In a Wikileaks world, what exactly are we learning that history buffs didn’t know already?

“Targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, executions, checkpoint killings; these are the small but relentless tragedies of this war that these logs reveal in unprecedented detail,” says Professor Sloboda of Iraq Body Count, describing the recent Iraq document dump by Wikileaks.

Upon hearing about the Wikileaks dumps, call me naive or call me a pragmatist, but definitely call me . . .not shocked. The reality of war is that it’s ugly. I don’t even have to subject myself to hours of Vietnam and WWII documentaries to know that. A few Mel Gibson movies, perhaps with a sprinkle of James Cameron, and war does not look like something I would tell my kids about in great detail before bed.

Actually, my kids will probably handle war stories better than I would thanks to Medal of Honor, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil and the rest of the video game series world that captures violence and death as entertainment from a first-person perspective. But I digress.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, apparently sees himself as some sort of ultimate journalist, fighting for truth at his own personal expense. What I don’t understand is: What exactly is his goal?
Think about this. He wants everyone to know everything in the hope that . . .no one will hide anything anymore? Then, if everyone knows everything, what happens? We suddenly realize that people die horrible deaths during war and we’ll all hold hands and sing for peace?

Just a minute while I compose myself after laughing so hard.

Actually, I think that the more reality comes out, the more unavoidable it all will seem to be, and people will grow desensitized to the information. For one, Americans will never stop fighting for their causes. We won’t stand for watching our people, our homeland and our interests being attacked without some repercussion to follow. With the enemies that we face in today’s world, assassinations and drive-by shootings seem almost humane compared to the horrors inflicted on our people. Remember, we are the good guys, no matter how anyone wants to try to twist that.

Besides desensitizing people to information they didn’t want to hear (which is partially why they block it out to begin with), Julian’s peeps are also accomplishing another goal: Turning the next generation against them and future “whistleblowers” that may have better intentions. Maybe there’s some kind of brain circuitry twist-up that is blocking this coming reality, but here are a few anger points to consider:

1) People are going to die because of this information getting out. That’s people that were working on our side, not the enemies’. If that information would have been useful for our purposes, we would have released it ourselves.

2) Our mission is going to become even more difficult because of this information getting out. Helping Americans is always done at high personal risk in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the biggest struggles we’ve faced is getting them to trust us. Even if they trust us, they can’t trust what might happen down the road. They can’t trust that some prick won’t release their name to the enemy and lose their heads over it.

3) Our troops are going to be kept away from their families because of this information getting out. The longer and harder it is to fight these wars, the longer it takes our troops to do their jobs, and the longer it takes for them to come home. After points (1) and (2), drugged-up trainees are no longer the largest source of frustration for setting up Afghan and Iraqi security forces. Some blond jerkoff is. And I say “blond” with great pain in my voice.

The information assessed from these documents thus far doesn’t reveal information that will make a damn bit of difference, in the long term, with respect to how wars will be fought and what mistakes will be made while they are being fought. They are going to have short-term hindrances, piss a bunch of people off and hopefully have some people prosecuted for treason. There are some media types who will try to gather broader meaning about Americans and their pursuits from it, but any serious scrutiny will reveal that we’re still the good guys, and we still want them fighting for us rather than not.

In the end Julian, you’re not an angel. You’re just an asshole.

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