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Brad/Chelsea Manning: Charged w/AFG file leak, Cdn angles, disposition (merged)

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British fury as Wikileaks publishes the 90,000 top secret files that expose the horrific civilian cost of Afghan war By Katherine Faulkner

White House slams leak as 'irresponsible' 16 children killed in error by British troops  Special forces 'black' unit hunts down Taliban leaders  French troops shot at a bus full of school children Polish troops killed wedding party in mortar attack Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles 

A massive file of secret military documents revealing chilling details of the Afghanistan war and civilian deaths have been leaked to a whistle-blowing website.  In one of the biggest leaks in military history, 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence about the conflict were passed to Wikileaks.  And in a disclosure which has enraged the White House, the website has published the documents and handed the files over in full to three national newspapers in three different countries.
 
The secret documents suggest that coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in incidents that have never been reported.
They include claims that 16 children were among the civilians shot or bombed in error by British troops.  They also reveal  how a secret 'black' unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for 'kill or capture' without trial.  And how the U.S. covered up evidence the Taliban had acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.  Other disclosures include how the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets.  And how the Taliban has escalated its roadside bombing campaign which has claimed 2,000 lives to date.

SO WHO LEAKED THE DOCUMENTS?
U.S. government agencies have been bracing for the release of thousands more classified documents since the leak of a classified helicopter cockpit video of a 2007 firefight in Baghdad.  That leak was blamed on a U.S. Army intelligence analyst working in Iraq.
Spc Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was arrested in Iraq and charged earlier this month with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data, after a former hacker turned him in.  Manning had bragged to the hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he had downloaded 260,000 classified or sensitive U.S. State Department cables and transmitted them by computer to Wikileaks.org.
Mr Lamo turned Manning in to U.S. authorities, saying he could not live with the thought that those released documents might get someone killed.

The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks but Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has flatly refused to meet with U.S. intelligence agencies to help them find the culprit.  And he has also refused to discuss how he obtained the Afghanistan files published today.  But suspicions are already centring again on Sgt Manning.  Speaking to The Daily Beast, Mr Lamo said he believed Sgt Manning was behind today's leak also - but added that he could not have been working alone.

The documents detail coalition troops shooting unarmed drivers and civilian motorcyclists because they are terrified that they could be Taliban suicide bombers.  In one incident never before reported, French troops shot at a bus full of children because it had come too close to a military convoy.  Eight children were wounded in the attack, which took place in the village of Tangi Kalay, near Kabul, in 2008.  Other reports record how a U.S. patrol machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers.
And they show how Polish troops mortared a village in 2007, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in what was apparently a revenge attack.

The White House has condemned the leak and claimed that the publication of details from the secret documents could put lives at risk.  'We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information, which puts the lives of the U.S. and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security,' a U.S. Government spokesman told the Guardian newspaper, which published the files.
'Wikileaks made no effort to contact the U.S. government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who cooperate with us.'.....

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297644/Wikileaks-publishes-90-000-documents-Afghan-war.html#ixzz0umcLz9cB
 
Just waking up to this news.  ??? pretty alarming news.. No surprise the wikileaks site is down due to high traffic..

EDIT to add:  there is a video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10758578 from the Guardian newspaper Nick Davies explaining their process of vetting material and only dealing with restricted level material.  All I can say is how incredibly ignorant and this act is nothing short of malicious!  It shall be interesting to see what security offences investigations spin out from this..
:pop:
 
The soldier that leaked this material is under arrest in theater. SPC Manning leaked Dept of State cables and the video of a gunship killing insurgents in Iraq. The video had been edited by WikiLeaks to make it look like the aircrew had killed civilians. He had too much unsupervised time on his hands in Afghanistan.
 
An unnamed source has leaked over 90000 military documents to US, British and German newspapers and sent them to a web site dedicated to leaked documents. 


ATO allies fear fallout of leaked Afghan war docs

CTV.ca News Staff
 
Updated: Mon. Jul. 26 2010 11:59 AM ET
Several European NATO members have expressed concern that the fallout from a massive online leak of confidential U.S. documents on the Afghan war could extend well beyond the Internet -- and could even affect the war itself.
The U.S. records cover six years of the war in Afghanistan, including previously unknown accounts of civilian deaths and targeted attacks on Taliban members.
"A lot of it is mundane, but a lot of it is also very serious, on-the-ground, battlefield reports about the situation in the war, and right now it doesn't seem like it is matching the narrative that is coming out of the Pentagon," freelance journalist Tom Popyk told CTV's Canada AM during an interview in Toronto on Monday morning.
Some reports, for example, reveal that the Taliban "apparently have surface-to-air missiles, which contradicts everything we've heard from the Pentagon about the kind of weaponry that's being seen in the field," said Popyk, who has reported in Afghanistan in the past.
So far, NATO has declined comment on the release of the U.S. documents. But representatives from NATO member countries say they hope the leaks do not pose problems for the current war effort.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned that "backlashes" could result from the 91,000 U.S. military documents posted online by the WikiLeaks organization on Sunday.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that with recent progress being made in Afghanistan, he hoped "any such leaks will not poison that atmosphere."
"We are working hard with our allies on improving security on the ground and increasing ... the capacity of the Afghan government, so we are not going to spend our time looking at leaks," Hague said Monday before attending a European Union meeting.
Another EU official told The Associated Press that the organization "wants to stay as far from this as possible."
In Washington, White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones said the leaks "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk." The Associated Press has reported that the Obama administration is unsure who leaked the documents to WikiLeaks.
In Kabul, the Afghan government said it was "shocked" by the release of the documents, while arguing that much of the information was not new.
Canadian references
In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters that the Canadian government is concerned that "operational leaks could endanger the lives of our men and women in Afghanistan."
When questioned about a leaked report that suggested a Canadian was among the casualties in a helicopter that was brought down by a heat-seeking missile, Cannon said that any incidents involving Canadian military members are handled by "the investigative arm of the Canadian Forces."
Another leaked report indicated that the U.S. wanted Canada to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and South Africa, two countries where the Americans believed Taliban fundraising was taking place.
The leaked documents were posted to the web on Sunday, though they had been given to The New York Times, London's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel in advance of their online publication.
Most of the documents are considered "raw intelligence" reports collected by junior officers that are then passed on to analysts for further review.
Some of the more sensational revelations stemmed from reports that Pakistan's intelligence service was working with the Afghan insurgency, according to the Times report.
On Monday, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency said the accusations that it had close links to the Taliban were false.
And on Sunday, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., said the documents posted by WikiLeaks "do not reflect the current on-ground realities."
Haqqani also said Pakistan is jointly working with the U.S. and Afghanistan, "to defeat al Qaeda and its Taliban allies militarily and politically."
In London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters that the leaked documents show evidence of war crimes, though "it is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime. That said … there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material."
Assange said WikiLeaks has access to another 15,000 Afghan files, though they are currently being vetted by the organization.
With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press

This is bad and might get a lot worse...and if they find the source of the leak, getting charged with treason is probably the least of his worries!

 
RHC_2_MP said:
and if they find the source of the leak, getting charged with treason is probably the least of his worries!

They've already found the source of the leak. Step on up SPC Bradley Manning.
 
Some of these do highlight the unfortuante affinity to stamp anything and everything with a "SECRET" label.  Many, perhaps, should have been labeled "EMBARASSING" instead - such as the orphanage without orphans.

Stricter control over information classification and designation makes it easier to control information and makes security precautions easier to enforce; when everything is secret, little gets treated seriously.
 
Having read what the media is telling us about this load of released info I haven't read anything that changes my overall opinion on how things are going in Afghanistan.
Also the situation on the ground has changed, American troop levels and commitment, to the extent that most of the info is historical.
 
Read some of the reports and the few I've read are pretty insignificant; reports on enemy/friendly action for example. However, there are some that are interesting. Here is one report that mentions various suicide attacks that resulted in not only a large number of civilian casualties, but also an attack against three Canadian Coyotes that result in one vehicle overturning (due to loss of visibility) and three slightly injured soldiers. An extract:

Witness statements from the patrol described a dark blue 4 x 4 SUV vehicle similar to a Suzuki Sidekick (comparatively identified) exploding after being passed by a Canadian patrol mounted in Coyote armored vehicles (C/S 62).  The patrol consisted of three Coyote vehicles with the SUV detonating between the first and second Coyote vehicles.  It is established that the first Coyote (C/S 62F) in Order of March (OOM) was the target and received light damage (punctured tire).  The second Coyote (C/S 62D) in OOM traveled through the blast for a further 60 m before leaving the road at a culvert/ditch and rolling completely on to the turret (MK).  No obvious blast damage was apparent on the vehicle and it was verified that the driver lost visibility of the road due to the smoke, dust and debris from the detonation. The third Coyote (C/S 62C) in OOM received no damage.  CF received three WIA (minor injuries). 

 
Probably deserves its own thread, but mods, feel free to merge. Hadn't seen this one brought out yet.

OTTAWA - The mother of a Canadian soldier killed by insurgents in Afghanistan says a leaked document suggesting that her son was in fact killed in a friendly-fire incident is wrong.

The report, one of thousands of U.S. secret documents posted on the WikiLeaks whistle-blower website, suggests four Canadian soldiers, reported killed in fighting in Panjwaii district on Sept. 3, 2006, were in fact killed by a NATO bomb.

Sgt. Shane Stachnik, Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish, Pte. William Cushley and Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan, were killed during the opening phase of the Canadian-led battle Operation Medusa.

Stachnik's mother, Avril, said in an interview from her home in Waskatenau, Alta., that she is absolutely positive that her son was killed in action, by the Taliban.

"The vehicle that he was in was hit by an RPG — that's a rocket-propelled grenade — and some of the shrapnel from it hit the turret and some of the shrapnel from the turret hit him in the neck. He bled to death."

She said that's what the Department of Defence told her, and that's what she believes.


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/840583--dnd-families-of-dead-soldiers-say-leaked-friendly-fire-report-is-wrong
 
40below said:
Probably deserves its own thread, but mods, feel free to merge. Hadn't seen this one brought out yet.

OTTAWA - The mother of a Canadian soldier killed by insurgents in Afghanistan says a leaked document suggesting that her son was in fact killed in a friendly-fire incident is wrong.

The report, one of thousands of U.S. secret documents posted on the WikiLeaks whistle-blower website, suggests four Canadian soldiers, reported killed in fighting in Panjwaii district on Sept. 3, 2006, were in fact killed by a NATO bomb.

Sgt. Shane Stachnik, Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish, Pte. William Cushley and Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan, were killed during the opening phase of the Canadian-led battle Operation Medusa.

Stachnik's mother, Avril, said in an interview from her home in Waskatenau, Alta., that she is absolutely positive that her son was killed in action, by the Taliban.

"The vehicle that he was in was hit by an RPG — that's a rocket-propelled grenade — and some of the shrapnel from it hit the turret and some of the shrapnel from the turret hit him in the neck. He bled to death."

She said that's what the Department of Defence told her, and that's what she believes.


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/840583--dnd-families-of-dead-soldiers-say-leaked-friendly-fire-report-is-wrong


That would have to be some bomb, so TOP SECRET that knowledge of it now should throw the fear of God into any enemy.  A bomb like this, that could explode four times, in four different locations, at four different times, to kill four men would be right out of a Science Fiction movie. 
 
Fantastic analysis, George, your usual standard. The thread is richer for your contribution.

"Frank was standing on one side of Sergeant Major Barnes and Will Cushley was standing behind him, behind what -- I don't know what the military calls it but -- what we'd call a front-end motor, and the Taliban insurgent or whatever you want to call them popped up out of a building and fired a 50-cal rifle at it and the schrapnel killed both Frank and Will Cushley.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Canadian+deaths+have+been+friendly+fire+WikiLeaks+file/3325426/story.html#ixzz0usrP7XlD

If you are unfamiliar with how 'bombs' work, PM me, I'll try to explain.
 
40below

Obviously you missed the point of my post.  It was ref your post that these mem were killed by "one NATO bomb" in a Blue on Blue engagement.  But if you want to PM me with how a bomb works, feel free.  ::)
 
I don't even know where to begin....

There are many many members of Charles Company who were there who are contacting media reps as we speak and trying to go through official channels to sort this out, I am one of them.

40below said:
Fantastic analysis, George, your usual standard. The thread is richer for your contribution.
"Frank was standing on one side of Sergeant Major Barnes and Will Cushley was standing behind him, behind what -- I don't know what the military calls it but -- what we'd call a front-end motor, and the Taliban insurgent or whatever you want to call them popped up out of a building and fired a 50-cal rifle at it and the schrapnel killed both Frank and Will Cushley.

Next I will address this, It was in fact a Spig 9 82MM Anti Tank gun.... I know this because a .50 cal rifle does not have the effect that the weapon that hit the Zedlemyer did, which was to penetrate the Zed and blow a section of guys and wounded men being cared for at a CCP all over the places while killing two and seriously wounding others. I know I am one of the guys that almost died at the Zed. I make it a mission of mine to ensure that story is told properly Frank and Will deserve it.


Now Shane died pretty much as his mother says I was the person who treated him and the wounded members of his vehicle, His wounds were substantial and there was nothing anyone could have done. Rick took and RPG blast to his torso again nothing anyone could have done. The JDAM did nothing it never exploded it was a dud. All it did was cause my OC to have to redeploy his troops away from the bomb and make a new plan on the fly that is all.

Any reporters who read this wish to contact me please do so I will gladly set any and all records straight about the events that unfolded that day!


Further to what GW said all these events happened hundreds of meters from eachother only 2 of them were in close proximaty and that was Frank and Will at the CCP.
 
George Wallace said:
40below

Obviously you missed the point of my post.  It was ref your post that these mem were killed by "one NATO bomb" in a Blue on Blue engagement.  But if you want to PM me with how a bomb works, feel free.  ::)

I posted a link to the article, George, I make no claims for its accuracy. You jumped in with a sneering remark claiming these men were killed in four different locations at four different times by some miracle bomb (that also wounded four other pers and a terp.) The facts show they were together and it happened in the same incident.
 
This is the perfect demonstration of the danger of reaching conclusions on the basis of a single document (or 90,000 of them - which for the duration of the AFGH mission is still an insignificant subset of the paper generated.) without making a full and complete inquiry into the facts.

The operation was carried out on the ground by Canadian forces, not American, and the air support was from NATO, thus likely US. That a US recorder away from the scene of action may have concluded from near simultaneous reports of the successful bombing run and Canadian casualties that it was a Blue on Blue is not in and itself a significant discrepancy in the "fog of war".

However I have no reason whatever to doubt that DND took proper reports on the events from all those involved , reached the proper conclusions, and advised the families accordingly. So rest in peace Sgt Stachnick, WO Mellish, Pte Cushley and WO Nolan, as the heroes you truly are. 

 
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