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23 October 2010

BUB: Return of the Leak

Like a bad case of syphilis that won't stop dripping, WikiLeaks just keeps on "leaking"...

So WikiLeaks has dropped a fresh load of "secrets" about the war in Iraq. Keep in mind that the definition of "secret" can be kinda, well, flexible. I mean, they published the authorization doc for TF ODIN once, thinking it was some sort of state secret.

So anyway, Comrade Julian, who excels at putting the "Ass" in "Assange", is trying to defend the release of the classified docs as though the future of the human race depends on it. His claim is that they show "the truth" about the Iraq war, but as WIRED has recounted after the Afghanistan leaks, what shows up in terse SIGACTS reports - sometimes submitted hours after the actual event - isn't the full context of what happened on the ground.

MSNBC.com - not the overtly left-leaning TV channel, but the more balanced website - has an interesting article about how different news organizations look at the leaks with different viewpoints.

- For example, Al Jazeera's website has a huge headline about how the "US turned blind eye to torture" while burying at the bottom of the page an article entitled "A snapshot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq".

- The New York Times has chosen to focus some attention on details of Iran’s aid for Iraqi militias.

- WaPo took a broader view, but focused on deaths and torture.

- WIRED preferred to examine a lot of technical details of the operations, including a report that Iran was smuggling chemical weapons into Iraq for use by militias.

And while everyone wants Xewater's head on a plate, including the crusading activist Spencer Ackerman, WaPo's SpyTalk blog says that the WikiLeaks files likely pose little threat to Blackwater.

And yes, there was an official condemnation from the US military.

By: Brant

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