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May 13, 2011

How the American Gov't Viewed Canada's HRCs

Mark Steyn has just published an interesting posting at "The Corner" on NRO. It's an interesting glimpse into how both our governments spend waste our money.

Posted by Robert at May 13, 2011 1:06 PM
Comments

Somebody should sue WikiLeaks for promoting false stories.

Such nasty little lies.

Posted by: Fred at May 13, 2011 1:14 PM

Why gets the facts straight when rumour will do just as well? It works for the CBC and Wikileaks, apparently.

Posted by: Osumashi Kinyobe at May 13, 2011 2:22 PM

Blaming Wikileaks? The earlier commenters seem a bit off. Not necessarily a big fan, but what is being talked about is [mis]information sent by an Embassy staffer to superiors back home.

And I hope the higher-up staff did not think thee cable was correct.

Posted by: John A at May 13, 2011 2:31 PM

Mark Steyn can't live without me :-) OK, my blog...

Posted by: Kathy Shaidle at May 13, 2011 2:36 PM

cbc...wikileaks...bathroom wall...the last one has a far greater chance of being correct but somehow people lend an unwarranted level of credence to 'wikileaked' documents of no traceable origin or chain of custody, taking such unproven and unproveable writings as gospel.

Posted by: Bemused at May 13, 2011 2:38 PM

Compared to waste South of the border our gun registry sounds like well managed effort after all.

Posted by: Aaron at May 13, 2011 2:46 PM

Dudes and dudettes, Wikileaks just revealed the American consulate cable. It is the -cable- which is utterly, astoundingly wrong. Wikileaks is the reason we know about the cable, and that it is wrong.

Question: If the American consulate in Canada can be that wrong about a topic covered in as much depth as Lucy and the HRCs, in the SAME LANGUAGE no less, what possible hope do they have of getting anything right in Afghanistan? Or Belgium, for that matter.

Just one more reason why conspiracy theorists are always wrong. The US government can't organize a two man rush on a three hole out-house, and stuff like this is the reason why.

Posted by: The Phantom at May 13, 2011 3:06 PM

Lavishly tenured over-pensioned striped-pants deadbeats describes bureaucratic managers everywhere, D.C., Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, you name it, they'll be there - arrogant, ignorant, incapable, incompetent, insolent.

Posted by: oldfart at May 13, 2011 3:41 PM

Wikileaks is the reason we know about the cable...

With wikileaks Julian Assange in the chain of custody I wouldn't trust anything about any of the leaks.

Posted by: fiddle at May 13, 2011 3:59 PM

It certainly shows the overlap between the American chattering class and our own chatterers.

Posted by: John Lewis at May 13, 2011 4:30 PM

Well that certainly explains why NATO and Canada are helping Alquacka take control of Libya the poor tasdards haven't got a clue what's really going.

Posted by: Rose at May 13, 2011 4:43 PM

Note, during the recent federal election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared that finding 6 percent of the federal budget to trim should be easily achievable.

Given the results of the election, millions of Canadian voters agree.

If Harper increases the Auditor General's office budget for
that task he'll also discover money for needed spending.

Will the Hurricane Harper wrestle the government Leviathan to the mat and submit him? The cage match of 2011-2015.
What are the odds?

Posted by: Larry at May 13, 2011 4:57 PM

The quote of the day was in the NRO comments:

"The problem with America's elites is they're not."

Posted by: Davers6 at May 13, 2011 5:24 PM

Hmmmm. I wonder. Would "some diplomat named Jacobson" have been the ambassador himself, David Jacobson? (An Obama appointee, and Chicago lawyer, need it be said.)

Posted by: Louise at May 13, 2011 6:02 PM

Yup na-van, you are on to something. You're forgetting the Freemasons and the Bush family. The Elders of Zion are in the mix as well.

Posted by: atric at May 13, 2011 7:07 PM

The Soviets always said & records show. That the biggist intellegance gathering was done just by reading publication like Popular machnics. Spys where never as relaible.
Online today it takes about 20 minites to get the zietguist of any Nation, or that Countries beliefs or politics.
JMO

Posted by: Revnant Dream at May 13, 2011 7:31 PM

what the f$&% do Americans care about Canuckistan?

what "diplomat" wants this posting?

Ottawa? next to Buffalo?

Posted by: puddin n pie at May 13, 2011 7:40 PM

Please keep the language clean, folks. This isn't the backroom at a Liberal Party of Canada convention!

Posted by: Robert W. (Vancouver) at May 13, 2011 8:30 PM

The Liberals will be happy to hear that they just found the porn stash of Osama in the ruins (or in the evidence they took with them.) This according to SunMedia (channel 177). There will be rumours of conspiracies and ... thousands of jokes!

Posted by: larben at May 13, 2011 8:51 PM

Wouldn't get too excited about state department boobery. It may all turn out to be the work of some
lowly Canadian contract worker throwing some quick BS together to answer a run of the mill question
from somebody of no importance in Washington making a nuisance of himself.

Posted by: Sgt Lejaune at May 13, 2011 9:16 PM

N'attribuez jamais à la malveillance ce qui relève purement de l'incompétence ( Napoléon)

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Napoleon Bonaparte

Posted by: North_of_60 at May 14, 2011 12:32 AM

The Devil is a liar - and he has a motive.

Posted by: Jema 54 at May 14, 2011 3:29 AM

Wikileaks was always going to be a bit of a damp squib. And not simply because the material itself was relatively ho-hum and pedestrian in nature (Steyn's comment that they reveal "the Saudis are duplicitous snakes! Berlusconi has an eye for the ladies! the Pope is Catholic!" is spot on in that regard).

No, one problem for Wikileaks - and its creepy, alleged rapist of a cult leader Assange - is that its cables haven't elicited any meaningful public response. Indeed, Julian's media presence has all but dropped through the floor these days. Does anyone know what he's been up to since we last heard about his anti-extradition attempts some months ago? Does anyone care?*

The US government is refusing to comment (quite right too: what legal obligation does it have to respond to the accusations of thieves?**); the subjects of these cables aren't commenting either (and why should they? These are internal US documents so they're not obliged to acknowledge or confirm their veracity in any way).

The bigger problem for dear Julian though is this: he cannot claim any legal proprietary right to the cables (because they're stolen! Duh!) and thus the media are quite free to get copies themselves through other avenues (disgruntled Wikileaks employees?) and happily publish them without his permission or say. Free copy: a publisher's dream come true!

So, as every day passes, the cables get that much more stale and irrelevant and Wikileaks looks that much more preposterous.

* If you're still interested in the increasingly paranoid, parallel universe of Mr Assange, Tim Blair has been dropping the occasional update about his latest bizarre antics in his blog (no doubt because Julian is a fellow Aussie, I suppose):

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/shouty_assange/

** This predicament has already been felt by Gitmo lawyers. Apparently they've been barred from using Wikileaks-sourced material in US courts in defence of their clients. Why? Because the material is classified. But it's freely available on the Internet, they whine. Too bad, say the judges, it was released illegally and is therefore not admissible in evidence! Ha ha!

Posted by: JJM at May 15, 2011 9:37 AM
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