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 Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
81–90 of 266 posts
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#82When 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…
[deleted]
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#83"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...
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exposure of corruption within our allies. I found things like Afghanistan’s vice president being caught (and released) in the UAE carrying $52 million in cash to be quite interesting. Also the part about Saudi donors are still the driving force in financing terrorism.
the US and Britian have turned a blind eye to the opium trade and the associated corruption in Afghanistan in order to appease the local anti-Taliban population. I watched footage last week of British soldiers fighting to free large opium fields from Taliban control so that the real owners can get back to farming. All par for the course. The war on drugs takes a back seat to the war on terrorism
As it should. Terrorists are an affront to freedom. Drugs are not.
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#85What 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.
Why is it surprising? America can't go against every one who doesn't agree with them. It needs to weigh its options carefully and intelligently. The mere reason that Hugo Chavez is still in power testifies to this fact.
The world is not black and white where we might send CIA or Special Forces to neutralize someone who we don't like. It's definitely more complicated than it seems.
There are other, more indirect ways to neutralize what he's doing. A good one is using the media to sway public opinion, etc. Another one is to discredit the guy by linking him to some "terrorist group/government" and say they're funding him, etc.
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#86What 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.
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#87When 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…
[deleted]
Examples?
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#88Earlier 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…
Releasing the raw contents without any redactions would probably be a disaster. Remember that a lot of these documents name spies/confidential informants. This is also at the level where people are actually killed.
I guess what I'm saying is a complete, unedited release would almost certainly put some blood on wikileaks "hands".
Re: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exposure of corruption within our allies. I found things like Afghanistan’s vice president being caught (and released) in the UAE carrying $52 million in cash to be quite interesting. Also the part about Saudi donors are still the driving force in financing terrorism.
the US and Britian have turned a blind eye to the opium trade and the associated corruption in Afghanistan in order to appease the local anti-Taliban population. I watched footage last week of British soldiers fighting to free large opium fields from Taliban control so that the real owners can get back to farming. All par for the course. The war on drugs takes a back seat to the war on terrorism
It's one of the interesting side notes of the war on terror in general. The Taliban had massively reduced Afghan opium production during their time in power[1]. Opium has always been such an important part of the Afghan economy, however, that production almost immediately picked back up after the US invasion in 2001.