Wikileaks

[scm]

The Interpol has issued what's called a 'red notice' for Julian Assange, the founder of the Wikileak website.
Interpol says he is wanted for questioning in Sweden over an alleged sex offence, which he has denied.

A 'red notice' does not amount to an arrest warrant. Instead, it asks people to contact the police if they have any information about his whereabouts.
Some of Mr Assange's supporters have accused unnamed forces of framing him for alleged sexual assaults on two Swedish women in order to undermine his campaign to publicise secret documents.

WikiLeaks is under intense pressure after a mass dumping of sensitive American diplomatic cables, which US officials have denounced as a a serious crime and an attack on the whole world.

The BBC reports Mr Assange's whereabouts are unknown. He moves regularly from country to country and is known to have spent periods in Britain and Sweden. He was believed to have been in the UK earlier in November.

It is thought he stays in the same place only for a short period of time.

Mr Assange, 39, filed an appeal with Sweden's Supreme Court in an effort to overturn a ruling by the Stockholm district court earlier this month that he be detained for questioning on allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, stemming from a visit in August.

His petition was rejected by the Stockholm appeals court last week.

Ridiculous.

[niss]

This man is a douche and a half. I respect those on the other political spectrum, you know this. This man has put people at risk simply to stoke his own ego.
This isn't the first leak that he has been a part of.

If you recall there was a several page thread about an Apache killing 2 journalist's in Iraq, the video link was from this person's website.

He created a forum so that other people whom commit illegal acts by collecting data can be distributed. You don't blame Al Gore for internet child porn do you?

[KAG]

I'd stay off wikileaks website as it's full of nasty malware...

[Nark]

This man is a douche and a half. I respect those on the other political spectrum, you know this. This man has put people at risk simply to stoke his own ego.
This isn't the first leak that he has been a part of.

If you recall there was a several page thread about an Apache killing 2 journalist's in Iraq, the video link was from this person's website.

He created a forum so that other people whom commit illegal acts by collecting data can be distributed. You don't blame Al Gore for internet child porn do you?

By your reasoning, you could say that Charles Manson should be a free man.

[niss]

This man is a douche and a half. I respect those on the other political spectrum, you know this. This man has put people at risk simply to stoke his own ego.
This isn't the first leak that he has been a part of.

If you recall there was a several page thread about an Apache killing 2 journalist's in Iraq, the video link was from this person's website.

He created a forum so that other people whom commit illegal acts by collecting data can be distributed. You don't blame Al Gore for internet child porn do you?

By your reasoning, you could say that Charles Manson should be a free man.

By your reasoning, he, any journalist who reprints, and any citizen who reads these cables is guilty of security breaches.

[Mach1]

This man is a douche and a half. I respect those on the other political spectrum, you know this. This man has put people at risk simply to stoke his own ego.
This isn't the first leak that he has been a part of.

If you recall there was a several page thread about an Apache killing 2 journalist's in Iraq, the video link was from this person's website.

I know you're probably just baiting here but, I'm going to comment anyway.

You touched on two very important concepts here.

The first one is very important to my mind... Citizen. That is a powerful, and I would say misunderstood, word. It gives you rights and responsibilities. It gives you the right to live free of government oppression in these nations. it gives you responsibilities to your country, your countrymen, and to yourself. The right to remain free, the responsibility to keep those rights alive.

The second is particular to the US... Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. The government is there to serve the people and not the other way around.

To read what you are saying is to read that you feel it is the other way around. That the Citizens who are the reason for the governments existence have no right to know what their government is doing. I couldn't disagree with you more. The people not only have a right to know, they have a duty to know and a duty to act when they disagree with the governments policy. To further the matter even more, if the "diplomats" in question had acted professionally and not indulged in juvenile name calling and extolling personal opinion, none of this would be damaging to any of the careers in question. It seems to me that there is a lot of room to question the actions of those employed to Serve you.

[Expat]

+1

[2R]

Those men in silk trousers guys who wrote the declaration of independance would (if they were still alive )agree with that

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -meat.html

Some cats like water,and most document dumps create scenes as frenzied as these cats in a big pool.Only the zookeeper can adjust the temperature of the water and when the beef is thrown to the fight.

Sarah Palin has called for his assasination,Maybe her North Korean allies will help her achieve this

[Expat]

My personal belief in all this, is these revelations, and the reactions to them are a real test of the extent to which the ordinary citizens have become blind, obedient servants to their all knowing masters. They may ultimately show, how easy it has become, to take away all the gains in civil liberties, all the long fought-for freedoms of our modern democracies, by brandishing the specters of global terrorism, national security, protection of our democracies, etc...
It may show how the general public has become tolerant to bad governance, corruption, greediness, while still believing that they are part of the greatest nations on the earth.
If this is the case, as has happened a few times in history, then the world is about to evolve, like it did before, and power will ultimately shift to nations that place more value on education, savings, good relations, from those that see war and conquest as the key to their survival...

[sky's the limit]

My personal belief in all this, is these revelations, and the reactions to them are a real test of the extent to which the ordinary citizens have become blind, obedient servants to their all knowing masters. They may ultimately show, how easy it has become, to take away all the gains in civil liberties, all the long fought-for freedoms of our modern democracies, by brandishing the specters of global terrorism, national security, protection of our democracies, etc...
It may show how the general public has become tolerant to bad governance, corruption, greediness, while still believing that they are part of the greatest nations on the earth.
If this is the case, as has happened a few times in history, then the world is about to evolve, like it did before, and power will ultimately shift to nations that place more value on education, savings, good relations, from those that see war and conquest as the key to their survival...

Spot on.

I would wager 99% of you have no idea how seriously manipulated, incomplete, and targeted your "information" or "facts" actually are, yet you will argue to the death on them... cast slings and arrows at those who question your views, even those with informed opinions, and by doing so you generally get sold a bill of goods without a second thought. Boy, would I love to share some concrete examples with you from Afghanistan, but I'm just not into the large fines and jail time included in various embedding contracts I've signed - nor are any of the main-stream media, ergo the complete control of the message the military, governments, and corporate media outlets now exert. Meet me for a drink, then perhaps we can talk.

The willingness of most to accept what Expat refers to is mind-boggling to me. And with all due respect to Nark and every other soldier, they are the last to ask about most of these issues. By design, a soldier is a pretty poor gauge of the conflict in which they operate, their scope is just too narrow, their agenda too ingrained. Has to be, otherwise the system just doesn't work - they are but one part of a much bigger perspective.

It's funny, I was in the City recently and there was an obviously mentally disturbed guy waving signs at an intersection about how, among other things, Harper is manipulating the jet stream for a variety of evil purposes (funny, I know), yet my only thought was that with all I have seen and been exposed to in the last decade around the world, he's probably a whole lot closer to understanding what is going on than most of the public is... That should tell you about all you need to know.

Wikileaks, whatever it lacks in scope, whatever the issues with its founder, whatever its skewed agenda, is providing an all too rare glimpse at but a small portion of behind the scenes dealings of those who control power and money. I would have thought we'd all be jumping up and down asking for more? But, like Expat says, we've become used to it now... sad but true.

stl


Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.~ A. J. Liebling

[scm]

Do we really need explanations and reasons for why all this is happening?

All we have to do is observe, not explain. Past societies - the Mayans, Anasazi, and the Romans all experienced similar situations.

We have technological innovations, but we also have handicaps that those societies didn't.

What about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan is a small piece of the pie, and the easiest to get at. The ones were looking for are gone.

[reality check]

Do we really need explanations and reasons for why all this is happening?

All we have to do is observe, not explain. Past societies - the Mayans, Anasazi, and the Romans all experienced similar situations.

We have technological innovations, but we also have handicaps that those societies didn't.

What about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan is a small piece of the pie, and the easiest to get at. The ones were looking for are gone.

I know you are trying to say something, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is.

The Wiki thing is interesting, in that the reaction from the US Gov't is so focused on destroying the creator of the site. That is the American way these days however.

[JakeYYZ]

The four biggest problems in the world right now are Iran (nukes, funding Hezbollah etc., possible blockade of Straits of Hormuz), North Korea (dying nutbar with messianic dreams and nukes), Afghanistan (budding narco-state with massively corrupt institutions), and Pakistan (massively corrupt state with nukes and territorial ambitions, offers refuge to Muslim terrorists).
Here, in the safety of AvCanada's bosom, we can blather all we want about nuking Iran/Pyongyang/Kabul etc. That can't be done at the official level by anyone except the leaders of the aforementioned four states. It's possible Amadinnerjacket actually believed that other Arab states supported Iran. It's possible that Lil’ Kim thought that China's support was unconditional. It's possible that Afghan's Karzai guy thought the West actually believed his act, and they had no idea he was a corrupt, money grubbing opportunist. There's no way Bambam, or Merckel, or Sarko could express those opinions, however much they believed them to be true.
But, now, how the US/Germany/Britain/France really feel is out in the open, although in a comfortably officially deniable way. No matter what Amadinnerjacket says in public this week, I have to believe in private, he's got his advisors together, and they're going "Sh*t! Our so-called allies hate our guts and want us neutered." Kim has to be muttering "Godd*mn chinks! They're not gonna help us!" The boys at ISI in Islamabad have to be asking each other "Who's got the extra Charmin'?!". They might have suspected this all along, but now it's out in the open.
I think it's great. There will be less of a need for any of the Western countries to hide behind PC hypocrisy. Knowing what we really think might give the four maniacs pause before they decide to provoke and/or take us on.

STL, I thought “freedom of the press” meant “no iron shirts”.

[Brewguy]

... Amadinnerjacket...

Jake, that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Damn near spat coffee all over my keyboard! Did you come up with that one?

[Dex]

Well, this sure does distract people from the important news for Americans. Like the Federal Reserve creating 3.3 trillion dollars out of thin air and giving it to their buddies, buying toxic debt and dumping in on the taxpayer's paper, and just recently creating 600 billion more for further playtime. This is fucking criminal!!!! But people would rather hear from criminals like Billy Kristol on Fox News use the wiki leaks as a platform for bombing Iran or what Hilary said overseas and whether she should quit. Any news that reminds the citizens that they are getting financially sodomized by the Federal Reserve is too much to cope with so they focus on the simple things like what a bad man that wiki guy is. The timing is too convenient.

[JakeYYZ]

Next up is a dump of information about Bank of America. It's all good.
Geez, my palms are sweaty! I can't hold my pencil!!

[Nark]

Mach 1

Thank you for bring this back on topic.
I agree for the most part. We the People are here to be served by the government, not the other way around. I believe you said this.

However, there are certain things that go on, especially on the battle field, that you as a citizen do not have the right to know. Look closer to home. When the FBI (CSIS) wiretaps your neighbor, a suspected drug dealer. You don't need to know what is said during the conversations do you? The same applies on a larger scope.

STL,
You meant well, but misspoke. We (as a former serviceman) know whats going on in these wars. However the scope in which we may act is limited. Even Gen McChrystal ( fmr ISAF commander) wasn't allowed to do the job he needed to do.

[sky's the limit]

STL,
You meant well, but misspoke. We (as a former serviceman) know whats going on in these wars. However the scope in which we may act is limited. Even Gen McChrystal ( fmr ISAF commander) wasn't allowed to do the job he needed to do.

Actually, no, I didn't misspeak.

A soldier, any soldier, is limited in the view of the conflict in which they are a part of. Much of it is indoctrination, but even in the higher ranks, where policy is made, we see the same thing time and again - it's a result of a lifetime of thought that occurs in a very particular way, for very particular reasons, military reasons. The way I see a given subject, task, or problem is not the way the military mind sees it. McCrystal wasn't allowed to do the job he needed to do because there are a great many other considerations at play, which is exactly my point. (Btw, ask any of your KAF cohorts what they thought of Stanely shutting down most of the Boardwalk establishments - not a popular decision amongst the troops... )

It is NOT to say there are not some brilliant, effective, and lateral thinkers in the Armed Forces of any nation, because that would just do a grave injustice to those men and women, several of whom I have spent much time with. However, as an institution, and in a very broad sense on the individual level, the military is myopic in its views, and it has to be. This is why interviewing soldiers, or soliciting opinions of soldiers, is but only one small part of any given story for the person trying to piece together incredibly complex stories that exist in these conflicts. Particularly in this modern age of insurgencies and guerilla warfare driven by colossal and disparate political, social, and economic forces. The soldier lacks scope, how can he/she not?

This isn't a statement meant to provoke, its a simple fact, and this understanding of the military thought process is the root of modern democratic systems where the military is restricted in its powers, both politically and judicially, and are frozen out entirely in the economic sense. The military, and by extension its soldiers, are very specific in their tasks, and the thinking that is required to carry out those tasks. That mindset and the vested interests that go with it, along with the narrow exposure within the conflict itself, does not lend itself to a greater understanding of a given situation.


stl

[Expat]

The battle field here is a very complex one. No one can boast understanding it. Of course, the higher in rank an officer, the more he knows, the wider his scope. There are here so many players, and ISAF is just one of them.
For instance, the bags of money delivered at night by motorcycle, are not standards SOPs for any military. This however happens, and is sanctionned indirectly by some government. A study of locations and victims of targetted attacks is far more revealing than just a body count of western fatalities, which means very little.
There are here several layers of games, and players are only told the minimum, so that they think they are usefull. A lot of nice polished statements are delivered to the families of casualties. Your son died, so that a little girl can go to school... At the same time, drones are bombarding wedding halls, and diplomats are pushing the prez to negotiate with the same talibs that were the official cause of the war...
It is now visible, how futile the whole thing is...

[scm]

Julian Assange answers your questions
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is answering readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables. We will post his responses as we receive them

Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."
How do you feel about this?


Julian Assange:
It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/20 ... -wikileaks

This man is a real threat

He is a bigger threat than corporate america.
He is a bigger threat than climate shift.
He is a bigger threat than oil dependence.
He is a bigger threat than their fragile food and water security.

Seems like a pile of garbage to me. Is this whole scheme perhaps distracting us from something else?

People fighting harder and harder to maintain a marginal status quo,

[North Shore]

However, there are certain things that go on, especially on the battle field, that you as a citizen do not have the right to know.

And why not? Those things done on the battle field are done in our name - we ask people to go out and fight on our behalf, to further our national interests. If some of the events within that fighting are not in our national interest, or might bring our nation into disrepute, then don't we have the right to ask about it?

[Expat]

The four biggest problems in the world right now are Iran (nukes, funding Hezbollah etc., possible blockade of Straits of Hormuz), North Korea (dying nutbar with messianic dreams and nukes), Afghanistan (budding narco-state with massively corrupt institutions), and Pakistan (massively corrupt state with nukes and territorial ambitions, offers refuge to Muslim terrorists).

I think it's great. There will be less of a need for any of the Western countries to hide behind PC hypocrisy. Knowing what we really think might give the four maniacs pause before they decide to provoke and/or take us on.

STL, I thought “freedom of the press” meant “no iron shirts”.

The biggest problems for our established democracies, is not these four poor countries, that are labelled as evil, and are seen as a menace. Our biggest problem, is the war mongers in our established democracies, who have created these scarecrows to justify their war agenda. The second biggest threat to our societies, is the general apathy and naivety of the massed that are the easiest to manipulate in the world. There are no comparisons anywhere on the web planet with the naive reactions of ordinary north americans and brits, to the supposedly threat posed by the countries you mentionned.
These countries have their own problems, that have been exacerbated by unilateral sanctions imposed on them by the same countries, who say they are threatened by them.
We just want to have a war, with an ennemy that is basically powerless. The whole world sees it, and the support the US will get in the future will be far more negligible than in Af.
Barring another fireworks show like 9/11, there will be no international support.

[Sulako]

FWIW, Assange isn't being charged with rape, he's being charged with not using a condom. The sex was consensual. For real, check it out here:

http://gizmodo.com/5705430/wikileaks-ju ... t-a-rapist

[Brewguy]

So, this is interesting. It's now coming out that a lot of diplomats are really quite enjoying the WikiLeaks thing:

Diplomats getting their Wiki-freak on
By Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON - Some career diplomats have been giddily getting their Wiki-freak on this week, fascinated by the avalanche of often gossipy cables from their American colleagues about some of the most famous and feared regimes in the world.

"I am addicted; I can't get enough of it," one longtime U.S.-based British diplomat confessed amid the latest cascade of dispatches unearthed this week by the secret-busting website WikiLeaks.

"It's the last thing I read before I turn out the light at night, and the first thing I want to read when I wake up in the morning."

As the U.S. State Department continues to deal with the fallout from the latest WikiLeaks revelations, diplomats past and present have morphed into self-described Wiki-freaks as they gleefully pore over the 250,000 cables.

"It pulls the lid off U.S. diplomacy, so there's a real professional fascination in seeing the nuts and bolts, because very few of us have had access to these cables before," another diplomat said Friday in Washington as he grabbed a coffee near the city's so-called Embassy Row.

"If I had been the author of some of them, I'd be proud. They're good quality, professional products, and they show these diplomats doing precisely what they're supposed to be doing — providing unvarnished assessments to headquarters from the front lines."

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson says he's equally enthralled by the cables, adding that the ones he's read are not only engrossing, they're well-written.

"We've always prided ourselves in the foreign service that in order to succeed, you had to be a talented stylist as well. Writing a great cable is a bit of a lost art, and it's great to see the Americans restoring it," he said in an interview from Ottawa.

"Not only is it professionally intriguing to see what they're writing from the world's hotspots, but it'll be interesting to watch if we'll start seeing copycat cables from other countries, ones that are well-written and crammed with similar colour and detail."

Foreign Policy magazine reported this week that some American diplomats, too, are tickled about the WikiLeaks crisis.

"Some, in fact, are delighted with the whole affair, for reasons ranging from professional pride in their handiwork to the opportunity to air long-standing grievances over possibly wrong-headed public perceptions of foreign events," the magazine wrote.

Some of the most interesting cables to emerge this week involve those written by Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan who has been sending dispatches to Washington based on several face-to-face meetings he's had with Afghan President Harmid Karzai.

Diplomats point out that Eikenberry's growing distrust of Karzai, as revealed in the cables, has also shown the world that ambassadors are not merely figureheads in faraway lands — they're often playing an integral role in both informing their government back home and shaping foreign policy.

Karzai, Eikenberry wrote, is a "a weak individual unfamiliar with the basics of nation-building." That assessment has resulted in the White House having to do major damage control in Afghanistan, with U.S. President Barack Obama paying a surprise visit on Friday and talking to Karzai by phone — but it's also an honest appraisal, one diplomat pointed out.

"It may seem like sniping or gossip but it's not at all," he said. "It's part of understanding the environment of a country. To understand Afghanistan, you have to understand Karzai and all his peculiarities and you need the assessment of the ambassador on the ground."

Robertson agrees.

"You have to give colour and perspective when you do your portraits of these powerful individuals," he said, recalling a cable he once read about Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush's hawkish defence secretary in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"He was apparently a very tough squash player. And the diplomat commented on that, saying: 'When I played with him, he was utterly ruthless.' And that told you something about the man and about his tough character. That is exactly the kind of stuff I would include because it not only livened up the telex, it provided perspective."

The cables are also fascinating to diplomats because they know the general public is finally learning something about what they do. The material reveals that diplomats, like journalists, "are primarily truth-seekers," Robertson said.

"We pretty much do the same thing, we write about what we see and hope our impressions get read and acted upon, and that might come as a surprise to the layperson. We're looking for the same information, and we're trying to get the facts to the people who most need them."

[Nark]

Where are you getting the information that he isn't charged with rape?

The matter concerning Mr. Assange

The Matter concerning Julian Assange has been detained in his absence charged with rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. Mr Assange had appealed the detention decision issued by Svea Court of Appeal.

Today the Supreme Court has taken a decision not to grant Julian Assange leave to appeal. If the Supreme Court is to hear an appeal, leave to appeal must first be granted. Leave to appeal is only granted if the case is assessed as being very important to the application of the law or if other extraordinary reasons apply.

The arrest warrant is based on the detention decision that has now been examined by all three legal instances. The additional information requested by the British Police concerns the penalties for the other crimes, in addition to rape, that Julian Assange was arrested for. This information will be supplied immediately. The previous arrest warrant stands.

North Shore

You don't have the right to know, because Joan Q Public can't keep her mouth shut. Nor can her husband, John.
Thing such as troop movements, size of units, area and locations of these units are all things that have no right in your living room.

True story that got my blood boiling:

I was involved in something. Obviously, the actions were passed up the chain of command. The CO's wife was also the coordinator for a "home-front" organization. They were a sewing circle of sorts.
They called every family in my unit and let them know that something happened, but didn't give details (thankfully they didn't have any). They wanted to keep the family "informed" however; how many mothers/fathers/wives/husbands were worried sick waiting to hear their son/daughter's voice again?
The term "with all due respect sir..." came out of my repertoire that day.