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Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

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Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#211

Post by michaelmrose »

adventured wrote: post #131
michaelmrose wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal and was probably on its face grounds for convicting Obama along with a laundry list of former executives except nobody has the political will to do it.

Well, Biden just murdered an innocent family in Afghanistan with a drone strike on a car to score cheap political points, to be shown doing something in response to the bombing at the Afghanistan airport that killed US soldiers during the evacuation. It's hard to figure out if any lines exist at this point, legally, for the President when it comes to commiting war crimes (and obviously George W Bush and numerous of t…

We have every reason to believe that the drone strike was undertaken based on faulty intelligence and was launched with the intention of preventing an attacker from bombing innocent people.

Stating that we just launched an attack on an innocent family for PR is doesn't stretch credulity it explodes it.

Insofar as France nations don't have friends they have interests. The France/Austria sub contract was first posed 5 years ago and they haven't delivered much but the projected price has balooned from 40 to 60 Billion and the original proposal was finally signed 16 months later than the proposed 2018 deadline over concerns about the suitability of the French design and concerns about the process.

The most recent milestone was this January and France again failed to meet requirements.

France is like the guy who thinks he's doing a great job who absolutely everyone knew was going to get fired. Ego alone demands that they be shocked at this.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australian-docume...

In the list of goals of the leadership of nations nowhere is it written sacrifice substantial national interests in order to maintain ephemeral good will exchangeable not even for carnival stuffies at the local fair. As long as our interests align with France and they have reason to believe that our actions will consistently align with those interests we will continue to find common cause.

That is why Trump's inconsistency, love affair with dictators, and unpredictable persuit of personal interests was so damaging. It gives nations cause to doubt whether their long term interests and values are aligned at all and whether long term strategic alignment will therefore pay dividends. Chaos discourages investment of literal and political capital.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#212

Post by nullc »

8note wrote: post #161
slim wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "holy shit" moment was this : received “sketches” of plans for killing Assange and other Europe-based WikiLeaks members CIA planned to kill some of my friends

They likely keep the plans up to date, and have one for you too, if they're your friends.

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." -- James Mattis, former secretary of defense

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#213

Post by nullc »

slim wrote: post #50

Sowing discord within the group seemed an easier route to success 2017 fits the period in which one hacker of the group was publicly accused of sexual harrassement by a female employee of the Tor project

This is the definitive reporting on the subject: https://github.com/Enegnei/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor/blob/mast...

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#214

Post by nullc »

filoeleven wrote: post #103
pydry wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggests they wanted Bernie to win. In any case, hitting up sources for leaks is, well, journalism.

No, it only suggests that they did not want Bernie supporters to solidify behind Clinton. The strongest suggestion is that they did not want Clinton to win.

At the time Assange was aware that as secretary of defense Hillary Clinton had suggested using a drone strike to assassinate him in the UK.

Do you expect him to have been neutral on her candidacy?

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#215

Post by FpUser »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #187
hutzlibu wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think people just underestimate what spy agencies actually do and how dirty it’s always been. " They do. But maybe they do, because of being told by the governments and in schools, that the CIA and co only fight terrorist and evil empires. Those leaks showed the general public more of the real picture, not the fake official one. And sure, they do not like that.

The real source of embarrassment of the leaks (ESPECIALLY the state department ones) is how much these services are basically at the beck and call of the elite, and how all the dirty shit that is done for those power brokers then blows back on us. Most of the time that blowback is the gradual, steady erosion of America's soft power, ideals, and "good guy image" Sometimes it is planes crashing into skyscrapers.

>"AtlasBarfed"

I absolutely love this nick

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#216

Post by fartingflamingo »

curiousgal wrote: post #197
fartingflamingo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lots of factors could be at play indeed. I'm certainly not an expert, but if I read correctly, the man has disbanded parliament and ruled by decree since two months, publicly announcing his disregard for the constitution. To me, that does not count as democratic anymore.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#217

Post by chrischen »

1cvmask wrote: post #184
sydthrowaway wrote: post #35

Assange needs to keep going. The Mandela moment is only a couple of political cycles away.

It depends what you mean by a couple of political cycles away. The Democrats and Bill Clinton considered Mandela a terrorist. It was George W Bush who in 2008 lifted Mandela from the terrorist watch list - although he waited till the end of his second term and for Mandela to approach the age of 90. https://www.france24.com/en/20080702-us-drops-mandela-terror...

> The Democrats and Bill Clinton considered Mandela a terrorist.

> He explained that the original purpose of the law, introduced during the 1980s while Ronald Reagan was president, was to fight terrorism. "So we're pleased that we could make this correction to what is otherwise a good and important piece of legislation," he said.

>> Their original placement on the list occurred during the Reagan admininstration.

?

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#218

Post by Barrin92 »

billyhoffman wrote: post #189
sudosysgen wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Hegemony is a publicly stated goal of the US. Where? Stated by whom? A president? We’ve had 46 with wildly conflicting public statements and goals. A Congress? We’ve had 117 sessions of Congress. “The US” isn’t a single entity. I don’t think you can make any blanket statements across that much time and that many people much beyond “they are all humans.”

I'm not sure if I agree with the OP that it's publicly stated but the bipartisan hysteria towards China, Russia, or even one or two generations ago Japan (interesting historical piece[1]) is kind of constant. With very few exceptions American politics, however divided internally is generally unified in some McCarthy style campaign against this or that perceived foreign threat.

The prospect of the US having to live in a world shaped by forces it has no control over is melting brains across the board. Americans, and yes this is a generalization but not a wrong one, cannot imagine a world that is run on values utterly foreign to them.

[1]https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1987...

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#219

Post by giantrobot »

roody15 wrote: post #195
giantrobot wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I never said he made Manning do anything. He directed and assisted Manning. A journalist doesn't help a source get more material. They don't because they know it's illegal.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#220

Post by thatcat »

hutzlibu wrote: post #132
adventured wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of being told by the governments and in schools, that the CIA and co only fight terrorist and evil empires. That's not their image in the US at all and that's not how formal education about the CIA works in schools in the US. The opposite is closer to the truth. You're maybe aware of the common American conspiracy theory that JFK was murdered by the CIA? As retribution for the Bay of Pigs, among other thing…

There has been some shift in cultural perception, true (even though "Day of the condor" is even from 1975) - but the official picture and the ones painted by a common movie, is still a very different one, from reality. I mean take James Bond for instance. Glorification of the noble spycraft par excellence. (but I have not watched the latest ones, maybe there was change, too?) And I have no first hand experience with…

Funny you use 007 as an example bc the early films were funded by mi6 as pro spy propaghanda, its a good example of how they would like to be percieved
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