Defense Secretary Gates Blasts Wikileaks

Gates assails Internet group over attack video

BOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized the Internet group Wikileaks on Tuesday over its release of a video showing a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff. The group, which says it promotes leaks to fight government and corporate corruption, released the video without providing any context explaining the situation, Gates said. "These people can put out anything they want, and they're never held accountable for it. There's no before and there's no after," Gates said.

Wikileaks disputed Gates' contention the video failed to provide context. In an e-mail, it accused the U.S. military of making "numerous false or misleading statements," including the contention there was an active firefight between U.S. forces and those killed.

"Classified records which we will shortly release show that there was a report of small arms fire at 9:50 a.m., somewhere in the suburb of New Baghdad, shooter and location UNIDENTIFIED. There is no reference to U.S. forces having been hit by the fire. The same records report that at 10:18, 28 minutes later, the crowd was seen and the killing commenced."

news.yahoo.com...

Well Gates doesn't like what is going on...I can understand why he wouldn't like it. Wikileaks also is stating it has classified records disputing military explanations.

Gates criticism may also be a preemptive "attack" on wikileaks before it releases a video of a reported 147 civilian deaths...as linked here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...


[edit on 13-4-2010 by David9176]

"These people can put out anything they want, and they're never held accountable for it. There's no before and there's no after," Gates said.

Straight from the horse's mouth himself

Seriously, does Gates realizes he contradicts himself and his army with this statement?

Seriously, people can say the same thing about Gates and who he is fighting for.

Why does a white house official stoop so low as to publically comment on an internet video, anyway?

If there is going to be public comments on record from the white house, then there needs to be an official reason, like being served search warrants, or arresting wikileaks for a crime.

otherwise they really need to just shut up about it. The white house just needs to accept they cannot unring this bell.

And the comments only drive the few people who have not seen the video to wonder, whats Gates talking about? So they go google and watch the video to find out.

They're would've been no video to release if this hadn't happened in the first place. He doesn't need to blast them. People can watch the video knowing were at war, take that into account, then come up with their own conclusion. We don't need him shooting the messenger.

This is just all for show. He is just doing his job, giving the "appearance" of "official condemnation". This is his job.

But secretly, at night, people like Gates inside the Pentagon. They are fed up with things too. And so they leak things out.

This has been going on Historically for a long time, even in other nations and other era's of time. Same story, different names.

Look, if it wasn't for the insiders leaking it out, we wouldn't have it in the first place.

Is it a conspiracy to mislead us off the trail? IDK...

Is it mostly genuine and with honest intentions? IDK...

Is it designed to mislead foreign militaries etc? IDK...

Don't forget that Robert Gates, in the Carter administration and thereafter, was negotiating with "rogue" or volatile countries to illegally sell arms and trade arms, including Iran and Iraq which provided Iraq with the weaponry it used to solidify itself as a Middle Eastern gadfly that we supposedly had to come in and take care of ... and we're still doing it almost 40 years later.

Also involved in the arming of Afghanistan against Russia. More directly involved in the Iran Contra scandal where "Americans" (in a highly illegal and world-power-upsetting-way) sold government arms for dirty cash to provide backing to "freedom fighters" in tempestuous Central American countries, infested with the CIA.

And was likely instrumental in the shocking and highly un-American negotiations to delay the release of Iran's American hostages (as Jesse Venture mentions, oh so briefly, in his new book).

I dig Obama, but this is where I have to agree with all the "it doesn't matter whether the POTUS is R or D" posts on ATS. This guy, well I'd say he's corrupt, but we all know that by his title. You can not have someone assume leadership in the CIA or serve as SoD whose hands aren't bloodier than the beaches at Normandy - it's just not possible.

Gates @ Wikipedia

[edit on 4/13/2010 by Hadrian]

Looks like we struck a nerve!

But really, it's completely impossible to take this video out of context, just by listening and watching it's plain as day what occurred.

Unfortunately for Gates, there were no conjured stories via the mass media to mask the truth.

However, Gates brings up a good point.

If you release video footage without knowing the full context of what's going on, does it not stand to reason that you might be leading others to the wrong conslusion by not releasing all of the story?

What if, for instance, video was released of the outside of a convenience store, you hear shots fired and you see a man come running out of the store? You get a clear view of his face? You might assume, wrongly, that the man was the shooter, fleeing the scene. And how silly would you feel to learn later on that the man running out of the convenience store was actually a customer who was able to run out of the store, past the shooter, and was going to get help?

I understand what Wikileaks is trying to do - but if they aren't careful they could end up doing a huge disservice by only releasing part of the story.

Did you know that the guy who runs Wikileaks (forgot his name, is Australian) was on The Colbert Report last night?

Have to see if there is a video of that.

It was interesting.

The military are professional liars.

Lied about Marjah Afghanistan [a city of 80,000] which is in fact not even a town, barely a village, a mosque, a marketplace a couple of clusters of farmers houses.

US forces killed pregnant women & others & lied about it. Covered it up by digging the bullets out of the women's bodies with knives, & while they did their cover up, wounded people died because they kept medical personnel away.

WMDs?

The military mass murdered journalists at Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi & independent journalists at the Palestinian hotel in Baghdad, all on the SAME DAY,

& these were all supposedly 'accidents'.

Abu Ghraib? atrocities, & the rapes of young men & women there & their shrieks as they are raped are still being covered up, because people will realize just what treasonous war criminals are currently running the Pentagon & most of the US government.

The recent massacre of innocent civilians on a bus in Afghanistan by rabid US troops.

The CIA has Karzai's drug lord brother on their payroll. [also Saddam Hussein, Noriega, Osama Bin Laden, Erik Prince (religious mobster)]

Yeah, Gates, it is all Wiki's fault, eh?

so gates, they can put things out yet never held acoutnable for it...just like george bush in office hugh? the CIA bringin heroin and coc aine in hugh? the pentagons continuing effort to hide JFK's assins, hugh? the governemnts inolvment in bailing out big rip off bankers , israel and allowing iran to have nukes bascially, and giving the finger too its own tax paying citizens?>???
held accoutnable? your one to speak so highly for yourself