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Can I pick two options? (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to stop with the drama, AND find a place to hide. Honestly, after this I'll be surprised every day that I don't see in the news that he's been assassinated.
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:5, Insightful)
That was true back when he was only pissing off one country at a time. But these latest leaks have embarrassed half the governments in the world! How would you ever know who to blame?
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:4, Funny)
Whom. :)
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:4, Insightful)
The latest leaks is everyone's pants down one way or another so the persons who may lose the most there are the diplomats that works for a dictator or similar that has said something they shouldn't have said. They may end up in prison or get a capital punishment for insulting the great leader.
The rest of the diplomats - they will get something new to chat about when future parties are thrown. Of course governments and leaders are having a fit - that's the game of politics for the public, but in the long run it won't be any serious international incidents. Some diplomats may have to relocate from popular assignments to less popular but that's about it.
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:4, Insightful)
You've sort of hit on one of the things that has concerned me about these leaks. I generally support WikiLeaks's stated goal of exposing corruption. But people, especially here in the U.S., ignore the repercussions. For instance, there are many people that argue that anything done in the name of our democracy should be public. That way, we would have a fully informed populace that would use this information accordingly in the next election cycle. As the argument goes, if the citizens are unaware of the government's actions on their behalf, then the citizens cannot act to change the policies. It's a very noble ideal. But it's also deeply flawed.
Information is not classified to keep U.S. citizens in the dark. Rather, it is classified (primarily...yes, there are abuses...but that's a different matter) in order to keep the information out of the hands of hostile entities (certain foreign governments and terrorist organizations). There is simply no possible way to have a fully informed populace without sharing the information with our enemies or those who do not share our values.
So, yeah, it is a nice ideal to help the citizenry become aware of corrupt actions done by members of the U.S. government. However, we need to accept that there is a cost to this information. It is not free. Individuals in other countries may be imprisoned or killed. North Korea may act even more antagonistically now that they have reason to suspect that they do not have the full support of China. Iran may increase the urgency of their nuclear program now that it's publicly known that Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been urging the U.S. to strike.
In the end, there's always a trade-off. Yes, we U.S. citizens have more information about our government. However, so do other groups that may react in very bad ways. To suggest that political embarrassment is the only result of these leaks is utterly naive.
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Doesn't matter if the ambassador gets there or not. They merely have to say he did.
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Which government is that, that doesn't assassinate individuals? We know the U.S. government does: it tried to get Castro several times, that it assassinated many during the Phoenix Program [wikipedia.org], and that the CIA currently has a hitlist that include American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki [democracynow.org].
We know the Russian government does: mmm, polonium [time.com]. We know the Israeli government does -- they're almost certainly the ones behind the assassination of Majid Shahriari [time.com].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, after this I'll be surprised every day that I don't see in the news that he's been assassinated.
Then you might get someone who ISN'T a douchebag to take over the site and then you've got big problems because the main issue of wikileaks isn't taken care of and now you've got blood on your hands and everyone would be pointing fingers.
Its kinda like that story, I don't know if its true or not, but they say the Allies actually had planned out an operation with a reasonable chance of success to Kill Hitler - however by that time, Hitler was doing such a bang up job of losing the war that if one of his Gene
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By what time?
There is significant evidence to suggest Hitler was actually gifted with an impressive sense of intuition, and his strategic/tactical directives during the early years of the war (1939-1941) were close to spot-on. For example on the eastern front, a historical analysis suggests that during the initial blitzkrieg attacks on Russia, Hitler's specific veto decisions over his generals were correct, and led to spectacular successes.
His fatal failing, however, was his ego. As 1941 wore on, and the Ge
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Whether I need more than that or not, there is more than that ... lots more ... whole books devoted to the subject of Hitler's invasion of Russia and the factors behind it.
Without going into too much detail, the basic reasoning is (was) that Russia and Germany were going to find themselves at war within a decade (at most) in any case. Also, by conquering Russia early, Hitler felt he had a reasonable chance of keeping America isolated, tied up with Japan, and out of the war in Europe. He knew that America ar
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:4, Insightful)
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At first blush I'd agree with you but isn't it the case that they got a huge trove of documents from that US Army guy, and they're just releasing what they got? I mean if they had received a fuckton of cables from Russia and didn't release them, that would be one thing. But the reality is they've just released what they received, and that they spent a lot of time on releases that had a lot of documents. Nothing wrong with that IMHO.
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:5, Funny)
Definitely find a place to hide. When posting something truly interesting, someone's bound to be pissed off about it. In fact, I
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While posting interesting things may result in pissing someone off, I have learned that insightful posts - ones that really understand the problems at hand - are what really
What drama? (Score:4, Insightful)
What drama are we talking about? His legal problems? Because I doubt that he wanted them, and would probably stop them if he could. Or do you think he should step down simply because he was accused of a crime? That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. That would be making it too easy for people to shut down wikileaks (all they have to do make an accusation? anybody could do that.) and it would make him appear guilty (whether he is or not). You can't quit just because you ran into a little (expected) resistance.
I think it's the various governments involved and the news media which are being dramatic, not WikiLeaks. Every time there's a new leak they talk about how millions of Americans will die as a result of the leak. Every news article seems to mention the rape and molestation charges, which really have nothing to do with the leak. Do you want the media and the politicians to be less dramatic? Keep dreaming.
And please don't tell me that someone else would not be as much of a distraction. The news media can and will launch an ad-hominem attack against anybody.
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I think we're more specifically referring to Wikileaks' attention-mongering behavior - for example, shutting down the website for weeks and begging/threatening for donations before releasing the "Collateral Murder" video, or announcing planned leaks to the press weeks before releasing them. On one hand, I see how this is incredibly effective at garnering attention, which is probably the intended goal, but on the other, Julian Assange has been acting more and more like a paranoid drama queen over the past fe
"Maybe" it's justified? (Score:3)
1. US authorities are pulling out all the stops to prosecute him (on what seem to be pretty obviously trumped up charges).
2. They are also putting maximum pressure on other countries and international organzations to legally harass him.
3. Numerous pundits are clamoring for him to be assassinated.
I'd say he has ample justification to be paranoid. And regarding "attention-mongering behavior" - dude, the point is that this stuff is news that he wants people to read. Of course he tries to get people to pay atte
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No, he wasn't. His paymasters put some missiles in Cuba, but never finished activating them before they had to back down.
I suspect strongly that the only reason Castro was never assassinated was that noone in the US government ever really cared all that much (yes, the Cuban-American community has always wanted Cuba out from under his thumb, but it's not like Cuba is really important enough to waste much time
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, Reagan chose to invade Grenada?
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> And yet, Reagan chose to invade Grenada?
Just politics - it made us cozier with the Brits.
Re:Can I pick two options? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget the other reason: Reagan had ordered our marines, against the wishes of military brass, to get off their ship and into a hotel at the US embassy in Lebanon, to make a "statement" that America was not afraid of extremists. (Hey, we elect 'em!)
The next day, October 23rd, some extremists made a "statement" that 250 marines can be killed by blowing up a hotel.
The day after, Reagan made a statement that this was a "despicable act."
The next day, Reagan made a "statement" that "oh hey, look over there at Grenada, we're invading them because of the dire threat they pose... to freedom. Yeah." And the news cycle immediately switched to flag-waving mode, pushing the Marines' deaths out of the headlines.
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Yet Democrats == liberals and thus can't be trusted with the troops, while Reagan was the bestest President ever.
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It was for the nutmeg. God help us if our pumpkin pies aren't ready in time...
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any of the responses && Find a place to hi (Score:2)
Redact and post (Score:5, Interesting)
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In a perfect world, yes. But WikiLeaks has limited resources with which to do the redaction. If they could automate it (run the docs through a filter) that might fit within their resource limits. But filter what? The Pentagon/CIA/State Department certainly aren't going to give them a list of names for a search and replace process. Some AI might be able to pick out names. But "<redacted>, the president of Obscuristan" isn't going to fool many people.
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This time, they've been quite smart about it. They released the documents to the mainstream press, who have the resources to go through it looking for both the juicy bits and the names to redact.
What baffles me is that everyone is concentrating on Wikileaks. If A whispers a secret to B, and B whispers that secret to C and D, and C and D tell the whole world, who takes the share of the blame? In this scenario, B is Wikileaks, and they're taking all the flak. It's the mainstream media who have chosen to tell
Re:Redact and post (Score:5, Insightful)
This is, sadly, the modern political way. The Republicans started this, but the Democrats have learned fast. If you shout loudly enough, people will believe you even if you're lying out your backside. Journalists will never fact check and call you on your lies on the spot. By the time you're forced to retract it, nobody is paying attention to that issue anymore, and most people continue to believe the lie even if you retract it.
That's why according to significant percentages of the American public, Obama is not an American Citizen (he is), he's a Muslim (he's Christian), he's a socialist (he's about as corporatist as the rest of them up in D.C. except on a handful of issues), he hasn't helped the American economy (it's rebounding fairly nicely, with jobs lagging behind a bit, which almost always occurs in a significant recession), he blew tons of money bailing out banks (most have paid it back at this point), and so on.
I bet if Sarah Palin got on national TV and shouted often enough that the sky is green, Texas would make it a mandatory part of their curriculum next year. That's how low American politics and journalism has fallen.
quit with the gossip (Score:5, Interesting)
I read through a summary of the leaked data they found and really, the only truly interesting thing I saw was Hillary ordering snooping on Ban Ki-Moon and other UN folk. The rest of it was largely diplomats shit-talking various leaders. I'm sure I missed other important stuff, but that's just another problem with this dump-truck non-journalism method of leaking they do.
WikiLeaks are shooting themselves in the foot. I think a small, targeted release of sensitive data would do more damage than simply dropping a 16-ton brick of documents on the press and letting them figure it out. They're obviously optimizing for the "size" of the leak, as if that's what's important, rather than what is being leaked. And doing so only encourages more government paranoia and for them to find and patch their leaks. It also depends crucially on good journalists to sift through the shit and find the gold, which is not something I would trust a modern journalist to do.
It would have been far more efficacious, IMO, to identify a small number of embarrassing documents amid the morass, redact them carefully, and release them slowly over a period of time. Not only would that let them control the story (the story would be the leak rather than the giant WikiLeaks data dump), it would also help obscure who exactly their leaks are and whether or not they've been caught or shut down. The way WikiLeaks has been operating, they're attracting too much of the wrong kind of attention and not enough of the right kinds.
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah the one about the international warrant was pretty damn interesting to me, that one doesn't seem to be garnering a lot of attention though.
American intelligence agents have to be able to be held responsible for their actions, they cannot just go around kidnapping foreign citizens in their own countries and transport them to secret prisons, in this case a German citizen abducted in Germany and transported to Afghanistan. Apparently mistaken for someone else with the same name(!)
If they wanted the guy, they need to go through proper channels and get him extradited for a proper trial. If they don't have enough evidence to get him extradited, they can't have him!
HIS NAME is Henry Tuttle! (?) (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently mistaken for someone else with the same name(!)
Do you have a form 27B-6 to document that?
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Informative)
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Informative)
Iran, strictly (and even practically) speaking, is not the "Arab world".
Iran is the Persian World -- they speak Farsi rather than Arabic, and they are mainly Shia rather than Sunni.
There are substantial cultural, social and economic differences between the Arab states in the Middle East and Iran.
The gulf (pardon the pun) between Saudi Arabia and Iran is as great as that between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but note that the GP is still correct: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Yemen, UAE are all Arab states, and THEY are the ones asking the US to intervene with arms. Read the statement again and THINK what it actually means before you reiterate the old "Iran is not Arab" meme.
That said, the whole reason why the Middle East is the way it is, is because there's all this oil there, and the rest of the world wants it. How far Russia, China, Europe, and the US are willing to go to exert their influence over these oil-rich countries, both politically, economically, and militarily, is the historical basis for why the entire area is so fucked up. If Israel never existed, they'd still be at each others' throats because they're like spoiled adolescents who have been given a million dollars to spend on whatever they want. So yes, Arab states want the US to intervene, but the US has allowed that strategic dependence to develop as a means of increasing their leverage in the region. Because if they aren't friends with the Saudis and support their fundamentalist monarchy, then there are plenty of other countries willing to be the Saudis' BFF, and the US doesn't want them buying weapons from, say, Russia or China.
The day that the human race is free from oil and finds a suitably cheap and efficient renewable energy source is the day the Middle East can go fuck themselves.
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The middle east has been the way it is for far longer than mined oil's been a commodity. Unless you're going to try and make the claim that freakin' Caesar was after the stuff...
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Alot of the "juice" that has made the headlines from this round have been talked about and rumored for years.
North Korea and China trading technology to Iran, arms to Hezbollah in ambulances, and most of the other stuff has been circulating for ages.
Chipping prisoners like a horse was funny, the American reply that horses don't have good lawyers was chuckleworthy.
But all in all I agree with you completely, Wikileaks doesn't really have a good idea of how to optimize these leaks - Mitrokhin and Andrews did m
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Wikileaks has released nothing to answer any of the questions you posed.
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You know, I thought that at first, too, but now I'm not so sure.
The first big US leak was from military communications, and it so happens that we have more military in more places than any other country in the world. The second big leak is from diplomatic communications, and it so happens that the US has more diplomats in more places than any other country in the world. By a huge margin. We've got armies of diplomats running around sending cables to each
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikileaks also edits it's leaks, as it did with the initial video of the Apache strike from spring '10.
Yes, they slowed down part of the video and the commentary didn't point out that some of the people could have possibly had an RPG or an AK-47, however, such things could have been camera tripods or any number of things, it is impossible to tell. What the US military did, however, was inexcusable, I don't think even Fox News (which, might I remind you was the only major news outlet to claim that the thing in question was an RPG) could deny that attacking civilians, especially in the manor that the military did so, was justified in any way.
the people aren't required to have up to date information to decide on things, the representatives we elect are required to have that data.
And you don't find anything troubling about that statement? You don't find it troubling at all that the people are denied the information needed to correctly select the elected leaders while elected leaders are allowed the data and the ability to choose for themselves which actions would most benefit them?
You don't see that due to silly wars like these and the "war on drugs" the West is bankrupting itself? You seem to think that somehow not giving the correct information to the people who are electing the officials is supposed to be admired? That somehow correct decisions can be made if someone is told that 2+2=5?
Two things have to happen for a democracy to be free and fully functioning, first is limited government where the government is very limited in scope, the second is that people have to have access to full and accurate information without information, how are they going to vote for the best person? They can't.
The people need to have full information to decide whether it is worth it to continue the costly "war on terror", without full information, people won't make the correct decision.
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This is about the fact that we don't want a billion retards making decisions, we want to elect people we think are smart and ethical to make these decisions for us and to do their own research because they're going to be doing that as their job, not as some sideshow from their own lives.
I think this is exactly what Wikileaks is doing. Is showing us that we are electing retards into office.
Even as a US citizen I am tired of these popularity contests and I'm sure that a lot of other people in other countries are getting tired of us electing idiots to the most powerful positions in our government.
What the leaks so far have pointed out is that we not only started a needless war in Iraq, but we left unchecked one of the biggest threats in the region Iran.
To top this off we sent the world e
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they shot unarmed civilians.. the fact that they had an armed escort may have been reason to shoot down the escort, but when they continued firing on the unarmed, including the van that came to collect the dying, it became a war crime.
Really, it's like you didn't watch the video.
Re:quit with the gossip (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but Mitrokhin based his books on his own handwritten notes from the archives, not copies from the archives themselves.
As a result, historians are still arguing over how much of it is true.
For example, he claimed that I.F. Stone was a KGB agent. We have no way of verifying that claim by seeing exactly what the archives said. Maybe he was. Or maybe Andrews thought he was. Or maybe a KGB agent exaggerated. When it first came out, I read through the claims and counter-claims, and I wasn't convinced.
I've spent a lot of time checking claims against original documents, and often people read what they want to read.
There's no substitute for source materials.
Journalism for the Spam Age (Score:2, Interesting)
You hit the mark there. But let me use a more appropriate metaphor, spam journalism. And the solution: sharpen your filtering skills, say, by using Google or your old fashioned Unix tools (e.g. grep) after you download the info dump.
This spam or "dump-truck" journalism has parallels in the Internet as a whol
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Literally 0.1% of the archive has been released to the public. It is being staggared to avoid overwhelming the press and causing them to miss important stories. Time will tell if we get stories this big every week, or if the initial release was the best stuff.
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You did not find the confirmation that the younger leaders in China don't like NK and that they don't really see the son of Kim Jong-Il as a likely successor?
While most of the stuff are things those who pay attention can guess at, having it in writing makes it much more acceptable for more people to accept.
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WikiLeaks are shooting themselves in the foot. I think a small, targeted release of sensitive data would do more damage than simply dropping a 16-ton brick of documents on the press and letting them figure it out.
Assange's primary motivation seems to be his general dislike of government secrecy, not to out specific secrets or bring down specific people. So his goal is to get as much information out in the open as possible and let the press and the public figure it out.
It's the press's job to analyze the information and make it digestible for the public, to point out what is most relevant and why. Unfortunately most of the press are not very good at it any more.
Stop with the drama... (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on folks... (Score:2, Insightful)
Please tell me that a simple PFC could steal this kind of information. You can't be serious. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if I were, this would have the Kennedy Assassination beat by a long mile.
I'm not in the military but I have been in plenty of military datacenters. They just don't let PFCs in unless they are cleaning the floors.
I bet this kid didn't even exist. I bet the 'leak' was intentional. Wouldn't surprise me.
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I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if I were [...] I bet this kid didn't even exist. I bet the 'leak' was intentional
One of these things is not like the other . . . .
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There is a growing group of people that think wikileaks is really all smoke and mirrors and that it has become a disinfo arm of the government. I find it rather hard to believe that a pfc could get a hold of all these cables and everything else myself. That being said, something does smell pretty fishy here.
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Posting anon for obvious reasons, but:
Yes, a lot of people that are straight out of high school have access to information that could potentially be dangerous in the wrong hands. I was 18 when I entered in to one of the armed services, and I was immediately given a secret clearance after background checks. Part of my job was accounting for crypto/sensitive/classified items for the F-15 aircraft. I had access to TCTO information modifying those parts due to threat changes, avionics updates and firmware upgra
Not originaly PFC (Score:2)
If this is still stuff Manning leaked, he was a Sgt before getting busted back down. Its possible they cleared him as a Sgt before he got busted and didn't remove it.
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> Its possible they cleared him as a Sgt before he got busted and didn't remove it.
Damn unlikely, getting any kind of negative action like that almost always gets all clearances yanked automatically.
Re:Come on folks... (Score:5, Informative)
As a one-time A1C (USAF equivalent to a PFC) I can say from personal experience that far more sensitive information than that is quite often accessible to lower ranking personnel. That's not to say they aren't vetted first, but we don't have mind-reading machines yet and at that age the simple process of maturity, (and exposure to enough crap like this :), can bring about radical changes in perspective. Most people have enough (or are given enough) perspective even at that age that they can be trusted with sensitive information, but no screening process is perfect. If there's anything surprising here it is that A - we don't get more leaks like this, and B - that the screening is actually as effective as it is, (those are not mutually exclusive).
This is just Wikileaks showing the US who's boss. (Score:2)
I think that the US should stop chasing Wikileaks. All this saber-rattling about them is just sound and fury.
Wikileaks owns you, US. Run up the white flag and retire.
Speaking of being in need of redaction... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. Just wow.
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That's just a capitalization error. Clearly that option was to indicate that the extra redaction effort should be outsourced to India.
Wow (Score:2)
It's pretty early for this poll, but I'm amazed at the current results. Their focus on the US government has generated some powerful reaction, but there is lots of good dirt to be spilled on corporations and organizations from around the world. I guess they just make available what is given to them.
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The US government is the Corporation, or rather, the other way around. Look closely to your foreign policy blunders and chances are, you will find some corporation lobbying or profiting from it. With regards to Wikileaks "targeting" the US, you will have to accept that the US government, on the whole had stopped being a force of good on the world stage, probably right after the fall of the Soviet Union. Hence, it is the "best" target for this sort of thing. Not to say other countries don't deserve to be tar
Whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whatever. (Score:4, Insightful)
It was one of the many places where the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is right on target: The presidents job is not to execute power, but to distract from it.
The people who really rule our countries are the ones behind the politicians. The administration. Not the official ministers and heads-of-whatever, but the guys who run the ministries, and in many cases have done so for a decade or two. There are a few well-known cases here in Germany where a continuous policy despite two radical government changes can be traced directly to those guys.
The ministers and presidents and other politicians only read the reports of those guys to the journalists at the press conference. They are not important. Obama's main mistake was thinking he could change how Washington works. Turns out Washington has more experience in bringing upity presidents in line.
Enough with iRaq (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Enough with iRaq (Score:4, Funny)
Problem: Our news outlets have failed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikileaks is doing exactly what our news outlets should be doing but have refused to for quite some time: dig out the truth and present it to the public, without bias, commentary, or spin.
At least in theory, citizens of the US live in a democratic republic. Such a political institution requires it's citizens to be able to make clear decisions based on fact. Without accurate information such a system will eventually break down.
The fact that Wikileaks makes some of our government institutions and corporate entities nervous just proves that light needs to be cast on those institutions' activities. After all, according to the mantra of the Bush administration, if you've done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.
I commend Wikileaks as they are providing a necessary service that our society sorely needs at this point.
I suggest that Wikileaks actually continue with the drama. They've created a number of very powerful enemies. At this point, staying in the spotlight is about the only thing that protects them and allows them to continue to perform their work.
There is no focus on the US (Score:2, Insightful)
Have any of the people claiming a US focus actually looked at what has been previously leaked? Or are you basing your false opinion on what you have seen in US media?
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Go on the wikileaks site and try to find anything on another country, you will fail. Focus on the US, there's your proof.
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However, Julian doesn't seem to wave those around and editorialize them in like he does to the leaks from the USA.
Missing Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Go further than what they're doing.
Their measure of success is how many people they make uncomfortable. The way I see it, anyone who is scared of exposing their government has something to hide. Didn't your mother ever tell you that honesty was the best policy? That it's important to be honest, particularly when it's the most difficult? This kind of frank and open communication can only be a good thing.
Nobody should be acting like Wikileaks is the problem - their willingness to shoot the messenger speaks volumes about their fear of the government. Or somebody else's government. I say, let the government fear the people!
Re:Missing Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't your mother ever tell you that honesty was the best policy
Yeah, but she was lying. The best policy is to not get caught. The next best is to have someone else to blame, then credible denial, then legal loopholes and blaming the previous administration. Only after all of those have been exhausted do we get anywhere near telling the truth - and even then you have to peel away all the misdirections, obfuscations and decoys - like layers off an onion.
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You are right. Personally, I don't feel that my private thoughts and impulses should be captured through some means without my knowledge and published to the world. I would feel the shame of society, and that is worse than death.
But on the other hand, what hope do I have of ever healing myself without their strength?
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You are right. Personally, I don't feel that my private thoughts and impulses should be captured through some means without my knowledge and published to the world. I would feel the shame of society, and that is worse than death.
Keep in mind that these aren't really "private" - these are official notes being passed between our officials over official channels.
They jumped the shark (Score:2)
I liked wiki leaks at first but not it just looks like a really juvenile game of lets see what we can get our hands on and embarrass everyone by publishing. Bradley Manning is a criminal pure and simple not a serious whistle blower. Julian Assange is stupid enough to be used by Bradley, who is a idot to begin with, completely deluded or just a jerk; I am not sure which.
A real whistle blower in my opinion at least is someone who knows of a continued deliberate covered up activity that is either illegal, im
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Most of those State Department cables while embarrassing are not criminal not unethical in anyway and leaking them does nobody any good.
I'd agree that these leaks are not terribly damaging to any government (at least of those released so far). There are a few that may expose unethical behaviour (e.g. the kidnapping case) but some actually make the governments involved look better in my eyes.
Example 1: evidence of Gordon Brown attempting to intervene in the Gary McKinnon extradition case. I had no idea he had done so.
Example 2: evidence of China's decline of support for North Korea. I suspected China's support was a bit half-hearted but coul
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Leaking now that China is ready to abandon North Korea is responsible and necessary public knowledge? Especially now when things are this intense in Korea?
Wikileaks seems to be trying to start a war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea [guardian.co.uk]
Its a fantastic thing to do because it breaks a stalemate and forces China to respond. They now have to publicly take sides again against NK and it is possible they won't. This leak is generally favoring the current US administration (even the bit about bugging the UN was common knowledge, and who likes the UN anyway?). I could be totally wrong but I think this leak came from the US Government.
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I meant for or against NK
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This is a perfect example of how sometimes information DOESN'T want to be free. To be able to perform any sort of negotiation, in diplomacy or in business, you need to know that you can do so in some sort of secrecy.
I was largely supportive of the last two big releases because it was mostly things we knew, and it didn't expose things that were currently happening.
THIS release is a dump of hugely relevant, and hugely sensitive, information that private individuals really don't need to know. I know that sound
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You don't think you have a right to know what your country's elected government is doing behind closed doors? Especially if it is illegal? You think the government should be more secretive? I can think of one country that tried to hide everything it could from its citizens, can you?
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You don't think you have a right to know what your country's elected government is doing behind closed doors? Especially if it is illegal? You think the government should be more secretive? I can think of one country that tried to hide everything it could from its citizens, can you?
This is mainly diplomats trash-talking diplomats. It isn't necessary or helpful, just embarrassing--in fact, rather hurtful. This violates privacy for no good reason.
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I think it helps point out some government employees that are complete douchebags who should never be trusted with anything.
Re:Is this acting responsibly? (Score:5, Insightful)
"You don't think you have a right to know what your country's elected government is doing behind closed doors?"
Absolutely not. Do you expect to be able to drive your Ford Focus through the gates of Los Alamos?
"Especially if it is illegal?"
You're conflating legitimate whistleblowing and indiscriminate data dumps. Whistleblowers should be protected, of course. But you have to do it right - you do need to go through the proper channels first. If that's not feasible, and I'm sure in many cases it wasn't, then pull a Deepthroat and go to a journalist - someone who can apply the right kind of pressure.
High-level Chinese and Russian diplomats were giving the US assurances that they would, under no circumstances, provide material support to North Korea if attacked, and the Chinese were trying to put together a roadmap for a Seoul-based unified government. Do you really think they can move forward on that now without significant rework? We could have lost months, or even more than a year, and with the recent DPRK posturing, we don't necessarily have that long!
"You think the government should be more secretive?"
Not in all cases, no. In diplomacy? I would expect them to be secretive in the planning phases of anything. Seriously, what are you hoping for here, a bunch of webcams at the State Department and in our embassies? Maybe the Foreign Service should conduct all of its business on Facebook?
"I can think of one country that tried to hide everything it could from its citizens, can you?"
Yes? I can think of many bad countries who did that. But pretend you were magically the president, or the prime minister of a powerful nation. Wouldn't you instruct the diplomatic branch of your government to exercise discretion when appropriate? And don't you think you'd find "when appropriate" to be pretty much every damn day of the week until you have an agreement to unveil?
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I agree. The biggest problem with politicians is the threat of being "on record" for saying something. Politicians, and governments, at some point have to be allowed to speak without worrying about being held accountable for what they're saying, otherwise nothing new or interesting will ever get done. They need to be able to freely put out a crazy idea, see what their peers think, adjust said idea, restate it, scrap it, or whatever.
It is really our own fault though. We scrutinize and pick apart every little
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It's definitely true, and I think a lot of this, especially the more personal attacks, will get shrugged off. People like Berlusconi know what other countries think of him and probably isn't surprised by anything that came out.
And examples like that take away Wikileaks' ability to claim they released the information for our overall good. There was zero analysis or discretion.
How does "Random mid-level US bureaucrat thinks Berlusconi is kind of a dick" help anything at all? It doesn't, but it gives Hillary C
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We know that wikileaks released alot of this stuff earlier then it was released to the public. So it is not unreasonable to think to that north korea got a copy.
This recent series of increased attacks and talk of nuclear warheads, is the kind of response you would expect from them if they want to send out a message that the only unification will come with them at the top.
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Get a fucking grip.
South Korea held a military exercise on their own soil, hardly a provocation, especially given that the North sank one of their ships earlier this year, people who are in danger of invasion who don't hold military exercises are stupid. In response, the North fired artillery at South Korean territory and killed four people, including two civilians.
The North have committed a half a dozen acts which, if China weren't backing them up would be acts of war. The US has had plenty of military agg
Re:Missing option: grow the hell up (Score:5, Insightful)
Missing option: grow the hell up and recognize they do not have all the answers, and might just be making a mistake, and might just cause real-world harm that their limited world experience may not be able to anticipate.
Since when is Wikileaks supposed to provide answers? Isn't it enough that it raises legitimate question marks?
(not saying that they ask the correct questions, this is for the Wikileaks readers to decide. But without it, assuming you would want to, how else would you be able to decide?)
Language problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Language problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm, no.
The largest active-duty military in the world today is China's. The USA is number two. India is number three.
Largest military, including reserves, is Russia. North Korea is number two. South Korea is number three. The USA is down around number six.
Note that, including reserves, the USA' military is barely 1/8 the size of Russia's, about 1/4 the size of North Korea's, and less than half the size of Vietnam's.
Ignoring reserves, the USA's military is about 2/3 as big as China's, and maybe 15% larger than India's.
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I'm actually hoping that these leaks will do some good in non-US countries. Namely by exposing the vast gulf between (a) how the diplomats say we treat each other (mutual respect, hard negotiation, etc etc) and (b) what's actually happening.
Once the curtain is pulled aside, that gives an opportunity for people to demand that their governments stop kowtowing to US demands while holding press conferences claiming "it was a hard fight".
Re:Executive Kill Order (Score:5, Insightful)
I will call you a stupid American because the US military itself has publicly admitted that the leaks put nobody in danger.