Wikileaks: Latest US Death Squad Operations Manual

Mushroom, et al,

I agree. But it might sound like good analysis for those with no familiarity with either Special Operations or COIN.

(COMMENT)

I generally ask people to take a breath when they tell me what they read in WikiLeaks.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

I see nothing wrong with the information that wikileaks provides as in the Afghan war logs,Iraq war logs and the various other original documents they have released. When you cut through the obviously biased forward it boils down to real legit info that they do release.

 

The problem is actually not as much the content of what WikiLeaks releases, but the absolutely horrid analysis of that content.

Mr. Assange is not a military expert. He is a hacker and programmer who became a political activist. And his history is rather interesting.

His mother was paranoid, and was convinved a former lover was stalking her. She moved young Julian at least 35 times before he reached the age of 16.

In 1991, he was convicted of 25 counts of hacking. After his conviction, he had himself admitted to a mental hospital.

In 1999 (after an ugly child custody case), he created a database in which the intent was to make available to the public all confidential records related to child custody issues.

He has no permanent address (during his UK arrest, he was held without bail because he insisted his release address was a postoffice box). And he has constantly moved from country to country, including Australia, UK, Sweeden, Tanzania, Belguim, Iceland, and other nations. He states he is always on the move because the "US and other governments" are persuing him and have him under constant surveilence.

When he travels, he only takes with him a backpack that contains multiple cell phones, hard drives, and a large sock collection.

This guy is rather a nutcase, who seems to have inherited his mother's paranoia.

And for those that have not read the book he was involved in a few years ago, it is available online. Reading it is rather interesting, and it is full of shady characters, Secret Service tracking and observations of individuals, and lots of other paranoia.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...zQtYzQ4YmFjMDAxYmQ0&hl=en_GB&authkey=CKqV2ZwL

 

In 1944, would it have been just as legitimate to announce to the world the upcomming D-day invasion plans? Would it be legitimate to announce to the world during the Korean War that the US was about to conduct an amphibious assault on a beach that was unprotected because it was assumed to be unattackable?

I have no problem if classified information leaked falls under the "Whistleblower" classification. And contains information of an illegal nature and the leak is done to uncover this illegality. Mr. Assange however has a clinical obsession with releasing any kind of "secrets" he can get his hands on. Much like the mathmetician from the movie "Sneakers", it is like his mantra is "No More Secrets".

And his information has gotten people killed, for no good reason other then he wanted to release the information. Yet his obsession with making everything public does not follow in his own life. And while he has been trying to obtain and release child custody records in Australia, he has fought to keep his own child custody records that relate to himself from being made public.

 

They have not released anything like that and I think you are trying to compare apples and oranges there.

They have released a lot of stuff that is of an illegal nature and not just about the American military. Anybody looking through their website can see information released on banks,illegal Canadian wiretaps,Cuba,internet censorship in Denmark,toxic dumping on the Ivory Coast and much more.

Prove this statement.

 

That may sound nice. However, a great many things they uncovered and released fall nowhere near what they claim it is for.

Like in 2008, they released the contents of Sarah Palin's email account. Of what purpose was that leaked, if not to simply embarass her?

Then there is the repeated public release of the members of the British National Party. This was done several times, yet the group was not doing anything illegal, they just had beliefs that Mr. Assange did not like.

Then in 2009 the British Government released a manual instructing how government departments can tighten their computer security to help prevent hacker attacks. This was released by WikiLeaks.

In 2009 they also released over half a million pager messages sent during the September 11 attacks. What was this in the advance of?

And of course that "web censorship" list. Of course, most of the websites listed as being censored were involved in child pornography.

And there was the release of the TSA "No Fly List". This serves absolutely no good, unless you are a potential terrorist and want to know if your name or the alias you want to use is on the list (my name is on that list in fact, an alias used by a Jordanian terrorist, this causes me an entire 5 minute ID check whenever I buy a ticket).

And of course the multiple leaks of manuals and other confidential documents over the years from the Church of Scientology.

As I said, if WikiLeaks concerned itself with leaking information that related to whistleblower content, like criminal activity, illegal collusion and the like, then I would support them. However, this has been shown over and over that this is simply not the case.

And whenever a group appears that Mr. Assange has a particular dislike for, they are suddenly under attack by him. When his first donation financial company refused to handle his donations any longer, he went to Bank of America. Then several months later BoA terminated his account for multiple cases of fraud, because of his consistant use of false addresses for his legl address. He then went on the attack against BoA, encouraging his supporting hackers to get as much information on them as possible.

Remember, I have nothing against legitimate whistleblowers. And many of the things they have released were important. However, a great deal of it was not, and was often done for political reasons or to cause hardship for Mr. Assange's "political rivals".

And his organization has had multiple defections. Among the biggest was Daniel Domscheit-Berg, one of the founders of WikiLeaks. He left after multiple battles with Mr. Assange about both the information leaked, the way it was leaked, and his self-agrandizing self written commentary on much of the information released (the "analysis" of this document is a great example of this). Mr. Domscheit-Berg has created OpenLeaks, which operates in a very different manner. And much more in keeping with a "Whistleblower" mentality.

This site accepts documents from "Whistleblowers", but this information is not available to the general public. Instead it is viewable to the media and other sourced, to be used as research material. These outlets (like news organizations) may then conduct research on the information, to determine if it is legitimate and of importance.

This is a much more responsible approach. A great deal of WL releases would never have seen the light of day under the OL philosophy, since it does not contain any kind of "whistleblower" material.

 

We backed El Slavadors violent government even as they where mudering American citizens.

The people in charge of these squads where graduates of the U.S. schools of America.

If we didnt train them to commit these attorcites.

Why did we, when we knew the miltiary regime was attacking journalist, nuns, and its own people, continue to graduate El Savadorian military personal up until 1992, during the 10 years of financially supporting this government desipte it's well known attorcites?

Why did the 7th special forces group train 55,000 men in El Salvador at the begining of the coupe while they the U.S. was commiting these crimes?

why is it nearly every violent coupe or military regime was supported by the U.S. and the U.S. activially trained and supported them during these acts of violence


We trained them well knowing what the type of government we where sending them home to.

 

Have you got any source for your claim that wikileaks releases have killed people or are you just repeating American government propaganda. I did ask you for some evidence,you replied to my other points but left out any evidence.

 

Well in my opinion Sarah Palin is a nutter who seeks publicity,she got some more. I personally do not think that releasing her email was a good thing but she put herself in the public arena so should expect to get knocked.

I am all for it. The BNP are Neo Nazis and racists to boot. Just because they have a nice sounding name does not take away from the fact they are scum.

Well I do not really agree with that.

Knowledge into a tragic event. I do not see anything wrong with that really.

You have picked the most extreme there to try and make a point like you used D-Day in your previous post. I see nothing wrong with releasing a web censorship list. You are trying to make a big deal out of it when it is not.

That could be a two sided story really,yes you have the terrorist side but you could also have people on that list that have done nothing wrong at all(we know this to be true from media reports). I am sure people would like to know if they have been placed on a list and have not done anything wrong.

I am all for that. See nothing wrong with it at all. I do not like secret religious organisation.

They do that,that is what they are best known for. They have discovered plenty of illegal activity.

They did not terminate his account for multiple cases of fraud,they closed it like the other banks and CC firms etc because the US government told them to.

Very important. The greatest release of information ever in the world. they are legit whistleblowers.

Personality clashes and personal choice on what to release led to a break up. No big deal really.

Pretty bad format then. That is called censorship not whistleblowing. All that guy is doing is letting the main stream media decide what the public can and cannot see. We have got that now so no change there and as we know the main stream media mostly just repeat what governments say and we know that governments lie all the time.

 

By the way, it is the School of America. And I myself attended it back in 1987.

The school itself was nothing sinister. It was a professional school that was primarily a professional development course for what was considered the best of Central and South American military leadership. More or less the top 10% of Latin American military officers (and senior enlisted) were offered the chance to take this course.

And it should not be a surprise that these would also often be the most aggressive types of individuals. After all, we are talking about military forces. And of course the nations would also tend to send those that were the most loyal to the government in power.

However, the majority of the graduates simply took the clases, then returned back home and served the remainder of their time in the military without any kind of "death squad" involvement whatsoever.

But trying to link SoA to "death squads" is hardly fair. I can make the same kind of connection to almost anything else. After all, almost every individual involved in law enforcement attended a training academy. And there are a percentage of officers who themselves violated the law, planting evidence, killing individuals, coercing sexual favors in exchange for not arresting an individual, and accepting bribes.

So would it be fair for me to claim that things like these are taught at police academies?

Of course not. Ted Kaczynski was a professor at UC Berkley. Would it be fair for me to claim that UC Berkley teaches people to be terrorists? University of Michigan is the alumni of several murderers, including Ted Kaczynski, Dr. harvey Crippen, and serial killer Herman Holmes (confessed to 27 victims, may have killed as many as 200). However, I would never classify that institution as teaching killers.

 

Well, would you accept the word of Julian Assange himself? Or is that more "American government propaganda"?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan

And I can name at least one person in particular who was killed because of the WikiLeaks releases.

Khalifa Abdullah

After the release in 2010 of a list of informants that the US had in Afghanistan, the Taliban kidnapped and killed Khalifa Abdullah, a tribal elder who lived in the Kandahar Province.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/08/02/taliban-seeks-vengeance-in-wake-of-wikileaks.html

And a great many human rights organizations (including Amnesty International) have already called Mr. Assange to task for releasing the names of a large number of Afghan informants. And in the wake of these releases, Taliban executions of civilians sharply increased.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...80947722558.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESecondNews

So there you go. One reference directly from Mr. Assange himself. The other from Amnesty International, as well as Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict and the Open Society Institute. None of these has ever been acused of being an "American government propaganda" tool.

 

There is nothing in that article that says anybody has been killed bywhat wikileaks released and certainly nothing about Assange admitting as much. The only thing close to what you are looking for is a story in the Times that they mention about a guy who was on the list and is now dead but he was killed 2 years before wikileaks even released the info. Why did you even post this up as evidence? It is not.

Your report does not say he was on the list and it does not say he was killed for being on the list. It actually says this

While it is unknown whether any of the men were indeed named in the WikiLeaks documents, it’s clear the Taliban believes they have been cooperating with Western forces and the Afghan government

So again you have failed to provide any info for your claim.

You are taking parts of a story which say that civilians deaths are up in the first 7 months of the year to try and claim that this has something to do with Assange,it does not as these deaths happened before the files were released.You should really check the dates of these reports before posting. It is from 2010,the first 7 months of that year take you up to July 2010, wikileaks did not release the info until 25 July 2010. Your actual link story is from a few weeks after the release of the files but covers 7 months casualties. You have not done your research very well in your effort to prove what is American propaganda.

 

It does not matter if you like her or not, she has a right to her privacy. I object to this release, just as I would if it was President Obama, President Bush, Al Gore, or Mr. Assange himself.

Unless the emails were directly related to something criminal, they should not have been released. Period.

They may be such, I do not care. Unless the organization is some kind of criminal conspiracy, the members have a right to their privacy. What if I was to form a list of union supporters who worked for a manufacturing company and released it on the Internet? This might result in retaliation against these individuals, even though they are not doing anything illegal.

They may be scum, but unless they are breaking the law they have their right to privacy.

So you object to them releasing government security information, that is one thing at least.

Come on now, this is absolutely ghoulish.

And a great many of these messages should never have been released. They were of a personal nature, and had nothing to do directly with the attacks themselves, but the aftermath. Many were from companies telling their employees where to assemble after vacating the buildings. Others were to or from loved ones, and should not have been released:

This is Myrna, I will not rest until you get home, the second tower is down, I don't want to have to keep calling you after every event. Pls just go home

What reason should these be released? If I had gotten a personal message from somebody who later died in the attacks, I do not think I would want that on display for anybody else to read. That is personal between them and I, nobody else. Period.

If they had messages that might have related directly to the attacks, like from the terrorists to each other that is one thing. But this release was simply sick, and a gross violation of personal privacy.

I have not done anything wrong. My name is on the list because it is the alias of a known terrorist. That is all. Other then a single time (when I was flying from Kuwait to Dallas), the agent was able to simply check my ID, click a button on the computer, and away I went. Just because your name is on the "No Fly List", that does not mean you can not fly. All that means is that they check your identity more closely. Nothing more, nothing less.

And releasing it does nothing good. The list is not illegal, it is used internally for security purposes, and should never have been released.

Are they an illegal organization? Do you believe that any organizations should have no privacy? That their member lists and internal information should be open to the public?

Personally, I do not care for the Church of Scientology at all. I consider them to be a quack new age scam cult, founded by a hack b-grade pulp science fiction writer. But they are still entitled to their privacy if they are not breaking the law.

I do not want to drag this on forever, but basically I am seeing more of the same. You are picking and choosing what you think is alright, and a few things you object to.

I am a big believer of personal and professional privacy, as well as governmental confidentiality. I do not believe that anybody has the right to listen to your phone calls, read your mail, or search your house unless it is in relationship to something that is illegal.

If the Government had gone and read a person's email, or captured and released half a million pager messages a lot of people would be screaming bloody murder. I would be screaming bloody murder. But because it is WikiLeaks, for some reason a lot of people willingly give them a pass.

This is something I absolutely can't understand.

Either a person believes in personal privacy, or they do not. They can't logically go "Oh, I will fight to the death before the Government is allowed to monitor my text messages, but I have no problem if WikiLeaks releases the text messages of tens of thousands of other people".

I think this is the biggest difference I see between our arguments. You seem to have no problem with the release, unless it is something you personally dissagree with. I object to any of the releases, unless it relates directly to something illegal. And if I ever had personal information released by WikiLeaks, I would be sueing Mr. Assange and anybody else I could find connected with it for violation of my personal information.

Just as I would if it was the IRS, FBI, Social Security, the New York Times, or Fox News.

 

Personal privacy of public figures is a contradiction. If they want to be in the public eye especially politicians like Palin then the public has a right to know about them.Palin has put her private life in all the media,she even had her own tv program. The 9/11 messages are of historical importance,at least some of them are so I see no reason why they should not be released. I have not seen any stories in the media where they affected someones life.The BNP are full of criminal types,now you can come down on their side but I am thinking if you knew more about them then you would not. I do not object to wikileaks releasing government security info if it is in the public interest which most they have has been.People on no flight lists have a right to know they are there if they have done nothing wrong,not going to change my mind on that or secretive religious organisations.

Most of the stuff they have released has not been personal. In this new era of tech you should protect your own personal info anyway.

 

Well if you went to the Harverd school of law that doesnt mean you know what going on in Harverd department of physics. These people that attended the school did take courses like comando operactions, ect and we well knew how violent the regime was. The extent of what we taught them and what excatlly we'll probably never know.

My point is we supported the regime that was responsible for some of the most horrible attrocities in El Salvador. If the police academy was training officers who where joining a brutal police force, then wouldnt they be equally responsible? The special forces detachment and the school trained 10's of thousands of people over a peroid of 10 years who where apart of the most brutal and violent junta's in the country.

these wernt a few rotten egg's in a government body. The entire regime was rotten yet we fully suported them finically and miltiarly. We taught bad people how to be good at what they did.

 

So was everybody who served the government during that era evil? Every police officer, judge, and Private in the army, were they all murdering thugs?

This is the problem when people go around whitewashing an entire group. It may be political, national, religious, or racial. You can't just say "Oh look, this group is evil to me, so everybody in it is evil".

This is the kind of fear, paranoia and hatred that allows such hatreds to continue. And do not forget, we are talking about soemthign that was going on during a civil war. The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) was not some group of boyscouts hiding in the jungles. They were a strong Communist ogranization, which carried on an armed struggle with the El Salvadorian government. They had nearly the same number of people as the Government, and carries out brutal oppression and executions (excuse me, "purges") in the areas they controlled. And when they first rose up in the 1970's, assassinations of political figures was the norm in their operations. And they had the active support of Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union.

You are looking at that struggle entirely one sided. You look at the evils of the Government, and seem to totally forget that it was a Civil War, and both sides acted atrociously. The "Death Squads" were a government reaction to the fact that the FMLN was doing the exact same thing already, and had been for years. So they started to use the same tactics in return.

To me, both sides were wrong. But I no more blam the FMLN for the atrocities then I do the El Salvadorean government. It was the fault of the leadership of both organizations. Not the soldiers who were largely simply following orders.

 

Wrong. The CIA US Special Forces knowingly backed the military junta's death squads and government forces. Washington took command of the Salvadoran military and police (all were just standing death squads) after enormous gains by the rebels.

Washington had more control over the "bureaucracy of death" than the Salvadoran regime so they were effectively US government forces.

The New York Times reports:

Targeting civillians was the primary US strategy for the war..

The Associated Press Reports:

 

Wrong. They were an independant legitimate rebelion fighting against a fascist military junta backed by the United States. They were not being supported by any outside power. The FMLN had the popular support of the population and are now a major political party.

Wrong. The regime had been murdering and torturing it's own people for many decades. The rebellion was a reaction to the repression and it had the popular support of the population.

 

The US military itself doesnt but their "host nations" and paramilitary proxies do. This is a manual for US backed governments, not the US military..

This is the part of the manual that is most troubling..

^
If noone sees anything wrong with this then something's wrong with them.

 

Please, somebody try to defend this, point by point. Let's see it Mushroom.

 

I really wish you didnt go there. I will absolutely demolish anyone who tries to defend this little bit of history. What you're arguing is the same as if you were saying that the US wouldnt be wrong for backing Al Qaida because maybe not all the members are murderers, even though terror is part of their official doctrine.

Here we have an example of the CIA and US military advisers backing an "official" death squad. Some of the most notorious death squads in history in fact. Even Fox News would've acknowledged them as death squads at the time.

The New York Times noted that:

In mid- 1985, Congress granted exemptions to El Salvador, and $4.8 million was allocated for training programmes for the National Police, the National Guard and the Treasury Police, which would be run by US advisers.

 

Horhey, et al,

While the version you site is a little dated, I get your point and would like to make a couple of comments.

(COMMENT)

Relative to:

• PRC [Population & Resources Control]

This is not unusual. We do the same thing in the US through the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. One of the most striking examples is airport security. But it includes police intelligence activities covering drug operations, counterfeiting, subversion and sedition, terrorist activities and domestic private militia actions (just to name a few). We have propaganda efforts in all these areas to rally support for law enforcement and use confidential informants and intelligence sources in each.​

• Restrictions. Rights on the legality of detention or imprisonment of personnel (for example, habeas corpus) may be temporarily suspended.

Again, we do this in the US. We have warrant-less searches and intercept, arrest and detentions, stop'n'frisk operations all the time. Again, the sobriety checkpoints, is a simple example.​

• This emergency legislation may include a form of martial law permitting government forces to search without warrant, to detain without bringing formal charges, and to execute other similar actions.

We have used such things in the US. It is mostly done by DHS and State Government using federal officers and the national guard. We have residential areas that residents use a special sticker on there cars to avoid local security stops.​

Many of the things that this manual is referring to, has a similar counterpart in the US and in areas in which the US Military has active operations overseas. You should have seen all the various check-points, T-Walls, and tank in-placements along the route between the Palace (Green Zone) and BIAP (the airport) in Baghdad.

And if you go to Kabul, you should see all the checkpoints and barriers you have to navigate along the Great Massoud Road between North Point and the Amani High School (the area in which the Embassy and ISAF are found).

There is nothing sinister about these control measures at all. They are used throughout the world. The controversy is over implementation.

Special Forces:

The fact that the US has advisers and teaches foreign military personnel is well known. The fact that the Defense Attache maintains close and continuous contact with the Host Nation senior leadership is well known. What most people don't understand is that the Special Forces (advisers) do not have command and control. In fact, they are, relative to most nations localized and not always present during host nation operations.

I think you misunderstand the span of control and influence.

NOW, does the US support Despot Dictators and Leaders? Yes!

Saddam Hussein was once an ally of the US. Col. Muammar Gadhafi was considered an important U.S. ally in the terror war as recently as 2009, and
Liberian despot Charles Taylor worked with US intelligence. Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, important contacts and allies at one time or another, to the US. Simply, the list is to long to go into it here. But yes, from time-to-time the US supports despot leaders.

We cannot initiate Regime Change everywhere. And we need to remain engaged. So, we are stuck with working the leadership the people allow. We have to work with what is there; or risk becoming isolationist.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

Human Rights Watch (formerly Americas Watch) further documents direct US complicity in the Treasury Police's Death Squad activities:

 

What about:

Im sorry man, ALL that stuff you just said is just plain nonsense and I'll prove it shortly. American people are not detained without being charged with a crime. There is no "censorship" or "press control" in this country. Habeas Corpus is not suspended here. These measures are tyrannical and anti democratic.

 

Ive shown Mushroom some of this stuff before but he always pretends to be unaware of it. He is dishonest. Im not finished yet.