I was reading this story about Bradley Manning [1], alleged whistleblower, and my hypocrisy meter was set off so strongly that I fear it may never work again.
[2]Top Pentagon officials slammed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as having “blood … on his hands” for releasing the sensitive documents, which appeared to include the names of Afghans enlisted as classified U.S. military informants.
“Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said.
Mr. Assange *might* have blood on his hands, the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family. This, coming from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, leader of the U.S. military, which has been raining death on Afghanistan for almost 9 years now [3].
The Guardian reported [4] on the information leaked by Wikileaks:
The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed “blue on white” in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents.
Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers.
At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.
Yet, Mr. Assange is the one with blood on his hands?? Spare me. I take every chance I can get to quote General McChrystal on this, because it’s vital that everyone understand what sort of people are running this war. McChrystal was quoted by the New York Times [5] as saying “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.”
And Wikileaks has blood on its hands? We shot an “amazing” number of innocent people, and Wikileaks is the party with blood on its hands? Let’s take a moment and review some headlines from 2010:
- Afghanistan: NATO Airstrike Kills 27 Civilians [6]
- Afghan fury after Nato troops open fire on bus full of civilians, killing four people [7]
- Second group of Afghan civilians killed in NATO push [8]
And one of the most damning incidents [10] (of which we are aware) was the murder and subsequent attempted cover-up of several Afghan civilians in February:
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. NATO had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies, but later admitted responsibility for all the deaths. The Times reported that “US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.”
Given all that, it boggles my mind that Admiral Mullen can say, with a completely straight face, that Wikileaks is the party with bloody hands.
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