Wikileaks & Mindset
August 4, 2010
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Posted by Michael S. Langston
Ahhhh… wikileaks, we hardly knew ye.
As most know by now, Wikileaks has posted tens of thousands of classified documents and is apparently under control of more (here via Yahoo News/AP):
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Friday implored the website WikiLeaks to stop posting secret Afghanistan war documents, as the Pentagon pressed its investigation of the massive security breach by bringing a soldier under scrutiny back to the U.S. for trial….
You can read here at HuffPo where it’s all the fault of the current journalistic establishment, you can read here via Reuters where the Pentagon says Wikileaks has “blood on its hands”, or here via MSNBC where these documents prove the “Real Face of Pakistan” or here via CATO on the overreaching process which is classification (a good read).
In the end, it’s likely people will go to jail. Whether there are/were too many classified documents, whether these documents separately or together actually represent a risk, or even if most of the country thinks they should’ve known about all these documents prior to their release, the government can not allow intelligence agents to freely distribute this type of material without punishment.
I could foresee a potential scenario with protests and such that might change the outcome, but the trial is likely years away and we will care about something much more recent at that time that this dustup. If celebrities have taught us one thing and one thing only, it’s that the American public has a very short attention span.
Meaning, that while the chance exists, it’s likely remote.
However, two other stories in combination seem to ask a better question. Not that I have the answer, but an interesting question nonetheless.
The first one, via Wired (here) reports that the Army private suspected of the leaks was admonished of leaks during training.
The second, via Yahoo News/AP (here) talks of a civilian informant discussing how he helped the Army private deliver so many documents through seemingly innocuous encrypted network transmissions.
It seems we have a case where a ‘hacker’, those anti-social untrustable sorts, is helping immensely, while our trusted and thoroughly checked Army private is leaking classified information.
Therefore in a sense, we appear to have two people operating against what we would see as their normal mindsets.
What I want to ask – is are we looking for mindsets anymore?
Let’s start by defining mindset:
In many LEO (Law Enforcement Officer), special forces, self defense classes, and the like the talk about 4 points (some say 3 – the Triad) of training: Mindset, tactics, skill, & equipment (or gear). Seeing the 4, you can see tactics & skills might be combined as one is classroom learning and the other is practice, but either way.
Their point is that without mindset, tactics are meaningless. Without mindset & tactics, skills are meaningless and on and on. The idea is knowing inside yourself what course of action you will be able to take and might take is the first required step to move forward in training.
Not that I want to state that finding a particular mindset is easy. As lots of people in corporate America I’ve taken more than a few personality tests. Additionally, being naturally introspective and curious, I’ve taken most of the free ones as well.
Since my testing was more of a purely academic exercise in that I wanted to see if I agreed with the tests, but also wanted to see if I didn’t did all the tests say the same thing, I didn’t “cheat”. I answered the questions as honestly as possible (some questions can have different answers depending upon mood; this is in general why longer tests are more accurate as they can more easily reduce this noise).
Having done so on more than a few tests however, I could probably get any answer anyone wanted. It’s not quite this easy for me as my information comes solely from experience, but for someone specifically studying they can end with the results they desire.
I believe in our desire to reduce conflict and always appear fair, we have started evaluating others based upon only technicalities in lieu of broader ideals.
We look for glimpses of complex thought, a good analogy (even if not apt), or even that perfect phrase that sums things up (we like these things on t-shirts & bumper stickers) all while we seemingly dismiss the actions of those around us.
So in the end I think, we have many people with skills, but seemingly few with the mindsets we wish to see.
& not because we can’t see, but because we don’t want to see.
It’s natural. Most will forgive their friends and families for major transgressions while simultaneously starting wars over minor infractions from those they don’t like or don’t know.
Additionally, we escalate people we like in society, whether deserving or not (see: reality tv). We allow marketing to win over facts.
The facts here seem easy: whether you dislike the government and most of what it does and believes that it classifies way too many documents (like I do) or whether you believe that most classifications are correct because the government knows better what we shouldn’t know, is irregardless.
Under current law and current understanding the outcome is obvious.
Categories: Critical Thinking, Culture, Military, Politics
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