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WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

nytimes.com

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Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#191

Post by trop »

grandalf wrote: post #154
patrickgzill wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all you know he is controlled opposition. There is little reason to believe that the contents of these cables aren't already known to other governments, given that many soldiers from the rank of private on up had access to them; and that the UK, France, Israel, Germany, etc. also do extensive signals intelligence, crypto, and even good old fashioned human based spying.

Very true. I can't believe this point hasn't been raised elsewhere. The information has probably not been secret since it was made available to the wider audience after 9/11.

While I wouldn't claim this is a reliable source, you could check out Dave Emory on Assange (http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-724-wiki-of-the-d... and http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-725-leak-this-wik...). Emory tries to connect Assange, the Swedish Pirate Party, a Nazi conspiracy, western intelligence agencies, and an Australian brainwashing cult of bleach-blond children. He also points to an interestingly dyspeptic cnet interview "Wikileaks' estranged co-founder becomes a critic" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html) with the founder of cryptome.org who (news to me) helped cofound Wikileaks.

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#192

Post by whynow »

aneth wrote: post #173

The most interesting thing about reading these cables is how the US comes out well - reasonable, rational, and analytical - not the nefarious evil satan that it is portrayed by our enemies and domestic extremists. This snapshot of the inner workings of American diplomacy actually make me feel much better about how things are being managed, and should undermine efforts to portray some nasty plot to dominate the world.…

The best part about reading these cables is seeing that the USG uses Google to search for information before anything else and references searches in Classified cables....

"(S) Note: A quick google check revealed several companies with the name INSULTEC in the title - these may or not be affiliated. Based on the information provided by source (currently in Iran, where he frequently travels), one possible candidate could be "INSULTEC Chitral Ltd." "

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/09BAKU179.html

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#193

Post by bcroesch »

aneth wrote: post #173

The most interesting thing about reading these cables is how the US comes out well - reasonable, rational, and analytical - not the nefarious evil satan that it is portrayed by our enemies and domestic extremists. This snapshot of the inner workings of American diplomacy actually make me feel much better about how things are being managed, and should undermine efforts to portray some nasty plot to dominate the world.…

I was struck by a pretty similar sentiment (and was somewhat surprised by it). Maybe more negative pieces will subsequently come out, but I was surprised to find myself thinking that some of the leaks may actually be helpful in producing a unified, multi-state agreement on how to approach the situation in Iran. I couldn't believe that it was actually other countries asking the US to bomb Iran.

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#194

Post by aneth »

bcroesch wrote: post #193
aneth wrote: post #173

The most interesting thing about reading these cables is how the US comes out well - reasonable, rational, and analytical - not the nefarious evil satan that it is portrayed by our enemies and domestic extremists. This snapshot of the inner workings of American diplomacy actually make me feel much better about how things are being managed, and should undermine efforts to portray some nasty plot to dominate the world.…

I was struck by a pretty similar sentiment (and was somewhat surprised by it). Maybe more negative pieces will subsequently come out, but I was surprised to find myself thinking that some of the leaks may actually be helpful in producing a unified, multi-state agreement on how to approach the situation in Iran. I couldn't believe that it was actually other countries asking the US to bomb Iran.

And the fact that some of our most secret communications support that we are not out to destroy Ahmadinejad could be the most powerful weapon we have to actually undermine him.

I expect in the future, there will be calculated "secret leaks" to Wikileaks - who knows - these may be just that.

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#195

Post by zemaj »

It seems to me that Wikileaks is disruptive to Governments in the way that Napster was disruptive to the Music Industry.

While Wikileaks may not survive in the mid term, I believe what it represents may have far reaching, long term consequences. The internet has democratised information to the point that an unhappy individual with mid level trust in an organisation can expose the organisation's "sensitive" information globally with very little effort and thought.

Before the internet an individual could expose this information, but the barriers were much higher. To be a whistle blower you could only influence people immediately near you socially. To reach higher you had to filter your information through news organisations. While there are cases of this happening, the information was still continually at risk of being censored. Would this cable information have been released if a whistle blower took it directly to the NYT, or even a collection of newspapers?

With our current online structure of Twitter, Blogs and peer file sharing it makes sensitive information immediately accessible to millions with no chance of it being censored. To me Wikileaks represents the start of something hugely disruptive to our way of life. It's not possible to scale an organisation beyond several people while maintaining complete trust in each of them. When every piece of information is at risk of being exposed, what position does this place governments in? Is it possible for the current structure of the us government with its extensive lobby groups, international secrets and security through obscurity to continue?

I think its still too hard to see how the bits will fall here, but I do think we're in for an interesting decade :)

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#196

Post by poet »

ajays wrote: post #27
rospaya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Assange made them available to the Guardian and four other newspapers: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to "dump" the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department'…

I wish Wikileaks would just dump the contents, and leave the analysis to the rest of the world. By doing selective "analysis" and redaction, they're basically doing exactly what they claim to be fighting. Either release all the information, or withhold it. Don't play sides. 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; t…

I wish Wikileaks would just dump the contents, and leave the analysis to the rest of the world. By doing selective "analysis" and redaction, they're basically doing exactly what they claim to be fighting.

Either release all the information, or withhold it. Don't play sides.

Now that's just illogical, plain and simple. You don't expect Wikileaks to do some verification and sanity checks? You object to the fact that they take a quick look over the documents to make sure they don't leak anything that will get massive amounts of people killed? Wikileaks doesn't edit to play sides, they edit so they can maintain some form of legitimacy as a journalistic entity. From what I've read, two things happen during the editing phase: (1) fact checking and (2) checks to make sure lives aren't put in danger by the leak. No sides are being played; it's simply common sense practices that journalistis have been doing for several centuries.

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#197

Post by Jach »

mseebach wrote: post #117
flyt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/us/09manning.html?pagewant... > friends said his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under “don’t ask, don’t tell”

Correlation does not imply causation.

"What does, then?" Correlation surely gives you a place to look. I believe the correct quote is "Correlation is not by itself causation." Furthermore, this isn't even a counterargument, and beyond that this is a testable prediction: someone can ask the guy.

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#198

Post by dantheman »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #178
dantheman wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear one coherent argument against capitalism -- I've never seen one.

Pure capitalism is a rent-seeking company-town dystopian nightmare. It encourages exclusive ownership of strategic resources, even when they're openly used to destroy the competitive free market by preventing rivals from existing. Similarly, lack of access to capital is a self-perpetuating social stratification problem which has led to violent revolution. IMHO these are reasons to regulate it carefully, not to elimin…

I don't think so, I think that most incarnations of capitalism haven't existed in a non-corrupt environment... In fact, I'd say that capitalism helps weed out corruption since the more corrupt states are less effective.

Also, it depends on the timeframe perspective - pure capitalism may allow someone to corner a market for a short time, but over a long period is more stable. Whereas a lot of solutions may in the short term prevent bad situations in the long term the system becomes corrupt and injustice will increase.

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#199

Post by jonknee »

hugh3 wrote: post #169
bl4k wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out the blatant hypocrisy.

It's not necessarily hypocritical to say that it's okay to grow opium in Afghanistan where it's legal but stop people from importing it into the US or UK.

How do you think he got the $50 million?

Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy

#200

Post by redthrowaway »

naner wrote: post #48
ronnier wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All pages, one click: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/...

Have we discussed ViewText here? I'm impressed. I think I may start using this instead of readability.

Readability.js is a eyesaver, but it's behaviour with mixed-content pages can be a bit wonky. Also, slow for some reason.
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