Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you list some them? Bonus points if outside Western Europe.
Tunisia.
Not anymore unfortunately [0].
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/tunisians-protest-again...
Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
191–200 of 282 posts
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. If you ask some people about how they feel now, they'll say that it wouldn't affect them "because they haven't done anything wrong", o…
The population at large has been trained not to think about things like what their government does on their behalf; them's terrorist thoughts. Support da troops. One must give the appearance of being a team player by timidly ignoring Uncle Sam's glaring failures to operate within its claimed principles.
It's basic cognitive fatigue, the basis of the success of the big lie.
If American's don't adopt the big lie, then all of a sudden they need to accept:
- the US enacted genocide on Native Americans and still effectively does via reservations and enforce poverty
- the US started the vietnam war and would need to realize that we did in fact do the Gulf of Tonkin
- the US has strongly backed dozens of repressive regimes that have collectively murdered millions of people. By strongly backed, I mean trained, advised, and directed these operations to kill and torture political opposition "inconvenient" to the US.
- the current Mexican cartel leaders were formally trained by US operatives at the "School of the Americas", as part of the program to strongly back repressive regimes
- the Iraq War was a massive scam from its inception to the end
- the Afghanistan War was a massive scam for 90% of its period
- the CIA and other security agencies have a 100% functional total information awareness and infrastructure for complete totalitarian control of the US. All it needs is one president to decide to activate it on a whim. It's basically a switch sitting in the Oval Office.
and so so so many other transgressions.
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zero interest in 'human rights and democracy', lots of interests in oilfields, pipelines, military sales contracts, etc. You can go to the cable archive and type 'human rights' in the search box and see this isn't remotely true. Whatever one might think of US diplomacy and its goals, the cables are mostly of historical interest and cause for mild embarrassment. They don't really show some diabolically clever empire c…
Sorry, that's an abysmal argument. The fact that human rights are mentioned is not at all proof that US intelligence cares about them, when there is clearly no regard for them in the actions. Hegemony is a publicly stated goal of the US. What do you think that entails? What do you think is necessary for a nation of 327 million to be the hegemon over 7.5 billion?
I'm not sure what argument you're responding it, it doesn't sound like it's one I made. The point I'm making is about how these cables are characterized by the OP, not US policy. What they reveal is much closer to The Quiet American than, I dunno, Star Trek's Cardassians and that's an easy thing to check by looking at the cables.
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also do not care for Biden, but, "the most loathsome human being we've ever elected President," is ignoring history. There isn't a single president where unpleasant facts about their actions are not documented-- there wasn't a single pure and good president of the united states-- ever, nor even one who did not engage in activities which could be described as "loathsome". Starting with George Washington who lead an…
Citing this 1619 Project horseshit as fact is exactly why it needs to be opposed so vehemently.
I hear you, and you’ll see me pushing back in somebody’s Tobin the rest of the thread, burning think there’s some nuance here. If we viewing as a piece of activism and not history then I think it becomes interesting. I think it’s also useful to consider the work apart from the public persona of NHJ who is something of an internet troll.
Puncturing the nationalist myth surrounding the revolution and founding is I think worthwhile. It was after all a violent revolution, carried out by people who disagreed strongly with one another. There are contradictions in the founding that at the same time could be troubling an inspiring. Deifying the founders does them a disservice. I thinking some sense their project was about separating the state and power from personalities.
They were flawed people but accomplished something incredible. I’m against the sate conceptually, but they did a lot to bring governance closer to people.
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#195One major issue with Assange is prosecuting him. Honesty most of the 17 charges are quite week and it remains to be seen how they even apply to a foreign national. Assange received classified material and published it. This has been done countless times by journalist and it’s a pretty far stretch to somehow apply criminal charges just because he published it. Honestly from the CIA perspective it would probably have b…
> Assange received classified material and published it. This gets repeated a lot but is not what Assange is charged with. He didn't just "receive" classified information. He's alleged to have not only communicated with Manning to direct her to grab specific information and tried to help her break into systems. He'd have a much better case if he had just been a passive publisher of information. You can't be involved…
I disagree. Chelsea Manning bears the overwhelming fault from a US Legal perspective. He was a member of the armed forces under oath and knowingly shared classified information.
Assange has no oath to the US and despite his interest in the material it is quite a stretch to somehow suggest he “made” Chelsea share this info.
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
glow harder
I wish we had moderation policies that would just remove mantras like the above, which contribute precisely zero to the conversation. We all know what they are: "do you like [licking or some variant thereof] that boot [, bootlicker]?", "cry more, libtard", etc. They only serve as a thought-terminating cliché, to assert the speaker's own tribal allegiance and to place their interlocutor on the 'wrong side'. I really d…
Yes. Only the correct (i.e., pro natsec) position allowed. Good hacker ethos.
If you actually go through and read the cables they show the opposite of humanitarian interest. It's mostly horse trading and appeasing despots. Above all else, the empire must be maintained.
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tunisia.
Not anymore unfortunately [0]. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/tunisians-protest-again...
See that's the thing, it's not that simple. The ruling party which controlled the parliament for a few years is corrupt. The president, who was democratically elected by the majority of the people, used the constitution to suspend said parliament, with the support of the people. It's definitely an unorthodox move but it relates to one of democracy's limitations; what could be done when an elected party represents its own interests and not the people's?
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are numerous countries in the world that have becomes democracies inspite of the blundering and corruption of the powers that be in the west. Dont use the US and its dysfunction as an excuse please.
Can you list some them? Bonus points if outside Western Europe.
The former yugoslavia
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#199I don't see how anybody could read this and then pretend that Assange has any chance of a fair trial in America. Not only were his communication constantly monitored for years, already a breach of client attorney privilege, the US considered flagrant assassination as a potential way to handle him. I've heard many people say that Assange committed actual crimes and it's time for him to face the consequences of those a…
Not after the entirety of the liberal press branded him a Putin stooge because he emabarrassed Hillary Clinton, that's for sure. Embarrassing the Clintons generally doesn't do any favors to one's life expectancy in this banana republic.
Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, now that he’s been capture by the USA, we’ll soon know whether he committed anything thanks to his trial, right? Wait, has it been more than a year without trial already?
Erm, last I checked the U.K. justice system wasn’t the “USA”. The U.K. just denied the US extradition request, so the US isn’t even close to “capturing” Assange.
Servant states like the UK do not have autonomy in such matters.