Searching for accountability

[Yusuf Evans]

Searching for accountability - In Depth - Al Jazeera English

I'm conflicted on allot of fronts concerning what's going on in Afghanistan, but I know several things. Number one, is that no matter the conflict there will always be civilian casualties and revenge killings. It's happened in every major war, regardless of who participated in it. Am I trying to justify the innocent being killed? No I'm not. At the same time, we need to understand that some things are going to happen and our best option, is to see what the best recourse is.

As for Wikileaks, I rather hope someone bombs them seriously. People may see them as doing the world a favor, in exposing everything they possibly can about what's going on in Afghanistan, especially when it comes to United States forces. I posed a question sometime last year, whether the United States military should be under UN control and allot of people said yes. I personally feel that we shouldn't be under the control of anyone, but the United States. That being said, there's a difference between free speech and treason. Just because your country has secrets, doesn't mean the world needs to know every one of them. At some point, with all this "heroism" Wikileaks is doing, someone who is innocent of any wrongdoing is going to be killed for trying to make their country safer. Then I'm going to ask when that happens the, is Wikileaks still the "hero" people make them out to be?

More innocent civilians have been killed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, than by coalition troops. Yet the millions of internet warriors rally behind Wikileaks to expose the secrets of the Devil's Army, ala the United States.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Wikileaks is not responsible for how people react. If I find out someone is committed manslaughter and that they are trying to cover it up, and someone else gets this information and kills the first, they are guilty of murder, not I.

We need to have less secrets, because while a secret may have just been an accident, allowing them to keep secrets allows for purposeful injustice to be covered up.

 

[Billnew]

Searching for accountability - In Depth - Al Jazeera English

I'm conflicted on allot of fronts concerning what's going on in Afghanistan, but I know several things. Number one, is that no matter the conflict there will always be civilian casualties and revenge killings. It's happened in every major war, regardless of who participated in it. Am I trying to justify the innocent being killed? No I'm not. At the same time, we need to understand that some things are going to happen and our best option, is to see what the best recourse is.

As for Wikileaks, I rather hope someone bombs them seriously. People may see them as doing the world a favor, in exposing everything they possibly can about what's going on in Afghanistan, especially when it comes to United States forces. I posed a question sometime last year, whether the United States military should be under UN control and allot of people said yes. I personally feel that we shouldn't be under the control of anyone, but the United States. That being said, there's a difference between free speech and treason. Just because your country has secrets, doesn't mean the world needs to know every one of them. At some point, with all this "heroism" Wikileaks is doing, someone who is innocent of any wrongdoing is going to be killed for trying to make their country safer. Then I'm going to ask when that happens the, is Wikileaks still the "hero" people make them out to be?

More innocent civilians have been killed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, than by coalition troops. Yet the millions of internet warriors rally behind Wikileaks to expose the secrets of the Devil's Army, ala the United States.

I agree.
I hate every civillian casualty of any battle(not even wars), but when someone decides to pull a weapon, innocents will be injured or killed.
I belive that we owe it to the person to review standards and evaluate each civilians death. The enemy does not do this, civillians are just a pawn in the battle.
But we need to do better then our enemy. See below too.

Wikileaks is not responsible for how people react. If I find out someone is committed manslaughter and that they are trying to cover it up, and someone else gets this information and kills the first, they are guilty of murder, not I.

We need to have less secrets, because while a secret may have just been an accident, allowing them to keep secrets allows for purposeful injustice to be covered up.

It is not up to each individual to decide what the public should know and not know. People that have been in the military a few months get access to very important classified material. We can not expect them to decide what the world should know.
That said, if the investigation shows that all proper channels were contacted and nothing was done, then the courts must decide if the person acted properly, as the military as a whole seemed to be allowing a cover up.
Unless all channels were contacted and final decision made, this was an unneccessary breach of classified material.
BTW classifed information is information that could harm the security of our country. And also could cost the lives of other soldiers.
For instance:
If a Airman reveals information on a missle evasion technology to the world, and an military jet is destroyed and pilot killed by a missle with improved technology, would it not be the fault of the Airman?

The enemy did kill the pilot, but the release of information helped that country to find a way to get by the evasion system.

I am not saying our military is perfect, nor should they have free reign.
But to release information to the public must be the very last resort. Not just convient.
Just seeing a small clip or hearing the one sided story will always sound bad. Most civilian kills are not blatant murder. They are accidents of bad intel,misjudging or making the wrong choice in a split second decision.

We must demand our military investigate their own, but we can not let public opinion judge the soldiers actions. The people that has never faced an enemy bent on killing you any way they can, nor faced the death of people around you. Our soldiers are human, and thier mind can become numb, or overzealous to kill. They can go to far. But only someone that has been in these situations can evaluate the incident.
Not even I could judge. I have held a weapon on a suspect, I have searched vehicles for bombs, I have been evacuated for a suspected bomb. I have waited to hear if friends made it to main base, after a military bus was blown up. But I have never faced a identifiable enemy that was out to kill me. So I can not judge what is justifiable and what is a cost of war. I can identify definate war crimes, the raping of a tween and the murder of her and her family, is indefensable. But what about the shooting of a child or woman, that bolted from a hiding place, suprising the soldier.
Don't be so quick to condemn our good military personel. Let them have their day in court, just as civilians do. It is not cut and dried. Circumstances do matter.
So yes, I am even saying this about the people or person that leaked this information. Although, every individual peice of released information must be supported for the end. If even one peice of evidence is not supported then they are guilty of unauthorized release of classified material.
I believe they releases dozens if not hundreds of documents and/or other media, each one protected by classifed laws. If the court finds that the release was required to get proper justice for criminal actions, then they will be found innocent. It is not cut and dried either.

 

[Billnew]

Just to let you know,
the proper channels when I was in the military was:
Inform direct supervisor above the people involved(if the persons superior was involved.)
If they did not do anything or not enough, go to thier supervisor or to Inspector general. Then both have superiors above them. Until you reach the comander of the forces to where you are.(such as Comander of European forces)
Then it goes to Washington. (Joint chief of staff's)
At that level I am not sure of the steps there.
Even to this point security has been maintained. No one has recieved classified material that was not suppose too.
Even if taken to the Comander in chief, it is secure.
That is how problems must be handled in the military. It is not just the Sgt, Tsgt, Lieutenant or Captain. hearing a problem and not doing something about it. It is all supervisorly ranks.

 

[FallenPaladin]

The people who give up classified information to wikileads should be lined up and shot after being tried and convicted of treason. They don't do that because people are making lots of money from these wars so keeping them going is good business.

 

[lawtonfogle]

I can understand things like a soldier killing a civilian because they were startled in a life of death situation, and I can understand that the enemy will use it to convince idiots that we are the bad guys. I am, on principal, against censorship, and this opens the door to cover up issues.

It is like with police. Someone may videotape what would constitute a perfectly reasonable police response, and yet the video would spark riots. Actually, that has pretty much happened (just without there being a video tape). That said, banning the videotaping of police opens the door for abuse.

There are most definitely people who lack the critical thinking skills needed to analyze information, and they will react idiotically to some information. Perhaps, at the root, is just a problem I have with trusting other people, but evil people exist, they get into positions of power, and the ability for them to censor information allows for them to act wrongly. This has been seen in, and in some cases I have personally experienced such happening in, individual churches, schools, church organizations, universities, government agencies, and corporations. I fear it happening in the military, and one has to wonder which is actually more harmful in the end.