First, I've never talked about this, but had been wanting to say, bless Wikileaks. Julian Assange and the others behind this organization have gotten into the sights of very powerful governments and corporations, not the least of which being the U.S. government. And their crime? Releasing information deemed to be "highly classified" by governments and entities everywhere, into the hands of everyday people around the world. If we live here and pay taxes, shouldn't we have the right to know as much as possible about what goes on in our government? I think it's obvious what my answer is.
One of the cables made public by Wikileaks shows evidence that around 10 Iraqi civilians were shot, execution-style, by U.S. troops, then an airstrike was called in to destroy the evidence. This occurred back in 2006, when a civil war was brewing between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. One of the reasons why we should all be thankful for Wikileaks, is that stories like these used to be the domain of the media. Now, the media was never perfect, but during Vietnam, there was some reporting of atrocities committed by our military. The story of the war in general received more coverage than the Gulf War and our current occupation of Iraq. The kind of coverage has also changed, to the point where our media serve as cheerleaders. This was during the initial phase of the invasion, nowadays, it seems like the war/occupation is rarely covered at all, especially in the television news media. The government learned from Vietnam to keep a lid on the media in future conflicts, and that strategy has worked spectacularly well. Hence the need for individuals, such as the ones behind Wikileaks, to endanger their freedoms and lives to access and release the truth behind what's going on for the rest of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment