Opinions on the latest Wikileaks revelations please.

[Wildcat]

Which brings us back to the statement I made some time earlier. It might well be that releasing this information is endangering lives, and that's one issue; but that has no bearing on whether the actions of the US/UK and allies were justified.

 

What's disturbing is that most of the people who focus on the "endangering lives by breaching security" angle seem happy to completely ignore what the documents actually say, and have no interest in finding out if the allegations have any basis in reality, let alone dealing with them.

 

Knowing the rules under which the US Army operates on the otherhand could be helpful in avoiding unnecessary deaths.....

 

The second thing it documents is really brutal events in which the laws of war, as we commonly understood them, seem to have been overtaken by technology, air power and asymmetric warfare. The classic case in here was of a helicopter, the Apache helicopter, which later went on to shoot and kill Reuters employees. It describes how men on the ground were trying to surrender. It radioed back to base for advice, and extraordinarily, the base lawyer said, "You cannot surrender to an aircraft. Go ahead and kill them." So it went ahead and killed them.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/25/wikileaks_iraq_war_logs_expose_us

 

Surrendering to a US helicopter for example..... not a good idea.

[Harleyman]

If we accept that, then al-Qa'eda have already won, so we don't need to fight them at all and nobody needs to die.

 

 

How so? They wont stop trying to kill us even if we did leave them alone.

Fact is we go on killing or capturing them, getting the intelligence on their activities and prevent (hopefully) any further attacks on our turf.

 

It's an ongoing battle with no end in sight.

[Lotusflower]

To be truthful I dont intend to read any of them. Too many and too detailed but it will serve no doubt to give some satisfaction to the America-phobes.

 

That aside how much credit can we give for the fact that since 9/11 there has not been another well planned terrorist attack of major proportions and which could be due to intelligence gathering? I would say a lot of credit.

 

Wars of any kind including this war against Al Qaeda are always brutal with cruelty on both sides. It may sound callous but if extorting information from a captured terrorist using methods that could be described as cruel and which results in the saving of hundreds or thousands of other lives then this kind of intelligence gathering is justified IMO.

Every country down through history has used torture in wartime to gather vital intelligence even Britain during WW2 but that will never be made public in our life times or probably even afterwards.

 

Intelligence gathering can and often did in the past make the difference between winning or losing a battle or a war.

 

Re my bold.

 

I think that is a philosophy of absolute despair Harleyman. May as well rip up the Geneva Convention, rules of engagement and any other pretence of being civilised.

 

Without reading any of those documents you are always going to be at a disadvantage in discussions like this. The documents reveal much more than "intelligence gathering methods."

The indiscriminate bombing of civilians...to name but one.

 

What, if anything, do you believe separates the good from the evil in your philosophy?

[Bulgarian]

I could try and find the same news report on another site but what's the difference ?

 

The difference is that you're just lazy, your main source of information is YouTube, you accept it totally, you don't even try to find the same information anywhere else. Has it ever occurred to you that YouTube might not be 100% reliable and accurate ?

 

You just don't like owt that's not from the bias british mainstream media.

 

I don't read newspapers, they are all biased, for that same reason I don't get 100% of my information from YouTube. If you're happy to have all your information spoon-fed to you by a privately owned video website then that's fine, most of us have a more inquiring mind than that.

[Lotusflower]

How so? They wont stop trying to kill us even if we did leave them alone.Fact is we go on killing or capturing them, getting the intelligence on their activities and prevent (hopefully) any further attacks on our turf.

 

It's an ongoing battle with no end in sight.

 

That is a fact that will doubtless have the Arms Industry gleefully rubbing their greedy little mitts in anticipation.

 

Who are these men? Cui Bono?

[Harleyman]

Re my bold.

 

I think that is a philosophy of absolute despair Harleyman. May as well rip up the Geneva Convention, rules of engagement and any other pretence of being civilised.

 

Without reading any of those documents you are always going to be at a disadvantage in discussions like this. The documents reveal much more than "intelligence gathering methods."

The indiscriminate bombing of civilians...to name but one.

 

What, if anything, do you believe separates the good from the evil in your philosophy?

 

 

So how would you obtain information from a captured terrorist? Cocoa and biscuits and a little pep talk about the error of his ways?

 

Dont fool yourself. One of the reasons that another well planned attack by Al Qaeda has not been carried out is without a doubt due to intelligence gathering

 

I used to find it puzzling that you only see the US as the big bad guy in everything that goes on but inevitably one eventually gets to know fellow forum members and their views and prejudices.

 

I'm prejudiced against terrorist organisations of any sort and if it means subjecting a captured terrorist to a bit of hell on earth and by doing so prevents another attack being carried out then I'm all for it.

 

Saintliness is not part of the reality in this world especially when dealing with the likes of Al Qaeda

[Harleyman]

How so? They wont stop trying to kill us even if we did leave them alone.Fact is we go on killing or capturing them, getting the intelligence on their activities and prevent (hopefully) any further attacks on our turf.

 

It's an ongoing battle with no end in sight.

 

That is a fact that will doubtless have the Arms Industry gleefully rubbing their greedy little mitts in anticipation.

 

Who are these men? Cui Bono?

 

 

 

It's quite possible that the war on terrorism will continue for decades or until such time that the countries who harbor them will eventually do something about getting rid of them. According to recent news reports the Yemenis have started a military campaign against the Al Qaeda hiding out in their mountains.

[Lotusflower]

So how would you obtain information from a captured terrorist? Cocoa and biscuits and a little pep talk about the error of his ways?

 

Dont fool yourself. One of the reasons that another well planned attack by Al Qaeda has not been carried out is without a doubt due to intelligence gathering

 

I used to find it puzzling that you only see the US as the big bad guy in everything that goes on but inevitably one eventually gets to know fellow forum members and their views and prejudices.

 

I'm prejudiced against terrorist organisations of any sort and if it means subjecting a captured terrorist to a bit of hell on earth and by doing so prevents another attack being carried out then I'm all for it.

 

Saintliness is not part of the reality in this world especially when dealing with the likes of Al Qaeda

 

Re my bold.

Can you substantiate that claim?

 

You don't know as much as you think you do about my world view.

 

If we all allied ourselves to the sentiments expressed in your fourth paragraph the world would be full of barbarians...and it is'nt.

[ptigga]

A website set up to try and influence public opinion against the war.

 

Influencing opinion by publishing raw data. Shocking!

[Lotusflower]

It's quite possible that the war on terrorism will continue for decades or until such time that the countries who harbor them will eventually do something about getting rid of them. According to recent news reports the Yemenis have started a military campaign against the Al Qaeda hiding out in their mountains.

 

Hopefully Wikileaks will continue to help clear the fog generated by the Allied propaganda machine during these events.