(a) The Taliban literally did a press release that the NYT ran saying they were using the documents to find informers.
(b) The Taliban are known --- famous for, in fact --- operating death squads; it is almost their whole M.O. Common sense applies here as well.
(c) No media service and no police force in the world has meaningful penetration into society in places like Ghazni, Helmand, or Paktika province. So you should be aware that you've set an unrealistic bar here.
It's probably not relevant to the case here but I think also worth knowing: Assange told the chief investigative editor at the Guardian, in a room full of named reporters, none of whom appear to have contradicted the Guardian editor's story, that Assange believes murdered informants were collaborators who got what they deserved.
Thanks for your response. I went and looked at the press release: is this what you refer to? [1]
a) and c) such informants were by definition in contact at some stage. It would be trivial to state which, if any, informants had gone to ground, or disappeared. Or even a number or percentage. I don't think that's unrealistic, and I don't think it would have put them in any more danger. It's quite within the power of the US administration to give more info than they have, particularly useful to them securing the most serious possible conviction for Manning.
b) Common sense would then indicate they would announce such to deter other informants.
I agree that it is not relevant, I think I saw the clip in some documentary [2] However he's denied it, and it was Leigh who provided the account.
So even with a shaky premise, that it was all Assange's fault, there seems to be a lack of evidence of anything resulting from it. That's what I'm bothered by. There's plenty of powerful organisations involved who could point to the bodies, and yet none have to my knowledge.
I don't understand why a journalist would not then link to the name of Khalifa Abdullah in the leaks. It means I have to do it. I have doubts that his name is contained within. Also, the point has been made that many of the names are spelled phonetically and that the Taliban probably aren't past masters of English pronunciation.
Strong agree that those documents had the potential to lead to the murder of informants - this alone convinces me that the mass release of those cables without any edits or redactions was irresponsible.
However, I've previously assumed that we (incredibly) made it through the aftermath of the leaks without any of those potential murders taking place, for the same reasons listed in the grandparent comment; the media would have reported it, and the government would have surely cited it at Chelsea Manning's trial. So I'm skeptical but intrigued by your assertion that informants may have been murdered, but that there's be no way for us to know whether this had happened. My (uninformed) expectation would be that we WOULD know, since:
- we had (previously but not anymore?) informants in those places in the first place
- such murders would be (easily?) dicoverable after the fact, especially since the Taliban would have motive to tout them
- the government had a strong motive for wanting to portray the leaks in the worst possible light, and therefore would want to discover and verify such murders
Your observation that we have very little knowledge of these places does make me more uncertain about whether any murders occurred, but at this point we're far enough out from the leaks that the burden of proof lies with anyone asserting that murders probably DID take place, for the reasons listed above. (As opposed to the question of whether the leaks were irresponsible in the first place, which for me is a resounding yes even if we somehow made it through without any murders.)
Why are you arguing about whether anyone was murdered over the releases? The circumstantial evidence that the thread was real is overwhelming, and the poor visibility we have into Afghan tribal culture makes it impossible to settle the argument. Furthermore, by continuing to litigate the point, you help build the argument that Assange bears some responsibility for that threat. Why not instead just say, "sure, bad things happened, but they're offset by the good Wikileaks did", or something like that?
Your assertion that we may never know whether anyone was murdered was a surprise to me, which is why I responded. It seems relevant because whether the good outweighs the bad depends on how much bad was actually done. (Technically what's relevant is how much bad one would expect to have happened in advance, but what actually ended up happening last time will affect our guesstimates of what is likely to happen next time.)
Don't know we also need to know how much good was actually done? Can that be quantified? (Can we name somebody who wasn't murdered because of the leaks?)
Asking how to quantify the good and bad that resulted from a thing is something we can ask about literally anything. It's especially hard in this case, because the potential harm was immediate and personal (people being murdered, etc) while the good was broad long-term (a public with greater insight into what its government is doing, etc). But there are plenty of areas with similar tradeoffs; if raising a speed limit lowers commutes for millions of people but raises fatalities by some amount, then that's equally hard to compare.
(b) The Taliban are known --- famous for, in fact --- operating death squads; it is almost their whole M.O. Common sense applies here as well.
(c) No media service and no police force in the world has meaningful penetration into society in places like Ghazni, Helmand, or Paktika province. So you should be aware that you've set an unrealistic bar here.
It's probably not relevant to the case here but I think also worth knowing: Assange told the chief investigative editor at the Guardian, in a room full of named reporters, none of whom appear to have contradicted the Guardian editor's story, that Assange believes murdered informants were collaborators who got what they deserved.