bah. I am a strong proponent of freedom of the press and most likely everything wikileaks publishes it has the legal right to do so (i'm sure the lawyers at the justice department are going to have a long year combing through this stuff, just to be sure)...but this is no ongoing "pentagon papers" as they like to pretend.
The pentagon papers were printed to expose decades of deceit by the government to pull the us into what would become the vietnam war.
While there are some horrific things found on occasion in wikileaks, most of it is vast amounts of information that does nothing but attempts to damage the us's international credibility and undermine her interests.
They've said as much. This isn't about telling a story the american people, or the world, needs to hear. It is nothing but a petulant series of leaks trying to weaken the united states because julian assange is an anarchist and wants to hurt the biggest government's interests.
The way this is being handled and released is petulant and disturbing. Yes, he may reveal by accident that iraqi suspects were tortured by the iraqi government, but mostly he is revealing sources in warzones (and potentially putting their lives in danger), hurting trade deals and negotiations between governments and trying to hurt the us's national standing after its status has gone way-up post-bush.
And i find assange the equivalent of a 14-year-old boy listening to metal really loudly shouting, "**** you dad!!!" and i'm mostly just disappointed that this passes for courageous journalism for some in the 21st century and even more concerned how this may undermine our ability to build a stronger economy, as there are no torture memos in this release.