Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Wikileaks is not a journalistic organisation because it lacks the editorial expertise, ethics, and resources essential to carry out responsible journalism. There's (luckily) no exams (yet) for what makes a journalist. Someone who has a blog is no less a journalist than anyone at a national newspaper. > They have to rely on real newspapers or the pentagon (!) to do it for them. It’s no defence to say: we tried to ge…
> it shows WikiLeaks had the intention to redact No, it shows that Wikileaks can be just as disingenuous as any other "journalistic" organization. Wikileaks made a request to the US government that it had to know the US government would refuse (for the reason I gave in my other post in response to you upthread). It did that so it could disingenuously claim that it gave the US government a chance to protect people's n…
It's the U.S. government who committed war crimes here and used secrecy to conceal their crimes. Of course it's the U.S. government's fault. The option to not commit war crimes and use the secrets act to conceal it was there. They didn't take it.
The U.S. Government proved it will use 'top secret' to hide not only information that is actually top secret but also information that is embarrassing. This would be a pretty clear motivator for the Pentagon not to respond and for WikiLeaks to go ahead with the publication.
> Wikileaks could have published that information without publishing anyone's name.
No. Names as such are vital. It lets you know WHO needs to be held accountable. Most leaks are published with names in them. There are names that the U.S. government could have suggested (not demand) to be redacted and WikiLeaks could have agreed to either some or all of the requests. They refused to cooperate. It's pretty clearly on them.
I also love how the people exposing war crimes are getting more heat that the actual war criminals who never spent a day behind bars. Speaks volumes.