SeaEagleRock8 link said:
That argument does not hold water. From the first batch published months ago there has been no suggestion that a single life has been put at risk. The US govt was invited to vet the documents prior to publication to point out which ones they considered too risky. The fact the administration refused showed the risks were fanciful, according to Assange.
http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2010/11/29/WikiLeaks_defy_demands_on_leaked_files_545093.html
The US and various other governments do not wish to be politically embarrassed nor do they want the public exposure of human rights abuses or criminal behaviours perpetrated in their name.
Indeed there are already calls from conservative politicians in the US to have him charged with treason. This is simply to be expected for anyone who so brazenly stands up against the US govt. There is zero evidence that anyone's life or any military operation has been compromised, and this was virtually admitted as soon as the material was published (contrary to the dire warnings beforehand). The harm for the US govt (and others) is largely embarrassment at this stage.
Those calling for Assange's arrest for treason and for WikiLeaks to be classified as a foreign terrorist organisation are simply falling for the rhetoric of those in power who want the right to continue to sweep their errors or sins under the carpet.
I am not calling for anyone to be arrested, or even suggesting this is a bad thing for these papers to be published in balance. I think more care could have been taken thats all.
There are two ways people are put at risk by the way, firstly by being mentioned. Are you serious is thinking that some one mentioned as giving information to the US in Afghanistan is now at the same or less risk of being killed, or how about someone saying something negative about Putin. To say that no one has died is rubbish, no one in the world would have known that some of these people even existed before hand, how many tribal chiefs in northern Pakistan do you keep tabs on? How would you know if they were now dead or why. You think the US would tell you that because their secrets were revealed someone died? No, they will do everything they can to minimize the impact of this both real and perceived.
The second way people are put at risk is by the flow of information to the US and its allies being dried up. Having seen these peoples names mentioned who in their right mind is going to give the US information? I wouldn't if I feared it would become public knowledge and I could end up being killed for it.
Our soldiers will have to act on less intel in the future, simply because less people will be sharing.
How about some of the more subtle but still significant global political concerns, we see in these new documents that the King of Jordan urged the US to bomb Iran at the same time he was talking to Tehran and using all the soft power he could to get them to step away from seeking the Bomb.
So now we have the leader of a middle eastern nation that is internationally regarded as reasonable and pro-west who will be less willing to tell the US when he feels it is time to take action and less trusted by his Arab and Islamic region and therefore less effective at finding peaceful solutions. Good thing? Not really.
I don't want the government to be able to sweep anything under the carpet, nor do I care if Assange is charged with anything. In reality he has broken the law so I have no doubt he will be, I don't know if that is right, really I don't.
What I do think is that this could have been done in a better way, the fact that it reveals huge problems with the way the US is behaving is good, the way it reveals so much more, stuff that really didn't need to be revealed is not.
