Wikileaks, war, and wingnuts: Rational thoughts on the irrational

CNN: What leaked documents are telling us about the Afghan war

If you are a frequent visitor to my blog, you may have wondered at some point what my position is on the current war in the Middle East.  Like I've said many times before, I do not identify with either major political party, and on this issue I stand firmly behind that principle, as I see both sides throwing stones at the war issue while nothing gets done.  Most Republicans simply label anyone against the war as a "commie", "socialist", or the like, while many Democrats want our troops out of there immediately with no further effort. 

I wouldn't be writing on this topic at all if it weren't for this weekend's massive Wikileaks release to The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel containing about 90,000 reports on activity in Afghanistan, many filed by the military, from 2004 to January 2010.  I'm no stranger to Wikileaks, I "StumbledUpon" it a while ago and thought it quite interesting that such a forum existed to oust government cover-ups from the trivial to the outrageous.  While I don't regularly keep up with the site, I nevertheless applaud Julian Assange for releasing these reports, regardless of their actual accuracy, and I'll tell you why.

The jist of the leak is that things in Afghanistan are not going exactly as planned.  Until now, the American press has been given limited information as to what is happening over there, in regards to civilian death toll, details of insurgent attacks, progress of the Afghan society, etc.  If our ridiculous media sphere doesn't know the facts, why trust them?  I'll take previously covered-up information over television garbage any day of the week.  The most interesting pieces of news are the ones mommy and daddy are hiding from us (aka the government).  Yesterday's and today's leak-driven news reports make many interesting claims:

• Many of our more recent military tactics revolve around minerals, surprisingly not oil!
• The general population thinks their new government is worse than the Taliban. 
• Insurgents have shown up to battle wearing government-issued uniforms and driving government-issued Ford Rangers, both of which the United States provided to them. 
• Pakistan law currently allows secret service members to hold strategy meetings with the Taliban in order to discuss plans for taking down the American occupation in Afghanistan, including assassinations of Afghan government officials. 
• Goodwill missions are often abandoned after only a few months, including an orphanage founded in 2006 which after a few months reported housing only 30 orphans when there were supposed to be over 100, and after only a year of the orphanage being established, reported housing no orphans at all. 
• According to Assange, actual civilian casualties at Afghan roadblocks, airstrikes, etc. "numerically eclipse" the death tolls of bigger events we hear about on the news.

My personal opinion on the war?  Whether or not these claims are completely accurate, they all support the notion that things simply aren't going very well over there.  I come from a military background on both sides of the family, love my 2nd Amendment rights, and have no sympathy for Osama bin Laden or any other member of the Taliban for that matter.  However, I think we're going about this entirely the wrong way.  The Afghan citizens have showed us that they don't want what we have to offer.  We can give them government, but we are still outsiders to them, and we are obviously being taken advantage of as corruption infects every institution that we have created there.  We're being too trusting that this society, ravaged by tyranny, terrorism, and organized crime for decades, is simply going to open their arms to democracy and everything will be alright.  We can't even control our own society here at home--our economy is tanking, approval of the government is at an all-time low, and our politicians continue to disappoint.  We need to fix that before we try to influence any other nation.

Military spending currently makes up over 50% of our federal discretionary spending.  That's about a trillion dollars a year.  Something tells me that's more than enough money to create tactical strategies that actually target terrorist groups from the inside out, but instead our plan is to...well, I don't know, let the insurgents come to us first and blow up our troops?  Build fake orphanages to act like we're doing some good for their society?  It's disparaging to our honorable armed forces, and to our national identity, to draw this out much longer.  The Wikileaks crowd got it right; they exposed the disorganization surrounding this war, and silently posed this rhetorical question: What's the plan?

Time to actually start picking off the real terrorists, methinks.  They have the money and the capabilities to do so.

Online politics: Even nastier than the real thing

As I am young, inexperienced, and very very new to the journalism world, I thought I would change up the blog by updating any readers on my observations and progress as I try to make a name for myself and gain new knowledge and perspective on politics.

A week on the blogging scene and all I have to say is...wow.  This experience is teaching me so much about the world and the information age.  My first mission in e-journalism was to start posting some comments on the web, a suggestion I have taken from successful bloggers.

In a time when you can instantly view and comment on virtually any news story from the comfort of your own computer, people sure seem to have a lot to say.  However, the main thing that I have learned is that online, you only have your logic in writing to rely on, and people are going to try and attack you with political buzz words and zingers.  It was definitely an unpleasant surprise the first time this happened to me.  Confidence is key in these situations, as anything you write online is subject to be ripped apart by opponents, sitting at their own computers, itching for an argument.  While it sounds like a bad place for an amateur to find herself, I was surprised at what I learned from my time in the comment section.  I have encountered and hashed it out with ruthless commentators on news sites like the Sacramento Bee and CNN, and rather than being humbled by the constant smackdowns of my posts by others, I learned that many of these people are actually quite ignorant and are only trying to be witty in order to discourage opponents from posting anything else, and they are defeatable.  

I decided my best bet for good observation would be to comment on marijuana-related stories since I'm involved with the issue and am able to argue and back up my points on the subject.  I soon realized that people were going to try and fight me on the issue.  Excited that I had rebuttals to these opponents, I got a little ahead of myself and started making some irrelevant claims.  This is when the predators attacked!  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that someone had targeted my post for a harsh reply--talk about a bruise to the ego.  But upon reading the reply I was more offended by the personal attacks to my credibility and logic than the commentary made; the poster's political claims were far-fetched, invalid, and without even a source to cite.  There was still the issue of the personal humiliation to deal with, however.  I was able to stand up for myself, repair the damage I had already done to my arguments, and hit the close button on my browser tab just in time.  Classy.

Now I have a clear voice on the web when I comment on stories, and have even started receiving recommendations on my posts from other users.  My mantra for online argument is: "Knowledge is power."  If you're not an expert on an  issue, don't pretend to be.  People WILL humiliate you publicly.  If you do have relevant knowledge, keep it organized and present it in an easy-to-understand context so readers who come across your comment will be interested.  Lastly, be assertive, NOT aggressive.  Witty comebacks only work once in a while, and tactfulness in journalism never goes out of style.