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September 7, 2010

American Hypocrisy vs. Wikileaks

A lot has been written about Wikileaks since the whistle-blowing organization leaked its 92,000-document cache on the carnage in Afghanistan caused by the American war and occupation.

Since then, the U.S. military establishment, and all those who profit from it, have tried their utmost to smear the organization, especially co-founder Julian Assange.

Assange has felt the weight of being the public face of Wikileaks.

From charges of molestation and rape in Sweden (unfounded and dropped) to constant admonishment from the White House/Pentagon, the effects of exposing governmental secrets has exacted a price.

For Wikileaks and Assange, it’s a matter of staying afloat in the storm. (The organization is Internet-based, and has no more than a handful of staff.)

For those of us who constitute the public, however, it is important to note how the American military establishment is trying to defend itself.

In times of such desperation, the White House and the Pentagon have resorted to a high level of hypocrisy.

Take, for example, the now infamous July 29 remark by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen: “Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.” (emphasis added)

Now, feast your eyes on this statement from the Pentagon, and reported by the mainstream Washington Post on Aug. 11: “‘We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the Wikileaks documents,’ [Pentagon spokesman Geoff] Morrell said.”

Any rational human being can see Mullen’s statement as a pathetic attempt at deflection.

Sure, it’s plausible that the massive leak may have negative consequences, but to say that Assange and Wikileaks already have blood on their hands is pure fabrication.

Instead of implementing some sort of investigation to review the war effort, Mullen has tried to deflect attention onto Wikileaks, itself.

For exposing the truth, Wikileaks has been portrayed as a treasonous and irresponsible organization hell-bent on destroying America’s credibility, and the corporate media has largely followed this narrative.

For anyone who has actually taken a look at the released “war logs,” however, they represent a damning exposé of America’s military effort in Afghanistan.

It’s no secret that innocent civilians have been dying in under NATO’s occupation, but the war logs give the public the full picture of how the killing has been done.

The size of the logs alone indicates the enormity and scope of the military ground operations—from sniper ops, to air raids, to nighttime raids.

The devil, however, is in the details.

Case by case, the huge trove of exposed secret documents is littered with “CIV KIAs” (civilians killed in action) and “CIV WIAs” (civilians wounded in action).

The Guardian, one of three mainstream outlets that was given the war logs—the other two were The New York Times and Der Spiegel—specified the activities of Task Force 373, an “undisclosed ‘black’ unit” of U.S. special operations forces focused on killing top Taliban and al-Qa‘ida officials.

The logs also reveal that Task Force 373 killed civilian men and women. This is only one sinister example out of a gargantuan pile of revealing data.

So, when someone like Mullen or Defence Secretary Robert Gates talks about “blood,” it’s not unreasonable to think they ought to be talking about themselves.

For example, a November 2009 nighttime raid in Paktia province ended up killing two pregnant Afghan women, a teenage Afghan girl, as well as an Afghan police officer and his brother.

U.S. soldiers covered up the incident by digging out the bullets from the corpses and washing the wounds with alcohol.

Perhaps the previous Afghan war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said it best: “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”

This is the reality of war, a reality that people like Julian Assange want to put right in front of our face.

We all should start saying the following about Adm. Mike Mullen: “Mr. Mullen can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he is doing, but the truth is that he definitely has on his hands the blood of many young soldiers, and that of countless Afghan families.”

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