The Wikileaks collection

[Sargent]

No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how being willing to torture one's prisoners constitutes "moral courage." In fact, it would be the opposite action, to restrain from such behavior, that would be courageous, because the impulse would be to do anything to get information one thought was important. And so, it is more proper to say that moral courage is a Marine Lieutenant jumping in between an Iraqi prisoner and the Iraqi soldiers, the latter of whom are trying to beat the detainee to death.

While the measures may have been deemed legal, the recourse to such acts of coercion was neither moral nor courageous. And into the calculus of lives lost and saved, you must add the number of new terrorists created because of such actions. How many American soldiers and Marines lost their lives to enemies who joined the fray because of this brutal course? To what extent were the objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan harmed by this stain upon the American reputation?

As for Assange, the situation is what we make of it. But if the information is of such importance that its release will put folks in danger than we ought to pin a medal on the soldier who leaked it because he's alerted the apparatus to the fact that it is not properly safeguarding our secrets. If such sensitive information is susceptible to the form theft utilized then we are well and truly doomed, Assange and WikiLeaks notwithstanding.

[J Wolfsberger]

I'm sorry, but I don't see how being willing to torture one's prisoners constitutes "moral courage." ...

At the time, there was reason to believe additional attacks were immanent, and that we had custody of people with sufficient knowledge of them that we would be able to thwart them. There were two moral principles in conflict: a. Torture is morally wrong. b. The President is responsible for protecting the citizens against attacks.

When confronted with conflicting moral principles, the first step of moral behavior is determining which violation is the greater evil. Moral courage consists of acting to prevent that evil, knowing that one is committing a lesser evil, and accepting the consequences of that act. To take an example from another era, Dr. M. L. King chose a course of action that would highlight the denial of civil rights to a large group of citizens. He did so in the knowledge that he would be violating the prevailing laws, spent time in jail for that violation, and, to my knowledge, never complained about it.

Mr. Bush chose to authorize harsh interrogations, knowing that some would characterize the methods as torture, in the belief it was necessary to prevent the murder of civilians in the US and abroad. He choses the lesser evil, and responsibility for it, in order to prevent the greater evil. That is moral courage.

Before you respond, place yourself in his position and consider the alternative: "Yes, they murdered a lot of people, and we could have forced this guy to give up the information to stop that, but at least we didn't make anyone uncomfortable."

[Sargent]

At the time, there was reason to believe additional attacks were immanent, and that we had custody of people with sufficient knowledge of them that we would be able to thwart them. There were two moral principles in conflict: a. Torture is morally wrong. b. The President is responsible for protecting the citizens against attacks.

When confronted with conflicting moral principles, the first step of moral behavior is determining which violation is the greater evil. Moral courage consists of acting to prevent that evil, knowing that one is committing a lesser evil, and accepting the consequences of that act. To take an example from another era, Dr. M. L. King chose a course of action that would highlight the denial of civil rights to a large group of citizens. He did so in the knowledge that he would be violating the prevailing laws, spent time in jail for that violation, and, to my knowledge, never complained about it.

Mr. Bush chose to authorize harsh interrogations, knowing that some would characterize the methods as torture, in the belief it was necessary to prevent the murder of civilians in the US and abroad. He choses the lesser evil, and responsibility for it, in order to prevent the greater evil. That is moral courage.

Before you respond, place yourself in his position and consider the alternative: "Yes, they murdered a lot of people, and we could have forced this guy to give up the information to stop that, but at least we didn't make anyone uncomfortable."

You are confusing moral relativism with courage.

Moral courage is doing what it right, even when there is a cost, to you personally. MLK put his own liberty at risk, accepted that his actions were going to be found illegal in many cases, and took the consequences. That is not what Bush did, not at all. The expedient solution is never moral courage. The ends do not justify the means. The road to hell and all that...

Moral courage on Bush's part would have been to stand before the American people and say, "I will not sacrifice our principles, the values that this country stands for, to achieve an easy solution. We may face danger, but we will remain the country we were meant to be. If that means I will not be re-elected, I will accept that consequence." That's courage. And that would have been a message heard round the world and would have done more to protect the public than any harsh interrogation technique.

And by the way, none of your argument takes into account the fact that all good evidence is on the side of torture and harsh interrogations being the worst possible way to get good intelligence from captives. No, sorry, there was nothing courageous in a bunch of overprivileged executives playing cowboy -- I'm thinking Rumsfeld's contemptuous commentary regarding the difficulty in being forced to stand for hours at a time because, after all, he stood at his Churchill desk in his office.

Jill

[Kiwigrunt]

I pretty much agree with the last two posts. That is not to condone the actions of a certain little prick. It concerns our reactions to those actions.

My first reaction to this line by Bob:

No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information.

was that it appears to be based on assumptions, since no one knows.

If we flip those assumptions the line could read as follows:

No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information.

I’m not saying I make these flipped assumptions (I don’t). My point is that assumptions such as these lead to loaded and primed statements and questions that may lead us down a path we should perhaps not be going down.

[Bob's World]

"Torture" is what waterboarding is called now. That is the current legal interp, so fine, I'll go with that. While I attended the Army SERE school at Ft Bragg and did not have to endure waterboarding personally, the Navy school did it as a matter of course to our own people as training to help them prepare for situations where they might have to deal with real torture. When Bush made his decision, waterboarding was a training tool. The lawyers believed it to be legal. A president has to make hard decisions, and I doubt this was really that hard of a decision in the big scheme of things under the perspectives, legal and otherwise, that waterboarding was held in at that time.

Now, after the fact, it has been deemed to be "torture." I'm not a big Bush defender, but I won't bash anyone for not playing by rules that haven't been written yet. Again, waterboarding was a standard training tool for US service members in SERE and deemed as legal by the experts. This is not an issue, this is not news. Now, if the President had been told it was Illegal and gone on and ordered it anyway, then it would be news.

[JJackson]

My problem is with what I view as relative accountability. In the President and Prime Minister’s cases there is no realistic chance of their being legally held accountable for their actions. Appointing someone who can then tell you that you have an arguable case, which they can help you sell to your public, is rather different to actual risking a ICC trial for illegally invading another country, or ordering someone’s torture, and then having a court weigh that advice and imprison you if they disagree with your legal advisers. If my lawyer tells me he thinks he can get me off any DUI, as long as I keep getting my repeat prescriptions for a medicine that gives false positives on alcohol tests, I need to be very sure because his assertion will be put to the test. Get powerful enough and you only need to be able to spin reasonable doubt not prove it. Even the failure to spin it might loose you re-election but will not land you in jail.

[Steve the Planner]

C'mon, Bob:

Waterboarding has always been considered as torture. The Bush lawyers raised shades of interpretation and causation as a justification for it, but that doesn't change what it is.

Like some of the other posts, I don't disagree that the guy may not be a prick, but you misread the situation to assume that he (and his supporters) do not have a strong moral position which they are striking out for---anti-secrecy.

Whether that conviction is as wrong as an abortion bomber, or one with some reasonable theoretical foundation, there is no doubt that they are driven by a moral conviction---certainly no less than Bush was.

Having said that, I realized from one of last week's cables that the idea of blinking out the names is as absurd as bleeping out a comedian's monologue---everybody in the know gets the joke, just as anyone involved in a meeting with GA Sistani's key spokesmen does not know exactly which one said what---bleeped out or not. The same with all of our local and provincial discourses.

One of the things that really disturbed me about Cidne was the breadth of what was memorialized and its broad internal accessibility (sure to be copied by somebody and passed on to our "allies." The documented knowledge, in a culture with multi-generational knowledge and accountability, that somebody's dad (or grandad) helped a "foreign" government way back in '07, will not earn medals for them....

These leaks will hurt real people, and, to a great extent, as Krauthamer noted last week, substantially limit US access and and free discourse with locals in challenging situations. Maybe it is best, after all, for all parties to understand that in an open architecture world, it is best not to say anything to anyone that you don't expect to read in the Post (or Al-Jazirah) next month?

[Old Eagle]

One of the outcomes of the wikileaks releases to date is that they offer insight to the general public and the rest of the uninitiated into how diplomacy works.

The D of diplomacy is one of the elements of national power. It is the favorite of most of us involved in the M of the DIME rubric. Most of the time, we don't get shot at or blown up when policy makers are using the D instead of the M.

Yes, we try to influence foreign governments and other entities to behave in a manner that supports the U.S. interest. This is occasionally referred to in the press of late as "arm twisting", but I assure you it is usually more subtle and congenial.

Secondly, we report back to Washington on how things look on the ground in a manner direct enough to make our points clear to those in the rear. Decisions that policy makers take require decent input from the "front". Just because you think that your father-in-law is a jerk, you rarely say so to his face, and never in the presence of your spouse. This should really not come as a surprise to anyone who deals with pol-mil issues (or who has a father-in-law).

One of the underlying problems in the current kerfluffle is that the State Department brings a lot of the misunderstanding down on their own heads. Since they don't see themselves as collecting human intelligence, they "file" "reporting cables" that name names and tell tales. Then the Great American Public (GAP) AND the sources get all worked up about something that we have all agreed to make happen.

When one of my sources would tell me that he did not expect his comments to be reported to Washington, I really had to wonder about him.

[Fuchs]

Again, waterboarding was a standard training tool for US service members in SERE and deemed as legal by the experts.

Boxing is legal as a sport as well, but it's illegal if you do it without consent.
Same with sex.
Or carrying money out of a bank.


The lack of consent is the difference between waterboarding training and waterboarding torture.

[JMA]

Australia blames U.S. over WikiLeaks

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the people who originally leaked the documents, not Assange, were legally liable and the leaks raised questions over the "adequacy" of U.S. security.

"Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorized release of 250,000 documents from the U.S. diplomatic communications network," Rudd told Reuters in an interview.

"The Americans are responsible for that," said Rudd, who had been described in one leaked U.S. cable as a "control freak."

"Control Freak" or not Rudd is correct. Refreshing honesty.

Go after the guy who actually stole the stuff and the guys responsible for securing the data.

[JMA]

"Torture" is what waterboarding is called now. That is the current legal interp, so fine, I'll go with that. While I attended the Army SERE school at Ft Bragg and did not have to endure waterboarding personally, the Navy school did it as a matter of course to our own people as training to help them prepare for situations where they might have to deal with real torture. When Bush made his decision, waterboarding was a training tool. The lawyers believed it to be legal. A president has to make hard decisions, and I doubt this was really that hard of a decision in the big scheme of things under the perspectives, legal and otherwise, that waterboarding was held in at that time.

Now, after the fact, it has been deemed to be "torture." I'm not a big Bush defender, but I won't bash anyone for not playing by rules that haven't been written yet. Again, waterboarding was a standard training tool for US service members in SERE and deemed as legal by the experts. This is not an issue, this is not news. Now, if the President had been told it was Illegal and gone on and ordered it anyway, then it would be news.

Bob, I introduced the comparison of the actions of Bush. For what its worth I support the use of waterboarding and other "methods" at the right time by the right people. Post 9/11 was one such time... but I don't know who got to do the deeds. (The who in my opinion is important because you don't want the psychopaths to emerge and get their jollies through applying torture (physical duress if you like) to anyone and everyone that crossed their paths).

The new clown in charge of MI6 (Sir John Sawers) has in a recent public address stated:

"If we know or believe action by us will lead to torture taking place, we're required by UK and international law to avoid that action. And we do, even though that allows the terrorist activity to go ahead."

I don't share that view.

Now back to WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks (not a US organisation) started slowly publishing a selection of redacted classified data which it had allegedly received from a serving US soldier (who it is believed is currently incarcerated in solitary confinement). In addition the New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais are receiving data from WikiLeaks and are publishing some of what they receive for public consumption.

So out of all those who have received this stolen data (WikiLeaks and the 5 newspapers) the great US bully-boy machine chooses to go after the soft target, Julian Assange and his supposedly puny WikiLeaks organisation. Man, they come brave from the State Department and the CIA, don't they?

The New York Times is off Scott-free probably because they didn't steal the stuff, they received it and are making it publicly available. Sounds quite a lot like Assanje and WikiLeaks to me, yes?

The simple fact is that neither the State Department nor the CIA nor in fact the whole USG have the balls to go after the New York Times and the other 4 newspapers. So they strike out at the little guy.

Bad tactics.

When a bully goes after the little guy even if he is "Bonnie and Clyde", or Ned Kelly or Robin Hood or some other not exactly Kosher individual the ground swell is mostly for the little guy and not the bully-boy. Hands up any one who didn't wish David well in his confrontation with Goliath. Think OJs drive down the highway.

We see this ground swell growing. People are siding with the little guys (as they always do).

We all saw the ranting and raving of US government officials and spokesmen and politicians and others whom (we can be forgiven for) having possibly hitherto thought were sane.

We saw quite probably bulls*it accusations against Assange in Sweden where no charges have been laid yet they have sought his arrest through Interpol and extradition from the UK on the basis of a Swedish prosecutor merely wanting to interview Assange. Assange then hands himself over to the Brutish police who drag him before the courts where he is remanded without bail and initially without access to his lawyers. (This is what is called the rule of law and what the US, Britain and Sweden are trying to force down the throats of the third world. - little wonder no one takes them seriously)

Then we see the machine go into action like shades of the biblical 666. Assange and WikiLeaks are now subjected to a hounding and persecution out of Orwell's 1984.

But the machine and its paid flunkies have underestimated that popular groundswell of sympathy for a person being set upon in a fascist style by governments of the so-called free-world. That's unfair they scream. What about due process?

Now we see what the media call cyber insurgency where the running-dogs of the US "regime" in turn get targeted by a growing hacktivist community supported by a growing ground swell of public opinion across the world. (What goes around comes around?)

So why is the State Department so desperate to prevent the publishing of 240,000 documents (15,000 of which are secret)? Because they expose the incompetence of the State Department. Is this what the US budget allocates $40 billion a year towards? The sad fact is that the US State department has become an international laughing stock through the disclosure of what for these clowns passes for an exercise in diplomacy.

Now here's a question. If the data had been from a Russian source and published on the WikiLeaks (non US based) website would you still feel the same?

[Bob's World]

Undoubtedly there will be good that comes from this. Organizations take on little bubble cultures, and State is no exception, with each Embassy being a bubble within a bubble. Having their bubbles pricked a bit and open to external critical review will undoubtedly lead to some positive reform.

This will also undoubtedly, at least in the short term, cause a dip in U.S. influence. Influence is, I believe, our most critical asset. Many factors contribute to the building of influence, and like a reputation, it is harder to build than it is to lose. Containment strategies are expensive in terms of influence (and other forms of national capital as well), and I believe the U.S. has been burning influence throughout the Cold War; and that the burn rate has increased considerably as we entered the post-Cold War / GWOT era. Following the hit associated with the economic crisis, this additional hit is either well timed or poorly timed depending on which side of aisle one is sitting on.

Military power can be an effective substitute for other, more subjective forms of influence when dealing with states; but as we enter deeper into a age where non-state and quasi-state players emerge as more serious challengers, military power lacks much impact. Sledgehammers are great for breaking rocks, but not much for swatting flies.

My cautionary recommendation from all of this is to keep a close eye on the "influence gage." Back away from Ways and Means with high burn rates in pursuit of interests that are truly critical; and back away from Ends that really don't make the same sense today that they did when first adopted.

Here's a little example. In the just released CNAS recommendation on Afghanistan they essentially adopted the same two "vital interests" that the Afghan Studies Group identified in their recommendation released a couple months earlier (A product roundly criticized by Andrew Exum, who also was a key author of the CNAS product, btw)

These two vital interests identified are "AQ inspired terrorism" and "the stability of Pakistan."

Now it is hard to find fault with either interest; the difficulty is in logically linking the effective pursuit of either one to US operations in Afghanistan. After all, Pakistan was quite stable prior to being strong-armed into a series of actions counter to their own national interests in order to support US interests regarding AQ. So our very AFPAK strategy has created the concerns to one of the two interests we use to justify our AFPAK strategy.

The vital interest of AQ stands on ground that shakes just as much, but for different reasons. Yes AQ's current base of operations is in the FATA, but like "Facebook" or "Google" they are largely an IDEA. We proved very well in our efforts to contain the idea of communism was futile when so many populaces pursuing liberty were willing to adopt it. I think we will find that efforts to somehow "contain" the ideas of Islamism will fall equally flat when so many populaces pursuing liberty are willing to adopt it as well. If we "contain," "deny" or "defeat" Facebook or Google in the Silicon Valley will we end their influence or take away their market? No, they simply stand up servers elsewhere, go underground for some period of time if necessary, or worst case, are replaced by some more savvy successor. The same applies to AQ and the FATA, and as to AQ ever regaining their old freedom of action in Afghanistan, the odds of that are virtually nil.

How much influence will we have to expend to attempt to serve these interests by continuing actions tied to a specific space and built upon current Ways and Means?? Too much, and even then it is unlikely to produce the desired results because the problem is poorly defined. By looking at the problem itself with fresh eyes we can drop Ends that just don't make sense, and revise Ways and Means to be more "influence-efficient" for those that must be addressed.

Just observations from an interested observer.