WikiLeaks Vows More Revelations

WIKILEAKS plans to release another batch of 15,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan following its weekend disclosure of a ream of US army reports detailing civilian deaths and detainee abuse during the Iraq war.
The new documents would be released in the near future, according to WikiLeaks' Australian founder, Julian Assange, who said he remained committed to the public disclosure of the ''intimate details of war'' despite fierce criticism from world governments.
''We make a promise to our sources, who go through incredible risks sometimes to get us material, that we'll do justice to their efforts and get them the maximum political impact possible,'' a pale and weary-looking Mr Assange told journalists in London.
Advertisement: Story continues below
His pledge came as US and Iraqi officials sought to downplay the significance of the disclosure of almost 400,000 battlefield reports by US soldiers known as ''Sigacts'' - military jargon for reports of significant activity - which have shed new light on the Iraq war's civilian toll.
The revelations prompted a call by the UN's special rapporteur on torture, Austrian human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak, for the US to investigate whether its troops were implicated in any of the incidents detailed.
He said the US had a moral duty to consider the matters even if the alleged violations pre-dated the current government.
''President Obama also has an obligation … to probe whenever there are credible allegations torture has happened - and these allegations are more than credible - and then it is up to the courts.''
However, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, mired in a stalemate with his political rivals since parliamentary elections last March, has dismissed the records as a politically timed smear and a series of ''media games and bubbles''.
''These are all just fakes from the internet and Photoshop,'' said Hassan al-Sneid, a leader of Mr Maliki's coalition.
His opponents said the report supported their claims that Mr Maliki and his State of Law party had used state forces for nefarious ends.
''For years we have been talking about the armed groups that are working under the name of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defence that have direct connections with some leaders in the government,'' said Maysoon al-Damluji, a spokeswoman for Iraqiya, the secular bloc that finished first in Iraq's March 7 elections, slightly ahead of State of Law.
The Pentagon, while deploring the release of the documents, has not challenged their authenticity.
The massive cache details thousands of civilian deaths, including hundreds killed at checkpoints manned by US soldiers. The logs showed there were more than 109,000 violent deaths between 2004 and the end of 2009: more than 66,000 civilians, 24,000 people classed as ''enemy'', 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces and 3771 coalition troops.
Iraq Body Count, a British group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war started in March 2003, said it had analysed the information and found 15,000 previously unreported deaths.
Mr Obama, on a campaign sweep of western states ahead of next week's mid-term congressional elections, has not addressed the issue in any depth, while in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a pro forma response, condemning the disclosure of any classified information that threatened national security, or put at risk the lives of coalition forces or civilians.
The disclosure was ''shameful'' and something that could ''undermine our nation's security'', according to Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
The Pentagon had also issued the results of a recent Associated Press survey showing that Americans had more confidence in the US military than they had in banks, the media, public schools and organised religion.

Two things before the holidays.

Here is an article about the Koran, its teachings and its relationship to Judaism and Christianity. Great article for anyone interested

The Meaning of the Koran

And here is the funniest youtube vid i've seen in ages:



Have a great Spring Break guys. See you next term.

The Power of Music

An update on the required work for successful completion of English this term:

- Two short writing tasks (most of you have submitted these)

- Three Common Place Diary entries.

- Class work and one writing task on the novel, Holes.

Now here is an extraordinary video interview about the power of music.

Building becomes canvas

Building becomes canvas as part of a projection festival in Russia.

A Mosque in Manhattan

For anyone making Common Place entries on the issues faced by Islam in the Western world, this clip is excellent:

Ban the burka?

This issue was raging in the French media last year, and then became a topic for debate in Australia earlier this year. Should the burka be banned in Western countries? Here is an example of a commonplace journal entry:

Article title: Burkas not welcome in France: Sarkozy, date: June, 22, 2009


For: Sarkozy, French politicians, Western women's rights groups.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy claims that the burka is "a symbol of subjugation" (subjugation - tobring under control; to make submissive). Sarkozy's claim that wearing the burka undermines French secularism and women's rights received support from some politicians. In response to "pro-choice" perspectives, Sarkozy argues that "civil servants must not wear any outward sign of their religion, whether they are Catholics, Jewish, Orthodox, Protestant or Muslim." Women can wear headscarves as long as it their decision to do so.

Against: French Council for the Muslim Religion, Barack Obama:
Mohammed Moussaoui has called the banning of the burka a way of "stigmatising Islam and the Muslims of France" (stigmatise - to brand or mark in a negative way). There are several thousand Islamic women who wear the burka living in France today. American president Barack Obama has defended Muslim women's choice to wear the headscarf if they want to. French politicians have been accused of wasting time on a fringe phenomenon.