91 Replies to “The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire”
I am pro “public hanging”, myself, but that woudn’t be enough either. 20 years of torture still leaves a longing…..ahhh hell.
So far, the leaks I have seen/read are only refreshing. Big brother, a k a big government, should and must be exposed.
So far, nothing I have seen/read puts any individuals in danger (except some politician’s re-election prospects).
The world’s future is too important for idiots like Obama and Clinton to be allowed to treat it like their own little secret game.
Thanks Kate. I do appreciate the second chance to way in on this man’s effort to undermine America.
The leaks do show that the US is listening to what is going on in our world and that is a good thing and we should give them credit for that. The rather sad issue is that it builds more disrespect for the United States at a time that they have the worst President in their history.
The stature and respect for America is in free fall.
Sifting through historical documents always reveals the way in which decisions are made, good or bad.
From now on there won’t be any documents because people all over this world will not be making personal notes or making honest references in any correspondence.
May I point out that along with this left wing jerk, we have 4 newspapers agreeing to carry this crap and rationalizing their complicity. Led by the NEW YORK TIMES who is doing it’s best to undermine America in hopes of gaining circulation.
Alas, James Bond was only a movie!
I find it rather damning to find out that US have allowed the Norks to arm Iran and Iran to arm Hezbo. Maybe someone should look into the mirror rather than into a scope?
First thing I asked myself too when I heard the news. Have “Black Ops” disappeared completely?
Obama’s response is so weak: “we object”, as if Subway forgot to put extra Mayo on his sandwich. The first thing Obama should have done is suspend Assange’s visa and travel privileges to the U.S. and all territories, “persona non grata”, etc. Then look at more serious actions. How about all the NATO countries whose classified info was also violated suspending his travel too? Oh, Assange will cry and scream being the spoiled YUPPIE that he is, but who cares?
That being said, I must admit I’m rather intrigued about Assange’s revelations coming out later this week re: Canada’s secrets. Not much we can do about it once it’s in the public domain, so we may as well salivate over it?…
As others have speculated, I wonder if these leaks are somehow serving an agenda of the current US administration. Can’t say that I know what that might be offhand, but if they were *really* concerned I’d think this would’ve been handled with more than just anguished shows of hand-wringing.
I think he isn’t an enemy “only” of US and US people but the Western World. He should be in hell where he belongs, and the sooner the better.
I also wonder why the US government did not try to find who gave the Wikileaks the material. After all they do “vet” their diplomats and workers, don’t they?
As for the rags who carry this “leaks”…they think like the person who said:.”au reste, après nous, le Déluge” (“After us, the Deluge)
I ain’t to swift so could someone please explain how this guy collected all this information. How do we know if any of it is true. If it’s true why is he not in jail. Most of it sounds as if whoopee Goldberg whispered it to him.
Why is Julian Assange still alive or at least, why is wikileaks still opened for business?
Here is one plausible explanation:
Useful Idiot
In the New world order, coming sooner than you think in a neighborhood too close for our own comfort, the internet as we know it, could cease to exist.
Being that bankrupting nations; alleged to be by design, is at it’s final stage, the internet is one of the last major obstacle for the globalists to take care off.
Last week, could have been a “mini test strike” where sites for illegal file sharing, including sites that were merely “search sites”, containing no “illegal files” per say were shutdown…Further long run and trickling of population desensitizing just like the TSA scanning; which past with merely a peep from the population during thanksgiving, could soon “progress” to being located everywhere including your neighborhood Walmart and McDonald.
What if the globalists decided to play a mock “World escalates towards possible conflict ever since damaging wikileaks were released” using their MSM servants to scare the living daylights out of soccer moms and the other oblivious zombies that are now a majority amongst us (By design?), how long would it take for them to want sensorship control of the internet, including, already totally exposed by the MSM at that time, “internet troublemakers” like Prison Planet, Michael Savage or even SDA?
The globalists are patient…The above is mesured in years of trickle down fear mongering and desensitizing. All in the name of ‘security’ of course.
Diplomats spy, really? Ken Taylor was working for the CIA in Iran. I have not seen anything that is much of a surprise. It is like a coffee break at a large table but you only hear one voice. All the one voices add up to a conversation. These are one voice for the most part. The are the pieces that add up to form a policy.
If people are not put at risk I don’t have a real problem. After all you do not make decisions based on one piece of data or only good feelings.
I think part of the whole thingie is AGW has been shot in the head and dragged to the curb so the media needs something to sensationalize.
Really the stuff Assange is leaking in no surprise if you’re an intelligence buff — lots of books have been written on de-classified intelligence gleaned throughout the years. Saudi secret cooperation with the U.S. against radicals has gone on for decades.
But the key there is declassified — the stuff Assange is releasing is NOT declassified. It is current CLASSIFIED SECRETS in wartime, and people’s lives can depend on keeping it that way.
I see Julian’s personal library in the background of that twitter message.
I’m enjoying this. Everyone has forgotten there’s a climate conference going on in Cancun this week. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Correct Speedy, the Climategate leaks needed a riposte thus we have Wikileaks on the ‘nasty US’ narrative.
Since the whole Climategate affair of jigged up science couldn’t convince the last holdout to AGW ie the US, to jump into the global governance pot at the UN.
As if the Wikileaks are going to take down the US administration. Julian Assange thinks far too highly of himself.
The American voters kicked the great global governance game of AGW progressivia to the curb in the midterm elections.
Speedy correctly likens the Climategate leaks as the ‘headshot’ to AGW and global governance model.
Julian is still alive because while some of the ‘diplomatic’ emails are frank they aren’t all that fantastic. Moreover, obviously Obama doesn’t view the leaks as a threat, otherwise some Seal team would have him terminated with extreme prejudice.
Or maybe they ran out of polonium 210 because the Russian spooks used it all.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Aaron at 11:10 AM: “I find it rather damning to find out that US have allowed the Norks to arm Iran and Iran to arm Hezbo.”
Please tell me this isn’t news to you.
“I ain’ t to swift so could someone please explain how this guy collected all this information.”
The internet is your friend. It was leaked to Wikileaks by a US Intelligence analyst.
I personally think Wikileaks does a great job. They are equal opportunity – they’ve exposed corruption in governments and corporations alike; around the world.
Mostly thanks to Wikileaks illuminating the lies implicit in the Australian government’s proposed internet blacklist (it included Christian, satanic and poker sites), that country did not join China and North Korea behind a national firewall of government censorship.
German police kicked down the doors at Wikileaks local offices when Wikileaks exposed the German governments plans to start censoring the internet. In the end the over-reaching state had to stand down.
Governments everywhere seek to run roughshod over individual liberty. Organizations like Wikileaks roll back some of that over reaching. I would have thought that SDA and its readers appreciate that role.
Or is this site mostly frequented by the bible-thumping types, for whom conservatism boils down to abortion and how to stop it?
@Johan i Kanada
Are you by any chance an anarchist? Because only an anarchist would like US people and British people and others to be attacked and their views to be open to all.
One may not be an advocate of the big government but wikileaks are not about big government, they are about the people, about the truthfulness of their representatives, about their “face” .
And American representatives lost their “face”….. or so Chinese and others will think.
And with the lost face there will be economical loses.
And even if you dislike the US, Canada is near the US and the things which target US will also strike at the neighbors, at Canada and Australia and others.
You think narrowly, and the guy from wikileaks thinks broadly.
****
I am starting to think that with so many documents available at wikileaks, with Obama’s radical friends views on America and the American people, with their (probable)access to many documents, hmm………….
RHTT @ 11:35;
That really is Machiavellian. Do you think Assange is in on it? Willing to sacrifice himself for the cause?
So far, it’s a collection of real yawners and a few easily forgettable images like the Batman and Robin business (Putin and Medvedev, supposedly).
I mean, what an astounding jaw-dropped, South Korea had some ideas about buttering up China to speed up Korean unification. I’m astounded, I tells ya.
And apparently Angela Merkel is not a very exciting person. I would never have guessed that. You know, Angela Merkel, she’s the head of the government in Germany. Yeah, that one. She’s not very exciting, so they say.
Oh yeah, and Khadafy finally got lucky. With a face like that, I guess that one is a bit surprising.
But the real eye-opener, Saudi Arabia don’t like them Iranian nukes. Can’t figure that out, nukes ten minutes away in the hands of a madman who thinks he may be the ignition switch for Armageddon, and somebody with a coupla billion dollars is worried about it? I tells ya, this diplomacy stuff is not for average folks like you or me, best leave it to like yer university graduates and such.
What Johan i Kanada at November 29, 2010 11:05 AM said is what exactly what I thought when I stopped long enough to consider what this whole thing really amounts to.
We all know what these elites think and say behind closed doors. This leaker just confirmed much of it.
Sociopaths and other character flawed people are the most likely to do what it takes to be in office, or in government jobs where they have some level or power and access to other people’s money.
They may be our leaders, but they are not our friends. It is good to see their their douche-baggery in the open and in full color.
This is all getting a bit surreal.
Wikipedia was long ago taken over by lefties (read the article on Trudeau if you want to feel ill for example), and Wikipedia never did a thing to correct the problem.
The zealots that patrol Wikipedia also have a raging dislike of the hard truth when it contradicts their left-wing view of the world, and Wikipedia has never done anything to restore balance to the process.
Yet here we now have a founder of Wikipedia complaining about the actions of another leftie. And then to top it off, Obama is complaining too, which is ironic given that he built his entire campaign on appealing to “progressives”.
I am quite sure many of these so-called “progressives” are celebrating today over what Wikileaks has done, and the NY Times as always is there to feed them.
It is not unusual to find the left in an inconsistent position. I think Assange, Sanger, Wales, etc. are all cut from the exact same piece of cloth. It is not just the world “Wiki” that they have in common.
To his credit, Sanger at least grew a little bit wiser over the years, which is more than can be said for some.
AAron,
Who are the Norks? Or did you mean the Narcs? (don’t forget to stuff towels around the base of your door while smoking up!)
Oh wait, you meant the Nerds! Which is what Julian Assange is if you’ve ever seen him speak at one of his conferences. He’s like an adolescent kid who got hold of a pile of his dad’s girly mags and is showing them off to to all his little wet-dream buddies. Lots of giggling and snickering throughout — seriously, you should watch one his vids.
It is my understanding U.S. Army private Bradley Manning was charged with theft of classified information which he swore he would not do as a condition of employment and to protect national security. Is he not guilty of treason? By releasing the stolen information is Wikileaks not guilty of possession of stolen property x 250,000 which I am guessing would work out to up to 500,000 years in jail?
If U.S. Army private Bradley Manning is guilty of theft of information I assume he either stole the information by forwarding the information on email or by downloading it to a hard drive. Why can’t the US protect against this type of theft?
While I think the guy should be charged with treason at the least, I haven’t read anything that is putting anyone’s life in danger (yet!).
And do we truly think that diplomats are not spies??? That is their job – it is not just going to swishy cocktail parties and having polite chitchat with others at cocktail parties – it is to observe, find out information and report back.
how this guy collected all this information.
Uh, remember the name “wikileaks – somebody give him this info. It was either hacked or someone had an access to it. How do we know if any of it is true.
Probably because these are the copies of originals and can be verified. If it’s true why is he not in jail.
Don’t know. Ask Obama government or government of the country Assange is in. Most of it sounds as if whoopee Goldberg whispered it to him.
You may be right – there are some Americans who have the same views about their own country, their own history and their own neighbors as whopee Goldberg……some even have the same view as Assange.
Actually EyesWideShut, I think the laws are still on the books and the guy could probably be shot by a firing squad. But I doubt if Obama seriously cares.
While I think the guy should be charged with treason at the least, I haven’t read anything that is putting anyone’s life in danger (yet!).
It is not only the danger, it is reputation of the country. And who would now believe you, your diplomats, your people? Who would talk to you about their worries, their views? And if someone would talk wouldn’t they be worried that their view would be open to all —– later?
It is not that nobody died, yet. It is that many would die later.
“how this guy collected all this information.
Uh, remember the name “wikileaks – somebody give him this info. It was either hacked or someone had an access to it. ”
It all came from a single usb key copied by one 22 year old American PVT named Bradley Manning, who served as a intelligence officer near Baghdad. He currently resides in solitary confinement where he awaits his court martial, and hopefully, his execution. http://editorialtimes.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/guardian-how-us-embassy-cables-leaked/
ella,
“Are you by any chance an anarchist?” No not at all, I am, largely, a classical liberal. As such, I am very suspicious of big government and “royal powers”.
“..wikileaks .. are about .. the truthfulness of their representatives..” Exactly, and now we have some more information helping us, their employers, to assess their truthfulness (and common sense).
“..even if you dislike the US..” Not at all, I consider the US to be the greatest (classical liberal) country on earth, although recently somewhat high-jacked by collectivists. My best friends are American. I have lived in the US, and hope to return some day.
Plus it’s an indictment of the computer security people in the Army. The fact that a lowly Sargeant could walk in and stick in a simple USB reader and download all that info is frightening. My God, I’ve had better security on my home computers.
Even a Mickey-Mouse screen saver with a password would prevent something like that.
JOhn i kanada
These are the sentences from the article in one of eastern european newspapers, from a country which was very, very pro-american.
” Americans look down at their close allies and don’t spare caustic remamarks.”
“Americans platitudes and talks about mutual interests on press conferences are just platitudes, in reality they think quite differently”.
****
the reader’s comments are much, much worse.
ella @ 11:24 has it right. Even if a lot of this is fun to read, relatively harmless and embarrasses a few leaders or diplomats, it is the principle of the security issues of the leaks that is at stake.
If RHTT @ 11:35 is right, in the long run we are all sunk. Think George Orwell.
Saudi Arabia might have some explaining to do at the next Kwanzaa celebration. But this may be good in the long run if it leads to Iran and Saudi Arabia beating on each other.
ella,
Ok, so now these countries know what (official) US really thinks about them. Isn’t that good?
(Btw , that Obama is just a collection in platitudes is not exactly news…)
EyesWideShut I heard he is being charged with this leak too. Twenty-two and a long hard life in a military prison that would make Gitmo look like Club Med. Wonder when he will figure it out?
Johan i Kanada
Would you like your friends, co-workers, and your boss, to know what you really, really think of them? And what you think of them when you are angry at their behaviour, perhaps.
If you think that it would be good to have your thoughts open to all, then I think the answer would be “yes, it is good”
If you think that it would not be good for them to know all your thoughts of them, then your answer would be “no, it is not good”
You choose.
****
and if you choose “yes, it is good”, then I guess it would be quite good to know all the diplomatic posts of countries like Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, China, Mexico, France and Belgium and all others…….where I they???
Wouldn’t you like to know what they think of Kanada (or about the country you are from)?
Anyone who writes letters to the editor or comments to a news story pronouncing their outrage over the content of diplomatic messages is a world class hypocrite.
By definition, the folks mentioned above are functionally literate. Anyone who falls into that catagory, has to KNOW that this is what diplomatic messages are going to look like.
I have zero doubt that Canada’s diplomatic message traffic about all of our allies and enemies look much the same. As do Jordan’s, England’s, France’s etc etc.
That is the whole point of classified diplomatic messages, to let the folks back home, who need to know, hear the unvarnished truth as the embassy staffs see it. I cannot believe that people thought that private diplomatic messages were all peaches and cream.
I guess HRC won’t get the nod in 2012.
Other than that, much ado….
johan i kanada;How can you be a liberal and be suspicious of big govt.?Liberals INVENTED big govt,its their shrine,its threir shining example on how the world should run.The bigger,the better.Its we independent thinkers that think big govt leads to the oppression of free people and new ideas for the betterment of society and NOT the expansion of big govt.
AtlanticJim
You are quite correct.
However it is like something called “polite fiction” and “face”. And in many countries “face” is more important than reality. In fact in most of Asia and Middle East.
In the Middle East losing of face often ends with killings, for example the “honor murders” are all about losing face — the losing of face and losing of “honor” of their families.
The “face” is also terribly important in China and in Korea. Very important.
And at the moment only (mostly) US diplomatic corps lost its “face”. And only US got some of its diplomatic messages be read by all.
> Please tell me this isn’t news to you.
Louise: Sounding like a bunch of hit men for hire does not help conservative cause (the one with small ‘c’, as capital ‘C’ conservatives are fine with Fantino running for CPC)
“Plus it’s an indictment of the computer security people in the Army. The fact that a lowly Sargeant [sic] could walk in and stick in a simple USB reader and download all that info is frightening. My God, I’ve had better security on my home computers.”
Er, no, it’s not an indictment of anything.
An appropriately security-cleared person in any country’s system will, of necessity, have considerable access to information in all forms.
PFC (Private First Class – not sergeant, please note) Manning was an intelligence specialist by trade (not an “intelligence officer” either, again please note) and would thus have worked on classified systems routinely, in an excellent position to download materials.
However, such downloading always leaves an audit trail of some sort and it would appear that this is what did Manning in.
Ultimately, whatever secure systems are used, everything depends on human beings to respect the security procedures and the requirements of security orders. If someone is in a trusted position and is determined to betray their country’s secrets, that’s a security risk that is almost impossible to mitigate.
By the way, no, you certainly don’t have better security on your own computers. Don’t fool yourself.
Hillary is on the case now, I would suspect that Julian Assange has a very narrow time frame to do those things in life he always wished to do.
The Clintons don’t have a few skeletons in the closet they own the mortuary.
I see a lot of silliness, and breathtakingly ignorant comments being posted here about this, so as someone that used to actually have a security clearance I can tell you this.
1) Why isn’t he dead yet?
Because everybody in the American Intelligence Community knows what would happen if they even considered having the little waste of skin bumped off.
1) the notes from the meeting would wind up on the front page of the NYT within 36 hours,
2)Everyone at the meeting would be given the full “Ollie North” treatment. First they would be hauled before the Senate Intelligence Committee, humiliated, slandered, and their careers publicly trashed.
3) Then Eric Holder’s DOJ would go after them and they would be charged with everything from conspiracy to commit murder to spitting on the sidewalk.
4)Then turned over to some Euro-court for further prosecution.
5) IF they had anything of value left at that point, (after paying their legal fees) they would be sued for conspiracy to violate Mr. Assange’s civil rights.
That’s why.
2) The reason this is bad isn’t WHAT was leaked, (from the little I’ve seen it’s nothing higher than SECRET/NOFORN and most of it was common knowledge to anyone who paid attention anyway). The point is THAT it was leaked.
The MOST important thing in intelligence is sources and methods. The actual data you get normally has a very short shelf life. What is important is HOW you get it, and protecting WHO gave it to you in the first place. You need to keep the pipeline open so that you get the next secret and the next and the next, because today’s top secret data is tomorrow’s 5th grade history lesson.
Example: the location of the Normandy Invasion was the most important secret in the world on June 5th of 1944… by the end of the month it was worthless. How much would information detailing Mohammed Atta’s plans have been worth on 9/9/01? How much was it worth on the evening of 9/11? On the evening of Dec 7 1941 the plans of the Imperial Japanese Navy were pretty clear for all to see… 24 hours before they would have been worth a fortune. You get the idea. The data isn’t as important as the source.
So the intel game is all about relationships. Relationships with individuals and relationships with other governments, because that is HOW you get the next bit of information. Despite what you see in James Bond movies secret agents don’t go sneaking into secret lairs or well guarded installations. In real life they befriend or blackmail people who work in those places to bring out the information they need. In the real world it’s NOT Jason Bourne or James Bond, it’s all about Oleg Penkovsky, Lt. Col. Elizaveta Mukasei, Klaus Fuchs, and the Rosenbergs.
Ever since the Church Committee hearing the US has been very weak in HUMINT. (Human Intelligence… i.e. info gathered from human beings who hear things, not from bugs, radios, or electronic platforms.) This is in no small part due to the fact that we can’t be trusted to keep secrets. People put their careers, their freedom, their lives and their families lives on the line to cooperate with the CIA or the State Department and what happens? It all winds up on the front page of the New York Times. Then if they are very lucky and IF the bureaucracy allows it, MAYBE they can get relocated to the USA. Then again, maybe not. Just ask the folks we left behind in Saigon, Phnom Phen, etc. etc. etc. We have hung more than a few people out to dry in our time. When we get a reputation for leaking data, people won’t talk with us.
This also happens on the Governmental level. No one government can do it all on their own. The US (till recently) was unchallenged in the collection of “overhead imagery” and electronic eavesdropping. We would share our electronically gathered goodies with Allied nations that COULD keep secrets and they would share their HUMINT with us. However these nations don’t want to see their sources compromised by leaks, so when stuff like this happens, they clam up too. They also see their sources dry up if people think they will share their data with us.
Bottom line, this hurts us because it means that nobody with two brain cells to rub together is going to give any US agent any sort of information for at least a generation. People stop cooperating with us. There are hundreds of folks who know where Bin Laden is…but we don’t know where he is because they won’t tell us. One big reason they won’t tell us is they are afraid of what would happen to them and their family if Bin Laden found out that they had cooperated with us… and leaks like this don’t exactly increase their level of confidence in our ability to keep their identity secret.
Iran and North Korea are full of people who don’t like their government, who grew up in a time of poverty and famine… and it is statistically certain that some of these people work in these countries military or the nuclear program. You think any of them are going to risk giving information to a US agent while crap like this keeps going on? NO. The risk is just to great.
This applies not only to individuals, but to countries. Lets say we wanted to launch a secret raid like the one Reagan launched on Lybia, or the Israelis did at Entebbie. You think the nations that got burned in the “secret prison” leak are going to let us use their airspace or their airports for refueling?
Or lets say you were a human rights activist in some place like Burma or Lybia or Saudi… if it gets out that you are meeting with an American who works for the US State Department you are probably going to get sent to a re-education camp… if you are lucky… and your family will probably go with you.
So what happens is that the US Intelligence agencies wind up being blind. We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know where things (like Bin Laden) are, what’s being planned, or anything. We don’t know what other nations are planning till after it’s done… which means more 9/11’s, more Pearl Harbors, more Tet Offensives, more people dying because we didn’t know what was coming.
Unsubstantiated statements from utter fools notwithstanding, this is bad, very bad, and it will hurt us for decades to come.
Why would ANYONE think this is anything other than what the Head Nagger wanted to happen? And yet the filthy maggot pigs will CONTINUE to enable the illegal alien to occupy the Presidency! May they rot where they belong for what they’ve done to this country.
All the people calling for Assange to be charged with treason DO understand that he is not a US citizen… Don’t they?
Why should Australia charge him with treason?
“All the people calling for Assange to be charged with treason DO understand that he is not a US citizen… Don’t they?”
No, the treasonous one is Bradley Manning, who needs to wind up on the business end of a firing squad.
As for Assange, he may not have committed treason against Australia, but I won’t be surprised if they eventually punch his ticket for something else. It’s not a clear cut case of jurisdiction when you have treaties between countries, etc.
Frankly, I think the fact that Assange is able to continue his activities unmolested shows that America is hardly the corrupted force of evil that so many of its detractors claim it to be. I think if he were focusing his efforts on, say, Russian state secrets, he’d pretty quickly wind up like that Russian expat in London who was murdered with radioactive poison a few years ago.
The US government officials could not keep their mouths shut? Too bad, so sad, tough luck – sucks to be them and no one promised life would be easy.
All Assange is doing is showing the world how leaky is Washington, DC.
Instead of throwing self into a tantrum the administration should have quietly found who leaked the info and stowed the guy/girl away for life with no parole. Threatening Assange they are just showing the world that they are little boys who cry daddy as soon as someone shoves them. Be men and take responsibility for their own acts.
@ Louise: Actually the fact that we’re being distracted from the Cancun summit is a bad thing. Public scrutiny is partially responsible for the failure of the Copenhagen summit. Unless…..this was their plan all along!!!!!!!
@ RHTT: I agree the shut down of internet sites is alarming and it doesn’t help that all the net neutrality advocates were swept out of office during the last midterms. The globalists will fail though because the muslims will take over and kill them all or we’ll run out of oil and start resource wars or some big actor like the Russians or Chinese won’t play their game. We’re doomed but I take comfort in the fact that they’re just as doomed.
Assange does not have to be a USA citizen to be charged with:
The Espionage Act of 1917;
Sedition Act of 1918.
I am pro “public hanging”, myself, but that woudn’t be enough either. 20 years of torture still leaves a longing…..ahhh hell.
So far, the leaks I have seen/read are only refreshing. Big brother, a k a big government, should and must be exposed.
So far, nothing I have seen/read puts any individuals in danger (except some politician’s re-election prospects).
The world’s future is too important for idiots like Obama and Clinton to be allowed to treat it like their own little secret game.
Thanks Kate. I do appreciate the second chance to way in on this man’s effort to undermine America.
The leaks do show that the US is listening to what is going on in our world and that is a good thing and we should give them credit for that. The rather sad issue is that it builds more disrespect for the United States at a time that they have the worst President in their history.
The stature and respect for America is in free fall.
Sifting through historical documents always reveals the way in which decisions are made, good or bad.
From now on there won’t be any documents because people all over this world will not be making personal notes or making honest references in any correspondence.
May I point out that along with this left wing jerk, we have 4 newspapers agreeing to carry this crap and rationalizing their complicity. Led by the NEW YORK TIMES who is doing it’s best to undermine America in hopes of gaining circulation.
Alas, James Bond was only a movie!
I find it rather damning to find out that US have allowed the Norks to arm Iran and Iran to arm Hezbo. Maybe someone should look into the mirror rather than into a scope?
First thing I asked myself too when I heard the news. Have “Black Ops” disappeared completely?
Obama’s response is so weak: “we object”, as if Subway forgot to put extra Mayo on his sandwich. The first thing Obama should have done is suspend Assange’s visa and travel privileges to the U.S. and all territories, “persona non grata”, etc. Then look at more serious actions. How about all the NATO countries whose classified info was also violated suspending his travel too? Oh, Assange will cry and scream being the spoiled YUPPIE that he is, but who cares?
That being said, I must admit I’m rather intrigued about Assange’s revelations coming out later this week re: Canada’s secrets. Not much we can do about it once it’s in the public domain, so we may as well salivate over it?…
As others have speculated, I wonder if these leaks are somehow serving an agenda of the current US administration. Can’t say that I know what that might be offhand, but if they were *really* concerned I’d think this would’ve been handled with more than just anguished shows of hand-wringing.
I think he isn’t an enemy “only” of US and US people but the Western World. He should be in hell where he belongs, and the sooner the better.
I also wonder why the US government did not try to find who gave the Wikileaks the material. After all they do “vet” their diplomats and workers, don’t they?
As for the rags who carry this “leaks”…they think like the person who said:.”au reste, après nous, le Déluge” (“After us, the Deluge)
I ain’t to swift so could someone please explain how this guy collected all this information. How do we know if any of it is true. If it’s true why is he not in jail. Most of it sounds as if whoopee Goldberg whispered it to him.
Why is Julian Assange still alive or at least, why is wikileaks still opened for business?
Here is one plausible explanation:
Useful Idiot
In the New world order, coming sooner than you think in a neighborhood too close for our own comfort, the internet as we know it, could cease to exist.
Being that bankrupting nations; alleged to be by design, is at it’s final stage, the internet is one of the last major obstacle for the globalists to take care off.
Last week, could have been a “mini test strike” where sites for illegal file sharing, including sites that were merely “search sites”, containing no “illegal files” per say were shutdown…Further long run and trickling of population desensitizing just like the TSA scanning; which past with merely a peep from the population during thanksgiving, could soon “progress” to being located everywhere including your neighborhood Walmart and McDonald.
What if the globalists decided to play a mock “World escalates towards possible conflict ever since damaging wikileaks were released” using their MSM servants to scare the living daylights out of soccer moms and the other oblivious zombies that are now a majority amongst us (By design?), how long would it take for them to want sensorship control of the internet, including, already totally exposed by the MSM at that time, “internet troublemakers” like Prison Planet, Michael Savage or even SDA?
The globalists are patient…The above is mesured in years of trickle down fear mongering and desensitizing. All in the name of ‘security’ of course.
Diplomats spy, really? Ken Taylor was working for the CIA in Iran. I have not seen anything that is much of a surprise. It is like a coffee break at a large table but you only hear one voice. All the one voices add up to a conversation. These are one voice for the most part. The are the pieces that add up to form a policy.
If people are not put at risk I don’t have a real problem. After all you do not make decisions based on one piece of data or only good feelings.
I think part of the whole thingie is AGW has been shot in the head and dragged to the curb so the media needs something to sensationalize.
Really the stuff Assange is leaking in no surprise if you’re an intelligence buff — lots of books have been written on de-classified intelligence gleaned throughout the years. Saudi secret cooperation with the U.S. against radicals has gone on for decades.
But the key there is declassified — the stuff Assange is releasing is NOT declassified. It is current CLASSIFIED SECRETS in wartime, and people’s lives can depend on keeping it that way.
I see Julian’s personal library in the background of that twitter message.
I’m enjoying this. Everyone has forgotten there’s a climate conference going on in Cancun this week. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Correct Speedy, the Climategate leaks needed a riposte thus we have Wikileaks on the ‘nasty US’ narrative.
Since the whole Climategate affair of jigged up science couldn’t convince the last holdout to AGW ie the US, to jump into the global governance pot at the UN.
As if the Wikileaks are going to take down the US administration. Julian Assange thinks far too highly of himself.
The American voters kicked the great global governance game of AGW progressivia to the curb in the midterm elections.
Speedy correctly likens the Climategate leaks as the ‘headshot’ to AGW and global governance model.
Julian is still alive because while some of the ‘diplomatic’ emails are frank they aren’t all that fantastic. Moreover, obviously Obama doesn’t view the leaks as a threat, otherwise some Seal team would have him terminated with extreme prejudice.
Or maybe they ran out of polonium 210 because the Russian spooks used it all.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Aaron at 11:10 AM: “I find it rather damning to find out that US have allowed the Norks to arm Iran and Iran to arm Hezbo.”
Please tell me this isn’t news to you.
“I ain’ t to swift so could someone please explain how this guy collected all this information.”
The internet is your friend. It was leaked to Wikileaks by a US Intelligence analyst.
I personally think Wikileaks does a great job. They are equal opportunity – they’ve exposed corruption in governments and corporations alike; around the world.
Mostly thanks to Wikileaks illuminating the lies implicit in the Australian government’s proposed internet blacklist (it included Christian, satanic and poker sites), that country did not join China and North Korea behind a national firewall of government censorship.
German police kicked down the doors at Wikileaks local offices when Wikileaks exposed the German governments plans to start censoring the internet. In the end the over-reaching state had to stand down.
Governments everywhere seek to run roughshod over individual liberty. Organizations like Wikileaks roll back some of that over reaching. I would have thought that SDA and its readers appreciate that role.
Or is this site mostly frequented by the bible-thumping types, for whom conservatism boils down to abortion and how to stop it?
@Johan i Kanada
Are you by any chance an anarchist? Because only an anarchist would like US people and British people and others to be attacked and their views to be open to all.
One may not be an advocate of the big government but wikileaks are not about big government, they are about the people, about the truthfulness of their representatives, about their “face” .
And American representatives lost their “face”….. or so Chinese and others will think.
And with the lost face there will be economical loses.
And even if you dislike the US, Canada is near the US and the things which target US will also strike at the neighbors, at Canada and Australia and others.
You think narrowly, and the guy from wikileaks thinks broadly.
****
I am starting to think that with so many documents available at wikileaks, with Obama’s radical friends views on America and the American people, with their (probable)access to many documents, hmm………….
RHTT @ 11:35;
That really is Machiavellian. Do you think Assange is in on it? Willing to sacrifice himself for the cause?
So far, it’s a collection of real yawners and a few easily forgettable images like the Batman and Robin business (Putin and Medvedev, supposedly).
I mean, what an astounding jaw-dropped, South Korea had some ideas about buttering up China to speed up Korean unification. I’m astounded, I tells ya.
And apparently Angela Merkel is not a very exciting person. I would never have guessed that. You know, Angela Merkel, she’s the head of the government in Germany. Yeah, that one. She’s not very exciting, so they say.
Oh yeah, and Khadafy finally got lucky. With a face like that, I guess that one is a bit surprising.
But the real eye-opener, Saudi Arabia don’t like them Iranian nukes. Can’t figure that out, nukes ten minutes away in the hands of a madman who thinks he may be the ignition switch for Armageddon, and somebody with a coupla billion dollars is worried about it? I tells ya, this diplomacy stuff is not for average folks like you or me, best leave it to like yer university graduates and such.
What Johan i Kanada at November 29, 2010 11:05 AM said is what exactly what I thought when I stopped long enough to consider what this whole thing really amounts to.
We all know what these elites think and say behind closed doors. This leaker just confirmed much of it.
Sociopaths and other character flawed people are the most likely to do what it takes to be in office, or in government jobs where they have some level or power and access to other people’s money.
They may be our leaders, but they are not our friends. It is good to see their their douche-baggery in the open and in full color.
This is all getting a bit surreal.
Wikipedia was long ago taken over by lefties (read the article on Trudeau if you want to feel ill for example), and Wikipedia never did a thing to correct the problem.
The zealots that patrol Wikipedia also have a raging dislike of the hard truth when it contradicts their left-wing view of the world, and Wikipedia has never done anything to restore balance to the process.
Yet here we now have a founder of Wikipedia complaining about the actions of another leftie. And then to top it off, Obama is complaining too, which is ironic given that he built his entire campaign on appealing to “progressives”.
I am quite sure many of these so-called “progressives” are celebrating today over what Wikileaks has done, and the NY Times as always is there to feed them.
It is not unusual to find the left in an inconsistent position. I think Assange, Sanger, Wales, etc. are all cut from the exact same piece of cloth. It is not just the world “Wiki” that they have in common.
To his credit, Sanger at least grew a little bit wiser over the years, which is more than can be said for some.
AAron,
Who are the Norks? Or did you mean the Narcs? (don’t forget to stuff towels around the base of your door while smoking up!)
Oh wait, you meant the Nerds! Which is what Julian Assange is if you’ve ever seen him speak at one of his conferences. He’s like an adolescent kid who got hold of a pile of his dad’s girly mags and is showing them off to to all his little wet-dream buddies. Lots of giggling and snickering throughout — seriously, you should watch one his vids.
It is my understanding U.S. Army private Bradley Manning was charged with theft of classified information which he swore he would not do as a condition of employment and to protect national security. Is he not guilty of treason? By releasing the stolen information is Wikileaks not guilty of possession of stolen property x 250,000 which I am guessing would work out to up to 500,000 years in jail?
If U.S. Army private Bradley Manning is guilty of theft of information I assume he either stole the information by forwarding the information on email or by downloading it to a hard drive. Why can’t the US protect against this type of theft?
While I think the guy should be charged with treason at the least, I haven’t read anything that is putting anyone’s life in danger (yet!).
And do we truly think that diplomats are not spies??? That is their job – it is not just going to swishy cocktail parties and having polite chitchat with others at cocktail parties – it is to observe, find out information and report back.
how this guy collected all this information.
Uh, remember the name “wikileaks – somebody give him this info. It was either hacked or someone had an access to it.
How do we know if any of it is true.
Probably because these are the copies of originals and can be verified.
If it’s true why is he not in jail.
Don’t know. Ask Obama government or government of the country Assange is in.
Most of it sounds as if whoopee Goldberg whispered it to him.
You may be right – there are some Americans who have the same views about their own country, their own history and their own neighbors as whopee Goldberg……some even have the same view as Assange.
Actually EyesWideShut, I think the laws are still on the books and the guy could probably be shot by a firing squad. But I doubt if Obama seriously cares.
While I think the guy should be charged with treason at the least, I haven’t read anything that is putting anyone’s life in danger (yet!).
It is not only the danger, it is reputation of the country. And who would now believe you, your diplomats, your people? Who would talk to you about their worries, their views? And if someone would talk wouldn’t they be worried that their view would be open to all —– later?
It is not that nobody died, yet. It is that many would die later.
“how this guy collected all this information.
Uh, remember the name “wikileaks – somebody give him this info. It was either hacked or someone had an access to it. ”
It all came from a single usb key copied by one 22 year old American PVT named Bradley Manning, who served as a intelligence officer near Baghdad. He currently resides in solitary confinement where he awaits his court martial, and hopefully, his execution.
http://editorialtimes.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/guardian-how-us-embassy-cables-leaked/
ella,
“Are you by any chance an anarchist?” No not at all, I am, largely, a classical liberal. As such, I am very suspicious of big government and “royal powers”.
“..wikileaks .. are about .. the truthfulness of their representatives..” Exactly, and now we have some more information helping us, their employers, to assess their truthfulness (and common sense).
“..even if you dislike the US..” Not at all, I consider the US to be the greatest (classical liberal) country on earth, although recently somewhat high-jacked by collectivists. My best friends are American. I have lived in the US, and hope to return some day.
Plus it’s an indictment of the computer security people in the Army. The fact that a lowly Sargeant could walk in and stick in a simple USB reader and download all that info is frightening. My God, I’ve had better security on my home computers.
Even a Mickey-Mouse screen saver with a password would prevent something like that.
JOhn i kanada
These are the sentences from the article in one of eastern european newspapers, from a country which was very, very pro-american.
” Americans look down at their close allies and don’t spare caustic remamarks.”
“Americans platitudes and talks about mutual interests on press conferences are just platitudes, in reality they think quite differently”.
****
the reader’s comments are much, much worse.
ella @ 11:24 has it right. Even if a lot of this is fun to read, relatively harmless and embarrasses a few leaders or diplomats, it is the principle of the security issues of the leaks that is at stake.
If RHTT @ 11:35 is right, in the long run we are all sunk. Think George Orwell.
Saudi Arabia might have some explaining to do at the next Kwanzaa celebration. But this may be good in the long run if it leads to Iran and Saudi Arabia beating on each other.
ella,
Ok, so now these countries know what (official) US really thinks about them. Isn’t that good?
(Btw , that Obama is just a collection in platitudes is not exactly news…)
EyesWideShut I heard he is being charged with this leak too. Twenty-two and a long hard life in a military prison that would make Gitmo look like Club Med. Wonder when he will figure it out?
Johan i Kanada
Would you like your friends, co-workers, and your boss, to know what you really, really think of them? And what you think of them when you are angry at their behaviour, perhaps.
If you think that it would be good to have your thoughts open to all, then I think the answer would be “yes, it is good”
If you think that it would not be good for them to know all your thoughts of them, then your answer would be “no, it is not good”
You choose.
****
and if you choose “yes, it is good”, then I guess it would be quite good to know all the diplomatic posts of countries like Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, China, Mexico, France and Belgium and all others…….where I they???
Wouldn’t you like to know what they think of Kanada (or about the country you are from)?
I hope Iran gives Assange an invitation for a guided tour of their nuclear facilities, with which ever nuclear scientist is available. 😉
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/iran-state-tv-says-bombings-kill-1-iranian-nuclear-scientist-seriously-wound-another-110957754.html
Anyone who writes letters to the editor or comments to a news story pronouncing their outrage over the content of diplomatic messages is a world class hypocrite.
By definition, the folks mentioned above are functionally literate. Anyone who falls into that catagory, has to KNOW that this is what diplomatic messages are going to look like.
I have zero doubt that Canada’s diplomatic message traffic about all of our allies and enemies look much the same. As do Jordan’s, England’s, France’s etc etc.
That is the whole point of classified diplomatic messages, to let the folks back home, who need to know, hear the unvarnished truth as the embassy staffs see it. I cannot believe that people thought that private diplomatic messages were all peaches and cream.
I guess HRC won’t get the nod in 2012.
Other than that, much ado….
johan i kanada;How can you be a liberal and be suspicious of big govt.?Liberals INVENTED big govt,its their shrine,its threir shining example on how the world should run.The bigger,the better.Its we independent thinkers that think big govt leads to the oppression of free people and new ideas for the betterment of society and NOT the expansion of big govt.
AtlanticJim
You are quite correct.
However it is like something called “polite fiction” and “face”. And in many countries “face” is more important than reality. In fact in most of Asia and Middle East.
In the Middle East losing of face often ends with killings, for example the “honor murders” are all about losing face — the losing of face and losing of “honor” of their families.
The “face” is also terribly important in China and in Korea. Very important.
And at the moment only (mostly) US diplomatic corps lost its “face”. And only US got some of its diplomatic messages be read by all.
> Please tell me this isn’t news to you.
Louise: Sounding like a bunch of hit men for hire does not help conservative cause (the one with small ‘c’, as capital ‘C’ conservatives are fine with Fantino running for CPC)
“Plus it’s an indictment of the computer security people in the Army. The fact that a lowly Sargeant [sic] could walk in and stick in a simple USB reader and download all that info is frightening. My God, I’ve had better security on my home computers.”
Er, no, it’s not an indictment of anything.
An appropriately security-cleared person in any country’s system will, of necessity, have considerable access to information in all forms.
PFC (Private First Class – not sergeant, please note) Manning was an intelligence specialist by trade (not an “intelligence officer” either, again please note) and would thus have worked on classified systems routinely, in an excellent position to download materials.
However, such downloading always leaves an audit trail of some sort and it would appear that this is what did Manning in.
Ultimately, whatever secure systems are used, everything depends on human beings to respect the security procedures and the requirements of security orders. If someone is in a trusted position and is determined to betray their country’s secrets, that’s a security risk that is almost impossible to mitigate.
By the way, no, you certainly don’t have better security on your own computers. Don’t fool yourself.
Hillary is on the case now, I would suspect that Julian Assange has a very narrow time frame to do those things in life he always wished to do.
The Clintons don’t have a few skeletons in the closet they own the mortuary.
I see a lot of silliness, and breathtakingly ignorant comments being posted here about this, so as someone that used to actually have a security clearance I can tell you this.
1) Why isn’t he dead yet?
Because everybody in the American Intelligence Community knows what would happen if they even considered having the little waste of skin bumped off.
1) the notes from the meeting would wind up on the front page of the NYT within 36 hours,
2)Everyone at the meeting would be given the full “Ollie North” treatment. First they would be hauled before the Senate Intelligence Committee, humiliated, slandered, and their careers publicly trashed.
3) Then Eric Holder’s DOJ would go after them and they would be charged with everything from conspiracy to commit murder to spitting on the sidewalk.
4)Then turned over to some Euro-court for further prosecution.
5) IF they had anything of value left at that point, (after paying their legal fees) they would be sued for conspiracy to violate Mr. Assange’s civil rights.
That’s why.
2) The reason this is bad isn’t WHAT was leaked, (from the little I’ve seen it’s nothing higher than SECRET/NOFORN and most of it was common knowledge to anyone who paid attention anyway). The point is THAT it was leaked.
The MOST important thing in intelligence is sources and methods. The actual data you get normally has a very short shelf life. What is important is HOW you get it, and protecting WHO gave it to you in the first place. You need to keep the pipeline open so that you get the next secret and the next and the next, because today’s top secret data is tomorrow’s 5th grade history lesson.
Example: the location of the Normandy Invasion was the most important secret in the world on June 5th of 1944… by the end of the month it was worthless. How much would information detailing Mohammed Atta’s plans have been worth on 9/9/01? How much was it worth on the evening of 9/11? On the evening of Dec 7 1941 the plans of the Imperial Japanese Navy were pretty clear for all to see… 24 hours before they would have been worth a fortune. You get the idea. The data isn’t as important as the source.
So the intel game is all about relationships. Relationships with individuals and relationships with other governments, because that is HOW you get the next bit of information. Despite what you see in James Bond movies secret agents don’t go sneaking into secret lairs or well guarded installations. In real life they befriend or blackmail people who work in those places to bring out the information they need. In the real world it’s NOT Jason Bourne or James Bond, it’s all about Oleg Penkovsky, Lt. Col. Elizaveta Mukasei, Klaus Fuchs, and the Rosenbergs.
Ever since the Church Committee hearing the US has been very weak in HUMINT. (Human Intelligence… i.e. info gathered from human beings who hear things, not from bugs, radios, or electronic platforms.) This is in no small part due to the fact that we can’t be trusted to keep secrets. People put their careers, their freedom, their lives and their families lives on the line to cooperate with the CIA or the State Department and what happens? It all winds up on the front page of the New York Times. Then if they are very lucky and IF the bureaucracy allows it, MAYBE they can get relocated to the USA. Then again, maybe not. Just ask the folks we left behind in Saigon, Phnom Phen, etc. etc. etc. We have hung more than a few people out to dry in our time. When we get a reputation for leaking data, people won’t talk with us.
This also happens on the Governmental level. No one government can do it all on their own. The US (till recently) was unchallenged in the collection of “overhead imagery” and electronic eavesdropping. We would share our electronically gathered goodies with Allied nations that COULD keep secrets and they would share their HUMINT with us. However these nations don’t want to see their sources compromised by leaks, so when stuff like this happens, they clam up too. They also see their sources dry up if people think they will share their data with us.
Bottom line, this hurts us because it means that nobody with two brain cells to rub together is going to give any US agent any sort of information for at least a generation. People stop cooperating with us. There are hundreds of folks who know where Bin Laden is…but we don’t know where he is because they won’t tell us. One big reason they won’t tell us is they are afraid of what would happen to them and their family if Bin Laden found out that they had cooperated with us… and leaks like this don’t exactly increase their level of confidence in our ability to keep their identity secret.
Iran and North Korea are full of people who don’t like their government, who grew up in a time of poverty and famine… and it is statistically certain that some of these people work in these countries military or the nuclear program. You think any of them are going to risk giving information to a US agent while crap like this keeps going on? NO. The risk is just to great.
This applies not only to individuals, but to countries. Lets say we wanted to launch a secret raid like the one Reagan launched on Lybia, or the Israelis did at Entebbie. You think the nations that got burned in the “secret prison” leak are going to let us use their airspace or their airports for refueling?
Or lets say you were a human rights activist in some place like Burma or Lybia or Saudi… if it gets out that you are meeting with an American who works for the US State Department you are probably going to get sent to a re-education camp… if you are lucky… and your family will probably go with you.
So what happens is that the US Intelligence agencies wind up being blind. We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know where things (like Bin Laden) are, what’s being planned, or anything. We don’t know what other nations are planning till after it’s done… which means more 9/11’s, more Pearl Harbors, more Tet Offensives, more people dying because we didn’t know what was coming.
Unsubstantiated statements from utter fools notwithstanding, this is bad, very bad, and it will hurt us for decades to come.
Why would ANYONE think this is anything other than what the Head Nagger wanted to happen? And yet the filthy maggot pigs will CONTINUE to enable the illegal alien to occupy the Presidency! May they rot where they belong for what they’ve done to this country.
All the people calling for Assange to be charged with treason DO understand that he is not a US citizen… Don’t they?
Why should Australia charge him with treason?
“All the people calling for Assange to be charged with treason DO understand that he is not a US citizen… Don’t they?”
No, the treasonous one is Bradley Manning, who needs to wind up on the business end of a firing squad.
As for Assange, he may not have committed treason against Australia, but I won’t be surprised if they eventually punch his ticket for something else. It’s not a clear cut case of jurisdiction when you have treaties between countries, etc.
Frankly, I think the fact that Assange is able to continue his activities unmolested shows that America is hardly the corrupted force of evil that so many of its detractors claim it to be. I think if he were focusing his efforts on, say, Russian state secrets, he’d pretty quickly wind up like that Russian expat in London who was murdered with radioactive poison a few years ago.
The US government officials could not keep their mouths shut? Too bad, so sad, tough luck – sucks to be them and no one promised life would be easy.
All Assange is doing is showing the world how leaky is Washington, DC.
Instead of throwing self into a tantrum the administration should have quietly found who leaked the info and stowed the guy/girl away for life with no parole. Threatening Assange they are just showing the world that they are little boys who cry daddy as soon as someone shoves them. Be men and take responsibility for their own acts.
@ Louise: Actually the fact that we’re being distracted from the Cancun summit is a bad thing. Public scrutiny is partially responsible for the failure of the Copenhagen summit. Unless…..this was their plan all along!!!!!!!
@ RHTT: I agree the shut down of internet sites is alarming and it doesn’t help that all the net neutrality advocates were swept out of office during the last midterms. The globalists will fail though because the muslims will take over and kill them all or we’ll run out of oil and start resource wars or some big actor like the Russians or Chinese won’t play their game. We’re doomed but I take comfort in the fact that they’re just as doomed.
Assange does not have to be a USA citizen to be charged with:
The Espionage Act of 1917;
Sedition Act of 1918.