Us May Assassinate Wikileaks Founder

[1929crash]

Daniel Ellsberg, the former US military analyst who released the pentagon papers in 1971, appeared on MSNBC today with Dylan Ratigan. He said he fears for the safety of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, who is reportedly on the verge of leaking secret State Department cables. The Daily Beast reports that Assange is currently being sought by the Pentagon, and Ellsberg advises him not to reveal his whereabouts.

“We have after all for the first time, that I ever perhaps in any democratic country, we have a president who has announced that he feels he has the right to use special operations operatives against anyone abroad, that he thinks is associated with terrorism,” says Ellsberg. “Now as I look at Assange’s case, they’re worried that he will reveal current threats. I would have to say puts his well-being, his physical life, in some danger now. And I say that with anguish. I think it’s astonishing that an American president should have put out that policy and he’s not getting these resistance from it, from Congress, the press, the courts or anything. It’s an amazing development that I think Assange would do well to keep his whereabouts unknown.”

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06/11/transcript-daniel-ellsberg-says-he-fears-us-might-assasinate-wikileaks-founder/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CampaignSilo+%28Jane+Hamsher+Campaign+Silo%29&utm_content=Twitter

[1929crash]

Isn't anyone alarmed by this possibility?

[Frank Hovis]

No.

They published the home address and phone number of an elderly friend of mine who happens to be a member of the BNP.

Self-righteous tossers who don't care who they hurt.

[Ruffneck]

No.

They published the home address and phone number of an elderly friend of mine who happens to be a member of the BNP.

Self-righteous tossers who don't care who they hurt.

Since when was being a member or a legal political party a crime?

If you don't agree with their ideas you are their enemy , simple as.

[Guest X-QUORK]

No.

They published the home address and phone number of an elderly friend of mine who happens to be a member of the BNP.

Self-righteous tossers who don't care who they hurt.

Who are "they"?

[1929crash]

No.

They published the home address and phone number of an elderly friend of mine who happens to be a member of the BNP.

Self-righteous tossers who don't care who they hurt.

Wikileaks did? They are concerned with American foreign policy!

[Frank Hovis]

Who are "they"?

The owners of the wikileaks site. Or is this a trick question?

[Guest X-QUORK]

The owners of the wikileaks site. Or is this a trick question?

Not a trick question, no...just trying to understand things.

[1929crash]

The owners of the wikileaks site. Or is this a trick question?

Why would wikileaks expose members of the BNP when they are concerned with foreign policy?

I thought the BNP membership list was leaked by a BNP member who was disgruntled.

[geezer466]

The BNP list was available elsewhere long before wikileaks decided to publish it.

I recall scanning through it to see who lived near me!!

Notice there was no move from the VI's to remove the document if however it had been Blairs shopping list or property portfolio MI5 would have been at it PDQ.

Who remembers that video where the US Apache Heli blows $hit out of a bunch of Arabs in Baghdad? Killed a lot of people that day including two Reuters journalists who were not armed but were a few feet from a couple blokes with shouldered AK47's. The footage was captured from the gun camera on the heli platfrom

(30mm rounds from the forward cannon on the armoured heli doesn't discriminate and is fired to shower a piece of real estate with a view to eliminating everything within that real estate).

After the first few volleys a Van showed up and tried to load up some of the injured. They then killed the van and the 2 unarmed persons carrying a stretcher. There were two kids inside the van who were very seriously hurt (think one of them dies after the event)

All the time they were raining down fire they were whooping like demented kids on a video game.

It was this chap that released that Video to the Public Domain.

After serving alongside US forces in GW1 I can confirm from experience their fire discipline is abysmal. They would not hesitate in opening fire back through a position if they felt it furthered their aims. I heard stories from the US camps that when there was an ND in camp they thought it was a free for all and let rip everywhere. Everyone of course had to hit the deck.

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

Isn't anyone alarmed by this possibility?

Disgraceful.

[D.C.]

Assange admitted that AK47's and an RPG were present in the group, despite initially claiming that the group were unarmed.

The Apache crew asked for and received clearance to engage and when the troops on the ground arrived and realised that injured kids were present they immediately arranged medical evacuation for them.

http://gawker.com/5515720/

What exactly do you expect an Apache crew to do in the middle of a war, land the helicopter, interview them and file a report to the local police?

[Tin Foil Hat]

Assange admitted that AK47's and an RPG were present in the group, despite initially claiming that the group were unarmed.

The Apache crew asked for and received clearance to engage and when the troops on the ground arrived and realised that injured kids were present they immediately arranged medical evacuation for them.

http://gawker.com/5515720/

What exactly do you expect an Apache crew to do in the middle of a war, land the helicopter, interview them and file a report to the local police?

I do agree with you, except when they radio'ed in for permission to engage the chap and van that were picking up the wounded, there was no evident threat to anyone and this action was completely wrong. The rest though, well yes, what do you expect them to do?

[geezer466]

Assange admitted that AK47's and an RPG were present in the group, despite initially claiming that the group were unarmed.

The Apache crew asked for and received clearance to engage and when the troops on the ground arrived and realised that injured kids were present they immediately arranged medical evacuation for them.

http://gawker.com/5515720/

What exactly do you expect an Apache crew to do in the middle of a war, land the helicopter, interview them and file a report to the local police?

You have clearly never served in the military.

Brit troops will have a stringent set of rules as to when they may open fire. These are called Rules of engagement. It is important to remember that we were not at war at this current time and the US were an occupying force. As such any response to armed insurgents has to be assessed on the situation as it and a Proportionate Response instigated. The rules used to state in NI which as the time can be compared as there was an urban terrorist threat that fire may not be opened unless there is imminent danger of someone losing their life meant to mean the terrorist has made the weapon ready and is preparing to fire it.

Clearly an Apache heli blatting feck out of the real estate is not a proportional response. It was clearly evident that there were other persons alongside that were not armed. No attempt was made to identify whom these others persons were. The Apache crew and their handlers were judge, jury and executioners. This is before they opened fire on the van which was clearly no threat to them.

Would it have been acceptable to strafe the district with a B52 had the heli not been available? Clearly there were ground units in the locality. Usual procedure would have been to keep the armed men in sight and vectored the ground units to their position.

If this was a British aircrew our rules would have dictated that they and their handlers would have been charged with War Crimes and rightly so.

There are also the few instances of blue on blue where US forces have actually killed British service persons in what they call the fog of war. In all instances the Americans have refused to allow their personnel that were involved in these situations to testify at Coroners Court at the same time they do not release any materials or transcribed radio audio citing operational security. The circumstances in some of these instances suggest gross negligence on the part of the US but they protect their forces by refusing to release the evidence.

[Guest X-QUORK]

You have clearly never served in the military.

Brit troops will have a stringent set of rules as to when they may open fire. These are called Rules of engagement. It is important to remember that we were not at war at this current time and the US were an occupying force. As such any response to armed insurgents has to be assessed on the situation as it and a Proportionate Response instigated. The rules used to state in NI which as the time can be compared as there was an urban terrorist threat that fire may not be opened unless there is imminent danger of someone losing their life meant to mean the terrorist has made the weapon ready and is preparing to fire it.

Clearly an Apache heli blatting feck out of the real estate is not a proportional response. It was clearly evident that there were other persons alongside that were not armed. No attempt was made to identify whom these others persons were. The Apache crew and their handlers were judge, jury and executioners. This is before they opened fire on the van which was clearly no threat to them.

Would it have been acceptable to strafe the district with a B52 had the heli not been available? Clearly there were ground units in the locality. Usual procedure would have been to keep the armed men in sight and vectored the ground units to their position.

If this was a British aircrew our rules would have dictated that they and their handlers would have been charged with War Crimes and rightly so.

There are also the few instances of blue on blue where US forces have actually killed British service persons in what they call the fog of war. In all instances the Americans have refused to allow their personnel that were involved in these situations to testify at Coroners Court at the same time they do not release any materials or transcribed radio audio citing operational security. The circumstances in some of these instances suggest gross negligence on the part of the US but they protect their forces by refusing to release the evidence.

Great post, and one that as an ex-squaddy I completely accept as accurate.

[Guest anorthosite]

Great post, and one that as an ex-squaddy I completely accept as accurate.

[Tiger Woods?]

You have clearly never served in the military.

Brit troops will have a stringent set of rules as to when they may open fire. These are called Rules of engagement. It is important to remember that we were not at war at this current time and the US were an occupying force. As such any response to armed insurgents has to be assessed on the situation as it and a Proportionate Response instigated. The rules used to state in NI which as the time can be compared as there was an urban terrorist threat that fire may not be opened unless there is imminent danger of someone losing their life meant to mean the terrorist has made the weapon ready and is preparing to fire it.

You just have to go on youtube to find plenty of videos of young US servicemen going ape with grenades on livestock etc.. No wonder they lose the battle of hearts and minds. Seems so ubiquitous that you have to wonder whether the instituional attitude really does mimic one's worst prejudices about the American military.

[1929crash]

Assange admitted that AK47's and an RPG were present in the group, despite initially claiming that the group were unarmed.

The Apache crew asked for and received clearance to engage and when the troops on the ground arrived and realised that injured kids were present they immediately arranged medical evacuation for them.

http://gawker.com/5515720/

What exactly do you expect an Apache crew to do in the middle of a war, land the helicopter, interview them and file a report to the local police?

AK47s and other weapons, including RPGs are pretty ubiquitous in Iraq since we Brits helped destroy central authority and precipitated a civil war, sorry insurgency. On that logic you may as well wipe out the whole population.

And leaking the video to the public makes one deserving of a couple of bullets in the head?

[Tiger Woods?]

Assange admitted that AK47's and an RPG were present in the group, despite initially claiming that the group were unarmed.

The Apache crew asked for and received clearance to engage and when the troops on the ground arrived and realised that injured kids were present they immediately arranged medical evacuation for them.

Erm. I would have thought that for many being armed was necessary self protection. Would you not expect journalists to have an armed escort, or should they just offer themselves up for beheading? The US created a situation where people need to be armed, and now they shoot anyone with a gun. Nice. I like the neat circularity of it.

What exactly do you expect an Apache crew to do in the middle of a war, land the helicopter, interview them and file a report to the local police?

They were walking down the street, having a chat and looking at photos on a bloke's camera. Clearly the sorts of deviant terrorists who need to be machine gunned. Sorry, 30mm cannoned. The simple fact that they didn't react to a hovering Apache gunship didn't suggest anything to the pilots?

Sorry, but whether they got approval or not (and how they phrased the request to HQ was very leading) it was still murder. It would have been clear to anyone that the minibus was stopping to help the wounded guy. Did you not notice the hypocrisy of the weapons officer just begging the wounded guy to pick up a gun so he could shoot him legally, and then just cannon the minibus because, err, well, I never quite understood why he was allowed to do that. The WO was playing video games with people's lives. One day, when they are older and more mature, those involved might just have an epiphany about what they did that day.

[DisQ]

Isn't anyone alarmed by this possibility?

Illegal to kill yes but USA/CIA has a record & long history of carrying out these, so not so surprising their are groups working against it both in the US & europe incl. uk. shame more aren't coming out to expose these crimes.

'It's time to take risks'

In 1971, former marine Daniel Ellsberg leaked documents that exposed US government lies and helped end the Vietnam war. He tells Duncan Campbell why he did it, and why he is calling on today's officials to do the same to the Bush regime - and prevent a war in Iraq

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Duncan Campbell The Guardian, Tuesday 10 December 2002 Article historyA little more than 30 years ago, the leaking of 7,000 pages of Pentagon documents, which exposed an extraordinary catalogue of lies and duplicity on the part of the US government, helped to bring an end to the war in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg, a former marine company commander, who had served in Vietnam, leaked the documents, risking a life sentence to do so. Now he is finally telling the whole story of how he became perhaps the most important whistle-blower of the past half century.

It is a bright autumnal day in Berkeley, California, and Ellsberg, now a sprightly 71, is having a rest day from a cross-country tour to promote his memoirs, Secrets. It is his account of how he, an analyst with the Rand Corporation, who had worked in the Pentagon under defence secretary Robert McNamara and for the state department in Vietnam, was finally driven by his conscience to reveal how successive US governments had stumbled into a war that cost more than a million Vietnamese and 55,000 American lives, and how successive presidents had lied to the American people about the conflict's conduct and consequences.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/dec/10/biography.usa

No.

They published the home address and phone number of an elderly friend of mine who happens to be a member of the BNP.

Self-righteous tossers who don't care who they hurt.

tells a lot from this how narrow minded, ignorant some people are.