Afghan War Logs: what did we learn?

(11AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

The subject title is the one from a Guardian report one of the participants in the Wikileaks document dump and explanations of.

In this first blockquote, and if in the U.S., think of all that you’ve read or especially heard since the three outlets, the Guardian where this comes from being one, helped bring out what the online Wikileaks had obtained and posted simultaneously.

One disappointed paper deliberately provided the Taliban with a to-do list: it drew their attention to specific Wikileaks documents they might inspect in order to take reprisals. The low point was perhaps reached by Channel 4 News, which respectfully quoted a “spokesman” for the bearded murderers, as he uttered promises of revenge on alleged informants. It felt like PR for the Taliban.

Now to the cut and suggestion you click the link for more.

The Afghan War Logs were unique collaboration between newspapers and a ‘stateless’ website. What did we learn from them?

2 August 2010 The Afghan war logs story has proved to be a global journalistic phenomenon. The Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel last week made history by simultaneously releasing stories about this huge classified US military archive.

The logs hold 92,000 field reports, many of them ugly and grim. The three papers mined revelations about the cruel toll on civilians in the nine-year conflict, and about futile firefights which have cost the lives of so many western soldiers.

The media trio did this work while WikiLeaks, a hitherto little-known organisation, simultaneously posted virtually the entire raw archive online, holding back only a small number of files which it thought might endanger local informants.

The project appeared to take the Pentagon by surprise. As the revelations swamped the world’s headlines, calls grew for investigations into the civilian killings. There were diplomatic storms over allegations of Pakistan backing for the Taliban. Damage control efforts by the White House did not improve until the weekend. We then saw the spectacle of generals, with gallons of innocent civilian blood on their hands, orating that WikiLeaks had potentially failed to do enough to protect local Afghans.

Some media organisations, who had not got the story themselves, then joined in. One disappointed paper deliberately provided the Taliban with a to-do list: it drew their attention to specific Wikileaks documents they might inspect in order to take reprisals. The low point was perhaps reached by Channel 4 News, which respectfully quoted a “spokesman” for the bearded murderers, as he uttered promises of revenge on alleged informants. It felt like PR for the Taliban. Continued

Now to the journalism aspect, as shown in that first cut, we find this from the Jakarta Post online: {my bolding]

Personal Technology: A pale white man shows us what journalism is

08/02/2010 Is the Internet replacing journalism?

It’s a question that popped up as I gazed at the blurred, distorted web-stream of a press conference from London by the founder of WikiLeaks, a website designed to “protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public”.

On the podium there’s Julian Assange. You can’t make a guy like this up. White haired, articulate and defensive, aloof and grungy, specific and then sweepingly angry. Fascinating. In a world of people obsessed by the shininess of their iPhones, Assange is either a throwback to the past or a gulf of fresh air.

WikiLeaks, which has been around for a few years but has, with the release of mounds of classified data about the Afghan War, come center stage.

Assange doesn’t mince his words. He shrugs off questions he doesn’t like by pointing his face elsewhere and saying “I don’t find that question interesting.” He berates journalists for not doing their job – never something to endear an interviewee to the writer.

But in some ways he’s right. We haven’t been doing our job. We’ve not chased down enough stories, put enough bad guys behind bars (celebrities don’t really count.) His broadsides may be more blunderbuss than surgical strike, but he does have a point. Journalism is a funny game. And it’s changing.

Asked why he chose to work with three major news outlets to release the Afghan data, he said it was the only way to get heard. He pointed out that he’d put out masses of interesting leaks on spending on the Afghan war previously and hardly a single journalist had picked it up. Continued

Here in the States the talking heads and most of the print didn’t talk much about what the contents were they were squarely focused on the so called leaking and informing, as that first cut shows, just what the Taliban, remember now the soldiers are no longer fighting the main purpose of the occupation, al Qaeda, and haven’t been since the focuss went on invading Iraq raising the hatred levels in that whole region, might want or need to know.

What was learned, didn’t teach me anything I already didn’t know, a Country will cheer on Invasions and Wars of Choice, then constantly condemn those occupied as well as others similar to, not as the small groups but the whole, the fear has taken hold and they must All be condemned, in words and actions looking very similar to what these smaller groups of do and say. It also, already known, showed how the concerns of sending others into War and then ignoring the Sacrifice owed as they return, isn’t and never is on the minds of those who don’t serve nor do they want to be bothered with the realities of those Wars, especially many so called journalist!!