91–100 of 266 posts
What surprises me most is that Julian Assange has lasted this long. This isn't OBL, where he's living in a cave somewhere -- this guy is known to travel between first world countries. I can understand those countries may not be willing to hand him over, but the US has lots of experience with rendition and I'm surprised some three-letter agency hasn't snatched him up yet.
"WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals." This is ironic since one of the biggest contributing factors behind Manning allegedly leaking the documents was probably the fact that the government was kicking him out of the military for being gay. The fact that Obama literally can't even stop lying during his one sentence soundbite condemning the leak…
the fact that the government was kicking him out of the military for being gay If that is a fact, is there a source? "An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Eric Bloom, said Manning, who entered the Army as a private in October 2007, was demoted last month for an assault. He said he was not facing early discharge." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06...
> friends said his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under “don’t ask, don’t tell”
What surprises me most is that Julian Assange has lasted this long. This isn't OBL, where he's living in a cave somewhere -- this guy is known to travel between first world countries. I can understand those countries may not be willing to hand him over, but the US has lots of experience with rendition and I'm surprised some three-letter agency hasn't snatched him up yet.
And this actually proves an important point about the various three-letter agencies: they're not really the nefarious organizations that exist in the imaginations of people who have seen too many movies. Jason Bourne's CIA would has assassinated Julian Assange a long time ago. The real one just grumbles.
They'd need to "snatch" everyone who has access to it, which might be a very difficult proposition, not to mention a complete public relations disaster, considering Wikileaks is in the public spotlight right now.
I very much doubt the CIA is holding back out of the goodness of their hearts. No. What we are witnessing is simply cold, calculated realpolitik in action.
Is there a torrent anywhere with the actual text of the cables? Wikileaks itself is being DDOSed, and none of the news sites are reprinting anything but summaries.
From a comment on reddit: Complete docs are not up yet ... The full schedule is as follows: The first batch of documents that will be in part released Sunday night and the rest Monday will include "lively commentaries" by American diplomats on, among others, Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Af...ghan President Hamid Karzai, and Libya's Col. Muammar Gaddafi. On Tuesday, documents will be released relating to…
If that's true, this release schedule can only be assigned to massive dickishness on the part of wikileaks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, and while you're at it, Wikileaks? I'd love to see leaks from Russia, China, UK, Japan etc. You've been picking on the US for far too long; these other countries are no angels either. Are you offering to leak this information? Remember, they do not break into US systems to get this information. They need someone to leak it to them.
Plus, a couple of those countries will wipe Assange and his organization off the face of the earth. Assange is only picking on the US because we're more civil. It's like how the anti-religioun crowd tends to pick on Christianity, instead of one of the actually vicious religions that will kill them. Really, Assange is merely perpetrating a sophisticated form of bullying.
Speaking of which, why haven't I heard anything about Russia in this leak? Surely there must be some interesting diplomatic cables into and out of Russia?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Examples?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_cover
The reason why you don't shoot the messenger is precisely because he has diplomatic credentials. Why did you think "diplomats" get expelled from foreign embassies as fall out from espionage scandals?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this actually proves an important point about the various three-letter agencies: they're not really the nefarious organizations that exist in the imaginations of people who have seen too many movies. Jason Bourne's CIA would has assassinated Julian Assange a long time ago. The real one just grumbles.
What good would assassinating him do? He's not the only one who runs Wikileaks or has access to the information. They'd need to "snatch" everyone who has access to it, which might be a very difficult proposition, not to mention a complete public relations disaster, considering Wikileaks is in the public spotlight right now. I very much doubt the CIA is holding back out of the goodness of their hearts. No. What we are…
I can't imagine that the public relations fallout from his arrest would be any worse than the public relations disaster they have with the release of these cables.
What surprises me most is that Julian Assange has lasted this long. This isn't OBL, where he's living in a cave somewhere -- this guy is known to travel between first world countries. I can understand those countries may not be willing to hand him over, but the US has lots of experience with rendition and I'm surprised some three-letter agency hasn't snatched him up yet.
And this actually proves an important point about the various three-letter agencies: they're not really the nefarious organizations that exist in the imaginations of people who have seen too many movies. Jason Bourne's CIA would has assassinated Julian Assange a long time ago. The real one just grumbles.
When you comment that these cables are mundane in nature, you are assuming that you yourself are indicative of the audience as a whole. If you do not believe that millions upon millions of people will read this, you are mistaken. And many, if not the vast majority, of these readers will have previously been in the dark as to the information contained therein. So to them, this is not mundane; it's extraordinary. Furth…
I don't think these are mundane at all, but I also don't think the US comes out looking very bad. There are surely going to be some relationships that are slightly damaged especially with some allies, but so far, it's nothing too bad. Other countries on the other hand... I know this isn't hugely surprising, but it's now public that essentially everyone in the middle east is lobbying the US to attack Iran. That's got…
How many (sober) politicians will now have an open heart discussion with an US diplomatic official, which really couldn't reach his own voters/subjects?
Without being that knowledgeable about diplomacy internals, that should be worse than most any scandal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I'm confused. This practice is so widespread and so well known that there's even a wikipedia entry explaining it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_cover The reason why you don't shoot the messenger is precisely because he has diplomatic credentials. Why did you think "diplomats" get expelled from foreign embassies as fall out from espionage scandals?