Wikileaks is a wake-up call for all politicians

[bemildred]

The Wikileaks revelations on the human toll of the war in Iraq, of which almost 400,000 documents were published last week, make for grim reading. Regardless of how one feels about the actions of the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange – whose publications may contribute to the considerable difficulties of the Iraqi government and the remaining Coalition forces – the burden of the allegations cannot be ignored.

Among the most serious is the charge that Iraqi forces tortured prisoners without restraint from the US authorities. The United Nations has called for an investigation into whether US commanders knew of this: already, the evidence from many of the leaked war logs, in which US troops noted abuses by Iraqi forces, suggests that often they did. So too does the existence of “Frago 242”, an order issued in June 2004, indicating that coalition troops should not investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict unless it directly involved coalition members.

These revelations may not come as any great surprise to those with direct experience of the untrammelled cruelties of war. Some of the most painful instances published, indeed, in which Iraqi civilians have been killed at US checkpoints, are also horribly understandable: when frightened soldiers – alert to potential suicide bombers – encounter terrified civilians in a fog of barked commands and misunderstandings, a tragic outcome can become almost inevitable. It can ill behove those reading of such events from the comfort of armchairs to judge the behaviour of the troops too harshly.

A very different standard applies, however, to those who sent them there, and drew up the codes by which they were required to operate. It is now generally accepted that when Tony Blair first declared war on Iraq, he exaggerated the threat which Saddam Hussein posed to the West, thus fulfilling Orwell’s dictum that every war “is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac”. Yet Blair also offered the illusion that the overthrow of Saddam could be the speedy execution of a moral imperative.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8083160/Wikileaks-is-a-wake-up-call-for-all-politicians.html

[stray cat]

1. Did any politicians think it was peaceful in Iraq and law abiding?

[Tuvok Obama]

3. edit

I may have misunderstood the question

[Demeter]

2. Expecting a Meaningful Response From Govt. In 3000, 2999, 2998....

[felix_numinous]

4. What does the Pentagon spend on damage control?

They must employ thousands, just to cover up the war crimes they commit as they go along. It has always been a part of their budget, but now they must be working overtime.

The Pentagon was infiltrated during the Bush years, and if they want real damage control, they need to isolate those people from the honest ones, if they have any ethics left at all.

[Doctor_J]

5. Yeah. A wake-up call to cover their tracks more carefully

Seriesly, do you think Rumsfeld regrets the carnage, brutality, and shame, or the fact that he got caught

[katty]

6. rumsfeld, etal just keeping thumbing their noses to whistleblowers

they are PROUD of their carnage.