WIKI LEAKING SHOULD BE PLUGGED
Wikileaks is at it again. Founder Julian Assange has posted more secret documents on his website. This time they are not about operations in Afghanistan, they are about those in Iraq. Assange remains wed to the fact that he is spearheading the fight against “unjustified” government secrecy. The fact is that no one has found unjustified government secrets in these documents, but what can be found are details that put Americans, their allies and both Iraqi and Afghan counterparts in danger.
It is often difficult to understand how actions like these affect the security of others around the world. Remember how enraged
people became over the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005? Protests erupted around the world and over 100 people were reportedly killed due to the violence..
More recently, two so-called religious leaders in Tennessee decided it was their right to burn the Muslim holy book, the Koran. As a result I and my colleagues in Afghanistan were put under lockdown due to their irresponsible behavior. Our security team feared that we might be targeted in response to these ignorant actions. We lost a full day of work in a country that is at war and already sufficiently dangerous.
Cultivating trust with any group of people is challenging enough. Help from match wielding extremists who were putting us in even more danger was in no way shape or form welcomed. We all, country experts, journalists and the men and women who are serving in these countries to protect freedom prefer not to be taken for granted. It was astonishing how easily these actions were dismissed. No thought was given about the affect they have on the very people that are protecting our future.
The bottom line here is that no matter what your personal feelings happen to be, it behooves us all to think critically about how our actions affect others both domestically and globally. Julian Assange and his Wikileaks are another example of people who are not outing injustice, but indirectly persecuting the very people who are trying to implement it.
His documents will not damage any government or violent insurgents. The release will hurt the innocent. Many of these documents do contain specific information on wartime tactics, troop positioning and human intelligence contacts. All of which are vital to the safety and security of those working to end these unrelenting wars.
Assange is doing nothing more than putting, in this most recent case, Iraqis in grave jeopardy. Apparently, he fails to realize that in both Afghanistan and Iraq, wartime dangers are very real. Both Iraqis and Afghans have lost their lives by simply giving Americans directions. Now their avengers will have exact information to go after known names and kill.
For this article, I went to the Wikileaks site prior to the posting of the Iraq documents on Oct. 22. I found an empty site with the tag line: courage is contagious. Now if only Assange could catch some of that courage. The courage to protect the men and women in Afghanistan who are part of the 47 nations involved in combat – some 50,000 troops and countless civilians remain in Iraq as well. It would be beneficial to many if he had the courage to understand the risks thousands of civilians from all over the globe are taking to build peace. The courage to recognize the threats Afghans and Iraqis now face because they themselves were brave enough to think beyond war. Now it is time for the Wikileaks to get plugged. As for Assange, it is time to mirror those who want to end not promote more intolerance and war.
Patricia DeGennaro is an adjunct professor at New York University’s Department of Politics and a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute.