WikiLeaks guilty, at least morally: Robert Gates

Source: Reuters

Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, appeared on television talk shows renewing those concerns amid fears WikiLeaks may publish more documents.

"My attitude on this is that there are two areas of culpability. One is legal culpability. And that's up to the Justice Department and others -- that's not my arena," Gates told the ABC News show "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."

"But there's also a moral culpability. And that's where I think the verdict is 'guilty' on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences."

Morally guilty. That means legally, they probably don't have anything on them. Just as Assange said in his interview with Napolitano yesterday.

And interesting part of the interview was near the end, when Assange addressed whether or not he thought he might be assassinated by the U.S.

Video at this link...

Boy if that isn't the kettle calling the pot black, huh?


Gates probably was on the phone a few days going...."That's right. I want you to move those informants that were identified to the TOP of the assassination hit list. Just do it! Why? Because we need to show a casualty so we can sway US PR, that's why, now get it done!"

Yep...it probably has a lot to do with 1.) public opinion worldwide and 2.) that they really don't have anything on the detained. Wonder if they're torturing him...

[edit on 8/1/2010 by ~Lucidity]

Huh. So the government doesn't like it when you air their dirty laundry. Well, it seems to me that the people of that nation deserve to know where their hard-earned tax dollars are going and why. If they don't like the idea of the truth being told and making them look bad, maybe they should choose a truth that is more in keeping with how they want to be seen. This is tantamount to allowing the neighborhood bully to harass all the kids in the neighborhood and expecting everyone to keep quiet about it. There is always the choice though that the bully could shape up and fly right. It may take all the neighbors to collaborate in the effort and somebody might get hurt in the process, but first someone has to speak out about it. Mr. Assange has done that on your behalf. Stand beside him.

He did it for the whole world actually. We needed a slap. And as to whether or not someone "inside the government" helped? I don't believe it matters, because whoever did it was apparently doing it for the right reasons too.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Assange just yesterday on Freedom Watch (search "Assange Freedom Watch" in Youtube) said he actually is temporarily withholding 15,000 of the documents specifically because the classification ranking indicating they may put service personnel at risk if they are released immediately.

Therefore, this military guy is simply ignorant of the facts. Assange clearly does take into account that releasing classified information can sometimes lead to negative consequences.

Its nothing more than a cringing reaction to the fact their security systems didn't work.

reply to post by truthquest

Yes he does say he withheld 15,000 docs. I linked to that interview in the OP.

He also said they pretty thoroughly vetted the documents that were released. A few names slipped, which is unfortunate, and then to deflect from that he says they went to the "White House" to ask for help in reviewing the docs. They later say it was the NYTimes who did it. Er right. I'm not at all convinced about who went to who or when or how it was asked. That story hasn't been substantiated to my knowledge.

if you think assange did anything for you or the world you are delusional

deny this if you want to but hes like every other so called " journalist", reporter or whatever title you want to give-self serving.

hes done everything for himself and noone else.

hes a piece of anti us anti war trash and nothing else.

Oh no, Wikileaks exposed the criminal activity of a criminal government and now that government looks bad. If you don't want to jeopardize the safety of your people by having that kind of information exposed, perhaps don't commit the acts which put into existence that kind of information.

Release it all and if it puts service people at risk, it's not the fault of the person who releases the information, it's the fault of the government who perpetrated the acts within the documents.

And why is that big turd isn't in jail FOR IRAN-CONTRA yet?

Ah yes, big corrupt scum like him don't follow laws, but we, the little people, must...

I get it now.

What he did was morally wrong, but the government's war is not morally wrong.

Somehow, I'm not seeing the logic here.

If, at least, the government came forward and told the country why they wer REALLY at war with Iraq and Afghanistan......

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I think the government is morally guilty for not releasing these documents with the names of the people in jeopardy crossed out. After-all this is why we have Freedom of Information requests for. Except these documents are classified to cover-up the real truth about the wars.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Yeah sure, its Wikileaks who are morally guilty, not the government that shoved us into these two wars and then kept 90,000 pages of information secret

Talk about shooting the messenger.

Yeah, who needs truth when we have weapons of mass destruction?


The US killing lists is being used in a witchhunt.

I for one don't like that. That's not righteous.

Related. I don't think any of them should be bringing morality into it, it's pretty clear who's wrong on that side.

reply to post by Baldur

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


reply to post by DontTreadOnMe

Excellent points. One of those things that makes you shake your head, and say hmmm. Bringing morals into this at all is just...odd. Hypocrisy is fun.

[edit on 8/1/2010 by ~Lucidity]

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
He did it for the whole world actually. We needed a slap. And as to whether or not someone "inside the government" helped? I don't believe it matters, because whoever did it was apparently doing it for the right reasons too.

Maybe you should have added "in my opinion" to your post.

You might need a slap but I don't think "we needed a slap" is completely accurate.

You don't believe it matters as to whether or not someone inside the government helped? because it was done for the right reasons?

At this time, I have no opinion to the OP, but I do have a problem when someone says it doesn't matter whether or not someone inside the government helped, that it was for the right reasons.
IMO please.

If Wiki Leaks is morally guilty for posting that information, then aren't we ALL also morally guilty of the same thing for reading the leaked documents? Or at least wanting to read them?

If that is true, then aren't we all also completely morally guilty for reading a newspaper that is written by investigative reporters who "obtain" information in much the same way? From confidential sources.

That is all this is. A news story from confidential sources. If the printer is guilty, then so should be the readers. And so should all other "true" news sources out there.

The problem with this one, is that TPTB can't control the story, like they can with CNN and others.

Don't we search for truth here on ATS? We are being given at least some of the truth through Wiki Leaks, and now it is wrong. I don't get that concept at all.

Here we have documents leaked and in leaking those document we have informants exposed and their lives in danger.

When WL and Assange attempted to contact the US government for help in a damage mitigation process, the government ignored them. Ultimately, the soldiers will probably have to take these informants and their families into protective custody.

"The ability to knit together what is seemingly information that may not be related and then to take advantage of it, I think it's, you know, it's irresponsible and could very well potentially end up in the loss of lives,"

The same ability is used by news reporters, statisticians, academics and bloggers to correlate, extrapolate and organize information. These techniques could be used by the insurgents tactically but not to any great effect, the best you could get out of it was indications of patterns, but even then it's up to the Mil to change their tactics because the current ones aren't working.

I see a pattern here. You seem (imo) to be very opinionated to anyone who might have morals. (note: I do not think the government ever had morals and for them and possibly you Luc to discuss "morals" IS hypocrisy to it's core!

I'll just reply to this as if it was addressed to my beliefs too, since you quoted me. Morals are relative and your moral system can be derived from any culture, belief system or philosophy. But I think invading a country much smaller and less technically adept than yours simply because (a small group of extremists allegedly attacked your country/oil/paranoia/bush) is completely out of order. Most of the rest of the world agrees with this much. Moving to the leak itself, is it not in the interest of the greater good that we have transparency to see what is being done in our name? ESPECIALLY SINCE every US contractor/soldier had access to all this information anyway, note it was the lowest level of classification - NOFORN. Assange can make much better arguments about this than I can, though.

Just had to.