You're here posting on this issue and how the leak is a horrible crime that should be severely punished. Are you seriously telling me that you never bothered to read the reports on what was leaked?
I've read all about this and I haven't seen anything saying what you're claiming. I'm asking for a link to the story talking about how we arrested the people we're talking about and turned them over to the Iraqis so that they could be tortured. I don't think you'll be able to find such a link because I don't think that's what happened.
They would not need to arrest them. Maybe provide the evidence acquired in an investigation to a domestic body that might impartially pursue charges, or just released the results of the investigation and change policies concerning the release of detainees. Never mind there is the old-fashioned use of political pressure. You are acting like we were completely powerless and it just isn't the case.
Again, you're operating under the assumption that
1) Our information was solid,
2) The Iraqi authorities didn't already know,
3) It had something to do with our detainee release policies, and
4) We had the authority to do something.
All the sources I saw mention them happening over several years.
If we're going to discuss the propriety of US actions in particular instances, then that's not very useful, is it?
At the time he had only leaked the video.
Yes, which is illegal.
Also, calling him a traitor is rather absurd. He was looking to make this information publicly available out of concern about the abuses being concealed by the government. That makes him a whistleblower. Obviously some people have a hard time distinguishing between the two.
Obviously, because that's not what a whistleblower is. A whistleblower is someone who reports suspected malfeasance
to the appropriate entity designed to hear those things. Stealing classified documents and leaking them to the public does not make someone a whistleblower, it makes them a criminal. Under your odd definition, someone who leaked information to the Soviets because he believed that the US government was evil wouldn't be a traitor or a spy, they'd be a whistleblower.
Were the government secretly arresting and executing political dissidents would you expect the people in authority to let that information out freely? It would take someone outside of authority to expose the abuse. You cannot look at this in terms of absolutes. Weapons blueprints are not something that should be leaked, but information indicating research into illegal weapons or illegal weapons experimentation is something that should be leaked.
Again, you're missing my point. You are arguing for a system that would, in practice, mean that there was no such thing as classification. Whether or not a weapon is legal or illegal or dangerous is, for many, a matter of opinion. Under your system, someone could just leak weapons plans because he was opposed to war and didn't want to see people killed. That is an entirely unworkable and unrealistic idea.
I do not know if that is true. Just because some Iraqi has a gun does not mean that person is an insurgent. Also, if you watch the video they do not appear to be in the company of them at all. The armed individuals were across the street as I recall.
I notice that you deliberately ignore the presence of the RPGs. Why is that?
And no, they were absolutely with them. They were traveling as a group down the street.
I do not think there is any indication that these individuals showed hostile intent. Granted, one mistook a camera for an RPG under circumstances that would be considered threatening.
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This was a group of insurgents carrying AK47s and RPGs in an active war zone just a few blocks from where US troops had reported being fired upon. How can you say with a straight face that there is "no indication that these individuals showed hostile intent"?
If "trying to help off" means "evacuating the wounded" then hell no.
Well, this is where your personal beliefs and the law come into conflict. It's perfectly legal to fire on combatants while they are trying to escape from a battlefield, wounded or not.
Whoever they thought they were, there are no visible weapons and only someone attempting to evacuated a wounded person. Soldiers do not have legal cover to fire on people providing help to the wounded in any country.
Yes, they do.
Had an insurgent shot a person in cold blood simply for attempting to evacuate a wounded soldier I do not think you would be so defensive of them. You may very well cite it as an example of how the insurgents are decrepit people who don't abide by the laws of war.
Not really. If it's permitted by the laws of war, I don't see how I could really object.
This is all stuff coming from the Wikileaks data.
