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Wikileaks. Any comments?

BeAChooser said:
Sorry folks, I just can't resist. :D



Yes, what were children doing in that van, TW?
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Living in Iraq.


BeAChooser said:
No, what we saw occurring in that video from 2007 is precisely what turned the situation in Iraq around ... from one that was seemingly hopeless (according to democrats like Obama and the liberal mainstream media) to one where even Obama had to acknowlege that it worked and got to bask in the glory of that win just a few months ago. :D
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Haha, "turned around." You moving to Baghdad any time soon?

Obama was wrong. He's been wrong about quite a bit.

THe Surge was not irrelevant, but it also wasn't sufficient. It occurred at the end of the sectarian violence, it didn't cause it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/middleeast/24surge.html?_r=2
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/102410.html

These are conservative lessons, not liberal ones - of the hellish consequences of good intentions in places we do not understand and cannot control. And if we continue to delude ourselves in the same way about Afghanistan, we will not just be imprudent.
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http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/10/iraq-surge-fail-update.html

But the bottom line is that Patraeus' explanation of how to win an insurgency runs contrary to your claims about how to engage and the military necessity of such collateral damage.

It should be pointed out, of course, that Iraq is still a disaster. Things are better than they were in 2005, but that isn't really great.
 
WildCat said:
Can you give an example of one of these lies?
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lie verb \ˈlī\
intransitive verb
1
: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2
: to create a false or misleading impression

[Bush] voiced his strong personal "faith in this man as a leader" during a joint appearance in the East Room.
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http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_337357.html

You can find endless quotes from the time period that the cables deal with talking about what an ally Karzai was, what a champion of democracy...etc.

Ironically, that article discusses Bush and Karzai's joint goal of dealing with the Poppy problem in Afghanistan.

We always knew Karzai was week. His corruption and utter insanity was swept under the rug to imply that there was some sort of chance to establish a stable government.

Now Karzai is accusing the US of trying to steal the election from him. Our troops are dying to keep him in power.
 
WildCat said:
Yeah, I'm sure this will keep the freepers and other internet nutjobs from calling for his death.
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It might stop the US government from kidnapping and locking him up Gitmo-style. After all, when you're the Good Guy(tm) everything goes.

It's really irrelevant. Journalists have no more 1st Amendment or other Constitutional rights than anyone else.
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It's relevant enough for a number of people to claim wikileaks does not enjoy freedom of the press.
 
TraneWreck said:
lie verb \ˈlī\
intransitive verb
1
: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2
: to create a false or misleading impression
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Do I need to quote you the definition of "military"? :rolleyes:


TraneWreck said:
You can find endless quotes from the time period that the cables deal with talking about what an ally Karzai was, what a champion of democracy...etc.
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And you actually believed that? You really can't filter out diplomat-speak from reality? Do you think Rosevelt and Churchill were thrilled to have Stalin as an ally?

TraneWreck said:
Ironically, that article discusses Bush and Karzai's joint goal of dealing with the Poppy problem in Afghanistan.

We always knew Karzai was week. His corruption and utter insanity was swept under the rug to imply that there was some sort of chance to establish a stable government.

Now Karzai is accusing the US of trying to steal the election from him. Our troops are dying to keep him in power.
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What exactly do want to do about this? Depose him for a puppet? Pull out of Afghanistan and allow it to be a haven for al Qaeda once again?

Remember a few years ago when Bush wanted John Bolton to be our UN representative? The Dems threw a fit and refused to confirm him, because he was a loose cannon who would tell it like it is and piss off everyone by calling Ahmadinejad a nutjob and such... I take it you supported the John Bolton appointment?
 
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egslim said:
It might stop the US government from kidnapping and locking him up Gitmo-style. After all, when you're the Good Guy(tm) everything goes.
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Uh, yeah... and the magical rock I keep by my front door has kept space aliens from invading earth and enslaving all humans.

Yes, the odds of Assange ending up in Gitmo are just as great as said alien invasion.

egslim said:
It's relevant enough for a number of people to claim wikileaks does not enjoy freedom of the press.
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People claim all kinds of stupid stuff, so what?
 
BobTheCoward said:
I see the thread has changed, but I feel I still have something to say about Assange/

First, I admit I was wrong about some details on Assange. I looked some stuff up, and while he does have some positive characteristics, I still find him smug. As for argument?

Is Wikileaks the 5th estate? Does Assange belong to a background or profession that grants him responsibility/authority to make these decisions? What system do they use to make these judgments and where did the system originate?

Assange is not a journalist. Other threads, you will hear me bitch about modern journalism, but I support the 4th estate. To the extent wikileaks works with reporters make their decision, I applaud them. To the extent they do not, I have issues.

I am not even saying that what system they use is wrong. But there are these nagging issues of authority and responsibility. He is not elected, appointed, or belongs to an institution with guidelines. That is a scary responsibility.
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Daniel Ellsberg didn't have the 'authority' as you define it here, to blow the whistle on the lies being fed the US public about the Vietnam War. He wasn't a journalist. And while he sent the papers to a dozen news papers, he also put out the raw material. One Senator was so incensed about also being lied to along with the public, he read the papers into the Congressional Record to stop the attempt to censor the papers.


I'm not sure what is in these documents that is harmful to individual's lives. But I think the secrecy in government has run amok. Were it just Saudi Arabia's two faces about Iran, maybe that is better left to the diplomats that hopefully know the real face. But when it comes to lies about how many collateral deaths there really were in Iraq and how corrupt Karzai is when our government is saying we can work with him, then the public's stake in the game is personal enough this is not information I want my government hiding from me.

And when the government reacts by telling college students to fear for their futures if they look at what is out in the public sphere, that confirms my concerns are valid.



And how can you trust the news media when they are in on repeating the smear campaign against Assange without any attempt to disclose the actual charge is, not using a condom during consensual sex? It would appear that 2 disgruntled ex-girlfriends were talked into pressing the charges. I can't think of any other way to explain the events. And maybe there is or is not more to it. But don't you think it is irresponsible for the news media to keep repeating the charges without disclosing the shaky basis for them?
 
INRM said:
The government wants to shut down Wikileaks because they're exposing embarrassing secrets, not secrets that are seriously a danger to the country.
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And not just embarrassing, but information that affects public sentiment about government decisions. When the government has to hide the truth from the people because the people, if they knew the truth, wouldn't support the government's decisions, it's a pretty good indicator the government is not acting in our interests, but in favor of some special interests.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Daniel Ellsberg didn't have the 'authority' as you define it here, to blow the whistle on the lies being fed the US public about the Vietnam War. He wasn't a journalist. And while he sent the papers to a dozen news papers, he also put out the raw material. One Senator was so incensed about also being lied to along with the public, he read the papers into the Congressional Record to stop the attempt to censor the papers.
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Ellsberg actually stole the papers, which is why he went to prison and the editors of the NYT did not.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I.... The boundaries are not clear on where government secrecy and public need meets.
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The boundary might be fuzzy, but further down the continuum it's pretty clear to the majority of Americans they don't want to be lied to to earn public support for a questionable war.
 
WildCat said:
Ellsberg actually stole the papers, which is why he went to prison and the editors of the NYT did not.
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This seems to be a non sequitur to what I posted. Care to elaborate how this matters in this discussion? Not to mention, Assange was not the original thief, wasn't he the recipient?

You also seem to be saying that the whistle blower is always a criminal by default. That suggests a position that the government can do no wrong or the public can only find out about a government's misdeeds if the information accidentally comes out.
 
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WildCat said:
Uh, yeah... and the magical rock I keep by my front door has kept space aliens from invading earth and enslaving all humans.
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The US has a proven trackrecord of kidnapping foreigners and detaining them outside the law, under torturous circumstances.

To compare that fact with fantasy like aliens and magic is quite disturbing on your part.

People claim all kinds of stupid stuff, so what?
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The purpose of this forum is to educate people.
 
deepatrax said:
Wikileaks didn't investigate ANY of the documents in the cables they released......
He's an accused rapist, an enemy of the U.S., and will be in jail before Christmas.
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Oh the irony.

Did the news media investigate the sexual assault charges against Assange before repeating them over and over?

Do you define consensual sex between two adults without a condom as the guy raping the gal?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
And not just embarrassing, but information that affects public sentiment about government decisions. When the government has to hide the truth from the people because the people, if they knew the truth, wouldn't support the government's decisions, it's a pretty good indicator the government is not acting in our interests, but in favor of some special interests.
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If government officials and politicians were trustworty without exception and always motivated to advance the public good, then the ideal form of government would be a totalitarian dictatorship.

It's because so many of them are lying scum only motivated by their own self-interest that democracy is better, and freedom of expression so important.
 
Julian Assange said:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
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My guess is the references have nothing to do with extraterrestrial life.
 
BobTheCoward said:
You are really stretching. That isn't presenting the account of events, he is the accounted event.
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Seems like not the most relevant thing here: a reporter interprets the thing for us and if said reporter makes the thing directly available without comment, they are not a reporter?

But even if you want to define Assange as a reporter or not a reporter, it seems like an arbitrary thing to me to create an issue that is extra to the actual event.

He released the documents into the public sphere. That should be the basis of judgement. I don't see how defining him as a reporter gives him special privileges, or saying he's not a reporter therefore makes him a criminal. WildCat already tried and failed when he implied being the original thief of the documents made Assange a criminal. But Assange was not the original thief as far as we know. Other people are supposedly supplying the material to Wikileaks.

My point is, all this nuance seems contrived. Who cares if he is a reporter or not. Free speech is not limited to the press. And in addition, our current 'press' is much more of a commodity than it is a source of accurate information. It's not what informs, it's what sells. That suggests people might want to go around the mainstream media. The media is part of the problem.

Assange should be judged on the merits of the case, not all this extraneous value stuff injected into the discussion.

Which leaked documents were specifically harmful and to whom?

If lives were endangered (because the enemy has been emboldened or given recruiting fodder, whose fault is that? Is it the fault of the military who made the mistakes or who downplayed the collateral deaths or covered up the corruption? Or is it the fault of the person who brought the information to the public?

Were lives specifically risked because of names, places, things like that which were released? Those are hard to justify. That would constitute careless disregard. Did Assange release such information? Because I have not seen direct evidence he did, only accusations that lives may have been put at risk.

Lieberman going on about Assange is totally out of line given the evidence Lieberman has given to support his accusation of worst espionage since [yadda yadda]. Is the media asking Lieberman to support his rhetoric with examples? Espionage/traitors sells more news than leaking a gazillion benign to slightly embarrassing state department communiques.

Has the news media been honest about the sexual assault charges against Assange? Seems like rape sells more news than consensual sex without a condom.

Did the news media do their job in the past reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan? Are they doing their job now? Did the leak of these documents give the public a more honest view of the wars which the media was failing to do?


Those seem to me to be far more important questions than was Assange technically a reporter or a journalist or neither?
 
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