Tuesday, August 3, 2010

I, Uh, I Forgot What I Was Gonna Say, Man!



This video clip shows informer Adrian Lamo on the BBC, justifying his decision to turn in Bradley Manning for allegedly delivering material to Wikileaks, and -- holy shit, man, what is Lamo on? He reminds me of a pothead character in an old Cheech and Chong skit. I'm not sure I agree with Glenn Greenwald, whose latest column pointed me to the clip, that I've "never seen someone behave quite like him on television before" -- I've known numerous people, usually male, with the same manner of speaking -- but he's certainly weird. On the other hand, compare his appearance at a hackers' conference as shown here; he may just have consumed too much Jolt Cola in his hacking days.

Greenwald also reports that Lamo turns out to have been a volunteer for a private vigilante Internet monitoring group, who pressured him to turn Manning in, "telling him (falsely) that he'd likely be arrested if he failed to turn over to federal agents everything he received from Manning."

But the main reason I'm posting this is to add my voice to those who are revolted by the line being peddled here and elsewhere, that the Wikileaks data dump on Afghanistan may put "innocent people in danger." (For example, listen to Admiral Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the BBC clip.) Nowhere do these propagandists acknowledge that the NATO/US war in Afghanistan has certainly hurt and killed many innocent people over the past decade, and is still doing so.