"Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. -- Jean Cocteau"

Is this about Obama, or the Myth Busters? I'm confused...

...because my mom brought my tray of food down into my basement so I wouldn't have to sit with the rest of the family. My mom and I think this is a win-win situation.

Oh, also, misrepresentation is different than hiding. I don't allege the guardian was hiding things. That means they're deliberately trying to suppress something, like not ever publishing the longer story or denying that something true happened. They didn't do that. They misrepresented, as in, they had the facts and picked the ones they liked to present to further some kind of purpose.

Lie? That infers malice.

Here is the story they had on their front page on the day the leak was publicized.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

Here is the excerpt from the story mentioning the helicopter.

A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.

I can probably safely assume the guardian had the story you linked to on the same day I read the story they published on the front of their webpage because it was published on the same day (I'm not saying the Guardian is so lacking of credit that they would falsify publication dates).

If they had all this information and choose to leave out the relevant parts on the story that is going to be linked and read by the majority of the people, then they need to do a thorough scrub of their editorial principles and just report things as they happened in the future, even in their summaries.

The longer story states "enemy gunners try to make their escape in a dumper truck," then "then they came out wanting to surrender" and finally "The two Iraqis try to take refuge in a shack." There were several 2-13 minute delays in between each of those actions. All this language in this more specific story is more or less pulled straight from the actual documents. I am glad they published the details in full, but it doesn't absolve them of their lack of accuracy in other stories. You're assuming everyone read every story this place publishes, instead of just reading the summary article. The internet is a big place, and I'm glad there's people like you who can spend time researching all these things. People like the Guardian who research these things should spend the extra 20 words to be accurate.

Time magazine gave a similar one sentence summary that the Guardian did and didn't mention the second time the combatants fled. I didn't even misrepresent the facts in my one sentence statement that you claim is a lie. No reasonable person would think I have to read every single story the Guardian ever published when there are 399,999 other documents as well to read with facts in them. If I can't trust a publication to summarize something correctly when I have superior knowledge easily available, then I have no duty to continue reading the rest of their stuff.

...just did it and all I got were Slashdot posts. That's probably supposed to be depressing, but my Karma says it's good...

Paralegal, not a lawyer. I don't give legal advice, I just state the facts.

The story could be deliberately misrepresented to provide more sensationalism and page views, since the Guardian has done it before. They have a tendency in other coverage of the WikiLeaks to not cite the whole story, just the parts that sound bad.

I'm not saying the parts they cite are untrue, I just know that selection bias is very prevalent and a side effect of their very strong editorial slant. Acceptable interrogation techniques were laid out in non-classified documents available on the military's own regulation websites since the war began. If a soldier violated those guidelines, ESPECIALLY after Abu Ghraib, then there would be serious criminal prosecutions shortly following. I saw those prosecutions first hand, being a JAG paralegal. The Guardian will not report on those cases which are a matter of public record, just the incidents that sound bad.

"Since there are more pro-war media outlets than anti-war ones, and the pro-war ones tend to be bigger, it's plenty accurate."

Please provide scope, as in media outlets world wide or in your particular area. Statistics would be preferred, since broad generalizations are not clever either.

In fact, you're supporting my exact statement of people who make broad over-generalizations and I appreciate the anecdotal proof. The exception is you aren't aware of the broad generalizations you're making where I assumed the parent did. Welcome to the internet!

The guardian specifically has misrepresented many of the actual source documents. The incident where US helicopters supposedly shot people who surrendered was not explained in full. The people who "surrendered" had mortared US troops, fled, "surrendered" and while waiting on ground troops, fled again. If they stop "Surrendering" to try and escape, troops are allowed under international law of armed conflict to shoot them. Read more than one version of the story to get the whole truth instead of relying on one source that has a very decided anti-Iraq-war slant. Welcome to the internet!

I not only read the article, I read 15 other versions, ranging from the Guardian, Washington Post, the original AP news most places are reporting, and Der Spiegel's international translation. I commented elsewhere on the other matters you mentioned. I was also stationed there from Sept 2008 until Dec 2009 in Tikrit working in a Division level job with oversight of detainee processes.

The people who tried to surrender then fled capture again before ground troops could arrive. Look at the actual source. The underrepresented civilian casualties are a product of soldiers on the scene not knowing which were combatants or which were innocents in many cases. Not all, but many.
For the period of time there was a sovereign run Coalition government, we would be responsible for the actions of the Iraqi police and military while they rebuilt. But sovereign control of the country had been handed back to Iraq in 2004-2005, and we're talking many of the events in the source leaked documents occuring into 2010, when America has been "withdrawn" (despite still having over 50,000 troops there). There's got to be a cutting off point for liability. Japan took years to get a government running, like you said, but once set up, they took responsibility. Claiming Iraq is a distinct case from Japan is not sufficient. We still have troops in Japan. Japan has a known history for having an unrealistic criminal confession rate of about 95% due to police "coercion" for people to "confess." Are we liable for those acts since we helped set up a country with that kind of cultural practice? Of course not.

Leadership by example requires there is a group that is thinking logically enough to be rational. Drafters of the US Constitution didn't have much faith in the general public's group think, and the overall trend on Slashdot (albeit, a bit elitist itself) doesn't have much trust in the general public either. Groups don't always do the right thing for all people.

This would have precluded the Americans have entering WWII in the European theater. Can you say that would be a reasonable outcome? Public opinion polls at the time reflect that the majority of America would never have voted for war, and directly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, many people thought the war in Europe was still an isolated conflict.

This is a statistics question, not a policy question. Americans didn't report all Green on White incidents because there was not a 1:1 parity of people reporting incidents with the number of Green patrols, raids, etc. We don't have a complete record of Green on White incidents because we can't have a complete record. Sectarian violence played a big role in how those things played out.

Are you saying Americans were directly liable of detainee abuse? Sorry. It's not there. Would you prefer another foreign military to take people out of American prisons because we have the death penalty or notify authorities and allow the American process to fix that? And if America chooses not to change that position you don't agree with (death penalty is legal here. In Iraq, DETAINEE ABUSE IS ILLEGAL), do you declare war again to correct this problem? New sanctions?

Most people in America would rather foreign governments to respect our sovereignity and just bring any serious infractions of humanitarian standards to public notice after allowing the government time to fix it themselves. Even the broad generalizations from (most) websites pointed out that ALL of this detainee abuse was pointed out to different levels of authority in the Iraqi government and still the Iraqis chose to do nothing about it. What is America's recourse then? Snatch the detainees away? Hold onto more detainees when public opinion at the time was so adamant we shouldn't hold on to them? Where would we send them if we're to withdraw: Guantanamo? Maybe try an Iraqi in American courts for crimes committed in Iraq? Think through your assumption and then get back to the internet.

The 400,000 documents also reports the finding of mass graves of unmarked masses killed by Saddam's troops. These documents are more in line with the numbers reported in other places and far below what would have continued if Saddam had stayed in power. Whether you disagree with the reasons for the invasion or methods, or what have you, the rate of deaths in Iraq has lowered since 2003 when compared to the previous 23 years Saddam was in power.