What's sad is that we could be looking at a terrible incident, but that fact that it was released out of context with an obvious political motive (and name) discredits it.
At what point did I say that? At what point did I defend anyone involved? It was a battle. People were shooting at each other. Of course there is a reasonable definition that doesn't include this incident. Ones in which there is not a battle going on, for example. There are at least 20 minutes of footage that are not available to us.
All I'm asking is that we get rid of the idiom and see the information. I don't need the words "Collateral Murder" to be outraged by this. I'm smarter than that.
Incidentally, at no point in this discussion did I ever resort to a personal attack on you or question your motivations or loyalties. At no point did I ever say anything about you personally and I'm offended that you have decided to tell me what I think. That's a shameful way to have an argument.
Boo-fuckin-hoo. Get a grip, Nancy.
Doesn't mean that I think what happened was right or than I'm trying to defend those soldiers (we can have that argument elsewhere), but that as a reasonable person the editing and name should raise a giant red flag that makes me ask further questions.
I feel the same about this situation. The dramatic talk ("they might render me") and the fact that we're looking at this in a very narrow, uninformed context means we should question everything, including his credibility.
As the previous commenter said, they did.
Wikileaks' stated journalistic method has always been to provide editorialized/pre-digested material along with complete unedited sources.
That's not a "journalistic method". I don't know that I have a name for it, but it's not journalism. I said "put out the 39 minute version as is". If I wasn't clear, that means there should have been no need for an editorialized version at all.
It may be far-fetched, but this was actually revealed in 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
Just to make clear my meaning: A communication between two neighboring countries might still pass through the USA because the price is cheaper despite the length of data travel being greater.
But it still means that we're lacking so much information about this that referring to speculating on the sources credibility as a "smear campaign" is unfair to citizens who are asking legitimate questions. I don't know enough about this to even know what the numbers mean, but I'm ready to skewer people over it? We need to fill in these gaps before we start shaping public policy on the issue and examining a sources credibility is part of that process.
We don't really know much about this situation. Just what Snowden (and the press) have decided to tell us. This could be "Collateral Murder" all over again, a decidedly one sided view of the situation (after all, it's a bit far fetched to think the NSA is monitoring basically all US Internet traffic through some backdoor program that would be difficult to implement secretly). If you buy that we can't possibly know the whole story, his character and motivation is definitely worth exploring.