lie to me, its my goddamn duty to find out if such is the case.
As Moldbug so perfectly says it, the one who wins Afghanistan will be the one willing to commit most atrocities. I would rather that wasnt my fellow countrymen, and yours. Given that Afghan is no existensialist conflict, I do believe it legitimate to show the world what has become of us at this stage, and have an argument on whats permitted. And I think WikiLeak serves a important function in giving us facts that can inform our discussion.
(For the record, if it was any doubt on my stance, I dont think youre scared of the turbaned men, thats Mencius Goldbug. Afghan warriors swarming Europe? Damn, they gonna need a lot of tanks for that... I cant wait for the first pakistani carrier fleet to rise on the horizon outside my window either.)
Long time lurker, first time poster. One of the dispatches highlighted by the NYT struck a chord with me:
"Question to the PC members:
If the corruption in Afghanistan is so big, when did it all start and how far back in history?
Answer:
Note: One PC member that was not actively participating decided to answer this question. This member appears to be the oldest in the group.
That is an excellent question. When the Russians were here the corruption did not exist. Later, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan corruption did not exist. During none of the previous government in the whole history of Afghanistan this concept ever existed. The corrupted government officials are a new concept brought to Afghanistan by the AMERICANS.
This same PC member did the following question: Is this DEMOCRACY? or Is this the DEMOCRACY that the AMERICANS bring to Afghanistan?. This question was answered with a: NO, a corrupted government is not democracy."
Someone answer me this. If successful COIN is predicated on winning the support of the local populace, how do you win said support if the people view you as supporting a corrupt government that they hate? How do you clean up this corruption? And how did the British manage to maintain colonial control for centuries, while we can't even do it for a single decade??
What about "pulling a Andropov?" Oh sh*T he pulled an Andropov!
That's kinda catchy... The Soviets did lose 15,000 men and billions of rubles worth of equipment to Afghanistan!
Elf: P.s., see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-wi... for summation.
A. Sullivan on the info: "When one weighs the extra terror risk from remaining in Afghanistan, the absurdity of our chief alleged ally actually backing the enemy, the impossibility of an effective counter-insurgency when the government itself is corrupt and part of the problem, the brutality of the enemy in intimidating the populace in ways no civilized occupying force can counter, the passage of ten years in which any real chance at success was squandered ... the logic for withdrawal to the more minimalist strategy originally favored by Obama after the [2008] election and championed by Biden thereafter seems overwhelming."
Last visitor: Corruption under the russians was a standing joke. And the Talebs came as a reaction partly because of warlord corruption. Check out Dostum, our close ally, now there is a character. What is shocking is that we have had no coherent o-plan to deal with it for 9 years in theatre. It should have been vectored in at day one, education of a functioning buerocracy to paralel the security forces. But when you have a hammer as a tool only, then you just look for things to hit. The soft rebuilding is meant to be the nails you hammer home, right? But since noone gave a flying fck about educating the peasants, what we instead got was the warlord era in return, wich pissed off the locals in the first place post communist. We had 3 years at least with really good popularity ratings in Afghan, but blew it through our actions.
P.S. again, sorry: The allies dont come out half bad, except for the marine breakdown and a few unreporteds. No massacres except 1 and seemingly very few deliberate civilian killings reported is pretty historic as wars go. I would be interested in one time reading the reports of various SF units, though, I know from personal conversation that ours did their fair share around Kabul.
The news is really how screwed the situation is both in military and political terms, both in the west and in theatre., and not the conduct of the war as a whole.
The Washington Post article on private contractor outlays for intelligence gathering was probably a bit more important than this Wikileaks document dump, by the way...
Perhaps some cross-referencing is in order?
There is a fact to face here and that is the one concerning the idea of technology driven citizen type journalism. Having know a lot of journos, I know for a fact that this is the specter that haunts them, and for two valid reasons. The first is that the net allows anyone with a keyboard, a web cam or a uploaded video to rant in whatever way they want. And that's all fine and funky.
The second is that because of the first we will see more and more uncorroborated ' facts' hitting the eye line of people logging on to check what's up with the world. Now I'm not saying that Wikileaks has got this wrong, those documents look pretty real to me, but even as a lefty liberal I must say I'm concerned that these documents just hit the streets.
Certainly the major outlets are going to do as best they can to fact check , but their up against deadlines and bloggers who will publish first and ask about veracity later.
No doubt outlets like wikileaks can support solid investigative journalism, and lord knows we need more of that not less, the past decade has seen economic rationalism rip through the hearts of most major media outlets investigative teams. As an old boss of mine once said, its a sad fact but they want more Paris Hilton then they do Paris France. So expect more not less from Wikileask and their fellow travelers.
@Fnord,
Out of order...sorry...
"The question is to what extent the people in a democracy has the right to make informed decisions based on facts and if individuals have the right to share info outside state control"
well, indeed. But we had all these facts before. There's really not anything here we didn't know except operational details which are indeed juicy sometimes. But what problem do these details substantiate that we didn't know, indeed that our leaders did not share with us? They were open about the problems.
A minimalist approach: willing to discuss, Hell it was our first instinct!! Bush got bashed by so many for ignoring Astan..and look here two years later...and what are we talking about? Going back to the future. I think we could pour all our combined nations real strength at mobilization and the full aid and social package too..and guess what? With this approach? FAIL.
On details of how 92K of SECRET documents can lead back to people - the spooks will find it. Including the most dangerous true spooks of all: the real deal from the street with their lives on the line ...(fuck academic spies. you must be kidding)...
If you had suddenly public in the news on 92K of INTERPOL docs on Euro Black/Red/Green radical movements, including some infrastructure eyeing anarcho-syndcalists on a police watch list, and poreing over them you wouldn't recognize some familiar people, and maybe get some surprises: "He said he worked as a bouncer after the factory".
(And you thought that person was your friend or on your side!)
And I leave you with this to ponder: if any of our dusky hued loved ones came to us with something they heard, would you advise them to take a chance by telling someone?
HELL NO.
and neither would Elf.
And what happens now with the highly sensitive *Bacha Bazi Josh: Boy Toy for Peace* program hitting the mainstream media with all the fury of a leaked Mark Foley-Justin Bieber text message? Will Dr Josh remain satisfied in his mission of pacifying local Tier 4 males one passive sex act at a time, or will he try to leverage his new-found fame to get some Tier 3 action? This could get dramatic.
fnord,
"Human rights violations" != "atrocities." (That's "not equals" for all you non-geeks in the audience.) The Taliban commits atrocities. The Raj committed human-rights violations. No one could possibly mistake the one for the other.
For example, it's a human-rights violation to detain someone indefinitely because he's probably a rebel. Or forcibly relocate a village which is under enemy control. Or hang a man for desertion under fire. Or burn the crops of a disloyal tribe. Or use a field telephone to interrogate a captured prisoner. Or let a bunch of thugs beat the crap out of a journalist. Or even blow a taxi driver's head off for betting, wrongly, that he can run a checkpoint. All these things, by your nice Norwegian standards, are human-rights violations. Fine. I'll go with it.
It's an atrocity to hang a six-year-old boy. It's an atrocity to rape women with beer bottles. It's an atrocity to cut off the head of a journalist. It's an atrocity to massacre a disloyal tribe. Of course, these things are human-rights violations, too. But if you call both "atrocities," you don't have a word left for the difference.
You see the difference? You see it now. But you'll forget it in five seconds. In fact, you get extremely noisy when white people like you commit human-rights violations, but you don't seem to give much of a shit at all when wogs commit atrocities. Which makes me sort of wonder whether you have different standards for wogs and white people. Which, if in I was a witch-hunting mood, might make me suspect there was a witch in the building.
You can't win a guerrilla war without committing human-rights violations. It's never been done. It never will be done. Atrocities? Quite unnecessary, so long as you can violate human rights. If you can't legally violate human rights, you may need to commit illegal atrocities. That's if you're on the reactionary counter-guerrilla side, of course. If you're on the revolutionary guerrilla side, you don't give a shit. Law? What law? History is on your side.
So the result of all your crusading against human-rights violations: more atrocities. More and more and more atrocities. There's blood on your hippie hands, fnord - gallons of it. Ancient, black, stinking blood, thick as molasses, juicy as a good plum. You've killed before, and plenty. You'll kill again, and lots. I speak collectively, of course. But we learned a lot about collective responsibility in the 20th century - didn't we?
Someone answer me this. If successful COIN is predicated on winning the support of the local populace, how do you win said support if the people view you as supporting a corrupt government that they hate?
People are sheep - naturally obedient. If you tell them they have a right to rebel against a corrupt government, they will. If you tell them the truth, which is that all governments are absolute and there is no right of rebellion, and you stick to that truth and have the courage to enforce it - they won't. Unfortunately, our society went wrong on this one sometime around 1641, and we haven't had the intellectual balls to admit how badly we screwed up.
How do you clean up this corruption?
Identify everyone corrupt. Fire, arrest or hang them - preferably the last. As Maistre pointed out, all civilization depends on government, and all government depends on the hangman. Therefore, all civilization depends on the hangman. Coming from the state of Rose Bird, I can certainly appreciate Mr. de Maistre's point.
And how did the British manage to maintain colonial control for centuries, while we can't even do it for a single decade??
The British didn't have our Great Taboo of Post-Colonialism: a white man shall not order a native about. (That would be, of course, a human-rights violation.)
Therefore, they were able to build mixed structures both civilian and military, in which native workers were managed (not advised) by British civil servants, and native troops were commanded (not advised) by British officers. There is a name for this practice. It is called "colonialism."
Heck, even noble great America could practice this appalling sin, in the lives of those now living. See under: Philippine Scouts. The downside: ordering natives about is now recognized as a massive racist colonialist imperialist human-rights violation, on a par with the Holocaust or possibly even worse. The upside: decades of peace and prosperity for the Philippines, at almost no cost in American lives or money.
Naturally, I've never seen anyone proposing any such thing for Afghanistan. As Hunter S. Thompson once put it, "we've learned a lot about race relations since then." And thus, we lose.
Someone answer me this. If successful COIN is predicated on winning the support of the local populace, how do you win said support if the people view you as supporting a corrupt government that they hate?
People are sheep - naturally obedient. If you tell them they have a right to rebel against a corrupt government, they will. If you tell them the truth, which is that all governments are absolute and there is no right of rebellion, and you stick to that truth and have the courage to enforce it - they won't. Unfortunately, our society went wrong on this one sometime around 1641, and we haven't had the intellectual balls to admit how badly we screwed up.
How do you clean up this corruption?
Identify everyone corrupt. Fire, arrest or hang them - preferably the last. As Maistre pointed out, all civilization depends on government, and all government depends on the hangman. Therefore, all civilization depends on the hangman. Coming from the state of Rose Bird, I can certainly appreciate Mr. de Maistre's point.
And how did the British manage to maintain colonial control for centuries, while we can't even do it for a single decade??
The British didn't have our Great Taboo of Post-Colonialism: a white man shall not order a native about. (That would be, of course, a human-rights violation.)
Therefore, they were able to build mixed structures both civilian and military, in which native workers were managed (not advised) by British civil servants, and native troops were commanded (not advised) by British officers. There is a name for this practice. It is called "colonialism."
Heck, even noble great America could practice this appalling sin, in the lives of those now living. See under: Philippine Scouts. The downside: ordering natives about is now recognized as a massive racist colonialist imperialist human-rights violation, on a par with the Holocaust or possibly even worse. The upside: decades of peace and prosperity for the Philippines, at almost no cost in American lives or money.
Naturally, I've never seen anyone proposing any such thing for Afghanistan. As Hunter S. Thompson once put it, "we've learned a lot about race relations since then." And thus, we lose.
Im not saying the guy that leaked it doesnt deserve a cell right next to Jonathan Polllard IF there is any evidence in the trial that he put out direct intel reports causing risk of life. But I would like to see the case made, first. to But Im saying that the Australian currently living in Iceland did pretty well by the going-through-newspapers circuit. Hell, NYT had a meeting with the White House a week in advance. I havent gotten down to reading the original material yet, (hopingthe intrawebs will do the close reading for me), but it sort of relies on what material it is, if its post op evaluations etc.
First and foremost, I read it as a scoop because it is a glimpse behind the curtain. For those of us who read milblogs, all 2000 of us, this is not particularly new except a few confirmations and surprises. But for the public, its a window into the real war, away fromt he spin. I know lots of old soldiers round here who will be clicking in to read some of the sit-reps from Myamaneh, par example. The devil is in the details on the moral of this issue. I await the jurys verdict on that.
Saying Dr. Josh Foust's performance as Justin Bieber at the Afghan national Bacha Bazi dance off which almost caused a 5 way civil war, is not "homophobic", it's homoEROTIC with geo-political implications. Get it right, AM!
What astounds me about the government statement to the WikiLeaks episodes, and every other government pronouncement since 9/11, is the credulity of the American people. All any official has to say is that such and such piece of knowledge, once secret and now public record, will result in the death of Americans, either soldier or civilian, and the bearer of that knowledge is at once branded a murderer. The United States was founded on a distrust of government, a distrust that should be even stronger today.
Since the advent of the national security state following WW II the U.S. has been moving unrelentingly toward what the Washington Post recently branded Top Secret America (which, in my estimation, is an even bigger blockbuster than WikiLeaks). An informed public can combat this trend. WikiLeaks makes us more informed, no matter what Assange's agenda may or may not be.
Perhaps a people that can stomach U.S. v. Reynolds deserves what it gets, but the American ideal is one that is worth fighting for. Though "F U Manning! You were born from your mother's a-hole! Hope you rot in hell." does give one pause to consider what we might be saving.
Mencius, perhaps we should just start strapping 'em to cannon mouths. That'll teach them. Sheesh. George MacDonald Fraser died in '08. Let him lie in peace.
Mencius and Elf,
spare me the wog business. And Elf, the proof is in the pudding, your posts strike this reader as someone convinced that his very life remains dependent on a robust US presence in the Middle East. Fact, the US has the largest military in the world, bar none. There will be no Afghan invasion of the US, nor will there be a Muslim one. If you are genuinely worried about terrorism, answer is simple, leave the Middle East. Let those not so bad turbaned men, as Elf terms them, defend themselves. If they are too lazy or lack the will power to, then I can't be bothered to spare any worry over them. And this isn't just me, if the Afghans were doing their part, why the criticisms (at least the ones made public) by McChrystal and others who are pretty pro Afghan war? Oil you say? Well, what's better, buying oil from a religious fanatic or from a corrupt, decadent militarist dictator?
Mencius,
The Enlightenment is a threat to Civilization? That must be why those recipients of the Counter-Reformation like Latin America have always been at the forefront of innovation and individual rights. If it hadn't been for the Reformation and the Enlightenment we still be deep in lovely, medieval squalor, and those Muslims whom you and Elf are so obsessed with would still be large and in charge throughout the world.
hey, guys i dropped by to say sayonara.
i gotta say i relly agree with this....
"If it hadn't been for the Reformation and the Enlightenment we still be deep in lovely, medieval squalor, and those Muslims whom you and Elf are so obsessed with would still be large and in charge throughout the world."
being as how my shayyks Ibn Arabi and al-Ghazali were postulating Many Worlds Theory four centuries before the xians tried to burn Galileo, this is truth.
i think the 800 pound gorilla in Exum's room is simply this--
Wikileaks== function:death[COIN]
Post Wikileaks COIN is going to become something politicos are desperate to scrape off their shoe...failsauce.
eppur si muove
bye
Visitor,
I can't speak for Elf, but I think he would be happy to let Muslims be Muslims. I certainly would. Behind a nice big wall, thank you very much. Muslim invasion? Been to Grenoble lately? I'm not suggesting they'll come across the Rio Grande as camel cavalry. That's certainly not how they got to Grenoble. Frankly, you sound all too much like Prudentius. Remember, no person is illegal.
As for the Enlightenment, you've got to compare like to like. In my book, the Protestant countries didn't prosper because they became Protestant - they became Protestant because they prosper. Which has a lot to do with accidents of history, climate, and (yes) DNA. Religious and political "reforms"? Color me unimpressed.
We don't know what an England under the Pope would have achieved. We do know what England is today: a chav-ridden shithole with occasional oases of supreme decadence. We do know what France under Louis XIV achieved. And Frenchmen under Louis XIV had a lot more "individual rights," at least if you're referring to personal freedom rather than political power, than any American today. They certainly could use any damned three-letter word they wanted.
And fat lot of good the Enlightenment's done Latin America! Have you been to Mexico lately? Take a look at Evelyn Waugh's Robbery Under Law (1939) sometime. And Mexico in 1939 was a paradise compared to the country it is now. Guatemala then was a real paradise - travelers then described it as "like Mexico before the revolution." They didn't mean that in a bad way. Now? It's the anus of North America.
Everything civilized south of the Rio Grande predates Napoleon. Since the end of colonialism (and Catholicism), it's gone straight to hell in a handbasket. Mexico City had the first university in the Americas. Even in the reactionary Porfiriato, not to mention Maximilian, it wasn't looking too bad. Now? It's strictly Amores Perros. And getting worse.
No offense, but it sounds like you're a bigoted Protestant and a big fan of the Black Legend. There's not a Catholic bone in my body, but I know enough to be fair-minded. As Peter Viereck once observed, anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual. It's never too late to outgrow your prejudices.
The last testament of George MacDonald Fraser. I feel it speaks for itself.
Mencius,
Forgot to add, we should look to the Orthodox World for ideas on how to redeem our depraved Western selves, now that's a part of the world that had it together, almost as civilized as Scotland or Ireland, circa 1500. Now I'm off to watch drone footage while listening to Wagner as I relax in my landsknecht costume.
MM, if it had not been for the great upheavals of the 16th and 17th century, this American would be back in misty, nasty squalor (a world that New Age types, neo-Confederate Celtophiles, and Boston Southies idiotically romanticize) wrapped in a plaid blanket killing other plaid blanket sporting savages over some dog-sized cattle.
US plans will eventually fail in Afghanistan as long as you allow the Afghans to basically remain Afghans, even those near and dear to elf's heart. That said, the Afghans don't pose a threat to us, Taliban or no Taliban. And, as I said above potential Afghan victims of the Taliban, I'm not sparing tears over a man- or a society- who lacks the gumption to defend himself or get his own house in order.
A trite and poor metaphor- think of Afghanistan as a giant barn filled with straw. The spark, Al Qaida, isn't limited to Afghanistan, so this Afghan operation is a gigantic boondoggle anyways (btw, if people were so worried about Islamist morale, why didn't they think about that in the 1990s in Bosnia?). Shall I get snarky and mention the other places that need bombing for funding or hosting Al Qaida like Saudi Arabia, Hamburg, or Florida. But, all that aside, and lets say we deal with the 100 or so Al Qaida operatives who operate in AfPak, we still will leave the Afghans alone, in a very culturally relativistic manner, which is strange considering all the high-flown rhetoric we get subjected to. What we are doing in Afghanistan is essentially leaving the barn behind waiting for the next spark, empowering a corrupt society (paternalism, gerontocracy, tribalism, nepotism) that will always be a potential ally to whatever Islamist movement that comes along. And in the meanwhile, we push the US on down that militaristic, neo-feudalist/corporatist road. I was opposed to this war for the previously mentioned 2 reasons. I knew the US didn't have the cojones to do what really needed to be done because of ideological and political reasons, and I realized that the sleaziest elements would make hay out of this. This war was going to be the mutant offspring of Evangelicalism/Wilsonianism, the Frankfort School, and American Exceptionalism with just enough feel good political correctness to make the accompanying rhetoric sickeningly sweet.
And lest you think I am a naive, arrogant American. I realize how frail this experiment is, how it always hangs in the balance beset on all sides by ideologues, villains, and philistines. It is man's last, best hope, and I'd just as soon not see it thrown away on quixotic bumblef$cks. But since the Enlightenment was a threat to human kind anyways, perhaps its all for the best if the republican experiment failed and we could go back to the days when the ruler was father of the nation, and everyone knew his or her place.
Can we all just get along and watch Dr. Foust in a Bacha Bazi. We'll let Elf take him home and they can watch "Glee" and role play to their hearts content.
Mencius,
I read the Fraser piece. Though I agree with much of it, I must've missed the part where he urges us to once again shoulder the white man's burden.
Mencius,
I don't necessarily disagree with your premise that Northern European dominance was the cause of Protestantism. The areas with the earliest emergence of Protestantism in Northern Europe were also the most dynamic. But Protestantism freed Northern Europe of a parasitical system that was set up to extract resources from the populace, hoard it, or send it to a city with a very large percentage of hookers. Parallels with the current EU crisis come to mind, the PIIG countries still basking in the afterglow of the medieval civilization you praise.
Where there is smoke there is fire, and yes I believe the Black Legend has a good deal of truth to it. My friend, I'm no Unitarian shrinking violet, who cringes from criticizing social and cultural systems that he sees as pathological. I do believe that a good bit of what plagues Latin America is due to the Spanish, not that what was there before was any better from the average man's standpoint. And I resent the US supporting these creole regimes to our South for the past 100 years, up to the present day if you consider Honduras. I think it no coincidence, btw, that ex-nazis would flee to that continent, a place for failed and defeated Europeans to take advantage of others for 500 years.
Protestantism and its child the Enlightenment went afoul sometime in the 19th century, no argument there. I should have elaborated, I think the only genuinely healthy take on the Enlightenment was in the US. I take a dim view of how it developed in France, and Germany with that Napoleonic groupie Hegel and all his minions. Once people got into the whole Hegelian dialectic mode of thinking, reality went out the door.
England and America went stupid when they embraced Evangelicalism (which I'll never defend) which lent religious credence to redneck anti-intellectualism, and your white man's burden so beloved of McDonald Fraser. It is interesting that you defend the white man's burden in one breath, but decry Mexico's slide in another. Do you think recent problems in Mexico might be attributed to the war on drugs? The war on drugs being a recent form of prohibition that perhaps Wilburforce et al might approve of?
I am genuinely confused, MM, are you calling for a crusade in Afghanistan? In which case I could see the love of medievalism. Are you calling for a 19th-century style project in Afghanistan similar to India? In that case you seem awfully proddy to me, saving them and our overseas dominions from themselves.
Me, I'm no proddy, I am an atheist who was raised in an Anabaptist denomination, but am of Romish Gaelic stock, so I'm not connected at all. I think Protestantism was useful, being better than what went before it, but it and the movements that it spawned had huge problems including a self-defeating tendency towards universalism.
What would be best is if we resurrected the Enlightened principles that the US had at its founding, not a French-style idiotic universalist crusading impulse. Rather, we should lead by example. We need American Exceptionalism shorn of its emotional, Norman Rockwell claptrap and Archie Bunker bellicosity and anti-intellectualism.
I find it sad how quickly this comments turned very ugly. I thought that generally it wasn't the done thing to call for someone painful torture and murder. If you deplore someone's actions please use less bile and more arguments.
I know lots of old soldiers round here who will be clicking in to read some of the sit-reps from Myamaneh, par example
That is one thing on the positive, it can make the overall level of the debate more informed. Ideally I would love to see this information being digested and leading to a better perspective of the positives and negatives of the situation. It should be a treasure trove of information for COINistas wanting to know what did and did not work.
Also, since I haven't had the time to look at any of these myself. Has anyone attempted to make an objective assessment of what risks were increased by the release of that data? From what I have gathered it doesn't extend past Dec 2009 that limits the damage somewhat. Has anyone identified any memos released which could lead to a concrete increase in risk to someone? In that case they most likely wouldn't want to publicise the details obiously but has anyone run any numbers? Just hammering on about 92k documents doesn't help much without accounting for their content as well.
Also, I expect the diplomatic memos to follow in another few months time. My guess is that Wikileaks have been busily digesting these files since the release of Collateral damage and have now moved on to the Diplomatic memos. I would also hazard that that might be connected to the recent site issues they have been having, too much attention and effort was devoted to this and the day to day stuff started slipping due to the pressure.
Both Visitors, who seem to be saying the same thing and are thus either sockpuppets or in tune with the same reality:
It is pleasant to note the non-superficiality of your interpretation of history. I regret only that so many share the same interpretation as a matter of doctrine, not thought. Reasonable people when challenged, even from unusual directions, explain themselves; fanatics get emotional or shut up. Plus, I must express a strong positive vote for "now I'm off to watch drone footage while listening to Wagner as I relax in my landsknecht costume." If only!
My position I think is clear. I would rather (a) let Afghanistan be Afghanistan, or (b) shoulder the white man's burden properly, learning from those who have succeeded at this task in the past. I prefer (a) to (b), mildly; and either (a) or (b) to (c), strongly. I feel (a), though extremely difficult from a bureaucratic perspective, is something we might be able to do with the USG we have. (b), quite obviously, is not.
I have nothing at all to add to your picture of (c). I feel it is worth articulating (b) because (c) is something people are trying to do right now, operating under doctrines which seem almost devilishly adapted to make them fail. My feeling is that the more the people trying to implement (c) understand (b), the more (a) will appeal to them. Thus, I offer my two cents, tongue perhaps slightly in cheek.
As for Wagner, the Pope, and landsknecht costumes, it is extremely difficult to disentangle the virtues of the ancien regime from its undeniable vices. I will argue unconditionally, however, that the problems in Mexico (and of the Third World in general) certainly predate the war on drugs. Evelyn Waugh certainly does. His Mexico of 1939, the "Under the Volcano" Mexico, is a pastoral heaven compared to the one we have today. He looked at it, and saw anarchy and hell. Was he wrong? No, his standards were just higher. By defining deviance down, we miss the curve of decline.
When we look at Mexico or any Third World country, simplifying broadly we see a small civilized elite, with IQs in triple digits, governing a large uncivilized mass, with IQs in double digits. This also corresponds to the social structure of old Europe before the Reformation. The question is simply what form of government produces the best life for both these classes. The ancien regime maintained order, built cathedrals, and in general created the civilization which we now enjoy and which conquered the world. The Enlightenment gave us El Pozolero, the human soupmaker. Similar efforts in old Europe gave us the Muenster Rebellion, featuring the charming Jan of Leyden, Pol Pot avant la lettre.
(And enormous quantities of Anglo-American culture remain inherited from old Catholic Europe - most notably, our legal system. This quantity is significantly expanded if we are generous and include royalist high Anglicanism. As Henry Maine pointed out in the 1880s, even America is one country because it was once ruled by one King.)
The fruits of Monroe Doctrine decolonialization in Latin America in the 19th century were horrific in every country. Events in the "liberated" nations unfolded almost exactly as Maistre would have predicted. What on earth could have brought a sensible, well-intentioned person to believe extending this experiment to Asia and Africa in the 20th would be a good idea? And, when the results turned out once again exactly as the colonialists would have predicted, what reasonable person could possibly defend it? Before decolonialization, liberals believed the colonialists were holding Africa in rural poverty and predicted a new Industrial Revolution there. After decolonialization, who did they blame for the failure of their experiment? The colonialists, naturally. This is not the portrait of the true philosopher.
Now, for a country which does not match this Third World profile - that has a demographically substantial educated elite with uniform triple-digit IQs - is Maistre's holy trinity of King, Pope and hangman the be-all and end-all? Well, as an Enlightenment man myself, descended from and educated by a long line of WASPs and Communist Jews, I certainly believe this strand of thought has something to contribute. But it itself is not the be-all and end-all - as proven by its long and continuing string of mispredictions.
An important factor to consider when looking at the late ancien regime is that power attracts talent. As the ancien regime started to lose power, it lost talent. Hence the reactionary Jesuits of France, whose prediction of the results of the French Revolution was accurate, do not measure up in talent to the Enlightenment philosophes, whose prediction was inaccurate. Thus we see the paradox, very common over the last two centuries, in which the dumb people are right and the smart people are wrong. Healing this wound is perhaps the great intellectual challenge of the 21st century.
you asked 'how the information is being digested'. i haven't read the information yet thus my response is wrt the truth dump itself. it's not lost on me (or us, the little people) the weapons of information warfare is as much for us as it is for our 'enemies'. we've been informed this war was going to be fought on the information battlefield and nobody asked us what we thought about that. we know what the fourth estate means in a democracy.
the ptb chose this battlefield not me. this is the natural backlash of the attack on the fourth estate. with hundreds of journalists dying in iraq, w/a total lockdown on free press allowed into cast lead, the attack on AJ in kabul..the list goes on all for the sake of think tanks creating a comfortable narrative for us to prevent us from coming to our own conclusion to the facts.
there is always a place for secrecy but in this WOT it seems the tables have been turned and now we are lucky if there are little rays of truth shining thru all the fancy narrative. i don't want to be coddled. if we have a free vibrant press there would likely be no need for wikileaks which is the natural counterpart of a war built on a lying narrative.
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