Comments by "Geoffrey Lyons" (@granatmof) on "Leaked Military Document Consequences" video.

  1. It's a fact journalists hate to admit, but everyone has biases. I think it's more important to admit your biases than try to ignore them. Cappy's humility to admit there's limitations to his knowledge and understanding is a good persuasive technique to getting the audience on your side. It establishes the perception of honesty.
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  2. It's almost as if having a clearing house or at least ethically motivated journalist go through and redact and determine the benefit of the release is important. Assange has shown he has no ethics himself, and narcissists like him taint whatever they build.
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  3. I'm all in favor of leaks regarding illegal governmental activity regardless of government, especially US and its state governments, although I would prefer systems supporting whistleblowers over unconditional release. I don't support the release of means and methods that put operators and assets at risk, especially if it specifically includes peoples names. This why in the case of Snowden, i respect him revealing illegal spying operations of the US government against its own people, but the fact the leak could harm assets etc is why i think he should go to jail. The guiding principle is minimizing harm to real people.
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  4. And the political leaders on both sides wanting to avoid conflict. JFK was up against his own generals on that one. He was against moving missiles closer to Russia, which caused the missile crisis in the first place.
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  5.  @avroarchitect1793  Honestly, between wikileaks and how the US has abandoned local guides, translators etc to the Taliban makes is a blot on American politicians and brass. These people risked their lives and their families to help US troops and that should be honored, not ignored. Every administration is guilty of harm to these local allies that have been left in the field. Millionaires can sail through immigration, but people who risked the lives for the country are put in the back of the line to get in. It's disgusting. Even worse though is people who join the US military and honorably complete their service to receive citizenship only to be deported. I think there's US Veteran support groups in Mexico and other countries due to how many have been abandoned.
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  6. American here, and honestly learning the details of US government activity its amazing anyone trusts the US. Despite the ideals of the American people, the US government foreign policy is often based on the business interests of the US elites. "Containing Communism" was ultimately about preventing a communist revolution in the US that would see the loss of property for the richest. Every nation and every people has history of war crimes and abominable activity. Except maybe Iceland. Generally though I agree, while I don't trust other national governments, and not my own, I generally don't have beef with the people of said country, except the French because they liked Jar Jar Binks (this is a joke about Star Wars). Realizing most everyday people are mostly concerned about taking care of their household and family and not what someone is doing on the other side of the world, I don't know I can't really fault them, and definitely not worth hating people. Sure people are stupid and can get riled into literally killing their neighbors for some stupid reason or another, so just try to avoid that.
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  7. The US also regularly tells on itself which is the most fascinating part. Two anecdotes on this. First is the story of MK-Ultra. The public only knows about it because after Watergate and Congress started getting more interested in coverups, the CIA destroyed most of the files on MK-Ultra, except like a single box of records which got misfiled and ended up in the hands of Congress. Everything we know about an extensive CIA funded system of medical and psychological experiments occuring at hundreds of reputable colleges, universities, medical schools, and hospitals as well as covert systems like the CIA funded brothel in San Francisco, comes from that single box. And the US pretty much released the info. The second is the story of the Soviet maps. The Soviets commissioned a system of maps at several levels of detail from high altitude to high detailed maps with notes about infrastructure and geography and local environment. The US never had a reliable map of the USSR, due to some Soviet cities being located miles away from where they were on published maps, to some cities being fictional on the map or just not appearing on the map. Even the road signs in Russia to this day are incorrect to prevent enemies from knowing too much. In contrast, US Geological Survey, state, and local surveys and maps are publicly available. Soviet spies would even survey details themselves to confirm or correct US information, because who's going to care about another survey team? These maps, which covered many different countries, were highly sought after by cartographers and map collectors as well as spy agencies when the wall fell because until actual GPS satellites, they were the highest detail of the world available. This information was available in the US, just never collated the way the USSR did. The US generally ranks pretty high among world governments for transparency. Sure the government doesn't reveal onging activity that can pose a threat. But typically after 20 years everything is revealed. The fact that JFK info still hasn't been revealed is rather interesting, like what was so different for JFK the government still doesn't want to reveal it.
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