Whatever side someone is on about the dumping of 90,000 Afghanistan documents by Wikileak one thing is clear. New media has now vaulted into traditional old media territory. I’m not going to tell you what the document dump means, as you need to read and digest the information as citizens. But you should know that anyone weighing in telling you how it is has a stake in what you think. Where someone sits on the war in Afghanistan colors how they feel about the Wikileak document dump. Consider it in everything you read and know the stance of the author or outlet weighing in.
Transparency during wartime is expanding faster than government can keep up with it because of new media’s independence. Old traditional media never had this aspect, no matter the outlet. In a world where war is becoming too expensive for everyone, in lives and in treasure, but also diplomatic reputation because of the nakedness of knowing the details of what is done in the name of a country’s “good deeds,” it’s a tectonic shift in what the public can know. If it makes us think twice before venturing into militaristic adventures without a way through or out that’s a good thing. None of this will stop the government from screaming “danger, danger, exposure of tactics will endanger lives,” but maybe it will think about making the American public a bigger partner in these wars.
If our country is going to continue in these foreign adventures of militarism, some politician should stand up and propose a draft. It won’t get any traction, but the reason we’ve had mission creep from our initial attack on Afghanistan after 9/11 to Bush’s neglect of the country, then into nation building is that people don’t have to pay attention, because it’s not their son (or daughter) who is dying. When you’ve got them by the family jewels, the heir(s), their attention will follow. Then maybe we’ll quit having wars like Iraq, or idiocy from the Tea Party that we should attack Iran. That’s said by people who thank the troops while knowing it’s not their son or daughter being put in harm’s way.
Jay Rosen: The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World’s First Stateless News Organization.
The New York Times, who served up Judith Miller’s stenography, says Wikileaks hurts the war effort.
Pakistan is pissed. Shocking, I know.
This stash will be compared to the Pentagon Papers, and in some ways that’s right—WikiLeaks, like Daniel Ellsberg, has been accused of ignoring the national interest. (An unfair charge, unless by “national interest” one means the political interests of a particular Administration.) But the Pentagon Papers were a synthetic analysis, a history of the war in Vietnam. WikiLeaks has given us research materials for a history of the war in Afghanistan. To make full use of them, we will, again, have to think hard about what we are trying to learn: Is it what we are doing, day to day, on the ground in Afghanistan, and how we could do it better? Or what we are doing in Afghanistan at all?
A profile of Julian Assange of Wikileaks.
An interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with investigative reporter Philip Shenon.
It’s a circular firing squad with the people for transparency about war in the post-Bush era, an administration that lied us into Iraq, standing up to and against the infrastructure that thinks the people who fund the war, taxpayers, shouldn’t know what’s going on.
NATURALLY, I believe that it is great that this was disclosed. This man did his country a great service.
However, I also believe that as long as “the right”, that is, the conservative and corporate interests control the message, nothing will really change.
There’ll be talk of change yes, and maybe some tinkering, but the military-industry, war mongering machine will grind on.
Nothing can stop it.
What form should the government of the government take?
In addition to the comparison with The Pentagon Papers, I’m also thinking of the comparison with how the Vietnam War was covered. It took a while, of course, but eventually the daily coverage of the war, complete with film of bodies (alive or dead undisclosed) being rushed on stretchers to waiting helicopters … that coverage clearly made a difference in changing the perspectives of our nation.
After that, of course, both the military and the media changed how wars are presented — significant restrictions and overt steps to avoid transparency. Over time, the media “adjusted’ to the new realities of what was allowed / disallowed. To the extent “new media” has made and forced changes toward greater transparency, I think that’s a very good thing.
But as with the Vietnam era, real “change” is also going to require a critical mass of citizens making their displeasure and demands known. I honestly don’t know if, as a whole, the nation can still muster that kind of attention, or the actions necessary to force The Powers to listen and change.
I agree with Taylor Joyce. That will only happen with a draft.
Probably correct. And the chances of a return of the draft seem very, very slim. It shouldn’t require such, of course, to get enough people actually and actively paying attention, but by now, it seems that things will have to get very bad indeed for attention to be gained.