I can find no irony whatsoever in these quotes

Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Blowing Shit Up:

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said.

And his boss, Secretary of Blowing Shit Up Robert Gates:

On the ABC program "This Week," Gates declared himself "mortified" and "appalled" over the public dissemination of 76,000 documents that detailed military operations in Afghanistan.

"If I'm angry it is because I believe this information puts those in Afghanistan who have helped us at risk," Gates said, citing a Taliban statement that it would seek out informants and other collaborators exposed by the documents.

He said the issue involved two areas of culpability - legal and moral.

While the Department of Justice will decide on the legal questions, "there's also a moral culpability, and that's where I think WikiLeaks is guilty," Gates said.

Try as I might, I am unable to locate even the smallest hint of irony in these statements.  No, the commitment of these men to the sanctity of all human life is not only unalloyed by any imaginable taint of insincerity, but is, I must say, a true inspiration to us all.  Just imagine what a paradise Afghanistan would be if Gates and Mullen were allowed to ply their trade without the meddling of moral lepers like WikiLeaks!

OH, THE HUMILITY: Here's the fuller quote from the DoBSU web site:

"My attitude on this is that there are two areas of culpability," Gates said on ABC’s This Week. "One is legal culpability. And that's up to the Justice Department and others -- that's not my arena.

"But there's also a moral culpability," he added. "And that's where I think the verdict is guilty on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences."

So Gates recognizes that even though he's obviously ideally suited to judge moral culpability, that doesn't qualify him to speculate on legal issues that fall outside that arena of his expertise.  We are truly fortunate to have leaders whose vast ethical wisdom is tempered by such humility.

Comments

[Harpfool]

It's a looking glass world, and they've got the sheeple loving the reflection - it validates their feelings of moral superiority while perpetrating crimes against humanity. With next to no effort at all Wikileaks has been cast as the criminal threatening the security of the sheeple, who are now falling all over themselves to turn the culprits in. We're inching our way closer to a society of neighbors turning in neighbors to whatever the reincarnation of the Gestapo will be calling itself...maybe just "The Police".

[ethan]

So from that last quote, we learn that making moral judgments is "the arena" of those who murder for a living, and also that (as some may have suspected!) law and morality bear no resemblance to one another. Gotcha.

[ethan]

I maybe meant to say "relation" rather than "resemblance," or maybe I wanted to rephrase that sentence altogether. Still, I hope what I'm trying to say is in there somewhere.

[Stephen Malagodi]

How about the CBS intro to the show?

Defining the mental framework: Face the Nation today intro to the program with Admiral Mike Mullen on the WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents: "How much damage has been done?"

Making real Orwell's satire, "Ignorance is Strength."

[NomadUK]

The idea of the Secretary of Defence of the United States providing any opinions on morality is enough to make me ... oh, to hell with it.

[call me shill]

"I'm the one who called the U.S. government," Uber said. "All the people who say that Adrian is a narc, he did a patriotic thing. He sees all kinds of hacks, and he was seriously worried about people dying." [...]
According to a San Francisco Examiner article last month, its volunteer staff includes former NSA official Ira Winkler and Suzanne Gorman, former security chief for the New York Stock Exchange.
http://blogs.forbes.com/firewall/2010/08/01/stealthy-government-contractor-monitors-u-s-internet-providers-says-it-employed-wikileaks-informant/

[gfod]

I had to read that a couple times to fully appreciate the hilarity of the "not my arena" quote...good catch, thanks.