Friday, July 30, 2010

Leaked documents on Wikileaks compromise infomants' and soldiers' lives

WikiLeaks is a "multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public". Since July 2007, they have "worked across the globe to obtain, publish and defend such materials", and, also, "to fight in the legal and political spheres for the broader principles on which our work is based: the integrity of our common historical record and the rights of all peoples to create new history".

Recently, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of secret documents about the Afghan War.  During a Pentagon press meeting on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen could barely contain their anger on Thursday at WikiLeaks.

Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went so far as to say that the transparency activists “might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier” or an Afghan partner, with his voice elevating slightly.

They described WikiLeaks’s huge disclosure as having consequences on the battlefield and beyond. The leak exposed sources and methods for US intelligence agencies and allowed US adversaries to learn about military tactics and procedures, said Gates, clearly angry over the episode. Gates vowed the Pentagon will "aggressively investigate" and prosecute those behind the leak and had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help in the probe.

I feel that whoever leaked the documents to WikiLeaks was extremely irresponsible as it endangered the lives of soldiers, Afghan civilians and infomants. In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has worked to ensure soldiers deployed on the front line had the latest intelligence, entrusting troops with sensitive information. Misusing this infomation is a severe breach of trust by the soldier, and is morally wrong.

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