"The publication of the documents is invaluable. ... A democracy's strength lies not least in the capacity to address it's darkest hours. The Iraq War was one of U.S. democracy's darkest hours. … The Chinese government is concerned that a local WikiLeaks-style organization could soon be launched. That concern is well founded. ... Wikileaks is not guilty of high treason, but of providing a service to democracy."
The enigmatic Julian Assange: Is the WikiLeaks founder committing treason against the West, or strengthening democratic governance by better informing the citizenry?
Should they be doing this? Is
it acceptable for an unauthorized Internet group called WikiLeaks to provide hundreds
of thousands of secret Pentagon documents online? Documents that someone must
have stolen? Documents, the publication of which, according to American
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, endanger the lives of U.S. troops, allied
forces as well as Iraqi civilians? Documents that could provide invaluable
information to America's enemies, at least according to Admiral
Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joints Chief of Staff - who really is in
a position to know? And does all this mean that a sensational headline is more
important to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange than national security? And does
the anarchy of the Worldwide Web subvert the authority of a world power?
The fact that nearly
400,000 documents were uploaded last weekend doesn't mean that the history of
the Iraq War is now being rewritten. The reports and logs of the troops have
nothing to do with the pivotal political lie George W. Bush told to justify the
war before the United Nations and the global public: Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons
of mass destruction and his ambitions for nuclear, chemical and biological munitions.
It has long been clear that no such weapons existed. Bush maintained their
existence only as pretext to waging the war.
Nor are these Pentagon documents
central to the political miscalculation of the previous American administration
or it's coalition of the willing: removing Saddam Hussein from power meant
bringing peace and democracy to Iraq and the entire Arab world. This crusade of
the Christian West has failed and the chief crusader has been driven from the
White House. Here again, there are no new insights.
[Editor's Note: In fact,
George W. Bush served as long as he was permitted to under the U.S.
Constitution - eight years.]
Nevertheless, the publication
of the documents is invaluable. Because, as was previously the case with the Afghanistan
documents disclosure, they provide a detailed narrative of the day-in day-out
routine of the war - more precisely: the dirty everyday routine of a supposedly
clean war. The logs are written in the sober language of military protocol,
interspersed with technocratic abbreviations. They cite decapitated babies,
cruel torture-methods, targeted killings and erroneous executions.
Those who believe in what
military strategists call "surgical war" - weapons deployed with
minimum invasiveness and designed to spare civilian lives, need only read some
of the logs. Such individuals will then come to understand that the war wasn't
only about the estimated 150,000 people who were killed, but the untold number
of others who were neglected and emotionally brutalized - and that for seven
years, almost on a daily basis, excessive violence triumphed over humanity, as
it has been in every war that came before.
Experts in foreign and security
policy will draw some additional conclusions from this pile of files: on the
organization of the terrorist resistance, the role of the Iraqi
leadership-elite in the post-Saddam era, the influence of Iran, Syria and other
Arab countries, and last but not least, the important role that American
mercenaries in their official role as private security contractors played in the
war.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
For the White House and the
Pentagon, many of these details are unpleasant - and some are embarrassing. But
there is no evidence that this is in fact a threat to the national security of
the United States - or that the lives of soldiers or civilians are endangered.
Hillary Clinton and Mike Mullen haven't cited a single specific example to
support their accusations against WikiLeaks - they have provided no evidence nor
argument. They simply stick to the mere assertion that publication of these
documents is a scandal.
A democracy's strength lies not
least in the capacity to address it's darkest hours. The Iraq War was one of U.S.
democracy's darkest hours. The Chinese government, it
was reported yesterday, is concerned that a local WikiLeaks-style
organization could soon be launched. That concern is well founded. After all, the
power of authoritarian governments depends on the ability to decide what is
secret and what is public - on what people can learn and what remains with
officials. Precisely for this reason, it is essential for this to be done.
In fact, WikiLeaks is not guilty
of high treason, but of providing a service to democracy.
