CNN 2010-08-02

Patrick Hennessey reads from an incident report he remembers from his time as a captain in the British Army in Afghanistan in 2007. Now for all the world to see on Wikileaks.

 

Two shots are fired at the bottom of the car. A vehicle crashed off the road. And one of the people in the car sustained leg injuries in the crash.

 

But he says there’s more to this incident than just the words on the page.

 

That’s just brewed¹ reporting. Well, two weeks before that, we had the first suicide bomber² in Greschke. It had previously³ not been something that happened in that area. We lost a soldier in that incident.

 

The thousands of reports leaked online were written by frontline soldiers like Patrick Hennessey. He can see his call sign on these records, but he says there’s nothing secret in them.

 

Part of the sensation of this story is the impression that there is a massive cue and that something that was deliberately⁴ hidden from the public has been revealed. I didn't think any of these was deliberately hidden, any more than the company accounts of some boring insurance firms are hidden. They are just internal rather than external.

 

U.S. Marine⁵ Corp Major Jim Coffman has just returned from Afghanistan. He agrees that the records he’s seen are mundane⁶ incident reports. But he says revealing how troops operate and gather intelligence was irresponsible.

 

I think any time you jeopardize⁷ any of our sources and methods from intelligence standpoint, it’s a bad thing. And like I said, whoever is responsible for leaking this information should be held accountable and it is not, uh, it was very irresponsible.

 

Wikileaks maintains that it has a harm-minimization policy, keeping back 15,000 records to prevent the names of Taliban informants from being released. Wikileaks editor Julian Assange was not available to comment, but he said in a news conference Monday that Wikileaks was not able to vet⁸ all of the documents before publishing them. Both Hennessey and Coffman say troops in the field would be little affected⁹ by the Wikileaks media storm.

 

To be honest with you, we were not affected at all. If I were still in Afghanistan, I just got back last month. But if I were still there, I probably wouldn’t even know about any of this.

 

If troops will feel anything, it will be a slight frustration¹⁰ that people without, really, the kind of qualifications or the responsibility we experienced to know the difference between what is and isn’t sensitive have just flooded the Internet with mostly, unimpressive, uncontroversial stuff, but amongst which there may be nuggets which affect people.

 

In the meantime, Wikileaks Afghan war diary is out there for all the world to see: friend or foe¹¹?
 

1 brewed   

调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡）

参考例句：

• The beer is brewed in the Czech Republic. 这种啤酒是在捷克共和国酿造的。
• The boy brewed a cup of coffee for his mother. 这男孩给他妈妈冲了一杯咖啡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 bomber   

n.轰炸机，投弹手，投掷炸弹者

参考例句：

• He flew a bomber during the war.他在战时驾驶轰炸机。
• Detectives hunting the London bombers will be keen to interview him.追查伦敦爆炸案凶犯的侦探们急于对他进行讯问。

3 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

4 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

5 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

6 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

7 jeopardize   

vt.危及，损害

参考例句：

• Overworking can jeopardize your health.工作过量可能会危及你的健康。
• If you are rude to the boss it may jeopardize your chances of success.如果你对上司无礼，那就可能断送你成功的机会。

8 vet   

n.兽医，退役军人；vt.检查

参考例句：

• I took my dog to the vet.我把狗带到兽医诊所看病。
• Someone should vet this report before it goes out.这篇报道发表之前应该有人对它进行详查。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

11 foe   

n.敌人，仇敌

参考例句：

• He knew that Karl could be an implacable foe.他明白卡尔可能会成为他的死敌。
• A friend is a friend;a foe is a foe;one must be clearly distinguished from the other.敌是敌，友是友，必须分清界限。