US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

Yes, I would think the 'smart evil' thing to do would be keeping it running and just ignoring what you don't like but now people will just send the stuff to WikiLeaks.

It reminds me of a company I used to work for that had a "suggestions box." After the box was full enough, the leadership would just dump it in the trash. Leadership didn't care about employee nor customer opinions. It was just to give people the illusion that their opinion mattered just to placate them.

They wouldn’t send to WikiLeaks before - also, or instead?

Do we have any evidence this initiative was ever staffed and effective?

We’ve extended a lot of credit to a vested institution to police itself. That’s not worked out in other matters, such as warrantless wiretapping, so why do you think this is effective here?

And why would you discredit third parties - especially those designed to be watchdogs?

I can see this initiative being an embrace, extend, extinguish strategy. And, I’d imagine closing this reporting portal won’t deter journalists - especially those on the frontline like WikiLeaks - from reporting on incidents.

I don't think that's even the smart thing. Because this is set up to receive reports about acts committed by groups receiving weapons from the US, the smart evil thing is to have dossiers of all the human rights abuses of your client states ready the next time you want to negotiate something with them. "It's highly embarrassing that you used the guns we gave you to shoot so many civilians. We might be somewhat less embarrassed to continue supplying you with guns if (your national airline bought more Boeing planes|you sung praises to our glorious leader more loudly in public|you brought a complaint against our adversary in the WTO)."

Or it gives you a nice warning about the evil things that have been discovered and its time to ramp up the psyops machine to cover it up...

After the small-ish company I worked for was bought by $ENGINEERING_MEGACORP, an integration program was promptly launched, during which numerous committees were formed to evaluate all business processes and take the best parts of both companies' DNA.

After thorough evaluation, it so happened that the existing practices of the megacorp was adopted without any modifications.

The next day, the office shredder had been labelled 'Suggestion box'.

Poor sods from head office tried to remove the sign, only to find some miscreant had mixed glass dust in the glue used to affix the nicely engraved sign onto the shredder, making removing it kind of difficult. End result being we got a new shredder.

The spare sign which was engraved just in case now adorns the outhouse at my cottage in the woods.