Wikileaks and it's impact on Journalism

[Mekon]

But he wouldn't have bled out if they'd allowed the good samaritan to help him.

Killing soldiers who are already "hors de combat" is pure barbarity. Should the police force act the same way? If not, why not?

[Pigfat]

Also have a look through some of the classified and top secret diplomatic cables, as they are pretty interesting, especially learning about the United States true opinion of Kevin Rudd (not as nice as they have publicly stated, but fair enough considering his power was stripped).

Anybody mind linking me to this on wikileaks?

[FryzieDelta]

But he wouldn't have bled out if they'd allowed the good samaritan to help him.

A random in a van who might have had a small first aid kit could help someone who just got hit by a 30mm round who probably has a hole through them so large you could fit your fist through?

Killing soldiers who are already "hors de combat" is pure barbarity.

For an air crew it seems part of their standard operating procedure. It's either attack and make sure everyone is dead, or attack and leave the survivors to bleed out. Either would be considered barbaric, the former is more professional and nicer. For troops on the ground who have the capability and in a secure enough situation it's a differant story. A helicopter crew isn't going to land and render aid, nor assume that ground forces will then move in to save the poor bugger.

Should the police force act the same way? If not, why not?

The job of police is to protect people and save lives. If they shoot someone and that person survives their bound to save them. The job of a soldier is primarily either to kill or assist the people that go out and kill.

[Mekon]

The job of police is to protect people and save lives. If they shoot someone and that person survives their bound to save them. The job of a soldier is primarily either to kill or assist the people that go out and kill.

In the modern world, the role of a soldier is generally peace-keeping and protection. The yanks got bored of that and thought that invasions would be more fun, but for the rest of the Western world, that's pretty much the norm.

[FryzieDelta]

Peace-keeping and protection are not taught in recruit training, how to kill someone with bayonet and bullets are. Everyone then branches off to learn what they will, which in the case of the combat corps is many more ways to kill people. Everyone else learns how to make the job of the troops in the combat corps easier. Combat troops deployed on peace-keeping operations still have weapons and ammo because they need to be prepared to kill someone if they have to, and the threat of being attacked by well equiped and trained soldiers is a pretty good deterant to those that would threaten that peace.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Speaking for myself, Wikileaks hasn't released anything particularly shocking or surprising, at least in terms of the diplomatic cables which **** and gossip about other countries.

There was big kerfuffle when they released all that stuff a few months ago, but nothing of late. Journalism merely latches on to the flavour of the day/week/month, then moves onto something more headline grabbing. Last year it was Collateral Murder. This year its the Royal Wedding/Bin Laden. Life goes on and the status quo remains.

[Dean]

Be sure to check out the 'Collateral Murder' video (footage and dialog from an U.S. Apache gunship mowing down journalists and civilians, I would have posted it here but it probably goes against GoN video rules).

I haven't seen the video for 12+ months, however from memory i had no qualms about the actions of the gun crew. They thought the group were armed and took action they deemed appropriate to protect themselves/other US personnel in the area. Unfortunately, as we know, the people they killed/wounded were civilians.

As a side issue, I wonder if the heli crew have been effected by the knowledge that they plinked off a handful of civilians.


OT : I don't (generally) agree with wikileaks

[FryzieDelta]

Not all of the group were civilians, the ground team found weapons among the bodies (including an RPG is memory serves).

[MaddMoose]

As a side issue, I wonder if the heli crew have been effected by the knowledge that they plinked off a handful of civilians.

Maybe, but they would have been affected regardless of Wikileaks attempts to make them out to be gung ho etc..etc...The part that Wikileaks falsified amongst other things in that video is that there was an investigation into the incident. Reuters and the family of the journalists were shown the video 2 weeks after it took place. Same as they left out that the US convoy those insurgents were going to ambush rendered first aid to those at the scene and the children in the van lived.

Whilst I don't agree that everyone should have wholesale access to all information as much of it is kept hidden for good reason and there are plenty of oversight committees (anyone that has had to deal with classified info would be able to tell you how much scrutiny there is in its handling and classification). I might be able to at least respect Wikileaks if they actually walked their party line of complete freedom of information. Instead though they edit and leak the information in order to push a political agenda and to stroke Assange's ego, all whilst claiming there is no downside to what they do. Their release of information of names and locations of civilians working with ISAF troops in Afghanistan is unforgivable.

Just look at their latest release of documents. They supposedly have 100,000 documents, yet they've only released a tiny amount of them. They also demand full disclosure of everything governments have, yet they refuse to disclose any information about their own organisation.

Wikileaks is at best an extremely hypocritical organisation, and at worst they are an organisation that places others in danger due to blatant disregard for the consequences of their actions.

Back to the topic of ROE and laws of war. The problem with the Hague and Geneva conventions is that they were written around the period of WWI. Warfare has changed a lot since then, the laws of war remain basically the same though. Without going down the road of how the enemies we fight don't follow the laws of war anyway, we are still accountable to them. Which the Taliban, AL Qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq all know and they exploit this fact. As a result our troops very much fight with one hand tide behind their backs.

[Dean]

Whilst I don't agree that everyone should have wholesale access to all information as much of it is kept hidden for good reason and there are plenty of oversight committees (anyone that has had to deal with classified info would be able to tell you how much scrutiny there is in its handling and classification).

This

[Lurk]

For an air crew it seems part of their standard operating procedure. It's either attack and make sure everyone is dead, or attack and leave the survivors to bleed out. Either would be considered barbaric, the former is more professional and nicer. For troops on the ground who have the capability and in a secure enough situation it's a differant story. A helicopter crew isn't going to land and render aid, nor assume that ground forces will then move in to save the poor bugger.

Just because you were within the ROE and SOP doesn't mean it was a legal decision. They're two independent concepts.

The job of police is to protect people and save lives. If they shoot someone and that person survives their bound to save them.

they're*

[Instinx]

Be sure to check out the 'Collateral Murder' video (footage and dialog from an U.S. Apache gunship mowing down journalists and civilians, I would have posted it here but it probably goes against GoN video rules).

I don't really want to pick you up on this, but as soon as this line came up i already knew which side of this argument you were going to create. In my opinion, topics such as these become more developed if a third party, one with no real interest in the topic, starts a discussion and both sides try to prove themselves the better to this third party.

The discussion you are seeking is 'prove me wrong' which is a lot harder to do. We are giving you arguements and you are instantly saying 'no you are wrong' and correcting us. Also, this is an opinionated topic which is why it has so much attention at the moment. I am actually against Wikileaks, why should they be releasing information which is classified? Do you really think that China wants Korea to know that they are loosing faith in them? And why should we publicise an error of judgement which was within the ROE, its not the military or chopper gunners fault that there were civilians in a hot zone. All wikileaks seems to be doing is trying to emulate what happened in the US during the Vietnam war, which is what i am currently studying and to me, its still a major grey areas with lots of 'yes, but' and 'however's.

[JackAttack]

Yeah that was my opinion when I started this thread, but knew I didn't have all the info, that's why I was asking people to share their resources.

I disagreed with responses so people would feel compelled to elaborate, so I can learn more about the topic.

I tried to be objective when making the op, but damn, I let that little comment slide in whoops :S.

[Tastynapalm]

Speaking for myself, Wikileaks hasn't released anything particularly shocking or surprising, at least in terms of the diplomatic cables which **** and gossip about other countries.

There was big kerfuffle when they released all that stuff a few months ago, but nothing of late. Journalism merely latches on to the flavour of the day/week/month, then moves onto something more headline grabbing. Last year it was Collateral Murder. This year its the Royal Wedding/Bin Laden. Life goes on and the status quo remains.

Yep that pretty much sums it, up. Wikileaks is an organization run by someone who has a grudge against the US, that supposively has all this information that was stolen and so far has released piece meal. Where is all the information about the banks doing shonky deals or even the UFO stuff for a chuckle? They are not journalists they're boarders of information given to them.

[FryzieDelta]

Just because you were within the ROE and SOP doesn't mean it was a legal decision.

From a military point of view, yes it does.