Glenn Greenwald: Fact-free accusations about WikiLeaks

Fact-free accusations about WikiLeaks

By Glenn Greenwald
August 24, 2010
Salon.com

I realize that it shouldn't, but it nonetheless does still amaze me when I listen to professional political commentators make factual assertions without having the slightest idea or concern for whether they're actually true. The Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll was on BloggingheadsTV yesterday with The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, and Carroll raised the article I wrote on Saturday regarding the Pentagon's refusal to help WikiLeaks redact the Afghanistan war documents in order to protect Afghan sources. Carroll was beside himself that anyone could even suggest that the Pentagon ought to make recommendations for redactions -- apparently, the oh-so-righteous concern for the well-being of Afghan sources evaporates in the face of the desire to delegitimize WikiLeaks -- and in the course of expressing his uncontrolled outrage, said this, after Friedersdorf defended my argument:

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Julian Assanage -- you know, molesting charges aside -- is a criminal. He broke the law. He is, you know, a murderer of American and Afghani people. His carelessness has killed people. Even besides that, he broke U.S. law. Why -- [nervous cackling] -- just the very idea that Glenn thinks the Pentagon should cooperate with them blows my mind.

To say that these statements evince a reckless disregard for truth is to give them too much credit. There is not a shred of evidence that any act WikiLeaks has undertaken -- including the release of the last batch of Afghan war documents -- "has killed people." To say that Assange is "a murderer of American and Afghani people" is so far removed from reality, exhibits such an irresponsible detachment from the truth, that it's hard to express in words. Even the Pentagon admits that there is no evidence whatsoever to support Carroll's factual claims. From The Washington Post, August 11: "'We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents,' [Pentagon spokesman Geoff] Morrell said." It's plausible to speculate that WikiLeaks' disclosure creates some risk of future harm, but to assert that "American and Afghani people" have been killed by such disclosures is just a total fabrication.

It just genuinely baffles me how people like Carroll get themselves to run around spouting factual claims like this for which there is absolutely no basis and still maintain even the slightest amount of self-respect -- especially when the claims are as serious as those accusations. Shouldn't there be some mechanism in the brain that first asks the person: "before you say this, do you have any basis at all for making this claim?" I realize that people who work as propagandists -- Carroll is employed by The Heritage Foundation -- consciously adjust their advocacy standards to promote desired ends, but still, I'm just always fascinated, perhaps naively so, by how that cognitive safeguard is so effortlessly evaded.

Continued. . .