WikiLeaks publishes full cache of unredacted cables

[JonS]

That depends on whos story you believe. The Guardian says Assange told them the password was temporary and then never bothered to change it. Assange denies this, of course.

Incompetence on the part of the Guardian. To decrypt the file required a) the file, and the decryption key.

As long as a) exists, remains useful. The Guardian gave away , so then anyone with a) could decrypt the file.

It doesn't matter if WL later used a different encryption key to provide the same set of information to another party. The encryption key that the Guardian published remains valid for anyone with the file that was provided to the Guardian. WL can't reach into that file - and all the copies of it - and change the encryption key used on it.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Or sopme of them might have caught a cold, or being gypped on their change, or any number of imaginary horrors. The fact remains that Pentagon has been specifically asked about this faux-fear of yours, and their response was 'nope, nothing.' The Pentagon. They have a lot more skin in this game than you, and it's in their interests to talk it up.

I am fairly certain the Pentagon has said they are not aware of anyone having been killed. If they have made any comment further than that I would like to see it.

You say that like it'd be a bad thing.

Your colors are showing again.

Does New Zealand still have SAS personnel in Afghanistan. Do you have the same don't-give-a-sh!t attitude towards them or is is that reserved for the hated Yanks?

That much is clear.

It's a reasonable assumption.

[JonS]

Others have revealed wrongdoing, although in the vast majority of cases it was malfeasance within the government of the host country that was being commented on rather than by the diplomats themselves.

Quite. You do realise, yes, that the govt of the US isn't the only target of WL?

Others serve no purpose but to embarrass and damage the careers of people who are just doing their job.

Since you're so fond of cliches, here's another: If you wouldn't want you mum to know what you've been up to, or you wouldn't want to see it on the front page of the newspaper ... don't do it.

[JonS]

Your colors are showing again.

Does New Zealand still have SAS personnel in Afghanistan. Do you have the same don't-give-a-sh!t attitude towards them or is is that reserved for the hated Yanks?

ROFL. This is like going up against a paraplegic in a running race

The US is useless at safeguarding the anonymity of informants. If that gives informants pause in their intent to provide the US with information, that's a Good Thing. There've been a reasonable number of cables 'outing' NZers for telling US officials stuff, and agreeing to stuff, they probably hoped wouldn't ever become public knowledge. Hopefully WL will encourage more NZers to carefully think through where their loyalties are supposed to lie.

[Dietrich]

Does New Zealand still have SAS personnel in Afghanistan[?]

NZSAS are still in A-stan, at least as of late August 2011:

The New Zealand Herald – SAS soldier killed in Kabul attack

Also (italics mine):

Stuff.co.nz – Top medal from US for Kiwi SAS commander

Petraeus said that since the SAS had returned to Afghanistan in late 2009, taking over the role of partnering the Afghan crisis response unit vacated by the Norwegians, three successive six-month rotations had made more than 60 high-risk arrests in "deliberate detention operations", seized more than 20 caches of explosives and weapons, and disrupted four potentially "spectacular" attacks, including planned suicide bombings.

The unit acted on intelligence generally provided by Afghan sources, typically conducted its raids at night, and executed more than 90% of its operations without firing a shot. The unit's most recent operation took place successfully on Thursday night.

Older, but still pertinent:

Approval for the acceptance and wear of the United States Navy Presidential Unit Citation for service by the NZ SAS in Afghanistan

On 7 December 2004, George Bush, President of the United States of America, formally presented the United States Navy Presidential Unit Citation to the New Zealand Special Air Service (SAS) at a ceremony held at the Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, California. The United States Navy Presidential Unit Citation was awarded to those units which comprised the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - SOUTH/Task Force K-BAR (CJSOTF-SOUTH/TF K-BAR) in Afghanistan between 17 October 2001 and 30 March 2002. These units were drawn from the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Australia, and Turkey. New Zealand was represented at the presentation ceremony by the Commanding Officer of the SAS.

United States Navy Regulations state that the United States Navy Presidential Unit Citation is ‘awarded in the name of the President of the United States of America to units of the United States Armed Forces and cobelligerent nations for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy. The unit must have accomplished its mission under such extremely difficult and hazardous conditions to set it apart from and above other units participating in the same campaign.’

The award of the United States Navy Presidential Unit Citation is an acknowledgment by the United States Government of the high value which is placed on the contribution made by the SAS to Operation Enduring Freedom. The missions undertaken by the SAS were performed within the operational area defined in the New Zealand General Service Medal (Afghanistan) Regulations 2002.

Gordon England, the Secretary of the United States Navy, was the approving authority for the United States Navy Presidential Unit Citation presented to CJSOTF-SOUTH/TF K-BAR. Gordon England was among those who attended the 7 December 2004 presentation ceremony.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Quite. You do realise, yes, that the govt of the US isn't the only target of WL?

Oh, was that why Magpie Oz was about to go Crocodile Dunkee on you earlier in the thread?

Since you're so fond of cliches, here's another: If you wouldn't want you mum to know what you've been up to, or you wouldn't want to see it on the front page of the newspaper ... don't do it.

Since you're so fond of ignorance, I'll inform you that making candid assessments of foreign dignitaries for the benefit of decision makers back home is part of what diplomats do. It's probably in the job description.

The US is useless at safeguarding the anonymity of informants. If that gives informants pause in their intent to provide the US with information, that's a Good Thing. There've been a reasonable number of cables 'outing' NZers for telling US officials stuff, and agreeing to stuff, they probably hoped wouldn't ever become public knowledge. Hopefully WL will encourage more NZers to carefully think through where their loyalties are supposed to lie.

Useless? Exaggerate much? The US does need to tighten its information security, and hopefully has already done so. But I am still on the side of our people over there putting their butts on the line against the Taliban, and they need as much cooperation from the locals as they can get. So no, I do not view monkey wrenches thrown into that cooperation as a good thing. I view it as a very Bad Thing [tm], both for our guys and the people whos future may lie, once again, under the rule of the Taliban.

I guess it comes down to where your priorities lie.

ROFL. This is like going up against a paraplegic in a running race

Don't flatter yourself.

[Stalins Organ]

NZSAS are still in A-stan, at least as of late August 2011:

The New Zealand Herald – SAS soldier killed in Kabul attack

Just for completeness, NZ SAS seems likely to remain there until March of next year, and the Bamyan PRT until 2014.

[JonS]

There are some cables, perhaps most of them, that are of little consequence.

Who determines that though? On what basis? What you think has little consequence will be different to mine, albeit with a lot of overlap. Someone from the UK will have a different perception again, as will someone else from Israel, Pakistan, or Japan. And different occupations will throw up different interests, which in turn will throw up different definitions of what's of consequence and what isn't. An economist will be interested in different things to an historian to a journalist.

There is simply no useful definition for what's of consequence and what isn't. The cables simply can't be screened for 'consequence', because they'll all interesting and of consequence for someone.

But that shouldn't be surprising, unless you're a paraplegic sprinter. After all, they were all interesting enough for someone to write in the first place.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Who determines that though? On what basis?

The people who receive those reports, who are, to quote Magpie Oz from earlier in the thread "regulated by a statutory system of checks and balances and who are subject to a mandate of the population."

What you think has little consequence will be different to mine, albeit with a lot of overlap. Someone from the UK will have a different perception again, as will someone else from Israel, Pakistan, or Japan. And different occupations will throw up different interests, which in turn will throw up different definitions of what's of consequence and what isn't. An economist will be interested in different things to an historian to a journalist.

Obviously. But the only way for everyone to make their own judgement is for every bit of information gathered to be made available to everyone else, including the people who are the subject of the communication. This leads us to a small problem:

But that shouldn't be surprising, unless you're a paraplegic sprinter. After all, they were all interesting enough for someone to write in the first place.

Yeah, and you can bet your ass that in this No State Secrets utopia you envision those cables would be a lot less interesting to just about everybody. You see, many of them would never have been written had the author been aware that the contents would become known to the people who he/she was reporting on.

But that shouldn't be surprising. for anyone with half a brain.

[JonS]

You see, many of them would never have been written had the author been aware that the contents would become known to the people who he/she was reporting on.

But that shouldn't be surprising. for anyone with half a brain.

It's not surprising. It's also not an undesirable result.

Keep, er, sprinting

[Vanir Ausf B]

Why? I left you in the dust a few pages back.

Out of curiosity, how far are you willing to take this no state secrets thing? Are you limiting it to the diplomatic corp only, or in JonS World would it also apply to the intelligence and military services?

[dieseltaylor]

but IMO there is no reason to believe that the majority of people working at the State Department, or any other government agency, are engaged in betraying the public trust.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/06/300323/exclusive-questions-surround-grassley-staffer-given-whistleblower-tip-regarding-news-corp-hacking-scandal/

VAB - your belief in the rightness of the "Govt" is touching and in terms of numbers probably correct. However there is a deep body of evidence showing endemic corruption within the US, in many areas, and at many levels.

In the case above a guy is driven into bankruptcy after supplying evidence of wrong-doing to Congress. Yet again the villains of the piece escape by paying shareholder dollars for their crime. Whilst the US is blessed with many investigative reporters the total effects on the way the US runs is zilcho.

The whistleblower got totally screwed over by the system - would he been safer going to Wikileaks? Yep at least he might not be bankrupt and the end result for News Corp would have been no different.

Wikileaks ain't perfect but at least it provides a more trustworhty outlet than the US Congress.

[Speedy]

Hopefully WL will encourage more NZers to carefully think through where their loyalties are supposed to lie.

And that is to their glorious Australian masters.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Well, if Wikileaks is the new standard of moral integrity against which all others are judged then it's too bad Julian Assange isn't eligible to run for President. We could use a person of his outstanding character. Assuming he can stay out of jail on the rape charges.

BTW, we do have media over here. Setting up the choice between Wikileaks and the government is a false dichotomy.

[Bigduke6]

Cherry picking? Possibly, but not intentionally. Personally, I don't think so. The great bulk of the half million dox appear to be US State Department messages written by State Department employees. A smaller portion appear to be US DOD communications from Afghanistan, written - my guess - mostly by civilians.

Frankly, almost all of the State Department stuff I've read falls well into the category of bureaucratic pencil-pushing. The information contained is, by and large, neither explosive, nor interesting nor relevant. In areas where I think I might be able to have a reasonable basis of judgement of my own, like the former Soviet Union, I believe that evaluation not to be just my opinion, but a demonstrable fact.

It is not a surprise to me that diplomats are less polite about the people they talk with when they talk about them to the rest of their bureaucracy, than when talking to the person. I disagree, therefore, with your contention meaningful damage was done to US foreign policy interests, because US diplomats were revealed as being impolite and snide in internal communications. I doubt very seriously it was a revelation to the foreign officials.

I suspect that some US State Department employees have a higher opinion of their ability at successfully faking sincere politeness, than the foreigners to whom the US State Department employees were pretending to like. But that's just a hunch.

Moving on to Afghanistan and the revealing of sources, I think we need to be specific about what is meant by the word "source". There are highly confidential sources called spies. In the US government security system their identities are are classified top secret or higher.

Wikleaks materials are classified secret. There are no spy identities within them.

Go here to read the US Defense Secretary's letter that says that Wikileaks did not reveal any highly sensitive information, which by definition would include the identities of spies.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/39590650/Gates-Levin-WikiLeaks-Investigation

Gates goes on to note that Wikileaks did identify Afghans that "cooperate" with US forces. I guess that there may actually be spies among them but what these people mostly are, by and large, are Afghan officials. Who for whatever reason are on the US side (at least for the moment, heh) in Afghanistan's latest war. It's cops, governors, social workers, Afghan army officers, people like that. This is my estimate based on reading several but far from all of the messages.

Meaning, I would think the odds are somewhere between excellent and fantastic the Taliban already knows who these people are, where they live, the names and residences of their relatives, and whatever else. An Afghan "cooperating" with the Americans is anything but anonymous. Heck, lots of them have to wear foreign-style uniforms.

Therefore, I would argue the threat to the lives and property of these Afghans "cooperating" with the Americans changed very little with the publication of Wikileaks. Besides, even if the Taliban had]/b] gone through every cable (and surely they have better things to do), the Taliban insurgents are Afghans just as much as the officials cooperating with the Americans.

If one puts on a Taliban hat and tries to figure out what all that Wikileaks means, it's not like one is going to see Wikileaks as the same thing as facts or hard evidence. If an individual Afghan is on the record of some US government message of saying or doing something indicating he is "cooperating", the absolute very first question I would have as a Taliban intelligence analyst would be "Is this guy straight up, or was he just lying to the foreign infidels like the rest of us usually do?"

I would assume that any Afghan, pro- or anti-American, would lie to a US diplomat as a matter of course, about everything it was conceivably useful to lie about. That is the national tradition, that is the best way to stay alive in a civil war.

I think the argument that Wikileaks threatens people on the US side in Afghanistan whose identities were secret, is an argument without grounds.

In my opinion those identities, the overwhelming majority of them, were secret only in the sense that the US government had classified them secret. In almost all cases, I think it is reasonable to assume that these "secret" Afghans cooperating with the US have been known to and hated by the insurgents for years.

I think this guesswork and estimation is relevant because, the counter-argument "The identities are secret because we the government officials deem them so for the sake of US national security" assumes that the US government officials use security classifications only in the best interests of the US, and never to just protect their agency from outside observation and of course do personal CYA.

If there is one thing the Wikileaks documents have demonstrated to me, it is that that counter-argument is patently false. There is a mass of evidence showing the US State Department and the US DOD to be typical giant government bureaucracies filled with workers dedicated to demonstrating the importance of their position, their supervisors, and their station - even at the expense of public resources. I have no choice but to challenge people in the government who tell me they have my best interests at heart, and that they are professionals whom I should implicitly trust.

I believe it when I see it. And not just because they tell me.

There is a rich irony in all of this, of course. What we are seeing is 21st century surveillance and information technologies turned against the very people who, as a group, passed off relatively minor external security threats as major ones endangering the survival of the Republic, and played on fears created by those faked threats to impose a surveillance society in the US and run roughshod on wide tracts of the Constitution.

This was possible because the leaders in the executive branch of the government told the lies and the workers inside the bureaucracies either signed on enthusiastically or just shut up. It has gone on for quite a while now. Many government workers have advanced their careers, and some of them certainly believe they are fighting the Good Fight.

However, those policies pushed by those people working in the government have done great damage to the country, which has unsurprisingly made a lot of non-government people mad. And a few of them, really mad.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The answer is, whoever is in a position to do so, will do so. The watchers will be paid back in their own coin, or worse, if they lose the confidence of the watched.

Well, Bigduke you've done a fine job cherry picking out a few turds to hold up in the air, but I don't think even you would claim they are representative of the majority, and the exceptions to not prove the rule. The problem here, as always, is that Wikileaks does not discriminate between the worthy and unworthy.

It is true that those who join any organization voluntarily assume the risks inherent with that profession, but IMO there is no reason to believe that the majority of people working at the State Department, or any other government agency, are engaged in betraying the public trust.

I will also reiterate my point that most of the people put at risk are not US government employees, but people in the host nations who have been working with them.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Frankly, almost all of the State Department stuff I've read falls well into the category of bureaucratic pencil-pushing. The information contained is, by and large, neither explosive, nor interesting nor relevant.

Oh, is that what all the controversy is about? A bunch of bureaucratic pencil-pushing?

That certainly isn't how I would categorize it.

In my opinion those identities, the overwhelming majority of them, were secret only in the sense that the US government had classified them secret. In almost all cases, I think it is reasonable to assume that these "secret" Afghans cooperating with the US have been known to and hated by the insurgents for years.

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers' names.

US officers recorded detailed logs of the information fed to them by named local informants, particularly tribal elders.

Among the documents is a report from 2008 that includes a detailed interview with a Taliban fighter considering defection. He is named, with both his father's name and village included. There is also detailed intelligence on other Taliban fighters and commanders in his area. The Times has withheld all details that would identify the man.

The man names local Taliban commanders and talks about other potential defectors. "The meeting ended with [X] agreeing to meet with intel personnel from the battalion," the report reads. It is not known whether the man subsequently left the Taliban.

In other documents, named Afghans offered information accusing others of being Taliban. In one case from 2007, a senior official accuses named figures in the government of corruption. In another from 2007, a report describes using a middleman to talk to an alleged Taliban commander who is identified.

"[X] said that he would be killed if he got caught interacting with any coalition forces, which is why he hides when we go into [Y]," the report reads.

In another report, American officers negotiate with a named Taliban fighter through the man's brother and uncle. In all cases the dates and precise locations of the reports are included.

Linky

Please forgive the wbs-style bolding.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Oops, forgot one.

It is not a surprise to me that diplomats are less polite about the people they talk with when they talk about them to the rest of their bureaucracy, than when talking to the person. I disagree, therefore, with your contention meaningful damage was done to US foreign policy interests, because US diplomats were revealed as being impolite and snide in internal communications. I doubt very seriously it was a revelation to the foreign officials.

I suspect that some US State Department employees have a higher opinion of their ability at successfully faking sincere politeness, than the foreigners to whom the US State Department employees were pretending to like. But that's just a hunch.

US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual has resigned amid a row over leaked diplomatic cables in which he doubted Mexico's ability to tackle drug gangs.

The dispute flared last month when Mexican President Felipe Calderon accused Mr Pascual of "ignorance".

He said the US cables, released by Wikileaks in December, had harmed ties.

Mr Calderon also told the Washington Post that bilateral relations had suffered "serious damage" because of the US diplomatic cables.

Link

[Sixxkiller]

Have to say, if I am ever named in any of these leaks I will be the first in line to put a bullet in this guys head, and I dont miss.

As for Mexico though, I wish they would sever their ties with us and stop streaming their citizens over our borders.

[JonS]

So it is two wrongs make a right.

(assuming releasing the cables is/was objectively 'wrong')

[Bigduke6]

Good points. Here's my response.

1. The Secretary of Defence told Congress, in writing, no substantial damage to US high security operations done. I take that to mean that in his opinion, the people potentially exposed by the release referred to in the Australian's article, are/were not important enough for the US intelligence community to consider the exposure of these peoples' r identities a significant problem.

2. Wikileaks has released a whole bunch of stuff. The Afghanistan documents are only a small percentage, the State department cables are a big percentage, and more exactly, the biggest thing Wikileaks has thus far released. So FWIW I would say evaluation of the releases as mostly State Department cables is more correct than yours. That said, we clearly were discussing different things released by Wikileaks. I think that is part of our disconnect.

3. This is somewhat of a cheap shot, but still, the Australian - which you source for the evaluation of damage possibly caused by the Afghanistan leaks - is not just a Rupert Murdoch pub, but in many ways THE Rupert Murdoch pub. This is not to say their reporting is sloppy, but rather, there is at least a chance that their reporting might have a slant.

Since the Secretary of Defence contradicts the assertions in the article, either Gates is lying or the Australian was wrong. Personally, I suspect Gates was telling the truth but I don't know.

As for the rest, I think that the Australian article actually goes a good way towards supporting my argument. I quote:

"US officers recorded detailed logs of the information fed to them by named local informants, particularly tribal elders."

My contention is that there is no chance in this life or the next, for an Afghan of any type to meet with a US officer, and the other side won't find out about it. The American doesn't blend in, he can't speak the language, he must use an interpeter, and he must be "fed" information by the locals in a place the US officer and his command finds reasonably safe. All that means other people involved, and this is gossipy Afghanistan.

Likewise, I find it very hard to conceive any Afghan actually having a conversation with a US officer without having dozens of other Afghans involved, what with security and support and bringing coffee and cookies and who knows what else.

Now add into the mix these layers: How many Afghans would choose to talk to the Americans, without clearing it with their family/clan/tribe first? How secure is that information? Can US forcers rely on every single Afghan in this information loop to keep quiet for the sake of US national security? Can all those Afghans with proximate information about the Afghan that talked to the US officer, be relied on to keep quiet when night falls and the HUMMVes pull out and the Taliban comes calling and looking for proof of loyalty to the jihad? Is it even remotely possible, that among all these Afghans, not one would have a reason to backstab the Afghan that talked to the Americans?

The Wikileaks disclosure of the identity of an Afghan that had a conversation with a US officer, is only a threat to that Afghan, if his identity was somehow unknown to the bad guys beforehand. I submit that under these circumstances, which appear to be the publication of field reports from US forces wandering about the Afghanistan "human terrain", it is ludicrous to assume the Taliban doesn't know or can't find out exactly who talked to the Americans, and when, and where.

As a simple test, consider, who was it that according to the Australian the Americans were mostly talking to. Answer: Village elders. Now ask yourself, is it even remotely possible to imagine a village where the Americans would not talk to the village elder(s)?

As another simple task, there is the question, do the patrol reports often reveal the not just the name of the Afghan but his father's name because of the great dedication to detail and research by US S-5 and G-5 personnel, or is it just that most Afghans have a single name and the only practical way to differentiate one Masud or Mohammed from another, is to identify his father and the village he comes from?

On those grounds I say the Australian article and its ilk is hooey. It calls village chiefs and random Afghans US patrols talked to "informants", it touts naming the village and father of an Afghan the Americans spoke with as particularly sensitive information.

Or take the "Afghan considering defection. Sure, if he really was, and if every one in the village had no idea he was talking to the Americans, then maybe Wikileaks compromised that potential source. That's the 1 out of probably about 1,000 chance.

The 999 out of 1,000 chance is, a guy like that, he was telling the Americans he was thinking about defecting because he knew that's what the foreigners wanted to hear. Maybe he was just scared, in Afghanistan, the Americans are heavily armed and aren't always careful about whom they kill, and even worse they might hand you over to the Afghan police. Or maybe he really was a Taliban dude, but just fishing for information of his own. Or maybe he was just a guy, didn't really have any side, and when the Taliban patrol replaced the Americans he told THEM he really wanted to defect from the Americans. The possibilities are pretty close to infinate.

What is limited, I think, is the real damage Wikileaks caused to the US intelligence effort in Afghanistan. Gates said it was minimal when arguably it would have been in his interest to say it was substantial. I would tend to agree because I have trouble inventing a scenario where a US officer-Afghan citizen contact could remain confidential long enough for Wikileaks to become the means of outing it.

Here is a pretty good evaluation of the actual effect of the Wikileaks Afganistan stuff on the US war effort:

The documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/25/the_logs_of_war

[Vanir Ausf B]

Since the Secretary of Defence contradicts the assertions in the article, either Gates is lying or the Australian was wrong. Personally, I suspect Gates was telling the truth but I don't know.

That is not true. There is not one word in that article that is contradicted by what the Secretary of Defense said.

As for the rest, I think that the Australian article actually goes a good way towards supporting my argument.

So in-between suggesting the article is bogus -- sans any evidence to support that contention -- you use it to bolster your own claims. Sorry, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

My contention is that there is no chance in this life or the next, for an Afghan of any type to meet with a US officer, and the other side won't find out about it.

Oh, really. So those members of the Taliban that met with NATO forces about defecting were doing so with the knowledge of the rest of the Taliban? You seem to know more about what the Taliban knows than they do.

This may be somewhat of a cheap shot, but I don't think you know what you're talking about.

What is limited, I think, is the real damage Wikileaks caused to the US intelligence effort in Afghanistan. Gates said it was minimal when arguably it would have been in his interest to say it was substantial. I would tend to agree because I have trouble inventing a scenario where a US officer-Afghan citizen contact could remain confidential long enough for Wikileaks to become the means of outing it.

"Limited". "Minimal". Perhaps, but anything more than zero is too much.

[dieseltaylor]

A nice summary of the current situation

http://www.alternet.org/story/152343/controversy_and_confusion_over_the_latest_wikileaks_revelations%3A_8_things_you_really_need_to_know?page=entire