New York Times‘ Public Editor looks at the ethical decisions made by the paper in accepting the Wikileaks documents over Afghanistan. In the end, he argues that the paper made the right choice but there is one thing missing; the focus the paper took towards the US government. Was it too servile? Mr. Bill Keller…
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is one of the biggest and most important stories in the world, challenging governments and journalists alike. I’ve been writing extensively about the group since 2006, featured an exclusive interview in 2008 with founder Julian Assange and examined the myriad of issues around the website. Assange himself asked me in the early days whether I wanted to be on the group’s board to vet incoming leaks and determine their veracity before publishing. I agreed but unfortunately this never eventuated.
It’s not easy backing death squads in Iraq
This is what we have created in Iraq by our own actions; turning a blind eye to torture, murder and abuse. In the name of “liberation”, of course: One: During the foreboding months of 2005, one police unit struck more fear into Iraqis than the entire occupying US army. They were known as the Wolf…
No laws allows Iraqi deaths at the hands of our private firms
Pratap Chatterjee on Democracy Now! talks about the Wild West of military contracting in Iraq: Custer Battles had a man whose job it was was to buy guns on the black market. And he explained to me how he would go outside, you know, dressed in local clothes, buy black market guns and supply them.…
Culture of degradation in Iraq
Britain’s Channel 4 Dispatches on the Wikileaks Iraq revelations. Real journalism, not tabloid fodder. Murders that we created. Watch the Najaf cemetery, the biggest in the world, and its heaving bodies:
What Wikileaks coverage should be avoiding
Many in the mainstream media are defensive about their role in focusing on the personal life of Julian Assange of Wikileaks over the countless examples of abuses and crimes in the latest Iraq logs. Go for it, Assange, against Larry King:
Yes, Israel, America, Britain and Australia all kill civilians
A story that only Gideon Levy in Haaretz would write. Piercing and spot-on: The voice of joy, the voice of rejoicing is heard in Israel: The Americans and British have also committed for war crimes, not only us. WikiLeaks’ revelations have inflamed all our noisy propagandists: Where is Goldstone, they rejoiced, and what would he…
Wikileaks revelations? Nothing to see here, says WPost
The US corporate press has spent years suppressing the crimes and excesses of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan – the Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief says that Wikileaks proves the US administration has been lying for years – and yet this Washington Post editorial says everybody should just calm down and move…
Almost funny hearing how the Pentagon does damage control
Danny Schechter adds some intriguing details behind the Wikileaks story: The Pentagon had been bracing for the release for months. Fearing more compromises of national security and more embarrassment for practices they wanted hidden, they had set up a WikiLeaks war room staffed with 120 operatives in anticipation. A special intelligence unit called the Red…
Let’s hope that Australia’s war aims are negatively affected by Wikileaks
So after all the bluster and threats against Wikileaks, the group’s greatest crime was revealing the sordid nature of the Afghan quagmire: A defence taskforce has concluded that leaked US military documents on Afghanistan said nothing about Australian forces that hadn’t already been disclosed. The investigation, launched in July after the whistleblower organisation Wikileaks released…
Why can’t the US just kill Assange (asks caring Fox man)
Welcome to the world of Rupert Murdoch, a man of principle who runs a global organisation of the highest ethical code: Leading the attack on whistleblower web site WikiLeaks, Fox News editorialist and former Bush-era US State Department official Christian Whiton said on Monday that the US should classify the proprietors of WikiLeaks as “enemy…