WikiLeaks and the U.S war in Iraq
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-10-26/wikileaks-and-us-war-iraq
Reverberations from the WikiLeaks release of classified U.S. Iraq war documents continue. The nearly 400,000 secret records document thousands of civilian deaths, offer disturbing evidence on abuse and torture of prisoners, and have raised political tensions in Iraq. Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, claims his political opponents are using the documents to block efforts to form a new government – a process critical to overall U.S. strategy: What the latest WikiLeaks release of classified information means for Iraq, the U.S. and national security
Guests
Geoff Morrell
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs at the Pentagon
Paul Pillar
director, graduate studies at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University and a former CIA National Intelligence officer
Stephen Walt
professor, international affairs, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Daniel Ellsberg
Author and former Defense Department staffer
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
The war started with lies and it will only end with truth.
The Pentagon complains about collatoral damage from the release of the documents about the war. How is this different from the civilian deaths caused directly or indirectly from military action? It's pretty rich to point to Julian Assange and say he has blood on his hands when the Pentagon has much much more blood on it's hands. They are in the business of killing while he is trying to end the killing.
My support to you, Diane, having to listen to all of this crap....
Choosing to start a war is the greatest of all war crimes. It gives birth to all the war crimes that follow.
These information leaks speak to the absolute incompetence of the department of defense/Pentagon to secure sensitive information. How can just one or a few people have so much access to so much information and than leak it to the public? The government should be firing many people and using the latest technologies to stop information leaks. This should be their ultimate job to secure information and they have totally failed in this effort.
Stop blaming the leaks and start blaming yourselves for not securing this information!
the wikileaks founder and the specialist who leaked the documents should be tried for treason.
Complete lie by Pentagon spokesperson:
Here is the DemocracyNow! show yesterday --
"AP got a hold of an internal Pentagon memo that said in the last trove of some 76,000 documents that were released, that no sources were compromised,"
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/25/wikileaks_iraq_war_logs_expose_us
Other than the obvious difference in scale, how does the Wiki release differ from the outing of Valerie Plame by the Bush administration?
See following post, please.
Plame outing was directed by VP Cheney office for retribution, Wikileaks was allegedly low ranking officer
Diane - you asked what I thought was a very pertinent question of the Defense press rep. I have felt for years that civilian deaths and displacement will be a major recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and insurgent bodies, as the US is held responsible for all. But for years we have *not* been given information on civilian deaths, other than when European leaders gave estimates of 100,000-300,000 US officials would always say they were orders of magnitude high.
Now, according to the press secretary, not only did the Defense Department know that the figures were at least 100,000 but that those figures don't include deaths from sectarian violence - which was a result of the invasion and subsequent lack of resources, and which will be seen as the US's responsibility - putting the US's estimates right in line with the higher European ones.
At no time did a US official admit to any figures of these orders, even when pressed. You did ask, and never received an adequate answer, and for the secretary to say that the big difference between these leaks and the Pentagon Papers was that the Pentagon Papers showed government lying - well, it appears to me that these leaks show exactly that.
Your Pentagon spokesperson makes little sense. The best that he can offer is "we didn't tell you how many people were killed because we only knew how many people we saw killed." That information alone would have instructed the country on whether to proceed with this war, and that the Pentagon never released the numbers confirms that Wikileaks' goals and methods are proper. We cannot say the same for the Pentagon.
Oscar
The speaker said that there were circumstances in Iraq that "normally would be considered reprehensible". What does he mean?
My father -in-law was editor of the record at the Nuremberg Trials and he believed that peace through law was possible. It is not possible if we adjust what behavior is considered reprehensible to suit political needs. Our behavior is as reprehensible as the behavior of those tried at Nuremberg.
why is it hard to understand that the world is a violent place. Wars are violent things, executed by people, making it a messy violent thing. it is easy to sit in your office chair and decrie violence and death, when you think you have no part of it. as an American you have a full part of it. the congress and the people of the United States went along with the beginning of the war. the terrorists however knew that we would. they also knew we would not have the stomach for it. just like Vietnam. America sends its soldiers out to fight and then stab them in the back when they are there fighting. the terrorist knew that all they had to do was hang in there and we would give up. Just like Vietnam. you people would not let that war be won, you sent people like Jane Fonda out to collude with the enemy, and denigrated the troops when they returned. it is the same thing here with only the guilt of the way Vietnam vets were treated keeping the majority of you from acting the same way. America should just disband the military since the VOCAL MINORITY cannot handle conflicts. you sheep all just want to be friends with the wolves.
Great job by Ellsberg today! Shame on Pillar.
Two media's here. The vague analysis of mainstream media versus the concrete facts of wikileaks.
Diane,
Otherwise decent persons will behave badly and even criminally when placed in morally ambiguous circumstances. The real story is WHY the US invaded and occupies those countries. Identify and focus, if you're going to serve the public.
Are you aware of the video The New American Century? Are you aware of the PNAC organization, its founders, and how exactly what has played out in Middle East and elsewhere is according to the blueprint they created?
What crock. Diane failed as an interviewer.
She failed to get to the bottom of this issue in that leaks like this will help prevent crooks (one who was on the show) from leading Americans into silly self serving wars based on lies.
You really screwed up on this one Diane. What a shame.
You ran interference and the truth did not come out.
Modern wars are initiated by corporate business needs and interests and the machinations of those who serve Oligarchic elites. The public receives "sanitized" information both about wars and the political operations behind them. Secondarily, wars themselves are both politically controlling and profitable. The economic maintenance functions of government (Entitlements, food assistance, unemployment benefits) are seen as less vital than war costs. Thus, the story of Iraq, yet poorly told, is the story of the dispossession of the disadvantaged and the descent of the United States into a nightmare of a tiny elite ruling over 300 million debt peons.
Economic "hollowing out" of government is integral with the hollowing out of public participation in government. Not being told the truth because we are deemed unworthy to know is the first step in commodification (people made products) of our populace. Wikileaks gives citizens the platform for inquiry. I hope we take that opportunity.
diane, using a metaphor: many would prefer to know the history of pre-packaged food before buying into it. thanks to wikileaks and dr. ellsburgh for the granulation of war. it does have an effect on thinking americans view our government and military goals. i can only hope it has a positive impact.
diane, using a metaphor: many would prefer to know the history of pre-packaged food before buying into it. cudos to wikileaks and dr. ellsburgh for exposing the ugly granulation of war. it has an effect upon thinking americans. our governmental and military goals in the far east seem largely shameful. i can only hope it has a positive impact.
A few weeks ago a pastor in Florida threatened to burn a Qur'an, and the whole world condemn his action. The White House and the Pentagon was so concerned for the safety of the troops and riots by Muslims that they promptly sent the FBI to pay the pastor a visit.
Why this administration doesn't take the same action against WikiLeaks?
During WWII there was a slogan "Loose Lips Sink Ships". If WikiLeaks had existed at that time, today we would be speaking German and living under a dictatorship.
Diane, thank you for presenting such a relevant and important show. Daniel Ellsberg, thank you for your courage and continued service. You are an American hero. Diane, I was very disappointed to hear you say to Daniel when he suggested accountability for war crimes, "...we are not going to go all the way back to 2002...". One major reason that allowed us to illegally invade Iraq was that we have never been held accountable for the crime of the war in Viet Nam. Unless and until we are honest with ourselves about our misguided war on terror and the associated crimes we will continue to repeat them. Please Diane, don't let us get away with another war of choice. The millions of Iraqis and thousands of Americans who have lost so much as a direct result of our illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq deserve better. So do the millions of Americans, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians whose lives we destroyed by our invasion of Viet Nam.
It is absolutely correct that Juan Williams had the right to say that he is uncomfortable when he sees Muslims getting on his flight. But, was it wise? As a nationally known news analyst and as a black man, who has probably been profiled once or twice in his life, he was wrong to add fuel to the fire of prejudice against this growing segment of the American population. Shame on you, Juan Williams, for succumbing to the pressure to be "politically incorrect" a la the Fox News tradition.
I think one of the issues concerning the firing of Juan Williams is the way in which he was fired. Whether he is considered justified in his comments or not, his termination should have been conducted in a professional and objective manner. All employees deserve to be treated like human beings and not commodities. The behaviour of the female executive who handled the situation did not demonstrate that she has the managerial skills, sense of humanity and dignity required to be a leader at an institution as hallowed as NPR. Societies today can do with a lot more mindfulness in its human transactions.
Hooray for Daniel Ellsberg! A voice of sanity amidst the lies and obfuscation from the ranks of apparently conscience-free apparatchicks like Mr. Morrell. Only a real war crimes prosecution will put an end to the pernicious acceptance of criminal behavior now woven into the fabric of our legal and military systems.
Are we a nation of laws, or not?
To repeat some other comments: What if Diane Rehm or Bill O'Reilly would have made the same comment about blacks on airplanes? What would have been his response? The type of comment he made about about people from the middle east was out of line. Making a blanket statement like that about any group of people is wrong. Thankfully NPR's standards are higher than that.
Bob Caple
Thank you to Diane Rehm and her staff for a lively show today (both hours). I do have two points I would like to make. First, the Georgetown University professor claimed that the U.S. would be out of Iraq at the end of next year. That is not reality. Not only has former U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker stated his belief that the Status of Forces Agreement would be renegotiated, Vice President Joe Biden has stated the same thing to Margret Warner on PBS's Newshour and yesterday at the U.S. State Department, Phil Crowley told the press that "we're open" to staying past 2011 and will address that when Iraq finally forms its new government. What I like best about The Diane Rehm Show is that usually the guests join Diane in sticking to reality and from that they may offer opinions. But that professor did not offer reality in my opinion.
My second point was when Daniel Ellsberg was speaking at one point and holding the professor accountable, Diane cut him off and stated that we weren't going back to 2002. When can we? I think there needs to be a show that goes back to the pre-war propaganda and assertions. Today was Wikileaks and I'm fine with that; however, I do believe we need a show that goes back to 2002. I would recommend that such a show not only have Ellsberg on but also invites either former US ambassador Joe Wilson or former CIA agent Valerie Plame on. Thank you.