Wikileaks said that they had thoroughly vetted the 90,000 military files that they posted online.
Apparently, they weren’t as careful as they thought:
The Times reported Wednesday that after just two hours of combing through the documents it was able to find the names of dozens of Afghans said to have provided detailed intelligence to US forces.
A Pentagon spokesman said the disclosure of documents could be put at risk the lives of anyone who is identified.
“Anyone whose name appears in those documents is potentially at risk,” said Colonel David Lapan.
“It could compromise their position, it could be a threat on their life, and it could have an impact on their future conduct,” he said, referring to fears the massive leak could dry up intelligence sources.
Julian Assange is really really upset that he might have publicised the identities of Afghans working with the United States to defeat the Taliban:
“No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret — our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm to them,” said Assange.
But actually, he isn’t really:
“That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it’s extremely important to the history of the war.”
The Taliban murdered thousands of Afghans for being members of the wrong tribe, sect, or political grouping. I expect that they’ll be poring through these leaks to identify a few new targets.
But Assange’s conscience is clear. It is “not in his name”. That is because it is all the fault of Obama, for not helping him redact the information properly before publication:
Assange also lashed out at the US Thursday, saying he asked the White House last week for help to “minimise the chances of innocent informers being named” but received no response.
I’m having a difficult time in thinking of a good reason why Assange shouldn’t be arrested and prosecuted for this.
I expect he’ll never travel to the United States again.
