Damaging and designed to be controversial, the latest Wikileaks release of 390,000 Iraq War-related files obeys the format that has made the group infamous. Anonymously sourced, blunt and timed to give maximum impact, the organisation makes no secret of its liberal agenda.

Although the documents are both specific and sensitive - a noxious mixture - they reveal little that isn’t either known or at least already presumed. But there is a difference between suspecting something and witnessing stark evidence of the reality. The sheer nakedness of the exposure - together with disturbing details of atrocities committed by allied troops - has undermined Western integrity and reaffirmed the widespread assumption that even modern warfare comes at the expense of gratuitous human suffering.  Solicited torture, checkpoint raids and trigger-happy behaviour by mercenaries are among the wrongdoings unearthed so far. Governments are, and should be, embarrassed.

Unsurprisingly, the latest publication has been globally condemned. The Iraqi president, Nouri-al-Maliki is furious about the possible complications it may cause in his attempts to form a government after elections in March earlier this year. European politicians echo Hilary Clinton’s assertion that “the disclosure of any classified information by individuals and organisations puts the lives of United States, partner service members and civilians at risk.”

However, under scrutiny, this is vacuous rhetoric. Firstly, the assumption that the release will fuel tensions on the ground seems unlikely.  The military presence in Iraq is a fraction of what it once was – only 50,000 U.S. troops remain- and Iraqi civilians, by virtue of living through the war, are already familiar with the horrors of the conflict. A further concern is that publishing the names of those involved, particularly Iraqi citizens, severely endangers them - I am yet to read a convincing analysis as to why this may be the case.

Even so, Wikileaks’ leverage over the political landscape breeds dangerous editorial responsibility. Despite its claims to remove the names of those who may be put at risk as a result, it is hard to see how such a small organisation (composed of several activists and a few hundred volunteers) can rigorously redact almost 400,000 documents. The redacting of the Afghan war diaries, a conflict where sensitive documents are far more likely to jeopardise the situation on the ground, came across as an afterthought. Wikileaks must be careful - revelling in its own infamy is all very well, but not if it corrupts its reputation as a credible source.

Despite the above, information should be freely available in all but the most extenuating of circumstances. Taxpayers have a right to learn the realities of the wars they fund.  Without whistleblowers, it is likely that they would never know the true consequences. Even if a leak is claimed to endanger lives, provoke hatred or polarise opinion, the alternative is far more worrying.  Tacitly allowing governments to conceal their wrongs only makes the public more likely to stomach similarly awful endeavours in the future. Wikileaks is right to place information in the hands of the electorate, with or without the consent of higher authority.

And it’s not going away. Even in the unlikely circumstance that the site dies, another one will soon replace it. Administrations worldwide must acclimatise to this new journalistic powerhouse. Bradley Manning, the U.S. serviceman charged with collateral murder for leaking pictures of the July 2007 Baghdad airstrike, neatly summed up the reality: “You saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … What would you do?”