Taliban to Wikileaks: "Thanks Guys!"

[Shroom Man 777]

I hope that Pirate Party wins. Man, that is awesome, a PIRATE PARTY! And their stance on piracy is also great. The fact that they won seats in the EU parliament, and are the third largest party in Sweden, means they've got a lot of supporters - which is wonderful! If they were here in the Philippines, I think everyone would vote for them.

[Dooey Jo]

The Pirate Party hasn't made a peep in years and lots of people have probably forgotten they exist. I suppose it's also possible the media is giving them the silent treatment, instead focussing on whether the latest polls show that the self-proclaimed non-racist Sweden Democrats will get parliament seats.

[Archaic`]

Unless something truly spectacular goes wrong before the elections the Pirate party will not get a seat.

The Pirate Party hasn't made a peep in years and lots of people have probably forgotten they exist. I suppose it's also possible the media is giving them the silent treatment, instead focussing on whether the latest polls show that the self-proclaimed non-racist Sweden Democrats will get parliament seats.

The Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections, giving it 1 seat initially, and 2 seats after the Lisbon treaty. That's not really a "hasn't made a peep" situation IMO.

While I would certainly imagine that some of the mainstream media is avoiding covering them given that their position on copyright is obviously not in step with how most media would like it to be seen (and I'm told that the trial of the Pirate Bay 4 was put off after the election specifically so as not to give free advertising to the party), does that really matter so much with their primary demographic being the very switched on internet generation? The fact is that they are the third largest party by member count in the country, and have the largest largest youth wing of any political party in the country.

I'll grant you that I've not seen any Swedish primary sources, but I was under the impression also that they're currently polling between 5% and 10% in newspaper polls leading up to this year's election.

[Dooey Jo]

The Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections, giving it 1 seat initially, and 2 seats after the Lisbon treaty. That's not really a "hasn't made a peep" situation IMO.

This was more than a year ago, and since then pretty much the only thing that's been heard from them is that they were going to host the Pirate Bay some time ago, and I don't think that registered as much more than a blurb on the teletext.

While I would certainly imagine that some of the mainstream media is avoiding covering them given that their position on copyright is obviously not in step with how most media would like it to be seen (and I'm told that the trial of the Pirate Bay 4 was put off after the election specifically so as not to give free advertising to the party), does that really matter so much with their primary demographic being the very switched on internet generation? The fact is that they are the third largest party by member count in the country, and have the largest largest youth wing of any political party in the country.

True, but if they can't get more people than their party members voting for them, that's not going to amount to much. I'm sorry to say that the aforementioned Sweden Democrats seem much better at reaching the "internet generation". Youtube is full of their propaganda; but I don't think I've seen even one video from the Pirate Party or their sympathizers (I'm sure there are some but if I have to actively seek them out, that's not very good).

I'll grant you that I've not seen any Swedish primary sources, but I was under the impression also that they're currently polling between 5% and 10% in newspaper polls leading up to this year's election.

They're apparently not getting enough votes to even be taken out of the "Others" category, which sits around 1-2%. They got 5-10% leading up to the EP election.

[Teebs]

One obvious reason for poor performance on the part of the Pirate Party would be the different nature of the elections. People have a tendency to be more willing to vote for small single issue parties at elections that they don't consider to be as important. Elections for the European Parliament are a great example of this. There's no reason why a significant chunk of the Swedish population might not agree with the Pirate Party but then decide that at the general election they need to vote for 'serious parties' (by which I mean ones which are seen as having a comprehensive platform and being suitable for government).

[CJvR]

The Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections, giving it 1 seat initially, and 2 seats after the Lisbon treaty.

Yeah, but the EU elections are not taken seriously by most of the voters. The participation is abyssmal leaving the door open for extremists and single issue parties. The local elections also yields odd results, the Sweden Democrats ("reformed" nazis) got over 20% in my home town but the national vote from here was practically identical to the national result.

Pirate party might be fun to vote for when it doesn't matter but I doubt many will want spoilt overaged teens, who's main issue is that they want free stuff, actually running anything serious.

[Zed]

The great majority of law in European nations derives from the European Parliament - it would be wise to consider the elections for that parliament as a time when it matters.

[D.Turtle]

That may be factually true, but the perception is very different.

[Teebs]

The great majority of law in European nations derives from the European Parliament - it would be wise to consider the elections for that parliament as a time when it matters.

As D.Turtle pointed out, it's perceptions that matter more than reality.

Do you have a decent source for the claim that the great majority of law in European nations derives from the European Parliament? I've seen a very wide range of estimates from 84% from a German politician (flawed) to 9% from the UK Parliament (also flawed). This also doesn't take into account the nature of the laws, EU law tends to be regulatory in nature and is limited in its scope by the relevant treaties, so its impact as opposed to its volume might be much much less significant than you might expect.

Also, I'm not really sure you can say that EU law derives from the European Parliament. It doesn't have the power to propose legislation and is arguably the weakest of the three main EU bodies.

[Zed]

It... seemed to me to be an accepted figure. I've heard it parroted by a wide variety of politicians, including M.E.P.s. This blog, though, seems to indicate otherwise.

[Sephirius]

Well, if this is any indication it's been pretty much confirmed, Assange now has blood on his hands, and will soon have a lot more.

From Newsweek:

Taliban Seeks Vengeance in Wake of WikiLeaks

Leaked U.S. Intel documents listed the names and villages of Afghan collaborators—and the Taliban is starting to retaliate.


After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.

The violence may just be beginning. According to Agha Lali, the deputy head of Kandahar’s provincial council, threatening letters have been delivered to 70 elders in Panjwaii district. 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. One short handwritten note, shown to NEWSWEEK, said: “We have made a decision for your death. You have five days to leave Afghan soil. If you don’t, you don’t have the right to complain.” The screed, written on the letterhead of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s defunct Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, bore the signature of Abdul Rauf Khadim, a senior Taliban official and former inmate at the American lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who had been released into—and subsequently escaped from—Kabul’s custody last year.

The frightening combination of the Taliban spokesman’s threat, Abdullah’s death, and the spate of letters has sparked a panic among many Afghans who have worked closely with coalition forces in the past, according to a senior Taliban intelligence officer who declined to be named for security reasons. The officer said he has seen reports of Afghans rushing to U.S. and coalition bases in southern and eastern Afghanistan over the past few days, seeking protection and even asking for political asylum. (U.S. military officials would not verify this information.) The Taliban officer claimed that the group’s English-language media department continues to actively examine the WikiLeaks material and intends to draw up lists of collaborators in each province, to add to the hit lists of local insurgent commanders.

The big question going forward is whether the leaked material will make regular Afghans more wary about cooperating with coalition forces. The intelligence officer, unsurprisingly, believes this will be the case. “The impact of this should be good for us and a slap in the face to those who are working with America,” he says. “America is not a good protector of spies.” Locals have long known that the Taliban deals harshly with those it suspects of working against it: the ruthless guerrillas have assassinated scores, if not hundreds, of tribal elders and Afghans of all ages for their alleged cooperation with the coalition. In one particularly gruesome case a few months ago, according to the intelligence officer, the Taliban discovered that a group of recent high-school graduates in Ghazni province had been feeding information to the Americans. The youths were arrested, and around 10 of them were hanged. The Taliban is also shutting down cell-phone networks after dark in an effort to prevent villagers from alerting coalition forces to the insurgents’ locations.

The Taliban has reason to fear such exposure by the local population. As a result of these tip-offs, the insurgents have lost scores of midlevel commanders to coalition antiterrorist operations over the past few months. Now the question is: has the WikiLeaks leak ruined that cooperation? Or will locals continue to undermine the Taliban at the risk of their own lives?

[Shroom Man 777]

Do we even know if the wikileaks documents even have those names at all?

[Sea Skimmer]

Do we even know if the wikileaks documents even have those names at all?

It doesn’t matter, remember the average Afghan has no internet access and does not speak or read English. So its not like they can go check for themselves after the Taliban kill the village elder as a traitor. Word will have wildly circulated throughout the population that secret US documents leaked that name names. The Taliban now have an excuse to murder anyone they want as an informer claiming his name was on the list, and no one can fact check that. And yeah, that does matter. As brutal as they are, Taliban have to walk a balance rope just like the US does and avoid offending the wrong people, because the power structure in Afghanistan is highly distributed. Maybe 15-20% of the armed militia in Afghanistan are actually hard core Taliban fighters, the rest vary in who they support more or less day to day. A leak like this easily turns into a blank murder check.

[Dooey Jo]

So... the secret documents that no involved parties can check if they exist, have to exist, it just doesn't matter what information they contain as the Taliban can claim they contain anything? Well I guess that makes sense if you want to play the internet outrage game.

[Stark]

No, he's saying it doesn't matter. Having 'a leak' now means the Taliban can kill whoever they simply don't like and say 'he was TOTALLY cooperating with the Americans'. Since the documents are leaked it should be pretty easy for intrepid western journalists to compare the names of those killed with the names of informers, but that doesn't have much impact to the average joe in Afghan.

[Terralthra]

Do we even know if the wikileaks documents even have those names at all?

It doesn’t matter, remember the average Afghan has no internet access and does not speak or read English. So its not like they can go check for themselves after the Taliban kill the village elder as a traitor. Word will have wildly circulated throughout the population that secret US documents leaked that name names. The Taliban now have an excuse to murder anyone they want as an informer claiming his name was on the list, and no one can fact check that. And yeah, that does matter. As brutal as they are, Taliban have to walk a balance rope just like the US does and avoid offending the wrong people, because the power structure in Afghanistan is highly distributed. Maybe 15-20% of the armed militia in Afghanistan are actually hard core Taliban fighters, the rest vary in who they support more or less day to day. A leak like this easily turns into a blank murder check.

This seems like a fairly bullshit claim. The Taliban could already murder people and claim they were informers. They already did, in fact; that's why the names of informers were kept secret.

The problem is that if this list of informants is at all accurate, the Taliban will now have a more comprehensive list of people who are informing. It sets back our intelligence efforts, and makes it less likely that people will inform in the future. Claiming that some website somewhere released a bunch of documents, and now the Taliban might kill people? Yeah, right.

[Thanas]

To be honest, US IT security has always been atrocious. Especially considering all the data that was found in thrown-away HDDs on Afghan bases. So I am not sure how much of that stuff the Taleban got already.

[Shroom Man 777]

Do we even know if the wikileaks documents even have those names at all?

It doesn’t matter, remember the average Afghan has no internet access and does not speak or read English. So its not like they can go check for themselves after the Taliban kill the village elder as a traitor. Word will have wildly circulated throughout the population that secret US documents leaked that name names. The Taliban now have an excuse to murder anyone they want as an informer claiming his name was on the list, and no one can fact check that. And yeah, that does matter. As brutal as they are, Taliban have to walk a balance rope just like the US does and avoid offending the wrong people, because the power structure in Afghanistan is highly distributed. Maybe 15-20% of the armed militia in Afghanistan are actually hard core Taliban fighters, the rest vary in who they support more or less day to day. A leak like this easily turns into a blank murder check.

Oh, I understand realism of factuality have no bearing with the Taliban murdering people, since they can just use "your name is on the list!" as an excuse to kill anyone they want.

But I was just concerned regarding wikileak's culpability in this. If there were no names in the documents they released, then they are not directly culpable.

Unless if the names are a total non-issue at all. If the mere fact that the Taliban is using wikileaks as an excuse to kill anyone (regardless of his/her name being on the list) makes wikileaks culpable, or something.

[weemadando]

The US Gov't is now denying that WikiLeaks ever approached them with the offer to do harm-minimisation on the documents. I'm interested to hear what the NYT says as they were the alleged go-between on the offer. Whether there was genuinely no offer or if it's yet another case of the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.