Tag: Collateral Murder

Julian Assange On Why The World Needs WikiLeaks

Crossposted from Antemedius

He may by now be one of the most well known whistleblowers of all time. He generates fear and anger in many powerful people, and publicly makes enemies of those who probably would have no compunctions about ordering his assassination.

He leaks and threatens to leak classified and secret information unreported to and withheld from the American public about US Government and military conduct and actions but known quite well to the victims of those actions in other countries that now has the Pentagon and the US Government “gunning” for him.

His bio at TED.com describes him this way:

You could say Australian-born Julian Assange has swapped his long-time interest in network security flaws for the far-more-suspect flaws of even bigger targets: governments and corporations. Since his early 20s, he has been using network technology to prod and probe the vulnerable edges of administrative systems, but though he was a computing hobbyist first (in 1991 he was the target of hacking charges after he accessed the computers of an Australian telecom), he’s now taken off his “white hat” and launched a career as one of the world’s most visible human-rights activists.

He calls himself “editor in chief.” He travels the globe as its spokesperson. Yet Assange’s part in WikiLeaks is clearly dicier than that: he’s become the face of a creature that, simply, many powerful organizations would rather see the world rid of. His Wikipedia entry says he is “constantly on the move,” and some speculate  that his role in publishing decrypted US military video has put him in personal danger. A controversial figure, pundits debate whether his work is reckless and does more harm than good. Amnesty International recognized him with an International Media Award in 2009.

Assange studied physics and mathematics at the University of Melbourne. He wrote Strobe, the first free and open-source port scanner, and contributed to the book Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier.

“WikiLeaks has had more scoops in three years than the Washington Post has had in 30.”

— Clay Shirky

Assange recently talked with TED’s Chris Anderson during TEDGlobal 2010 about how the WikiLeaks site operates, about what it has accomplished, and about what drives him.

The interview includes graphic clips of the US airstrike in Baghdad, taken from the “Collateral Murder” video WikiLeaks released earlier this year of the murder of two Reuters journalists and about a dozen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad by a rogue US Military command structure that runs all the way to the Commander in Chief’s office in the White House and an Apache Helicopter gunship crew who have yet to face any justice or sanction for their crimes.



TED.com, July 2010

Full transcript follows…

Wikileaks Source Arrested in Iraq, Hacker Snitched

A wikileaks source has been arrested in Iraq.

I would urge you to read the entire story link at Wired.com, because with anything military related, there is their version, and the spin, what really happened,  and the truth usually gets lost somewhere.  The suspect, Spc Bradley Manning, was arrested 12 days ago May 26, but it’s been kept under wraps.

In addition to the video “Collateral Murder,”  which was released world wide in April, showing the murder of the Reuters journalist and photographer, and the wounding of children in a nearby vehicle,  by American helicopter attack in Iraq in 2007, which was diaried here,

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

More about the life and deaths of Reuters’ Namir Noor Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh and their surviving families, here,

http://collateralmurder.com/en…

The wikileaks homepage is here:  http://wikileaks.org/

This 22 year old Army intelligence Spc also allegedly got ahold of 260,000 classified US diplomatic cables.  Which he boasted about to an “ex”  (ex? once a, always a ….. )  hacker named Adrian Lamo.


“Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed,” Manning wrote. “It’s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful, and horrifying.”

http://www.wired.com/threatlev…

Collateral Integrity: A Letter To The Iraqi People

I’ll let this stand for itself. Read it, please.

Press release above the fold, and Letter To Iraq after the fold.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 15th, 2010

Contact:
Laura Taylor: 202-510-3711
[email protected]

VETERANS OF “WIKILEAKS” INCIDENT ANNOUNCE “LETTER OF RECONCILIATION” TO IRAQIS INJURED IN ATTACK

Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open-letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack,  in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees.

Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. Ethan was on the ground at the scene of the shooting, and is seen on the video rushing one of the injured children to a U.S. Vehicle; “When I saw those kids, all I could picture was my kids back home”. Ethan applied for mental health support following this incident and was denied by his commanding officer.

Josh Stieber was not at the scene of the shooting but says similar incidents happened throughout his 14-month tour; “The acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war.” Josh states that these casualties demonstrate the impact of U.S. military policy on both the civilians and the soldiers on the ground.

Wikileaks: Reuters and kids as Collateral Damage

The man, dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, strides confidently down the middle of the suburban street, his camera bag slung over one shoulder, his co worker following behind, with other men in summer clothing ambling down the road.  He pauses to speak into his cell phone.

In the distance, helicopters hover.

Nearly 3 years later, what happened to him and companion as they walked to their next Reuters assignment is known.

(warning, graphic video below, noise and images, please do not view if you are prone to PTSD.)

A written commentary on this story may be seen here at Democratic Underground:

http://www.democraticundergrou…

The Columbia Journalism Review wrote about the release of the video by Wikileaks at the National Press Club here:  http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/…

the video is online here http://collateralmurder.com/

An epluribusmedia writeup by Michael Collins is here:

http://discuss.epluribusmedia….

In Iraq and Afghanistan, by this year, there have been 4705 American and Coalition forces killed in Iraq, and 1713 killed in Afghanistan, with the majority coming from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.  There have also been at least 462 private contractors killed  http://icasualties.org/Iraq/Co…

At least 139 journalists have been killed in Iraq between the years 2003 and 2009.  Of those, 7 were embedded with the military, and 132 were non embedded, or “unilateral.”   An astounding 117 of those 139 were Iraqis, with the rest being European or from other Arab nations, with just 2 being from the United States.

http://www.cpj.org/reports/200…