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(Associated Press) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says the release of U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan is like opening the files of East Germany's secret Stasi police. He says there appears to be evidence of war crimes in the leaked documents.

The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks on Sunday posted some 91,000 leaked U.S. military records of six years of the war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures.

Assange told reporters Monday "it is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime. That said ... there does appear to be evidence of war crimes."

He said what's been reported so far has "only scratched the surface."

The White House, Britain and Pakistan have all condemned the documents' release.

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Comments

[Corruptio Blogg]

http://socialdemokraternaa.wordpress.com/

[lungfish]

America is not accountable. The GOP Administration that created this mess and the PNAC traitors who undermined our Constitution and tanked our country for these wars are not accountable. The men who ordered institutionalized torture are not accountable. The lawyers who drew up the opinions that got people tortured and innocent people imprisoned indefinitely are not accountable. The spy agencies and the Bush cabal that spied on Americans illegally are not accountable. The GOP/Bushies that handed over tax cuts to the wealthy and gutted regulations are not accountable....The US personnel who were depicted in video and pics as they raped and tortured children and family members of detainees (see the last round of torture pics that Obama wouldn't release because of the demands for accountability that would arise) are not accountable...
Certainly if there are war crimes in Afghanistan, nobody will be accountable. At best they will throw some underlings under the bus like they did at Abu Ghraib. Also, like Abu Ghraib, those who were responsible for specifically ordering actions that became war crimes will not be accountable...
America is not accountable. Somehow it happened but hey, its Afghanistan, who knows and who cares? Certainly not America.

[Haute Macabre]

END THESE WARS!

[voxpop88]

Pithy, pertinent. FANNED.

[NextNyc]

HHHHHHOOOO­RRRAAAYYYY­Y!
The next step towards Afghan SELFGOVERNANCE, they have the right to impose Sharia if they want, they can offend our modern sensibilities as much as possible, we will not harm them anymore! They have the right to determine their way of life!!!!! Religion is totallty different than fascism!

[Ann Shahan]

Here's an interesting article on how these leaked documents just might be the ticket out of this war.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072703050.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

[trestradapalma]

Videos to be released soon show massacres in Afghanistan. These are war crimes that got the Nazis hung for doing such things.

[Buakaw Por Pramuk]

You obviously don't understand. It was evil when THEY did it. It patriotic and noble when WE do it.

[omega777]

people don't seem to care:

let us watch football
let us watch baseball
let us watch basketball
let us watch hockey
let us watch springer
let us watch oprah
let us watch lohan
let us watch gaga
etcetera

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZSWl7NXyAw&feature=related

[voxpop88]

Sports & infotainment: the updated "panem et circenses (bread & circuses).

Functionally:

1. They inculcate (especially the oppositional sports) an "us and them/insider vs. outsider/native against foreigner" mentality and mindset. The segue to jingoism is not far behind.

2. These activities distract from what is real and important: how our monies and resources are spent.

3. Sports and entertainment make money off the populace, and are the perfect place for advertisers to beguile viewers with their often-pernicious wares (think junk food, alcohol, unneeded non-sustainable, discretionary purchases).

4. They also subtly inculcate a certain ideology: purchase & consume, and become part of the process of mindless consumer.

Great insight, Citizen Bean. Thanks.

[J.C. Convery]

I'm sorry but thats just kind of a cop out. It is our responsibility when we pretty much involved ourselves in the systematic destruction of the Afghan state at the end of the cold war. Once we drove the Soviets out we didnt lift a finger to rebuild what was lost.

As for Assange it does seem that the presentation is very one sided and very much skewed against US involvement in the region. It's one thing to kill people accidently, but when it comes to murder by design which is what the Taliban do to civilians then we should allow journalists to simply ignore this beacuse it doesn't fit in the ideological shoe box. I'm sorry but there are people on Fox news that might have more scruples. It was irresponsible, deliberately designed to make the US look bad and failed to acknowledge that the enemy routinely commits attrocties by design.

[Truth-Seeker]

I think that people like Assange believe that truth can help set people free and that truth, in the end, can help to expose, convict and eliminate many, if not most, of the bad people that are out there. If we know who the really bad actors are, and where they are, then they are much easier to target and they might even become scared and go into hiding, or at least stop what they are doing. Tyrants, dictators and thugs don't like the light cast on them. Wouldn't we all like to know exactly where Osama bin Laden is? Perhaps the Pakistanis know and perhaps even some in our own government know where he is (in Pakistan) but for some reason we aren't allowed to go after him. People like Assange can help us get the answers - then maybe we CAN go after him, after all. Without the right information we are all mostly powerless.

[voxpop88]

You make a good point about the USSR and US destroying Afghanistan, both for their own reasons, but the rest of your commentary is somewhat murky and not well-thought-out:

1. As far as "murder by design," the multinational corporations that are obscenely profiting from the murder and death of people in Iraq and Afghanistan do not scruple often to distinguish between combatant and civilian. Read up, my friend; articles are one thing, but they do not substitute for the deeper understanding you will garner from the lengthier analysis generally available from books.

2. The Taliban are a bunch of ignorant ideologues, mostly unschooled peasants and pastoralists, who have been manipulated by powerful local warlords.

Yes, stop them, and let's also stop the cavalier killing of civilians by U.S.-led forces.
Killing innocent civilians is not in ethical, or in the U.S.'s best interests.

3. If you know your history, you would recognize that the U.S. had much to do with the organization and funding of their precursors, the mujahideen, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s-1980s.

The people of the U.S. deserve to be better represented, and we demand accountability-
as Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have done, to their credit.

4. “...there are people on Fox news that might have more scruples
[than Julian Assange].”

There are certainly people on Fox News with the same number of “scruples,”
but they are certainly in the minority.

[voxpop88]

5. Try “The Nation” magazine (TheNation.com), for people with a good deal more scruples than those that generally obtain at Fox News.

Recommended reading for background to the current U.S. involvement in Afghanistan:

* “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,” by Steve Coll, 2004
(managing editor of The Washington Post from 1998 to 2004).

* “The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East,” by Robert Fisk, 2005.

Peace

[hempster]

Just heard a blurb from Julian Assange relating to a PFC who is being held In Kuwait pending article 31 action by the military. Mr. Assange is claiming this person is a political prisoner. Wrong! The soldier is being held pending action by his unit which is currently stationed in Iraq.
What Mr Assange misses is it is this PFC's units responsibility to charge this individual soldier for infractions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If his unit were stateside he would be held stateside. But since his unit is serving in the theater of operation (Middle East) that's where he is being held. This PFC is not a political prisoner as Mr. Assange asserts. It's just another case of "spin" and stiring the pot.

[lambdin1]

Nothing new in the so called "leaks"!!! Nothing secret either!!! The "news" media and various other talking heads need to get over themselves. These are simply front line report and not the policy or intelligence that everyone thinks it is! All this has done is allow for more "analysis" by people that have little knowledge or nothing better to do.

[voxpop88]

"Nothing to see here, move along, move along!

Never mind that thousands of civilians have been killed because the unscrupulous and corrupt military contractors are busy making their billions from U.S. taxpayers (actually $1 to 3 trillion), making the world more unsafe by the counter-productive wars which our politicians and military flaks have lied to us about.

"Nothing new here, I tell you! What is wrong with all you people who read books! Put those things down, they only cause trouble, and interfere with the profit margins of our patriotic merchants of death who would perpetuate "permanent war," whenever possible.

"Move along! Nothing secret here!"

[RandyRagoonanan]

The WhiteHouse condemns the release of the report but hardly condemns the actions of its military or its own people which the report brings to light have committed crimes worse than the Taliban. More and more people are waking up to these non-sensical wars and after the leak everyone should organize protests to get our troops out at the end of the year

[agxphoto]

It is interesting that you should mention this comparison with the Taliban. CBS Evening News reported last night that these same documents show that the Taliban has killed 10 times as many innocent civilians during this war as US, NATO and Afghan troops combined.

So, all you have to do to be a fair reporter of this information is to go out and make 10 times as many war crime accusations against the Taliban as you have against US troops.

[Mattoon]

Your comparison of our troops to the taliban has proven to the world, I would imagine even most here that you have no scruples or integrity.

[GJCO-JMH]

To say that the U.S. Military compares to the Taliban is so utterly ignorant it's hard to take it seriously. But just for the record.......

"Taliban executes 7-year-old child for ‘spying’"
- By Abdulhadi Hairan
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2010-06-09

"KABUL–Taliban militants executed a 7-year-old child June 8 for “spying for the government” in the volatile Helmand province of Afghanistan.

"Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial governor, told Central Asia Online June 9 the insurgents kidnapped the child and hanged his body from a tree after killing him in the Sarwan Kala area of Sangin District.

“The innocent boy was not a spy, but he may have informed the police or soldiers about planted explosives”, Ahmadi said.

"A resident of the Sangin District told Central Asia Online by phone, “The child was the grandson of a local elder; tribal elders, particularly those who support the government or the reconstruction programmes, OFTEN get killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan”.

"Militants REGULARLY kill students, teachers, women, and farmers on charges of spying for the government. Local residents claim foreign militants are involved in most of these brutal acts. Local officials say the militants do so to instil fear and terrorise the population."
(CAPS are mine)

[voxpop88]

"...everyone should organize protests to get our troops out at the end of the year."

FANNED, for your true patriotism, that will save the lives of U.S. troops who are just trying to do their duty, and don't need to come home in coffins, without limbs, severe PTSD, and high suicide levels.

[Kye154]

What the exposed classified records really appears to show are the same type of exploits that U.S. Marine Corps Commandant, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, said about our country 75 years ago: "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country’s most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras ‘right’ for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." So, some poor young U.S. Army private takes the brunt of this discloure, because the elitests do not want the rest of us to know what sort of exploitation is actually going on in Afghanistan.

[Bertalein]

Wow, disgusting information, however I do not doubt it.

[Bertalein]

Wow, disturbing information, however I do not doubt it.

[voxpop88]

FANNED.

Here's are some classic books written by, and about, General Smedley Butler,
who fought and led U.S. 'colonial' wars:

"WAR IS A RACKET," by General Smedley Butler.

Butler, Smedley, " CHINESE AMERICAN RELATIONS: U.S. Marines in China"

Schmidt, Hans, "MAVERICK MARINE: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History."

Schmidt, Hans, "THE UNITED STATES OCCUPATION OF HAITI, 1915-1934."
Contains extensive material on Butler.

[garymc8]

every time the covers get pulled back on the american military we see a bed of SNAKES. WE HAVE THE MOST dishonest military and government in the world. THANKS BUSH/CHENEY NOW RETURN THE 9 BILLION YOU TWO THIEVES STOLE

[Taufik Dukezy Efendi]

WOW WOW WOW... what happen here..? Peacemaker....? I don't think so.

[Mattoon]

Why did you delete a post asking if you was deleting posts too freely?

[Mattoon]

Is it just me or does anyone else think Huffington Post is going a little overboard on what they are deleting. I have had a few deleted that were not over the top , threatening or pure cussing or anything else that I thought should be deleted, I have written some that were bad when something in particular got me riled up and non of the ones deleted so far was like that.
I think it is funny how this whole article is about sunshine and getting things out there in the open then it is heavily moderated. Am I alone in this?

[GJCO-JMH]

Nope