What do you think of WikiLeaks?

WikiLeaks isn't participating in journalism. It recklessly releases documents and allows for innocent citizens to be punished for their involvement in the Afghan War, US government, etc. Assange is only releasing documents that best serve his political interests, such as ending the Afghan War.

 

Why are people getting punished because of this? And don't give me the answer that terrorists will justify their actions because of the documents.

 

I meant retaliation from places like Afghanistan. A group of terrorists find out that a local person worked with the United States against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, etc., so they seek retaliation against the person, whether it be to kill the person or his/her family. Military sources are endangered by Assange's desire to end the war. Besides, I doubt that Al Qaeda will seek reasoning behind their actions to begin with.

 

Where's the consistency?

 

The person who should be hanged for treason is the one who provided all this information to that scarecrow Assange.

 

How is this any different from the "beloved" Pentagon Papers ? Daniel Ellsberg was proclaimed a great patriot by many.

In a way Wiki gets newspapers like the Times off the hook. They still get to get the leaks out there and off-load all the blame to a 3rd party- non U.S. entity.

 

If my understanding of the Pentagon Papers is correct, those papers mostly dealt with how the U.S. was justifying the Vietnam War, unlike Wikileaks, which is publicizing names of people providing important information to the military.

I guess to use a football metaphor, the Pentagon Papers was providing information about the cheerleaders, and Wikileaks is giving out the team's secret game plans.

 

"I'm only releasing these papers to preserve freedom, my dearest."

 

The leaks that expose misconduct by us and the Iraqi and Afghanistan governments are not necessarily a bad thing. We should stand by what we're supposed to be and not just talk. Now, intelligence assessments and information about other nations, I don't care for that to be released.

 

The Times discusses its plan to publish the leaks, and takes questions from readers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29askthetimes.html?hp

 

Government vs. private citizens.

 

That's because if he did target Iran or China there is a high likelihood he'd be hunted down and killed.