All of this is over the Manning leaks, where Assange tried to go over the documents with the US government so he could do a responsible disclosure. The US refused.

He then got a team of journalists together to sift through the documents to make sure things were properly disclosed. Some Guardian journalists then published the encryption keys in a book.

I seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking. The Journalists wanted to take their time and carefully filter out any info that was not necessary such as informants identities. Assange wanted to get the stuff out as quickly as possible perhaps out of fear of being stopped before it was released.

Snowden's mistake was revealing himself. He should've done what the Panama Papers leaker did.

>seem to recall the Journalists had an argument with Assange over the leaking.

After the keys had already leaked, there was a disagreement whether Wikileaks should continue their plan of slowly publishing things as they went through them or dump everything since it was already in the public.

But before "the Journalists" leaked the keys, Assange was in charge of a massive undertaking to sort through the documents for responsible disclosure.

> very well might have resulted in the deaths of US officials

US spies that knew the risks of their profession.

> US spies that knew the risks of their profession.

What about their sources?

Multiple human rights organizations criticized the underacted release of information:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39827756

there is something to be said about quoting human rights orgs when the country in question does not agree to hold it's own soldiers and generals accountable under these same orgs

https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_why_america_is_facing_off...

See also the "Invade The Hague Act": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...

It also leaked the identity of informants.

When I served in Afghanistan the locals would tip us off about ambushes or IEDs. Should those people be killed for warning us and potentially saving my life?

I think your point is fully valid. I would balance it with the notion that they (people undertaking huge personal risk) would be better protected - if there was less natural pressure to acquire/release info that gets over-classified to protect political interests.¹

Stated otherwise, if US Gov could be relied on to honor it's ethical obligations to taxpayers and release the entirety of info that it ought, I argue that fewer unqualified people would feel responsibility to take that upon themselves.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civili...

Are there examples of that?

> Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group which had been maintaining a backup version of the WikiLeaks site, revoked its support for the whistleblowing site in the wake of the decision.

> "Some of the new cables have reportedly not been redacted and show the names of informants in various countries, including Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan," it said in a statement. "While it has not been demonstrated that lives have so far been put in danger by these revelations, the repercussions they could have for informants, such as dismissal, physical attacks and other reprisals, cannot be neglected."

* https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publ...

> The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange risk being isolated from some of their most natural allies in the wake of the documents' publication.

> The human-rights groups involved are Amnesty International; Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC; Open Society Institute, or OSI, the charitable organization funded by George Soros ; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and the Kabul office of International Crisis Group, or ICG.

* https://archive.is/XPuki / https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB1000142405274870342860457...

> “We are deeply concerned that WikiLeaks decided to make public the names of diplomatic sources who may face reprisals by oppressive governments,” said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an independent nonprofit organization.

* https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-aug-30-la-fg-wiki...

Whether reprisals then occurred I do not know.

> "We fear the names could create new targets", Nader Nadery, the president of the AIHRC, told the French news agency AFP.

> The WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange, replied to the letter by asking the groups concerned to help WikiLeaks redact the names. He also threatened to expose Amnesty if it refused to provide staff to help with the task, according to the Wall Street Journal.

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-wa...

Assange "threatened to expose Amnesty" International?

To me it seems that Assange was not pursuing some noble cause, but was on some kind of vendetta, given all the (collateral?) damage he was causing to others.

(Generally I knew of him, given he often made headlines, but have never really dug into the details.)

He has also been selective in his releases and timed them to affect political outcomes.

He’s just another biased media source with an agenda.

Of course he wants to affect political outcomes. Is that not the entire point? The US is committing war crimes, why would he _not_ want this to change? Also, how would unbiased reporting on war crimes look like? Lastly, does "having an agenda", whatever that might mean to you, change anything about the facts that were presented? Does it make the crimes the US is committing any less severe?

> The US is committing war crimes

Which? Collateral Murder didn't depict war crimes.

Firstly, your comment makes absolutely no sense at all. Are you genuinely asking whether the US has committed war crimes in Iraq?

The treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison is a war crime. The raping of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is a war crime. The subsequent killing of her and her family is a war crime. The Haditha massacre is a war crime. And these are just _some_ of the most well-known ones.

Also, Collateral Murder is not any less gruesome, just because it isn't "terrible enough to be a war crime". That is absurd and dangerous thinking. In the very least, the actions shown, especially the attack on the van, can, without a doubt, be classified as murder. Murder is a crime, and the people who commit crimes should be held accountable for them.