Laying in bed, squinting blurry-eyed at the little screen, I thumbed down to post a comment on the article, only to discover I was the 200th+ (I got tired of counting) person to weigh in.

How poetic: people posting anonymous comments to argue freedom of speech versus the merits of secrecy.

The debate boils down to whether or not total freedom of speech (information) is acceptable. Liberal commenters are saying yes, acceptable and very necessary. Conservatives are saying it’s absolutely irresponsible to hand our military secrets to the enemy.

For the record, I side with comments like these:

I can´t believe how dangerously simpleminded the comments are, shouting treason, lives in danger and whatnot.
1) Do you really, actually believe for one second, that anything that reached a bloody website has not been available (for a long time) to professional sources, spy, counterspy, etc. etc. agencies? C´mon…
2) Not only is this dated technology, but even the current technology is dated, and whatever technology is really in use atm, wont even be known to anything close to a public source for years. It´s always been like that, and the fact that some of it appears on a website, even wikileaks, wont change that.
3)Yes. Information SHOULD be free. With all the crap that appears in the news nowadays, with all the crap that is shown by the media (censored, guided, and terribly biased), this is actually quite refreshing. It´s a clear sign how much hypocrisy still exists. Everyone goes around screaming, that they want the facts, the truth and nothing but the truth, but as soon as anything unrelated to hollywoods latest drama appears, those very same people scream bloody murder. Yes. I mean you people. Get real, information is NOT free, information is controlled, biased and released James-Bond-style on a need-to-know-basis. This broke the established pattern, as so many of you always wanted and claimed, and your first response is “treason”?
Look, I like the USA, as much as I do Germany, Japan and the entire lot. But not because of their “guiding to the light” (and btw. you are a true idiot for even writing that. The war in Iraq was STARTED by USA, everything else is just a crappy excuse, and you know it), but because those countries are responsible for most of the last and this centuries technical and scientific advances. That´s where the stuff that makes my life interesting was born, grown, nourished, explored, expanded, applied and ultimately, brought to me. That´s what´s so grand about the USA and all other countries responsible for it. Not the war. Not their irritating blindness to any and all human rights out and inside their own countries. And most certainly not their dated jamming technologies.
Damn, it really bugs me to see so many, otherwise intelligent people talk like morons.
H. von Karkas
Posted by: von karkas | Dec 19, 2008 4:59:13 AM

Because I believe the release of any information, no matter how important or unimportant, is TRIVIAL, and therefore does not matter. For example, people assume that this information was released by an American Soldier, or someone who had this information. So if it was released by an Iraqi, or acquired through intelligence gathering techniques, or by whatever method, would you applaud his ingenuity or would you call him a dirty underhanded raghead for stealing information? The point is Wikileaks does not support American interests, it supports all peoples interests. And to the person saying I’m a nihilist, though a well thought out argument and inventive, I define myself as Cosmopolitan, though sidestepping the philosophical ?, I support mankind, not America, not Iraq, but Man, and wikileaks I feel is good, because if this information allows Iraqi Citizens, non-combatants, to duplicate the technology, that’s a good reason for it to be widely available. Just because you presume it was for people to use against us, doesn’t mean that was the intent of it’s release. That’s where the author of this article made a mistake, in presuming this was released as sensitive material, with intent as to what on Wikileaks part. Everyone in this thread can only see the downsides to its release, and none look to the potential positives, thus furthering the point that none here, or anywhere, are truly qualified to judge. I make my points, and I will never make any of you understand mine, those who do will agree or disagree for a variety of reasons, and so perhaps I am a troll for wanting to put forth my opinion, but honestly I feel this opinion, needs a voice, as too many people are often nihilistic about it and do not care, as they expect most people to be like the people here, and to cut down, calls for treason & disloyalty, unpatriotic, whatever. All of you love to voice your own opinion, which I have disagreed with but never said you cannot have, while most all here, would gladly shut me up if they had the means.
Posted by: RJ | Dec 18, 2008 6:24:10 PM

That word there, Cosmopolitan. I like that word a lot. Not American, not Iraqi, Korean or Somalian. We are citizens of one community, one giant, planet-wide city. We cannot pick and chose sides based on histories and borders, because these things don’t divide us anymore. It’s time to deal with the global community we have inherited, and stop acting like little kids with a piece of tape dividing our bedroom.

But then I also worry about my friends dying in Iraq, and the backlash of thousands of hateful simpletons spewing terrorism of their own.

Comments like this really upset me:

Member of the new, young, America-hating left. Bank on it.
Posted by: Fred Tucker | Dec 18, 2008 10:24:34 PM

I don’t hate America. I just love everyone. I love you, Fred Tucker.

Anything a liberal can do to kill American troops and hurt our nation. We can look forward to four years of this.
Posted by: JoeS | Dec 18, 2008 6:59:12 PM

In the past four years thousands of American troops have died in a war started over misinformation. Maybe if Wikileaks had published an Iraqi leak of their classified WMD locations, we could have skipped this war in the first place. Also, since Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president ever, it’s doubtful liberals could do worse.

Trading soldier’s blood for left wing ideology.
Posted by: John R | Dec 19, 2008 5:24:27 AM

Soldiers’ blood is spilled for ideology every day - isn’t that the definition of war? Blaming others will not change the fact that people are dying in wars run by secrets, and people will continue to die for secrets as long information warfare continues.

IMG00022.jpg, originally uploaded by three sad tigers.

On my ride-bumming trek home for Thanksgiving, I stopped in at my Dad’s office. My father works in Wildlife Management.

Throughout his offices are taxidermied wildlife like this pig. Someone has decorated all the preserved corpses for the holiday season.

What you cannot see in this picture is the deer head (or was it a bear?) on the wall behind, me wearing an earflap hat. How festive.

This is a wordpress blog posted by blackberry pearl from the Cleveland RTA number 26.

Because, apparently, I can.

Here is my favorite definition of racism - “the belief that human races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures.”

I try to not be racist. It’s not that I don’t notice the color of people’s skin, because I do. I am very light, and some people are very dark, and it’s hard not to notice.

But I try to remember that people do not come pre-programmed according to their skin tone. White people can be druglord murderers, gangsters, welfare queens. (I see this all the time in Cleveland.) Black people can be respected leaders. (Romeo Crennel, anybody? Come on…)

I think most people can agree that a human’s outcome is determined more by their personal history and psychological frame of reference than by their “race.”

What’s race, anyway? It is easy for me to ask this, because I am from the United States and our big melting pot means that very few people are 100% anything. I am German immigrant, English colonist, French immigrant, and supposedly a small % Native American. It gets pretty difficult to think of stereotypes for all the combinations you can find here. I laugh when the media gets caught up on black vs. white and forgets to mention Native Americans, or Central & South American immigrants, and I hear Asians have their own systems of racism, some countries being better than others…

We’re all human. It’s silly anymore. Hasn’t globalization taught us anything yet?

Anyway, since racism has been a special issue for this election, I’ve read a lot of interesting articles about it lately. Frank Rick just wrote a great editorial called “In Defense of White Americans.” It’s OK to laugh at the title - the article focuses on the McCain/Palin blunder of describing parts of the country as more American than others. Here’s the excellent conclusion:

Well, there are racists in western Pennsylvania, as there are in most pockets of our country. But despite the months-long drumbeat of punditry to the contrary, there are not and have never been enough racists in 2008 to flip this election. In the latest New York Times/CBS News and Pew national polls, Obama is now pulling even with McCain among white men, a feat accomplished by no Democratic presidential candidate in three decades, Bill Clinton included. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds age doing more damage to McCain than race to Obama.

Nor is America’s remaining racism all that it once was, or that the McCain camp has been hoping for it to be. There are even “racists for Obama,” as Politico labels the phenomenon: White Americans whose distrust of black people in general crumbles when they actually get to know specific black people, including a presidential candidate who extends a genuine helping hand in a time of national crisis.

The original “racist for Obama,” after all, was none other than Obama’s own white, Kansas-raised grandmother, the gravely ill Madelyn Dunham, whom he visited in Hawaiion Friday. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama wrote of how shaken he was when he learned of her overwhelming fear of black men on the street. But he weighed that reality against his unshakeable love for her and hers for him, and he got past it.

When Obama cited her in his speech on race last spring, the right immediately accused him of “throwing his grandmother under the bus.” But Obama’s critics were merely projecting their own racial hang-ups. He still loves his grandmother. He was merely speaking candidly and generously — like an adult — about the strange, complex and ever-changing racial dynamics of America. He hit a chord because many of us have had white relatives of our own like his, and we, too, see them in full and often love them anyway.

Such human nuances are lost on conservative warriors of the Allen-McCain-Palin ilk. They see all Americans as only white or black, as either us or them. The dirty little secret of such divisive politicians has always been that their rage toward the Others is exceeded only by their cynical conviction that Real Americans are a benighted bunch of easily manipulated bigots. This seems to be the election year when voters in most of our myriad Americas are figuring that out.

Bravo. Don’t forget to vote.

—here there be englysh—

I just translated a few short phrases for the phone systems at Quantum Health. Quantum is a company in Columbus OH who I worked for last summer as a translator for their benefits program presentation. A year later and I am again making some extra money with my Spanish. It makes me happy - this was my plan in college.

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Si no se puede ver el video, haz cliq aquí.

Yo ya estoy hasta la madre
de que me pongan sombrero
escucha entonces cuando digo
no me llames frijolero.

Y aunque exista algún respeto
y no metamos las narices
nunca inflamos la moneda
haciendo guerra a otros países.

Te pagamos con petróleo
e intereses nuestra deuda
mientras tanto no sabemos
quien se queda con la feria.

Aunque nos hagan la fama
de que somos vendedores
de la droga que sembramos
ustedes son consumidores.

Don’t call me gringo,
You fuckin beaner
stay on your side
of that goddamn river
don’t call me gringo,
You beaner.

No me digas beaner,
Mr. Puñetero
Te sacaré un susto
por racista y culero.
No me llames frijolero,
Pinche gringo puñetero.

Now I wish I had a dime
for every single time
I’ve gotten stared down
For being in the wrong side of town.

And a rich man I’d be
if I had that kind of chips
lately I wanna smack the mouths
of these racists.

Podrás imaginarte desde afuera,
ser un Mexicano cruzando la frontera,
pensando en tu familia mientras que pasas,
dejando todo lo que conoces atrás.

Si tuvieras tú que esquivar las balas
de unos cuantos gringos rancheros
Las seguirás diciendo good for nothing wetback?
si tuvieras tú que empezar de cero.

Now why don’t you look down
to where your feet is planted
That U.S. soil that makes you take shit for granted
If not for Santa Ana, just to let you know
That where your feet are planted would be Mexico
Correcto!