When I was a young officer, they told me to follow my instincts, to go with my gut, and what I've learned is that often our instincts are wrong.
Kao mladom oficiru govorili su mi da pratim svoje instinkte, da se oslanjam na svoju intuiciju, i ono što sam naučio je da su često naši instinkti pogrešni.
In the summer of 2010, there was a massive leak of classified documents that came out of the Pentagon. It shocked the world, it shook up the American government, and it made people ask a lot of questions, because the sheer amount of information that was let out, and the potential impacts, were significant. And one of the first questions we asked ourselves was why would a young soldier have access to that much information? Why would we let sensitive things be with a relatively young person?
Na leto 2010. ogromna količina poverljivih dokumenata procurela je u javnost zahvaljujući izvoru iz Pentagona. Svet je bio šokiran, vlada SAD je bila uzdrmana, ljudi su počeli da postavljaju mnogo pitanja, jer su količina procurelih informacija i potencijalne implikacije bile značajni. I jedno od prvih pitanja koje smo sebi postavili je zašto bi mladi vojnik imao pristup tolikim informacijama? Zašto bismo dozvolili da tako osetljive stvari budu u rukama relativno mlade osobe?
In the summer of 2003, I was assigned to command a special operations task force, and that task force was spread across the Mideast to fight al Qaeda. Our main effort was inside Iraq, and our specified mission was to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq. For almost five years I stayed there, and we focused on fighting a war that was unconventional and it was difficult and it was bloody and it often claimed its highest price among innocent people. We did everything we could to stop al Qaeda and the foreign fighters that came in as suicide bombers and as accelerants to the violence. We honed our combat skills, we developed new equipment, we parachuted, we helicoptered, we took small boats, we drove, and we walked to objectives night after night to stop the killing that this network was putting forward. We bled, we died, and we killed to stop that organization from the violence that they were putting largely against the Iraqi people.
Leta 2003. mi je dodeljena komanda nad specijalnom jedinicom, i ta jedinica je bila poslata širom Bliskog istoka da se bori protiv Al Kaide. Naš glavni napor je bio u Iraku, i naša specifična misija je bila da porazimo Al Kaidu u Iraku. Skoro pet godina sam bio tamo i fokusirali smo se na vođenje rata koji je bio nekonvencionalan i težak i bio je krvav i često je uzimao najveći danak od nedužnih ljudi. Radili smo sve što smo mogli da zaustavimo Al Kaidu i strane borce koji su dolazili kao bombaši samoubice i potpirivači nasilja. Usavršili smo svoje borbene veštine, razvijali smo novu opremu, iskakali smo padobranima, spuštali se helikopterima, putovali čamcima, vozilima, i pešačili smo do ciljeva svake noći da zaustavimo ubijanje koje je ova mreža pripremala. Krvarili smo, umirali smo i ubijali smo da zaustavimo ovu organizaciju i nasilje koje su pripremali pretežno protiv iračkog naroda.
Now, we did what we knew, how we had grown up, and one of the things that we knew, that was in our DNA, was secrecy. It was security. It was protecting information. It was the idea that information was the lifeblood and it was what would protect and keep people safe. And we had a sense that, as we operated within our organizations, it was important to keep information in the silos within the organizations, particularly only give information to people had a demonstrated need to know. But the question often came, who needed to know? Who needed, who had to have the information so that they could do the important parts of the job that you needed? And in a tightly coupled world, that's very hard to predict. It's very hard to know who needs to have information and who doesn't. I used to deal with intelligence agencies, and I'd complain that they weren't sharing enough intelligence, and with a straight face, they'd look at me and they'd say, "What aren't you getting?" (Laughter) I said, "If I knew that, we wouldn't have a problem."
Radili smo ono što smo znali, kako smo odrasli, i jedna od stvari koje smo znali, što nam je u krvi, je tajnost. To je bila bezbednost. Zaštita informacija. To je bila ideja da je informacija žila kucavica i da je ona ta koja će zaštititi i sačuvati ljudstvo. I imali smo osećaj da je, dok smo operisali unutar svojih organizacija, važno da se informacija čuva unutar okvira organizacije, pre svega da se daje informacija ljudima kojima ta informacija zapravo treba. Ali često bi se postavilo pitanje, kome treba ta informacija? Kome je bila neophodna, ko je morao da ima tu informaciju da može da obavi bitne delove posla koji su potrebni da se obave? A u svetu tesne saradnje to je veoma teško predvideti. Veoma je teško znati kome treba ta informacija a kome ne. Ranije sam sarađivao sa obaveštajnim agencijama, i žalio bih se da ne dele dovoljno obaveštajnih podataka, mrtvi ozbiljni bi me pogledali i rekli: "Šta ne dobijaš?" (Smeh) Rekao bih im: "Kada bih to znao, ne bismo imali problem."
But what we found is we had to change. We had to change our culture about information. We had to knock down walls. We had to share. We had to change from who needs to know to the fact that who doesn't know, and we need to tell, and tell them as quickly as we can. It was a significant culture shift for an organization that had secrecy in its DNA.
Otkrili smo da smo morali da uvedemo promene. Da promenimo našu kulturu informacija. Morali smo da srušimo zadove. Da delimo. Morali smo da se promenimo sa ko mora da zna na činjenicu da ko ne zna, a treba da zna, treba da mu kažemo što pre. To je bila značajna kulturalna promena za našu organizaciju kojoj je tajnovitost u krvi.
We started by doing things, by building, not working in offices, knocking down walls, working in things we called situation awareness rooms, and in the summer of 2007, something happened which demonstrated this. We captured the personnel records for the people who were bringing foreign fighters into Iraq. And when we got the personnel records, typically, we would have hidden these, shared them with a few intelligence agencies, and then try to operate with them. But as I was talking to my intelligence officer, I said, "What do we do?" And he said, "Well, you found them." Our command. "You can just declassify them." And I said, "Well, can we declassify them? What if the enemy finds out?" And he says, "They're their personnel records." (Laughter)
Počeli smo tako što smo počeli da radimo stvari, da gradimo, prestali smo da radimo u kancelarijama, rušili smo zidove, radili smo u nečemu što smo zvali prostorijama za situacionu svest, i na leto 2007. dogodilo se nešto što je demonstriralo to. Zarobili smo lične dosijee ljudi koji su uvodili strane borce u Irak. I kada bismo se dočepali dosijea, obično bismo ih sakrili, podelili sa nekoliko obaveštajnih agencija, i potom pokušali da radimo sa njima. Ali dok sam razgovarao sa obaveštajnim oficirom, rekao sam: "Šta da radimo?" A on je rekao: "Pa ti si ih našao" Naša komanda. "Možemo prosto da skinemo oznaku poverljivosti sa njih." A ja sam rekao: "Možemo li da uradimo to? Šta ako neprijatelj sazna?" A on mi reče: "To su njihovi lični dosijei." (Smeh)
So we did, and a lot of people got upset about that, but as we passed that information around, suddenly you find that information is only of value if you give it to people who have the ability to do something with it. The fact that I know something has zero value if I'm not the person who can actually make something better because of it. So as a consequence, what we did was we changed the idea of information, instead of knowledge is power, to one where sharing is power. It was the fundamental shift, not new tactics, not new weapons, not new anything else. It was the idea that we were now part of a team in which information became the essential link between us, not a block between us.
To smo i uradili, I mnogo ljudi se uznemirilo zbog toga, ali kako smo delili okolo te informacije, iznenada smo shvatili da je informacija od vrednosti samo ako je date ljudima koji imaju mogućnost da nešto urade sa njom. Činjenica da nešto znam nema nikakvu vrednost ako nisam osoba koja zapravo može da nešto poboljša zahvaljujući tom znanju. Posledica toga je da smo promenili ideju informacije, sa "znanje je moć" u "deljenje je moć". To je bila fundamentalna promena, a ne nove taktike, ne nova oružja, niti bilo šta drugo novo. To je bila ideja da smo sada deo tima gde je informacija bitna veza između nas, a ne barijera među nama.
And I want everybody to take a deep breath and let it out, because in your life, there's going to be information that leaks out you're not going to like. Somebody's going to get my college grades out, a that's going to be a disaster. (Laughter) But it's going to be okay, and I will tell you that I am more scared of the bureaucrat that holds information in a desk drawer or in a safe than I am of someone who leaks, because ultimately, we'll be better off if we share.
I hoću da svi duboko udahnete i da izdahnete, zato što će u vašem životu biti informacija koje će iscureti, što vam se neće svideti. Neko će objaviti moje ocene sa fakulteta i to će biti katastrofa. (Smeh) Ali biće u redu, i reći ću vam da se više plašim birokrate koji drži informacije u fioci ili u sefu nego što se plašim nekoga ko pusti informaciju u javnost, jer na kraju krajeva biće nam bolje ako delimo informaciju.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Helen Walters: So I don't know if you were here this morning, if you were able to catch Rick Ledgett, the deputy director of the NSA who was responding to Edward Snowden's talk earlier this week. I just wonder, do you think the American government should give Edward Snowden amnesty?
Helen Volters: Ne znam da li ste bili ovde jutros, da li ste uspeli da vidite Rika Ledžeta, zamenika direktora NSA, koji je odgovarao na govor Edvarda Snoudena ranije ove nedelje. Pitam se, da li mislite da vlada SAD treba da da Edvardu Snoudenu amnestiju?
Stanley McChrystal: I think that Rick said something very important. We, most people, don't know all the facts. I think there are two parts of this. Edward Snowden shined a light on an important need that people had to understand. He also took a lot of documents that he didn't have the knowledge to know the importance of, so I think we need to learn the facts about this case before we make snap judgments about Edward Snowden. HW: Thank you so much. Thank you. (Applause)
Stenli Mekkristal: Mislim da je Rik rekao nešto veoma važno. Mi, većina ljudi, ne znamo sve činjenice. Mislim da ovo ima dva dela. Edvard Snouden je skrenuo pažnju na važnu potrebu koju ljudi moraju da razumeju. Takođe je uzeo puno dokumenata za koje nije imao svest o značaju, tako da mislim da treba da saznamo sve činjenice o ovom slučaju pre nego što prenaglimo sa zaključcima o Edvardu Snoudenu. HV: Mnogo Vam hvala. Hvala. (Aplauz)