Charli Carpenter on WikiLeaks
August 13th, 2010
In a recent Foreign Policy article on the recent release by WikiLeaks of documents pertaining to the U.S. war in Afghanistan , Charli Carpenter, author of Forgetting Children Born of War: Setting the Human Rights Agenda in Bosnia and Beyond, argues that WikiLeaks tools actually have enormous potential to save civilian lives in conflict zones — if standards can be created to use them properly.
Carpenter cites the release by WikiLeaks of video footage showing the apparent shooting of wounded non combatants by an Apache helicopter crew in Iraq. This, Carpenter suggests, “adds real value to the international regime governing the behavior of soldiers in wartime by promoting precisely the sort of accountability that the Geneva Conventions require but military culture tends to discourage.” She continues writing, “WikiLeaks could provide a solution — a reporting mechanism through which individual soldiers could report specific war crimes without fear of retribution.”
However, Carpenter also cautions that without any ethical or journalistic standards in place, WikiLeaks also risks not only undermining its mission but also risking further humiliation and pain for victims of war. Carpenter c
Tags: Charli Carpenter, Wikileaks