Principia Discordia

Principia Discordia => Aneristic Illusions => Topic started by: Captain Utopia on July 26, 2010, 04:00:35 AM

Title: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Captain Utopia on July 26, 2010, 04:00:35 AM
http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/

There's a map and they've done an impressive job decoding the report headers into something meaningful.

Plus they've held some back, which probably isn't a bad idea:

QuoteWe have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Golden Applesauce on July 26, 2010, 04:45:23 AM
Just saw this on* the NYT.  (linky) (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?pagewanted=all)

Apparently, the Taliban have had portable heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles for quite some time, and CIA extramilitary (quasi-military? para-military?) successes have been attributed to the Afghan army, presumably for PR purposes.


Cain - does this just confirm things that that everyone in the security / terrorism / geopolitical relations communities already knew, or is any of this surprising new information?



*we say a newspaper article is "in" the newspaper, and a web article is "on" the webpage.  When the webpage is a newspaper, which preposition are you supposed to use?
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Cain on July 26, 2010, 11:46:20 AM
Neither seem too surprising.  The Taliban were the official government of Afghanistan for a while, with the full backing of the Pakistani ISI, Saudi Arabia, UAE (organized crime capital of the world) and the tacit recognition of the USA.  At the very least they would've gotten relatively decent surface to air missiles via Pakistan and old stockpiles from the Soviet occupation, both of American and Soviet make.

The CIA paramilitary thing I haven't heard about before, but given the general uselessness and unwillingness of the various warlords in Afghanistan, it's not difficult to see them doing it.  Same happened in Iraq, after all....only instead of CIA paramilitaries doing the dirty work, it was the Badr Organization, an Iranian trained paramilitary of Iraqi exiles.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Jenne on July 28, 2010, 03:55:41 AM
The timing of this is awesome indeed, with the changing of the guard in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Captain Utopia on July 28, 2010, 04:00:09 AM

They say haven't released anything from 2010, but I don't know enough about the operations side to know whether that's sufficient to negate the safety issue.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Jenne on July 28, 2010, 04:06:57 AM
Well, it makes the outgoing generalissimo from Iraq to Afdamnistan look like a major fuckin' loopdeedoo, and the guy coming in is kinda a freak anyway, and he's starting OFF with an apology to begin with:

"Well, you see, I uh, when I said I liked killing them thar Taleebawn, what I really  meant was...er..."
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: LMNO on July 28, 2010, 02:47:29 PM
Maybe I'm missing something, but don't we already know what these reports are saying?

I mean, confirmation is nice, but anyone who's been paying attention should already know that there is an enormous clusterfuck going on over there.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Cramulus on July 28, 2010, 04:26:46 PM
we've had a general idea about how big of a clusterfuck it's been, but this is the hard evidence.


For example, a guy shoots a missile at an unconfirmed target. He misses and kills 7 children.

This has become so commonplace they don't even report on it. But 7, 12, 20 civilian deaths per day, they seriously add up! This report shows us exactly how frequent civ. casualties have been.


I also was not aware that we had a hit on prez. karzai... I can't imagine this was public info. How is he responding to this leak?


Julian Assange (founder of wikileaks) has a political agenda - so even though these reports are unedited, they're not strictly "objective" -  they tell a story which Julian wants us to hear.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Jenne on July 28, 2010, 04:34:16 PM
I think they're trying to do an Al-Jazeera-type expose on these wars.  I appreciate the effort, but I can totally see why the information leaking out would make the military nervous.  As well as US allies, lol.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Pæs on August 06, 2010, 12:40:31 AM
Wasn't sure if this had been posted anywhere else.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gKu1DQoewmBy2do5ctRqUX5efGBAD9HDK86G0
QuoteLONDON — Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has posted a huge encrypted file named "Insurance" to its website, sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared to release more classified information if authorities interfere with them.

At 1.4 gigabytes, the file is 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped onto the Web last month, and cryptographers say that the file is virtually impossible to crack — unless WikiLeaks releases the key used to encode the material.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/wikileaks-pressure-pentagon-military-files
QuoteThe Pentagon has demanded that WikiLeaks immediately erase the huge cache of secret US military files about the Afghan war it has posted online and hand over another 15,000 classified records in its possession.

Condemning the whistleblowers' website for inciting the leaking of military secrets, the Department of Defence warned it would examine ways to compel WikiLeaks to "do the right thing" if it did not do so voluntarily.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Triple Zero on August 06, 2010, 10:43:17 AM
Quote from: Ferka Zarco on August 06, 2010, 12:40:31 AM
Wasn't sure if this had been posted anywhere else.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gKu1DQoewmBy2do5ctRqUX5efGBAD9HDK86G0
QuoteLONDON — Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has posted a huge encrypted file named "Insurance" to its website, sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared to release more classified information if authorities interfere with them.

At 1.4 gigabytes, the file is 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped onto the Web last month, and cryptographers say that the file is virtually impossible to crack — unless WikiLeaks releases the key used to encode the material.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/wikileaks-pressure-pentagon-military-files
QuoteThe Pentagon has demanded that WikiLeaks immediately erase the huge cache of secret US military files about the Afghan war it has posted online and hand over another 15,000 classified records in its possession.

Condemning the whistleblowers' website for inciting the leaking of military secrets, the Department of Defence warned it would examine ways to compel WikiLeaks to "do the right thing" if it did not do so voluntarily.

Ah yes I read that too, here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/wikileaks_insurance/

I bet they have a bunch of close friends and/or family members with an envelope "open in the case of death/disappearance" (or similar) that contains the passphrase, or even partial passphrase.

And I wondered if Schneier wrote on the subject (haven't checked his blog in a few weeks) and indeed he does:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/08/wikileaks_insur.html

(am now reading it, dunno what he said yet)
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: LMNO on August 06, 2010, 02:05:42 PM
I'm really, really hoping it's actually 1.4 GB of scatgranny porn.
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Triple Zero on August 06, 2010, 09:16:48 PM
Quote from: Doktor Alphapance on August 06, 2010, 02:05:42 PM
I'm really, really hoping it's actually 1.4 GB of scatgranny porn.

I'm with you dude, here's to hoping ...
Title: Re: Wikileaks leak 75000+ reports from Afghanistan front lines
Post by: Cain on August 06, 2010, 09:19:50 PM
I hope it's nuclear passwords encoded in scatgranny porn.