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Comment by tim333 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah Afghans too "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian...

I'm ambivalent about his jailing. If you are going to get heroic people killed then you can't cry too much if you get jailed a bit.

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There's nothing heroic about supporting a government that institutionalized pedophilia (Bacha Bazi), ran entirely on corruption, and passively accepted the sale of opium out of kickbacks from warlords. Especially not one installed through a foreign invader.

The Taliban are awful, but they're the awful legitimate government of Afghanistan. And they've already ended two of these problems. If you inform against a paramilitary that has no concerns with rule of law, you're already inserting yourself into their war and accepting the risk of being outed.

Well, his words were unfortunate, but considering how the Americans left Afghanistan in total chaos a few years ago is even more unfortunate, to put it mildly. They threw most of their allies and collaborators under the bus. The American government has NO moral superiority. And they just need to shut up.

It's a weird vibe going on in this post. A lot of people are cheering the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I wonder how many know that the Taliban has all biometric/financial data that the US left behind enabling them to round up anyone who ever helped the US.

Do you have a source for that? It seems pretty hard to believe

"his words were unfortunate"

Many you really couldn't possibly sanitize the situation any more. He said an absolutely heinous thing out loud that reflects values I definitely don't want from someone running a "neutral" dissemination platform for secrets

The US government responded to popular will and left Afghanistan. We abandoned far too many, in an incompetent withdrawal.

I didn't say the American government had moral superiority, I'm saying he thinks it's alright to kill people who worked with the American government. He supports transparency in government but at the same time supports killing people for the alleged crime of working for their enemy. No judge, no jury, just murder. This calls into question what exactly he stands for.

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