Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation

Originally posted by conspiracy88
I can't believe you're all falling for it. Seriously... yeah, the MSM is gonna release information that makes the military industrial complex look bad

WAKE THE F UP! This is all disinfo! They know the people are getting (or more like have been) tired of these bs wars so now they're setting your sights on the next two targets, Iran and Pakistan! WAKE UP! STOP APPLAUDING JULIAN ASSANGE! HE IS A FRECKIN PUPPET! Common! The NY Times, BBC!!!! Even on ATS, what the heck is going on!

You moved too fast there buddy! YOU FORGOT TO INCLUDE YOUR EVIDENCE/REFERENCES FOR THE ATTACK ON JULIAN ASSANGE! (Oops, sorry for shouting. Caps Lock got stuck down.) I don't see it myself but cannot rule out the possibility that he will one day be fed rubbish to waste his time and ours.

I completely agree that THEY are working hard to start the next war either with Iran or North Korea or heck why not both? Double the profits for the defense suppliers!

When these people run around with rags on their head how are we suppose to ID them. No wonder they get shot, because of suspicion. Maybe if they take the rag off, so we can ID people better, less civilians will get shot. The rag is part of the problem, so why don't we tell them this?

Originally posted by Nomad451
Anyone else slightly worried that this release may spur the US to create some kind on "incident" on the Korean Peninsula? It would certainly take the focus off, especially if any incident was particularly large

I thought I was the only one worried about that region. Seems like a provocative move on our part. N. Korea just sank a S. Korean ship a few months ago.

Any incident involving our ships would be huge.

Originally posted by nite owl
When these people run around with rags on their head how are we suppose to ID them. No wonder they get shot, because of suspicion.

That's a very racist position to take. Suspicion does not justify use of force, just as we as US citizens are innocent until proven guilty.

War is suppose to be a terrible thing. The worst thing that could happen. People get killed. People killing each other. When you take the terrible ugly horror of war out of war it becomes to easy. Now in the 21st century its just to easy. Until that changes these things will not stop.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by mrdon2012]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by mrdon2012]

reply to post by nite owl


How many people in this video "run around with rags on their head"?

After reading some of the replies it seems like some people just don't care about the truth. I've read alot here, but to say that obama was in afghanastan handing out weapons is just silly. I think you are confusing him with Rep. Wilson.

Anyway, from some of the reactions you would think the leaks read like this: " U.S. and NATO forces killed 60 puppies and 43 kittens useing unmaned drones on 4 May 2009" No, if anything I think this leak shows that it is not as bad as it could be if we wanted to.

Total War

And need we be reminded why soldiers act like this? I know what this site is and it will attract all kinds of views, but to flat out lie about the government just because you dont like the leader is foolish and silly.

That said, I was in afghanastan summer of 2007. I was given an M16 because that year the enemy was attacking out posts and planning on attacking a major base, like Bagram where I was stationed. I spoke to afghans working on the base. By and large things are about the same now as they were before we got there. Now they have more freedoms, basic things like being able to body build without having to worry about going to jail if the crowd likes your preformance (para. 5 its a good article, I would read the whole thing if you have the time), to being free to choose what music you will listen to.

Dont think I am defending all of the things that are happening in afghanastan, but at the end of the day it is a war. If black ops units go out and kill people, guess what, they did thier job. As of now the taliban if violating all kinds of international laws and the rules of war. Not to mention no one seems to mind when they kill pregnate women and children because the man of the house, a 7 year old boy, took candy from an american. where are the crys of shock and out rage then? Where are the bleeding hearts when a 10 year old walks up to an Afghan SP and asks what he should do next, opening his tunic to show his bomb vest? Consider what is really going on when you blast the soldiers in a war zone for killing people.

P.S. sorry aboiut the spelling, the spell check on this comp hates ATS. I will fix later.

Originally posted by mrdon2012
War is suppose to be a terrible thing. The worst thing that could happen. People get killed. People killing each other. When you take the terrible ugly horror of war out of war it becomes to easy. Now in the 21st century its just to easy. Until that changes these things will not stop.

I don't think sane people can make the case for going to war in the 21st century these days. The benefit doesn't outweigh the risk and death.

The only war we've won in the last 65 years was the cold war.

reply to post by Obinhi

After reading some of the replies it seems like some people just don't care about the truth. I've read alot here, but to say that obama was in afghanastan handing out weapons is just silly. I think you are confusing him with Rep. Wilson.

Actually he very well might have been right there at Charilie Wilson's side at one point in the 80's doing just that.

Obama left Occidental College in Los Angeles under sudden and mysterious circumstances in the 1980’s and subsequently travelled to Pakistan before resuming his studies then later at Columbia University in New York City.

As someone with a Muslim sounding last name, and an Indonesian Passport, he would have been prime recruitment material for the CIA and FBI who recruit heavily and almost exclusively off of college campuses.

His biography claims his reason for travelling to Pakistan the staging area for the CIA and Mujahedeen War against the Soviets in Afghanistan was because his mother was working in Pakistan.

While Pakistan acknowledges that his mother did in fact work for an international corporation with offices in Pakistan they have no real record of where she might have lived or for how long that would correspond with Obama’s travel dates to Pakistan.

There is every chance Obama was in fact recruited by the CIA out of Occidental and that led to his eventual fast tracking through Columbia and Harvard and network of other shadowy radicals on the CIA payroll aiding him in establishing a career and identity that would later launch him into politics through a similar fast track.

When you add to the fact that Obama ran on a platform of reinvigorating the war in Afghanistan and then consider the possibility he was working for the CIA back in the 80’s in Afghanistan and Pakistan it paints a potentially troubling picture.

Too little is known about Obama’s past, there are many gaping holes in it, and many of the records are being suppressed of just where he was when, and what he actually did and achieve during those periods.

Originally posted by Ex
Could someone Please enlighten me as to why
we are over there to begin with?

Nothing much really. Just the latest round of Hay lets take over the world nut jobs over there. Pinky and "the brain" want to circumcise all the women of the world! Blow up girls schools and the like. Play music and crap singing from high atop phallus like towers so everybody in town has to listen to the stuff. Call the faithfull to thier knees....everybody else gets shot. Stuff like that.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


And it is just as likely that he was simply visiting his mother. It is also more likely that he simply dropped out of the college in question for no reason at all, much like some 40% of students today. When you look at the people in that region of the world, Obama, no matter how his name sounds, fits in as well as a gay jewish latino at a KKK rally. I will grant you that he could be a CIA agent who was trained in all of the local languages of the area in question, but given the facts, I will stay on the side of the most likely. As for this mothers residance in pakistan, look at the political history of modern pakistan, they have a leader shot about every 15 years, do you really think they are stable enough to keep tabs of every one in the country?

EDIT: MOD, you can delete this, I did not realize it posted and I feel my below post is better. Sorry everyone

[edit on 26-7-2010 by Obinhi]

reply to post by Mark Harris


All i have to say is it is war, and not only that, you know PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES. That video shows that, those were our guys. NEWS reporters and their interpretors and others that were carrying some equipment, not an RPG, a mistake. Mistakes get made, ok. Not everyone perfect.

reply to post by nagabonar


How true, sad but true
Bob

reply to post by Mark Harris


I recommend everyone see this video, It will WAKE YOU UP. www.youtube.com...

Where is any shocking or breaking news in the OP?

reply to post by nite owl


nite owl, I think you may have missed the point of my post. Many find the terminology you used offensive, inflammatory or unhelpful at best. If you want to engage in constructive discussion I would suggest refraining from such indelicate wording.


[edit on 26/7/10 by Mark Harris]

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Due to computer issues, I have had to type my reply now twice. Due to frustration at a crap ISP, I will only provide statements.

- Pakistan is not exactly known for keeping track of people, and in the 1980s you could hide out in the united states and not be found. Example: Unibomber

- Lots of people drop out of college. Why would obama doing it be strange? Obama drops out of a school + CIA recruits from some schools does not = Obama a CIA agent or operative. That is a major logical leap you are taking there. As much as the following The Wright brothers invented powered air craft + Planes flew into the WTC in New York = Orvial Wright flew a plane into the WTC. Then again considering some of the people who read this forum I think I may have just added fuel to the fire.

- Meny a future polical offical go to refugee camps and border warzones to provide humanitarian aid. This is not to get them to do covert work, but the get them to see the human face of poor political decisions.

My point is, if you use that kind of 'well if this theory were true then x and y would be true as well' you can 'prove' anything. It does not make it Truth.

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade

You see, the really good stuff isn't in these logs, because this is all a controlled leak. Designed to demonize the Bush administration and make Obama look like he is handling the war much better.

I dont think so.

The media may be trying to spin it that way, but I doubt that is Assanges goal. It may be that that is just where the records leaked stop.

And for those who are saying "Civilian casualties are inevitable, and we are getting better at preventing them" you need to remember two things.

One, you have no idea how good they are at preventing them, because the truth is being deliberately kept from you.

And two, these wars have been orchestrated wars for resources from the start.

You are essentially saying you dont think there should be any limit to the amount of violence we use against civilians in order to make the rich richer by grabbing resources from other nations.

Remember that you feel that way if violence is ever being used against you to enrich another. Be it armed robbery on the street, or a violent burglary in your home, or your own government taking action against you.

Just repeat to yourselves the mantra that, "civilian deaths are unavoidable in these instances, and they are much better now than before at preventing them."

Im sure it will be a great comfort to you.

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade
A political ploy aimed directly at the former administration and at republicans in particular.

If this elevates your team spirit, and makes you think one "side" or the other of our two party false dichotomy is better than the other one, thats on you. None of this makes me feel Obama is "good" and the republicans are "bad." It makes me realize the whole thing is rotten to the core. And that we arent getting the information we need to see both parties for the corporate whores they are.

I have no respect for the intellect of anyone waving party flags at this point. It is too clear that they are pushing the same basic agenda with some minimal differences in the bull# they throw at us.

This is the time for us to pull together as Americans, and set aside the divisors of race, party politics, etc., and united demand accountability and transparency.

Partisanship will not help us here.


To the OP;

I had a feeling Assange was sitting on those 260,000 documents, and that he was just going to leak them in blocks as they decrypted them, to try to make it appear they didnt all come in in that specific number. (To deflect blame from Manning.) I didnt expect that they were going to announce 90k at once. Im really looking forward to seeing them first hand via Wikileaks once they get the names and other currently sensitive info redacted.

www.guardian.co.uk...

Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers.

Originally posted by Mark Harris
reply to post by nite owl

 

nite owl, I think you may have missed the point of my post. Many find the terminology you used offensive, inflammatory or unhelpful at best. If you want to engage in constructive discussion I would suggest refraining from such indelicate wording.


[edit on 26/7/10 by Mark Harris]

You do not understand. IF a guy shoots at our troops and he has a cloth on his head and runs into a building with another person in it and that person was not the shooter, but ends up getting shot because the man happened to have the same cloth on and that man just by accident happened to startle the soldier who ran in after the shooter and the shooter ran out the back to get away. I am not racist, i am only making a point. like the video i posted, it too has circumstances that occurr. You got taken aback just because i said rag. Do not ASSUME ANYTHING.They have cloths on their head, DO YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE NOW?

Originally posted by mrdon2012
War is suppose to be a terrible thing. The worst thing that could happen. People get killed. People killing each other. When you take the terrible ugly horror of war out of war it becomes to easy. Now in the 21st century its just to easy. Until that changes these things will not stop.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by mrdon2012]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by mrdon2012]

It's pretty d@mned terrible for those who put the rear-ends on the line and actually have to fight it.