Knowing is always better than not knowing.
Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
101–110 of 211 posts
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#102Wow, that article had government propaganda written all over it. Now I'm really glad somebody is standing up and exposing some questionable secrets.
America should be a government for the people by the people. I'm sorry, but hiding murders of children is not for the people.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
>1) Wikileaks is really pissing people off This is because what they're doing is effective. Ineffective things don't piss people off and trigger military disinfo campaigns. The author of the WPO blog article is an AEI member, a player in the neocon agenda: not some random pundit. >2) Assange has more power than many 3-star generals I'm fine with that. Assange isn't killing people. 3-star generals are. >3) Anarchy is…
"I'm fine with that. Assange isn't killing people. 3-star generals are." Yes he is. The information he released in the latest round of "secrets" gave away informants to people that can (and will) kill them. If he gave information about locations of jews to the Nazis, would we say it was freedom of information? "Government can function with much less secrecy than it currently does. WL is serving a public need in chall…
Who is really culpable for the release of these names?
Here's an excerpt from an interview with Assange...
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2968342.htm
TONY JONES: Well, not according to the Pentagon. They're accusing you of revealing the identities of Afghan informants and putting their lives at risk. Afghan's president, Karzai, agrees with that he says 'the breach is extremely irresponsible and shocking.' Your response to those comments.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well we have yet to see clear evidence of that. I mean the London Times is also making this allegation today and in a quite disingenuous way, for example they mention some informers' names they say they had found and with a headline Afghan informer already dead, but when you actually read the story what you see is in fact that individual that they're mentioning died two years ago.
So there's a little bit of media manipulation occurring here. In terms of the Afghan government, it's in their interests to sort of play up the irresponsible, irresponsibility of the United States that they say has been involved in sort of collecting and permitting this data to release, be released.
Now we contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the White House did not accept that request.
TONY JONES: So you're saying that you offered the White House a chance to go through the documents, or officials from the White House a chance to go through the documents and single out names of people at risk. Is that correct?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah that's right. Now, of course we did not offer them a chance to veto any material, but rather we told them that we were going through a harm minimisation process and offered them the chance to point out names of informers or other innocents who might be harmed and they did not respond to that request which was mediated through the New York Times who was our, acting as the contact for the four media groups involved in this.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#104I hope Wikileaks can leak things about "Palestine" regarding where and who are benefiting from all its aid - not that anyone will care that much. Is there a disproportionate focus on the USA? China's another country that could use some leakage.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#105FWIW, this guy and his employer earn their living by foaming in the mouth "for America". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
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Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) It's difficult to gauge the general sentiment, but as you say a lot of people have got het up. I see that as a good thing personally. 2) That's a good point. Wikileaks has the potential to leak material which is more damaging than it is beneficial. The question is if you think that risk is worthwhile. I do. 3) Anarchy encompasses a wide variety of political thought. You are being reductive. Besides, there is nothi…
1) I don't think this is a good thing overall, but I am happy people are angry. When the Afghan intelligence services kill Assange, we'll know how far you can push folks. That'll heat some up more -- maybe enough for things to change. 2)I believe the question you are asking me is "Do you think that some random schmuck on the internet should have the power to decide what remains secret and what doesn't?" For which I h…
+1 for consideration of a Constitutional amendment.
Proffering a system where it's perfectly ok for one random dude in Australia, who is beholden to no one, to make choices about the distribution of information directly impacting the lives scores of millions of people as some sort of acceptable alternative to fixing the structural defects of the current system is INSANE.
It's a false dichotomy between leaving the current system untouched and disowning the need for a system at all. It's like choosing between optimizing the world financial system and returning to an agrarian barter economy.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#107That article was so full of double standards it was hilarious. Many of the things he accused WikiLeaks of doing, the US military is also doing, and often more directly and at a higher level of magnitude. Also, at the end I noted the author works for AEI. Not surprising.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#108I am struck by four things. 1) Wikileaks is really pissing people off. I don't mean the nicey, lets-go-protest-down-at-the-student-union kind of protest. I mean people who are not normally angry with anybody else in the world talking about throwing him in jail and/or killing him. Devil or Angel, that's a whole heap of pissing off he's accomplished. 2) Assange has more power than many 3-star generals, yet he's just so…
>1) Wikileaks is really pissing people off This is because what they're doing is effective. Ineffective things don't piss people off and trigger military disinfo campaigns. The author of the WPO blog article is an AEI member, a player in the neocon agenda: not some random pundit. >2) Assange has more power than many 3-star generals I'm fine with that. Assange isn't killing people. 3-star generals are. >3) Anarchy is…
> "Assange isn't killing people. 3-star generals are."
For me this single point is one of the most powerful and clarifying.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#109First of all, why were 91,000 documents secret? I wouldn't really know, but isn't that something like half of all the significant events in the war so far? Doesn't that make this whole operation kind of veiled from the public eye? THIS is what Wikileaks is exposing; the fact that routine events in this war are being kept secret for no apparent reason, not just a few justified occurrences where secrecy is necessary. It should be the burdon of the governing bodies to justify making something a secret, but from these documents it looks like they're slapping a "confidential" sticker on every other file just for the heck of it.
Re: Wikileaks Must Be Stopped
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you can prove that the military is unnecessary and their absence would not prevent more bloodshed than they cause then I would say my equivocation is right on the money. So to echo the previous poster do you have an alternate solution to the military that doesn't involve an impossible mass change to the entire worlds mental and emotional state. The military is an unfortunate but necessary evil that involves bl…
Unless you can prove that the military is unnecessary and their absence would not prevent more bloodshed than they cause then I would say my equivocation is right on the money. I disagree. Rather, I would suggest that the burden of proof should rest on those who claim the right to kill others, rather than those who wish to deny others that right. Which is to say, unless you can prove that the military is necessary an…
I'll bite. There exist in the world countries and people who would like to kill me (not me personally but me as in the citizen of a rival nation/ethnic group/race/...). The military prevents them from doing so. Therefore the military is necessary. History has numerous examples supporting this fact.