View Full Version : A Must Read for all Manning/Assange Sycophants
onmyknees
12-31-2010, 03:51 AM
Ben and others have spent countless hours copying and pasting articles from friendly sites engaging in hero worship of sorts with Assange and Manning. Part of thier defense has been that not a single person has been hurt by Assange. It's a simplistic defense...sort of like saying that The Stimulus prevented the second Great Depression. Part of the difficulity is trying to prove a negative. One can say it with certainty, but it's impossibe to disprove. It appears that the damage Assange has inflicted on the world is just starting to surface as many of us knew it would.
When a preeminent First Amendment scholar like Floyd Abrams talks...I listen. When guys like Glen Greenwald talk, I get skeptical, and you should too.
Most all of you who post here are smart folks and know the
tyranny and brutality of Robert Mugabe . Most believe he should be removed by whatever means available. You don't remove a man like Mugabe from power under the bright lights. Read on. The first article sets up the second. One could understand a defense of the act of publishing classified documents in certain narrowly focused situations. The left's fatal error was you tied these 2 indefensible, flawed characters , Manning and Assange (both with ulterior motives for their deeds ) to the act of whistle blowing, which most times is a noble act done for noble reasons.
WikiThieves And False Analogies (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikithieves-and-false-analogies.html)
From The Atlantic Magazine
Christopher R. Albon (http://www.theatlantic.com/christopher-r-albon/) - Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D candidate at U.C. Davis specializing in the relationship between armed conflict and public health. He writes at Conflict Health (http://conflicthealth.com/), Current Intelligence (http://www.currentintelligence.net/), and the U.S. Naval Institute blog (http://blog.usni.org/).
Defenders of WikiLeaks have portrayed Bradley Manning and Julian Assange as heroes who only want transparency, and who did no real harm.
In fact, WikiLeaks has put lives (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/meet-wikileaks-likely-first-victim.html) at risk and damaged international attempts to rid Zimbabwe (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikiterror-in-zimbabwe.html) of the Mugabe regime. And beyond that, Wikileaks has damaged our ability to conduct diplomacy, where off-the-record frank conversations are critical.
Defenders of WikiLeaks have constructed a justification that Manning is just another Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame someone who sought to bring truth to the historical account of major events, and Assange as merely a conduit. Since Ellsberg is something of a folk hero to the left, the comparison has a superficial appeal.
Thanks go out to Floyd Abrams, one of the premier First Amendment lawyers in the country (and a Senior Partner at the law firm I worked at right out of law school) who represented The NY Times in the Pentagon Papers case, for destroying the Ellsberg analogy.
In an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204527804576044020396601528.html), Abrams explains that unlike Manning and Assange, Ellsberg specifically held back a large stash of diplomatic documents:
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg decided to make available to the New York Times (and then to other newspapers) 43 volumes of the Pentagon Papers, the top- secret study prepared for the Department of Defense examining how and why the United States had become embroiled in the Vietnam conflict. But he made another critical decision as well. That was to keep confidential the remaining four volumes of the study describing the diplomatic efforts of the United States to resolve the war.
Not at all coincidentally, those were the volumes that the government most feared would be disclosed. In a secret brief filed with the Supreme Court, the U.S. government described the diplomatic volumes as including information about negotiations secretly conducted on its behalf by foreign nations including Canada, Poland, Italy and Norway. Included as well, according to the government, were "derogatory comments about the perfidiousness of specific persons involved, and statements which might be offensive to nations or governments."
The diplomatic volumes were not published, even in part, for another dozen years. Mr. Ellsberg later explained his decision to keep them secret, according to Sanford Ungar's 1972 book "The Papers & The Papers," by saying, "I didn't want to get in the way of the diplomacy."
Julian Assange sure does. Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?
Exactly.
Abrams goes on to point out the there are valid grounds for an indictment of WikiLeaks under the 1917 Espionage Act and that "if Mr. Assange were found to have communicated and retained the secret information with the intent to harm the United States—some of his statements can be so read—a conviction might be obtained."
Thank you Mr. Abrams, for scraping off the gloss people like Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/24/wikileaks/index.html) are putting on the whole WikiLeaks affair.
Manning, Assange and the others involved in WikiLeaks should be prosecuted. The real wonder is why this wasn't done months ago.
How WikiLeaks Just Set Back Democracy in Zimbabwe
Dec 28 2010, 10:34 AM ET 225 (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/how-wikileaks-just-set-back-democracy-in-zimbabwe/68598/#disqus_thread)
http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/101313147p.jpgLast year, early on Christmas Eve morning, representatives from the U.S., United Kingdom, Netherlands, and the European Union arrived for a meeting with Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Appointed prime minister earlier that year as part of a power-sharing agreement after the fraud- and violence-ridden 2008 presidential election, Tsvangirai and his political party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), are considered Zimbabwe's greatest hopes for unseating the country's long-time de facto dictator Robert Mugabe and bringing democratic reforms to the country.
The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.
Later that day, the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe dutifully reported the details of the meeting to Washington in a confidential U.S. State Department diplomatic cable. And slightly less than one year later, WikiLeaks released it to the world.
The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it's unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009.
It's difficult to see this as anything but a major setback for democracy in Zimbabwe. Even if Tsvangirai is not charged with treason, the opponents to democratic reforms have won a significant victory. First, popular support for Tsvangirai and the MDC will suffer due to Mugabe's inevitable smear campaign, including the attorney general's "investigation." Second, the Prime Minister might be forced to take positions in opposition to the international community to avoid accusation of being a foreign collaborator. Third, Zimbabwe's fragile coalition government could collapse completely. Whatever happens, democratic reforms in Zimbabwe are far less likely now than before the leak.
To their supporters, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange are heroes of the democratic cause. Assange himself has claimed that his organization promotes democracy by strengthening the media. But in Zimbabwe, Assange's pursuit of this noble goal has provided a tyrant with the ammunition to wound, and perhaps kill, any chance for multiparty democracy. Earlier this month, Assange claimed that "not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed" by Wikileaks' practices. This is no longer true, if it ever was (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/security/wikileaks-hurts-the-cause-of-transparency/5503/).
Any damage to democratic reforms from WikiLeaks likely comes not from malice but naivety. Assange is probably not best described, as Vice President Joe Biden recently put it, a "high-tech terrorist." Rather, he, his organization, and their activist supporters believe that they can promote democracy by making an enemy of secrecy itself. What we're seeing in Zimbabwe, however, is that those methods won't necessarily be without significant collateral damage.
This is, well, imperative and must be stressed: "If you think that Assange is guilty of a crime then Bob Woodward (and countless other investigative reporters) are guilty too. There just isn't any way around it."
And American journalist Allan Nairn: "There’s talk now, there are reports, that the U.S. is looking to indict Assange on conspiracy. Obama’s Justice Department, Holder, is reportedly, according to the New York Times, trying to do this. And they’re looking at a charge that would say it’s conspiracy because Assange encouraged Manning to leak the documents. He didn’t just passively receive them; he encouraged him. Well, if they indict him for that, they should also indict me, because I have done that, as well. They say that it’s a crime of conspiracy to solicit classified U.S. material in that way. Well, I have done that. I have done that on numerous occasions. And I’ll now tell Attorney General Holder, you can come and arrest me, too."
I mean, that is the role of journalism: to expose government secrets. Otherwise what's the point of journalism? Oh, I know. To cover the trivialities of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lopez.
Not sure where Joe Biden stands. If he indeed does have any core beliefs. He's merely a mouthpiece for the administration:
YouTube - VP Joe Biden Caught Flip-Flopping On Wikileaks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxlHXFCnwZA&feature=related)
Wikileaks may have exposed this:
YouTube - Cheney Invaded Iraq for the Oil (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmt1iFMryaM&feature=related)
YouTube - Judge Napolitano : Lies the Government Told You! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3dIkEd8hHM)
YouTube - Obama Lies 7 Times In Under 2 Minutes! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfu1_Scgyow&feature=related)
onmyknees
01-01-2011, 12:12 AM
Wikileaks may have exposed this:
YouTube - Cheney Invaded Iraq for the Oil (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmt1iFMryaM&feature=related)
That's total unsubstantiated foolishness, and it's sophmoric. If we invaded for oil, we wouldn't have bombed the entire crude oil infastructure that remains in ruins.
onmyknees
01-01-2011, 12:13 AM
And the point was not that politicians lie...........it was your naive defense of Assange and Manning
onmyknees
01-01-2011, 12:30 AM
Ben....More on your buddy Greenwald. Can we stop shilling for him now?
MSNBC Weeps for Accused Traitor Bradley Manning
By Cliff Kincaid | December 17, 2010
Manning is being held in isolation because of the fear that he could turn over more sensitive information to possible conspirators.
The recipient of a journalism award named after Soviet agent I.F. Stone was on MSNBC on Friday complaining about the treatment of Private Bradley Manning, the alleged traitor now in prison and accused of leaking thousands of classified military documents to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Glenn Greenwald of Salon is depicting Manning as a praiseworthy whistleblower who is being persecuted by the U.S. military.
Among other things, Greenwald says that Manning is not being given a pillow to sleep on.
Greenwald has been on MSNBC before, such as the time he engaged in a heated conversation with Democratic partisan Lawrence O’Donnell, who is a host of his own MSNBC show, over whether President Obama is sufficiently leftist. Greenwald believes Obama, like Bush, has been too tough on the terrorists trying to kill Americans.
The established record shows that Manning is a homosexual who should never have been in the military and was a discipline problem but nevertheless got a security clearance when stationed in Iraq. He apparently used some of his time not to help his fellow soldiers fight the enemy but to listen to Lady Gaga CDs and download classified information, which he then turned over to Assange. A grand jury is reportedly investigating whether Assange was a conspirator with Manning and not just a recipient of his stolen information. A conspiracy cannot be ruled out at this juncture in the investigation.
The record shows that Manning allegedly betrayed the United States because of anger over what he perceived to be the Army’s failure to accommodate his peculiar “sexual orientation,” which he advertised on Facebook. Manning also marched openly in gay rights parades but some observers think Manning was in the process of considering becoming a woman.
Like Manning, Glenn Greenwald is gay.
Using sensational language designed to lure the gullible into believing that Manning is some kind of heroic figure being destroyed by fanatical military types, Greenwald claims (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning) that Manning “has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation…” Greenwald speculates that the treatment could be considered torture.
Manning is being held in isolation because of the fear that he could turn over more sensitive information to possible conspirators. This is why his associates are being closely monitored.
Greenwald came to AIM’s attention when he received an award (http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/independentmedia/izzy/2008ceremony/) named after I.F. Stone, a leftist journalist exposed as a Soviet agent, from the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. Greenwald shared the award with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, a radio and TV outfit so far to the left that it ran a special program honoring Castro collaborator Che Guevara (http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/9/the_life_legacy_of_latin_american).
Rather than disavow the award, after he was informed about Stone’s service to the Soviet Union, Greenwald attacked (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/izzy-award-sends-blogger-into-a-tizzy/) AIM and Commentary magazine, which had also published evidence of Stone’s work on behalf of the communist dictatorship.
While the Greenwald piece on Manning has been labeled “explosive” and “provocative” by liberals and eagerly gobbled up by “progressive” outlets like MSNBC, the basis for his controversial assertions about Manning is not clear, since Greenwald himself reports that “Manning is barred from communicating with any reporters, even indirectly, so nothing he has said can be quoted here.”
Greenwald quotes a friend of Manning, David House, as claiming various things about Manning’s living conditions and his supposedly deteriorating “appearance,” but the descriptions of prison life, while harsh, do not by any objective measure equate to torture or anything resembling it. Indeed, Greenwald reports that Manning sleeps much of the day, even without a pillow.
House helped establish the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://www.bradleymanning.org/) and has a vested interest in saving his friend from military justice and making the U.S. Army look bad. This seems to be Greenwald’s motive as well.
From CBS News.... Yep! CBS NEWS.... Once again: CBS NEWS
December 31, 2010 7:50 AM How WikiLeaks Enlightened Us in 2010
Joshua Norman (http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-503543_162-503543.html?contributor=10470074)
WikiLeaks has brought to light a series of disturbing insinuations and startling truths in the last year, some earth-shattering, others simply confirmations of our darkest suspicions about the way the world works. Thanks to founder Julian Assange's legal situation in Sweden (and potentially the United States) as well as his media grandstanding, it is easy to forget how important and interesting some of WikiLeaks' revelations have been.
WikiLeaks revelations from 2010 have included simple gossip about world leaders (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20023933-503543.html): Russia's PM Vladimir Putin is playing Batman to President Dmitri Medvedev's Robin; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is crazy and was once slapped by a Revolutionary Guard chief for being so; Libya's Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has a hankering for his voluptuous blond Ukrainian nurse; and France's President Nicholas Sarkozy simply can't take criticism.
CBS News Special Report: WikiLeaks (http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-202_162-984.html)
However, WikiLeaks' revelations also have many major implications for world relations. The following is a list of the more impactful WikiLeaks revelations from 2010, grouped by region.
The United States
- The U.S. Army considered WikiLeaks a national security threat as early as 2008 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/15/tech/cnettechnews/main6301446.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;2), according to documents obtained and posted by WikiLeaks in March, 2010.
- Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commanders repeatedly, knowingly lied to the American public about rising sectarian violence in Iraq (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-25/wikileaks-shows-rumsfeld-and-casey-lied-about-the-iraq-war/) beginning in 2006, according to the cross-referencing of WikiLeaks' leaked Iraq war documents and former Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Ellen Knickmeyer's recollections.
- The Secretary of State's office encouraged U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to spy on their counterparts (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/29/world/main7099125.shtml), including collecting data about the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats, including credit card account numbers, according to documents from WikiLeaks U.S. diplomatic cable release. Later cables reveal the CIA draws up an annual "wish-list" for the State Department, (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024477-503543.html) which one year included the instructions to spy on the U.N.
- The Obama administration worked with Republicans during his first few months in office to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies that some considered torture. (http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quashed-torture-investigation) A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid obtained by WikiLeaks details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
- WikiLeaks released a secret State Department cable that provided a list of sites around the world vital to U.S. national security, from mines in Africa to labs in Europe (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7123706).
Iraq
- A U.S. Army helicopter allegedly gunned down two journalists in Baghdad (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/05/world/main6366323.shtml) in 2007. WikiLeaks posted a 40-minute video on its website in April, showing the attack in gruesome detail, along with an audio recording of the pilots during the attack.
- Iran's military intervened aggressively in support of Shiite combatants in Iraq, offering weapons, training and sanctuary (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20020506-503543.html), according to an October, 2010, WikiLeaks release of thousands of secret documents related to the Iraq war.
- According to one tabulation, there have been 100,000 causalities, mostly civilian, in Iraq (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20020506-503543.html) - greater than the numbers previously made public, many of them killed by American troops but most of them were killed by other Iraqis, according to the WikiLeaks Iraq documents dump.
- U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6983157) whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished, according to the WikiLeaks Iraq documents dump.Afghanistan
- U.S. special-operations forces have targeted militants (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/26/world/main6713230.shtml)without trial (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/26/world/main6713230.shtml)in secret assassination missions, and many more Afghan civilians have been killed by accident than previously reported (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/26/world/main6713230.shtml), according to the WikiLeaks Afghanistan war document dump.
- Afghan President Hamid Karzai freed suspected drug dealers because of their political connections (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/30/world/main7102597.shtml), according to a secret diplomatic cable. The cable, which supports the multiple allegations of corruption within the Karzai government, said that despite repeated rebukes from U.S. officials in Kabul, the president and his attorney general authorized the release of detainees. Previous cables accused Karzai's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, of being a corrupt narcotics trafficker.
Asia
- Pakistan's government has allowed members of its spy network to hold strategy sessions on combating American troops with members of the Taliban (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/25/world/main6712514.shtml), while Pakistan has received more than $1 billion a year in aid from Washington to help combat militants, according to a July, 2010, WikiLeaks release of thousands of files on the Afghanistan war.
- A stash of highly enriched uranium capable of providing enough material for multiple "dirty bombs" has been waiting in Pakistan for removal by an American team for more than three years (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024196-503543.html) but has been held up by the country's government, according to leaked classified State Department documents.
- Despite sustained denials by US officials spanning more than a year, U.S.military Special Operations Forces have been conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan, (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/03/opinion/main7112935.shtml)helping direct U.S. drone strikes and conducting joint operations with Pakistani forces against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in north and south Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, according to secret cables released as part of the Wikileaks document dump.
- China was behind the online attack of Google (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20023994-501465.html), according to leaked diplomatic cables. The electronic intrusion was "part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government."
- Secret State Department cables show a South Korean official quoted as saying that North Korea's collapse is likely to happen "two to three years" after the death of the current dictator, Kim Jong Il (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/29/world/main7100930.shtml). The U.S. is already planning for the day North Korea implodes from its own economic woes. China has "no will" to use its economic leverage to force North Korea to change its policies and the Chinese official who is the lead negotiator with North Korea is "the most incompetent official in China."
- North Korea is secretly helping the military dictatorship in Myanmar build nuclear and missile sites in its jungles (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025246-503543.html), according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Although witnesses told the embassy that construction is at an early stage, officials worry Myanmar could one day possess a nuclear bomb.
- Five years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross told U.S. diplomats in New Delhi that the Indian government "condones torture" and systematically abused detainees in the disputed region of Kashmir (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025931-503543.html). The Red Cross told the officials that hundreds of detainees were subjected to beatings, electrocutions and acts of sexual humiliation, the Guardian newspaper of London reported Thursday evening.
- The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a "government death squad" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/21/wikileaks-cables-british-police-bangladesh-death-squad), leaked US embassy cables have revealed. Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".
- Secret U.S. diplomatic cables reveal that BP suffered a blowout after a gas leak in the Caucasus country of Azerbaijan in September 2008, a year and a half before another BP blowout killed 11 workers (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025803-503543.html) and started a leak that gushed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Middle East
- Saudi Arabia's rulers have deep distrust for some fellow Muslim countries, especially Pakistan and Iran (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20023973-503543.html), despite public appearances, according to documents from the late November, 2010, WikiLeaks U.S. diplomatic cable dump. King Abdullah called Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari "the greatest obstacle" to the country's progress and he also repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20023973-503543.html) to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.
- Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/29/world/main7099393.shtml), according to the leaked U.S. diplomatic memos.
- In a leaked diplomatic memo, dated two weeks after elections that landed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in office, a senior American diplomat said that during a meeting a few days before "Netanyahu expressed support for the concept of land swaps, (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/30/world/main7103889.shtml)and emphasized that he did not want to govern the West Bank and Gaza but rather to stop attacks from being launched from there."
- The United States was secretly given permission from Yemen's president to attack the al Qaeda group in his country (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024622-503543.html) that later attempted to blow up planes in American air space. President Ali Abdullah Saleh told John Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism adviser, in a leaked diplomatic cable from September 2009 that the U.S. had an "open door" on terrorism in Yemen.
- Contrary to public statements, the Obama administration actually helped fuel conflict in Yemen. The U.S. was shipping arms to Saudi Arabia for use in northern Yemen even as it denied any role in the conflict. (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/09/obama_yemen_saudi_houthi_conflict/index.html)
- Saudi Arabia is one of the largest origin points for funds supporting international terrorism (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024653-503543.html), according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged U.S. diplomats to do more to stop the flow of money to Islamist militant groups from donors in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government, Clinton wrote, was reluctant to cut off money being sent to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan.
- The U.S. is failing to stop the flow of arms to Middle Eastern militant groups. Hamas and Hezbollah are still receiving weapons from Iran, North Korea, and Syria (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024778-503543.html), secret diplomatic cables allege.
- A storage facility housing Yemen's radioactive material was unsecured for up to a week after its lone guard was removed and its surveillance camera was broken, a secret U.S. State Department cable released by WikiLeaks revealed Monday. "Very little now stands between the bad guys and Yemen's nuclear material (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/world/main7167181.shtml)," a Yemeni official said on January 9 in the cable.
- Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, constructed with apparent help from North Korea, fearing it was built to make a bomb (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20026598-503543.html). In a leaked diplomatic cable obtained by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, then-US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote the Israelis targeted and destroyed the Syrian nuclear reactor just weeks before it was to be operational.
- Diplomatic cables recently released by WikiLeaks indicate authorities in the United Arab Emirates debated whether to keep quiet about the high-profile killing of a Hamas operative in Dubai in January (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/28/world/main7191044.shtml). The documents also show the UAE sought U.S. help in tracking down details of credit cards Dubai police believe were used by a foreign hit squad involved in the killing. The spy novel-like slaying, complete with faked passports and assassins in disguise, is widely believed to be the work of Israeli secret agents.
- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Al Jazeera network that some of the unpublished cables show "Top officials in several Arab countries have close links with the CIA (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20026811-503543.html), and many officials keep visiting US embassies in their respective countries voluntarily to establish links with this key US intelligence agency. These officials are spies for the U.S. in their countries."
Europe
- Of the 500 or so tactical nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, it is known that about 200 are deployed throughout Europe. Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that dozens of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons are in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024059-503543.html).
- NATO had secret plans to defend the Baltic states and Poland from an attack by Russia (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/07/world/main7125343.shtml), according to a leaked diplomatic cable. NATO officials had feared "an unnecessary increase in NATO-Russia tensions," and wanted no public discussions of their contingency plans to defend Baltic states from Russian attack.
- The Libyan government promised "enormous repercussions" for the U.K. if the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, was not handled properly (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024926-503543.html), according to a leaked diplomatic cable. The Libyan government threatened "harsh, immediate" consequences if the man jailed for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 died in prison in Scotland.
- Pope Benedict impeded an investigation into alleged child sex abuse within the Catholic Church, (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025389-503543.html) according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Not only did Pope Benedict refuse to allow Vatican officials to testify in an investigation by an Irish commission into alleged child sex abuse by priests, he was also reportedly furious when Vatican officials were called upon in Rome.
- Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness carried out negotiations for the Good Friday agreement with Irish then-prime minister Bertie Ahern while the two had explicit knowledge of a bank robbery that the Irish Republican Army was planning to carry out (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025428-503543.html), according to a WikiLeaks cable. Ahern figured Adams and McGuinness knew about the 26.5 million pound Northern Bank robbery of 2004 because they were members of the "IRA military command."
Africa
- Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has infiltrated the highest levels of government in Nigeria (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025080-503543.html). A high-ranking executive for the international Shell oil company once bragged to U.S. diplomats, as reported in a leaked diplomatic cable, that the company's employees had so well infiltrated the Nigerian government that officials had "forgotten" the level of the company's access.
- Mozambique is fast on its way to becoming a narco-state because of close ties between drug smugglers and the southeastern African nation's government (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/10/ap/africa/main7137018.shtml), according to U.S. Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. The cables say cocaine, heroin and other drugs come in from South America and Asia, and are then flown to Europe or sent overland to neighboring South Africa for sale.
- Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating Mugabe's chief opposition leader on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of a WikiLeaks' leaked cable. The cable claimed Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai encouraged Western sanctions against his own country to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/how-wikileaks-just-set-back-democracy-in-zimbabwe/68598/)
Americas/Caribbean
- Mexican President Felipe Calderon told a U.S. official last year that Latin America "needs a visible U.S. presence" to counter Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's growing influence in the region (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/03/world/main7113672.shtml), according to a U.S. State Department cable leaked to WikiLeaks.
- A newly released confidential U.S. diplomatic cable predicts Cuba's economic situation could become "fatal" within two to three years (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025285-503543.html), and details concerns voiced by diplomats from other countries, including China, that the communist-run country has been slow to adopt reforms.
- The Honduran military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired in 2009 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch (http://www.guatemala-times.com/news/world/1849-wikileaks-open-and-shut-the-case-of-the-honduran-coup.html), according to a leaked diplomatic cable. However, the constitution itself may be deficient in terms of providing clear procedures for dealing with alleged illegal acts by the President and resolving conflicts between the branches of government.
- Venezuela's deteriorating oil industry and its growing economic problems are taking a toll on President Hugo Chavez's popularity. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/10/ap/business/main7139235.shtml)In one confidential leaked diplomatic cable dated Oct. 15, 2009, the U.S. Embassy said "equipment conditions have deteriorated drastically" since the government expropriated some 80 oil service companies earlier that year. It said safety and maintenance at the now state-owned oil facilities were in a "terrible state."
- China has been reselling Venezuela's cheap oil at a profit (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/14/world/main7149495.shtml), according to a classified U.S. document released by WikiLeaks. President Hugo Chavez was upset that China apparently profited by selling fuel to other countries, fuel that it had sold China at a discount in order to gain favor. The cable also describes falling crude output in Venezuela caused by a host of problems within the national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
- Jamaica's counter-drug efforts have been so sluggish that exasperated Cuban officials privately griped about their frustrations to a U.S. drug enforcement official (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/15/ap/latinamerica/main7153000.shtml), according to a U.S. diplomatic cable. The communique released by WikiLeaks said Cuban officials painted their Caribbean neighbor to the south as chronically uncooperative in stopping drug smugglers who use Cuban waters and airspace to transport narcotics destined for the U.S.
- A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable published Saturday depicts the leader of Mexico's army "lamenting" its lengthy role in the anti-drug offensive, but expecting it to last between seven and 10 more years. The cable says Mexican Defense Secretary Gen. Guillermo Galvan Galvan mistrusts other Mexican law enforcement agencies and prefers to work separately, because corrupt officials had leaked information in the past (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/26/ap/latinamerica/main7185049.shtml).
- McDonald's tried to delay the US government's implementation of a free-trade agreement in order to put pressure on El Salvador to appoint neutral judges in a $24m lawsuit it was fighting in the country. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/21/wikileaks-cables-mcdonalds-us-el-salvador)The revelation of the McDonald's strategy to ensure a fair hearing for a long-running legal battle against a former franchisee comes from a leaked US embassy cable dated 15 February 2006.
In 2010, WikiLeaks released only about 2,000 of the approximate 250,000 cables it claims to possess, and the pace of those releases dropped dramatically as the holidays approached. If Assange's promises are to be believed, 2011 will be another important year for learning about the hidden forces that drive our world.
russtafa
01-02-2011, 11:07 AM
traitors will always betray their country with the best motive's
Ha! ha! ha! We disagree. And that's, well, okay.
Ben....More on your buddy Greenwald. Can we stop shilling for him now?
MSNBC Weeps for Accused Traitor Bradley Manning
By Cliff Kincaid | December 17, 2010
Manning is being held in isolation because of the fear that he could turn over more sensitive information to possible conspirators.
The recipient of a journalism award named after Soviet agent I.F. Stone was on MSNBC on Friday complaining about the treatment of Private Bradley Manning, the alleged traitor now in prison and accused of leaking thousands of classified military documents to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Glenn Greenwald of Salon is depicting Manning as a praiseworthy whistleblower who is being persecuted by the U.S. military.
Among other things, Greenwald says that Manning is not being given a pillow to sleep on.
Greenwald has been on MSNBC before, such as the time he engaged in a heated conversation with Democratic partisan Lawrence O’Donnell, who is a host of his own MSNBC show, over whether President Obama is sufficiently leftist. Greenwald believes Obama, like Bush, has been too tough on the terrorists trying to kill Americans.
The established record shows that Manning is a homosexual who should never have been in the military and was a discipline problem but nevertheless got a security clearance when stationed in Iraq. He apparently used some of his time not to help his fellow soldiers fight the enemy but to listen to Lady Gaga CDs and download classified information, which he then turned over to Assange. A grand jury is reportedly investigating whether Assange was a conspirator with Manning and not just a recipient of his stolen information. A conspiracy cannot be ruled out at this juncture in the investigation.
The record shows that Manning allegedly betrayed the United States because of anger over what he perceived to be the Army’s failure to accommodate his peculiar “sexual orientation,” which he advertised on Facebook. Manning also marched openly in gay rights parades but some observers think Manning was in the process of considering becoming a woman.
Like Manning, Glenn Greenwald is gay.
Using sensational language designed to lure the gullible into believing that Manning is some kind of heroic figure being destroyed by fanatical military types, Greenwald claims (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning) that Manning “has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation…” Greenwald speculates that the treatment could be considered torture.
Manning is being held in isolation because of the fear that he could turn over more sensitive information to possible conspirators. This is why his associates are being closely monitored.
Greenwald came to AIM’s attention when he received an award (http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/independentmedia/izzy/2008ceremony/) named after I.F. Stone, a leftist journalist exposed as a Soviet agent, from the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. Greenwald shared the award with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, a radio and TV outfit so far to the left that it ran a special program honoring Castro collaborator Che Guevara (http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/9/the_life_legacy_of_latin_american).
Rather than disavow the award, after he was informed about Stone’s service to the Soviet Union, Greenwald attacked (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/izzy-award-sends-blogger-into-a-tizzy/) AIM and Commentary magazine, which had also published evidence of Stone’s work on behalf of the communist dictatorship.
While the Greenwald piece on Manning has been labeled “explosive” and “provocative” by liberals and eagerly gobbled up by “progressive” outlets like MSNBC, the basis for his controversial assertions about Manning is not clear, since Greenwald himself reports that “Manning is barred from communicating with any reporters, even indirectly, so nothing he has said can be quoted here.”
Greenwald quotes a friend of Manning, David House, as claiming various things about Manning’s living conditions and his supposedly deteriorating “appearance,” but the descriptions of prison life, while harsh, do not by any objective measure equate to torture or anything resembling it. Indeed, Greenwald reports that Manning sleeps much of the day, even without a pillow.
House helped establish the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://www.bradleymanning.org/) and has a vested interest in saving his friend from military justice and making the U.S. Army look bad. This seems to be Greenwald’s motive as well.
Glenn Beck on WikiLeaks:
YouTube - FoxNews Glenn Beck WikiLeaks Assange Tree Of Liberty Control of Media 1 of 5 Dec 7, 2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWYmYIx_kKE)
Ben and others have spent countless hours copying and pasting articles from friendly sites engaging in hero worship of sorts with Assange and Manning. Part of thier defense has been that not a single person has been hurt by Assange. It's a simplistic defense...sort of like saying that The Stimulus prevented the second Great Depression. Part of the difficulity is trying to prove a negative. One can say it with certainty, but it's impossibe to disprove. It appears that the damage Assange has inflicted on the world is just starting to surface as many of us knew it would.
When a preeminent First Amendment scholar like Floyd Abrams talks...I listen. When guys like Glen Greenwald talk, I get skeptical, and you should too.
Most all of you who post here are smart folks and know the
tyranny and brutality of Robert Mugabe . Most believe he should be removed by whatever means available. You don't remove a man like Mugabe from power under the bright lights. Read on. The first article sets up the second. One could understand a defense of the act of publishing classified documents in certain narrowly focused situations. The left's fatal error was you tied these 2 indefensible, flawed characters , Manning and Assange (both with ulterior motives for their deeds ) to the act of whistle blowing, which most times is a noble act done for noble reasons.
WikiThieves And False Analogies (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikithieves-and-false-analogies.html)
From The Atlantic Magazine
Christopher R. Albon (http://www.theatlantic.com/christopher-r-albon/) - Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D candidate at U.C. Davis specializing in the relationship between armed conflict and public health. He writes at Conflict Health (http://conflicthealth.com/), Current Intelligence (http://www.currentintelligence.net/), and the U.S. Naval Institute blog (http://blog.usni.org/).
Defenders of WikiLeaks have portrayed Bradley Manning and Julian Assange as heroes who only want transparency, and who did no real harm.
In fact, WikiLeaks has put lives (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/meet-wikileaks-likely-first-victim.html) at risk and damaged international attempts to rid Zimbabwe (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikiterror-in-zimbabwe.html) of the Mugabe regime. And beyond that, Wikileaks has damaged our ability to conduct diplomacy, where off-the-record frank conversations are critical.
Defenders of WikiLeaks have constructed a justification that Manning is just another Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame someone who sought to bring truth to the historical account of major events, and Assange as merely a conduit. Since Ellsberg is something of a folk hero to the left, the comparison has a superficial appeal.
Thanks go out to Floyd Abrams, one of the premier First Amendment lawyers in the country (and a Senior Partner at the law firm I worked at right out of law school) who represented The NY Times in the Pentagon Papers case, for destroying the Ellsberg analogy.
In an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204527804576044020396601528.html), Abrams explains that unlike Manning and Assange, Ellsberg specifically held back a large stash of diplomatic documents:
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg decided to make available to the New York Times (and then to other newspapers) 43 volumes of the Pentagon Papers, the top- secret study prepared for the Department of Defense examining how and why the United States had become embroiled in the Vietnam conflict. But he made another critical decision as well. That was to keep confidential the remaining four volumes of the study describing the diplomatic efforts of the United States to resolve the war.
Not at all coincidentally, those were the volumes that the government most feared would be disclosed. In a secret brief filed with the Supreme Court, the U.S. government described the diplomatic volumes as including information about negotiations secretly conducted on its behalf by foreign nations including Canada, Poland, Italy and Norway. Included as well, according to the government, were "derogatory comments about the perfidiousness of specific persons involved, and statements which might be offensive to nations or governments."
The diplomatic volumes were not published, even in part, for another dozen years. Mr. Ellsberg later explained his decision to keep them secret, according to Sanford Ungar's 1972 book "The Papers & The Papers," by saying, "I didn't want to get in the way of the diplomacy."
Julian Assange sure does. Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?
Exactly.
Abrams goes on to point out the there are valid grounds for an indictment of WikiLeaks under the 1917 Espionage Act and that "if Mr. Assange were found to have communicated and retained the secret information with the intent to harm the United States—some of his statements can be so read—a conviction might be obtained."
Thank you Mr. Abrams, for scraping off the gloss people like Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/24/wikileaks/index.html) are putting on the whole WikiLeaks affair.
Manning, Assange and the others involved in WikiLeaks should be prosecuted. The real wonder is why this wasn't done months ago.
How WikiLeaks Just Set Back Democracy in Zimbabwe
Dec 28 2010, 10:34 AM ET 225 (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/how-wikileaks-just-set-back-democracy-in-zimbabwe/68598/#disqus_thread)
http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/101313147p.jpgLast year, early on Christmas Eve morning, representatives from the U.S., United Kingdom, Netherlands, and the European Union arrived for a meeting with Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Appointed prime minister earlier that year as part of a power-sharing agreement after the fraud- and violence-ridden 2008 presidential election, Tsvangirai and his political party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), are considered Zimbabwe's greatest hopes for unseating the country's long-time de facto dictator Robert Mugabe and bringing democratic reforms to the country.
The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.
Later that day, the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe dutifully reported the details of the meeting to Washington in a confidential U.S. State Department diplomatic cable. And slightly less than one year later, WikiLeaks released it to the world.
The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it's unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009.
It's difficult to see this as anything but a major setback for democracy in Zimbabwe. Even if Tsvangirai is not charged with treason, the opponents to democratic reforms have won a significant victory. First, popular support for Tsvangirai and the MDC will suffer due to Mugabe's inevitable smear campaign, including the attorney general's "investigation." Second, the Prime Minister might be forced to take positions in opposition to the international community to avoid accusation of being a foreign collaborator. Third, Zimbabwe's fragile coalition government could collapse completely. Whatever happens, democratic reforms in Zimbabwe are far less likely now than before the leak.
To their supporters, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange are heroes of the democratic cause. Assange himself has claimed that his organization promotes democracy by strengthening the media. But in Zimbabwe, Assange's pursuit of this noble goal has provided a tyrant with the ammunition to wound, and perhaps kill, any chance for multiparty democracy. Earlier this month, Assange claimed that "not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed" by Wikileaks' practices. This is no longer true, if it ever was (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/security/wikileaks-hurts-the-cause-of-transparency/5503/).
Any damage to democratic reforms from WikiLeaks likely comes not from malice but naivety. Assange is probably not best described, as Vice President Joe Biden recently put it, a "high-tech terrorist." Rather, he, his organization, and their activist supporters believe that they can promote democracy by making an enemy of secrecy itself. What we're seeing in Zimbabwe, however, is that those methods won't necessarily be without significant collateral damage.
Quoting our buddy Glenn Greenwald: "There was just one small problem with all of this: it was totally false. It wasn't WikiLeaks which chose that cable to be placed into the public domain, nor was it WikiLeaks which first published it. It was The Guardian that did that. In early December, that newspaper -- not WikiLeaks -- selected and then published the cable in question (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/241595). This fact led The Guardian -- more than a full week after they published Richardson's accusatory column -- to sheepishly add this obscured though extremely embarrassing "clarification" at the end of his column:
• This article was amended on 11 January 2011 to clarify the fact that the 2009 cable referred to in this article was placed in the public domain by the Guardian, and not as originally implied by WikiLeaks. The photo caption was also amended to reflect this fact."
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