Doc Comparison

The New York Times is all over the unauthorized leak of DoD Iraq war documents (most likely by a radical gay soldier upset over DADT), with a front page blitz on the torture, abuse, and civilian death counts. And wow, timed perfectly with the mid-term elections and Bush's book tour!

Funny, the Times sat along the wall like an ugly shy girl at a party when the DoD released the captured documents contained in the Project Harmony database, many of which suggested Saddam had dealings with Islamist terrorist groups (conventional wisdom = impossible) including the Taliban.

Ironically, when the Times finally came to the dance floor they were actually instrumental in getting the site taken offline because of a proposed article based on one of the docs dubbed a 'nuclear primer'. Yes, it's a nutball world.

As to Assausage, it seems almost impossible to believe that the US Government cannot stop this geek from blasting out info that would get an average American jailed or an enemy combatant blown to smithereens. It's almost as if someone in a high place wants this to happen, or the internet is now more dangerous and powerful than the entire US national security apparatus. Either way it's troubling, not so much about the document content but the idea that no government will have control over its own secrets anymore. That might sound great in Utopia but in the real world people will die as a result.

MORE 10/23/10

It appears the documents do not represent our deepest, darkest secrets on Iraq but rather are more a compendium of incident reports. Search for the following figures and you'll come up with a goose egg:

> Rahib Taha ("Dr. Germ", released for unknown reasons)
> Huda Ammash ("Mrs. Anthrax", released for unknown reasons)
> Abu Ibrahim (a little known bomber who was actually the originator of Bojinka in 80s)
> Raghad Hussein (Saddam's daughter, exiled in Jordan and subject of Interpol notices)
> Izzat Ibrahim al Douri (high level Ba'ath Party figure involved in insurgency, still loose)
> Mohammad Yunis (another high level Ba'ath figure involved in insurgency, still loose)
> Tahir Habbush (head of the IIS, still on the lam)
> Abdul Yasin (helped mix the first WTC bomb in 1993 and also still on the loose)

But the point of Wikileaks both here and in the Afghan dump was not to confirm the reasons for going to war or the evil of the enemy, but to confirm the horrors of war itself. And we don't really need a leak for that.