Pentagon Papers Ellsberg Supports Wikileaks 464
wierd_w writes "Daniel Ellsberg says: 'Every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.' Due to the recent debates over the pros and cons between the wikileaks releases and those of the historic 'Pentagon papers,' Daniel Ellsberg, who released the pentagon papers in 1971, has written an editorial on the subject declaring that he rejects the mantra of 'Pentagon Papers good; WikiLeaks material bad,' and that further 'That's just a cover for people who don't want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.'"
Wtf pentagon? (Score:2, Funny)
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You kids! Get off my lawn!
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
Vietnam war exposer (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], basically Ellsberg copied a couple of meters of reports stating that there were now way the US could win the Vietnam war.
Re:Vietnam war exposer (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever been to the memorial to those that lost their life in Vietnam, located in Washington DC? What I refer to as "The Wall". No winning there. I remember watching the news videos of the last remaining people being pulled from the U.S. Compount in Saigon by helicopter. Not much winning there either.....
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War lives lost:
Vietnam War: 58,209
WWII: 405,399
Clearly, we lost WWII 8 times as badly as we lost Vietnam.
Re:Vietnam war exposer (Score:5, Informative)
But, unlike Vietnam, we had little choice to avoid WWII. It was pretty clear that things were going to come to the US eventually. And allowing Hitler to take Europe would've just provided him with time and resources to come for the rest of the world. Just look at how much he was able to take out with only a portion of Europe under his control.
Vietnam on the other hand represented no such clear danger and we had to cause the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify the invasion.
Re:Vietnam war exposer (Score:4, Informative)
But, unlike Vietnam, we had little choice to avoid WWII. It was pretty clear that things were going to come to the US eventually. And allowing Hitler to take Europe would've just provided him with time and resources to come for the rest of the world. Just look at how much he was able to take out with only a portion of Europe under his control.
Vietnam on the other hand represented no such clear danger and we had to cause the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify the invasion.
Wow you almost sound as if your saying the US wanted to help Europe but history tells a very different story? Peal Harbor was the reason the US joined the war not because millions where being murdered by the Nazi's!
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lolwut?
The US did want to help Europe, and was already providing economic assistance. Entering a European war was an unpopular idea to many people in the United States at the time, because it was Europe's problem, why should American sons die for it. They always believed war could never be effectively waged across the ocean, and a European war coming on American soil was pretty unthinkable.
It was popular in the upper echelons of the government however, because they were aware war COULD effectively be wage
Re:Vietnam war exposer (Score:5, Insightful)
winning isn't a matter of who got the most kills.
War isn't a round of counterstrike.
If you decide who won based on the kill ratio or kill totals then Germany won world war 2.
If you lose 10,000 soldiers and the other guy loses 100,000 but he ends up controlling whatever you were fighting over and/or he still has lots of soldiers there and you don't then he was won.
Re:Vietnam war exposer (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering that Vietnam wasn't a war, and that we haven't had a war since WWII...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Clause
Hate to break it to you, but if you bomb like a war, and shoot like a war, you're in a war. No matter what the government decides to call it.
Same reason I can't kill you with a knife and say "no, I'm not allowed to murder people. That was a 'love tap'."
Re:Vietnam war exposer (Score:5, Interesting)
From wikipedia:
"In another example, a memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration listed the reasons for American persistence:
* 70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
* 20% - To keep [South Vietnam] (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
* 10% - To permit the people [of South Vietnam] to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
* ALSO - To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
* NOT - To 'help a friend'[3][9]"
- If the leadership of one of the world's two super powers is continuing a war with no end it sight, simply to avoid humiliation, its pretty easy to get the impression that they are loosing.
- If after 4 years of war military leadership says that it will take 2x-3x current troop levels to win, one could conclude that there isn't much optimism for the current strategies chances.
These are perfectly reasonable interpretations of the the book. You should read it.
Of course the fact that leadership decided to quit the field after determining the war was un-winnable given the available resources should be enough to persuade anyone.
Re:Vietnam war was never about Vietnam. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Vietnam war was, strategically, about stretching it out to siphon Soviet assets
How many Soviet combat troops were there in Vietnam again? Oh right, zero. The soviets provided limited support, but Hannoi wasn't such a fan of the Soviets, so it was very limited. The U.S.'s grand strategic vision was to commit half its fighting force and political capital to a theater with almost no Soviet involvement? How does this not qualify as a loss? At best it would be an egregious miscalculation...
The military defeat didn't happen until after the US and allied forces withdrew and Congress reneged on promised support to South Vietnam
"allied forces withdrew", yes, this is what happens when you are loosing a war and decide to stop fighting it. The fact that there was a political element changes nothing. People like to say the U.S. didn't loose military. Who the hell cares? This isn't college football, there is ostensibly a reason/objective for waging war, achieving it is winning. Failing to achieve the objective (or never having one) means you lost.
"war is the continuation of politics by other means." This isn't some hippy revisionist history theory. Its Von Claus, the grand daddy of western military theory and the Prussian says we lost.
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Sounds remarkably similar to recent history as well.
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I *know* we were told some bad information. I *know* the press fabricated a lot of lies and horribly misrepresented lots of things. You can literally point a finger at the press for telling the most lies - by far.
A minority of incorrect facts came from government; which is not to minimize their significance. The exact number of lies which came from government is questionable as there was a serious breakdown of the process which feeds information to the President and the DoD. It basically became a broken fee
Re:Wtf pentagon? (Score:4, Funny)
WTF were the Pentagon Papers? Were they pentagonal?
Basically, back then they didn't have laser printers that the papers had to fit through, so they had a little bit of freedom to play around with shapes.
Re:Wtf pentagon? (Score:4, Funny)
i wonder what the printers in battlestar galactica would look like..
They look like us.
Re:Wtf pentagon? (Score:4, Insightful)
How do I get an "Offtopic" on an article about the Pentagon Papers asking what the Pentagon papers are? That seems to be directly on-topic.
Probably because they were annoyed that you were too lazy to spend 5 seconds googling it instead of asking a rather useless question here where it will get, at best, a link to a source that would probably be near the top of the search results anyway. At worst it will lead to a bunch of additional uninformed posts to clutter up the thread.
Re:Wtf pentagon? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing you got that mod because the Pentagon Papers were quite famous, and anyone posting on Slashdot should be able to look up something that famous themselves rather than asking us to explain it to them.
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Re:Wtf pentagon? (Score:5, Funny)
My guess is that someone in the props department really liked cutting corners.
That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:4, Insightful)
And apart from the really right-wing Neocon wingnuts, find me a person today who doesn't think the leak of the Pentagon Papers was ultimately for the best.
I know! Joe Lieberman!...er...you said aside from right-wing Neocon wingnuts...um...at this point that's basically what he's become. So shoot, can't name one.
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I agree (I think) with the releases by wikileaks, but as I see it the major difference is that the New York Times is a paper of record, and Ellsberg is a US citizen. Frankly I think it just terrifies every government on the planet that a foreign national could choose to publish anything they receive with no real recourse.
In the end I do believe wikileaks is in the right, but I can understand why the US is so keen to make it as painful as possible.
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It's hard to hold it against NYT but not Wikileaks. Even if NYT didn't publish any of it, it would be publicly available for anyone to download, regardless of whether it's considered classified. Being that the purpose of being classified is to keep the information out of the hands of malicious people who could use the information to do harm, assuming that these people wouldn't be able to just get it form the widely available source is just silly.
The main difference with the NYT is a larger portion of the Am
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That may establish precedence but only for cases where prior restraint isn't justified. Depending on what all these cables contain, it may be justified.
Justice Brennan reasoned that since publication would not cause an inevitable, direct, and immediate event imperiling the safety of American forces, prior restraint was unjustified..
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Because it wasn't like 40 years ago and we're far, far from a hindsight position that tells us just how beneficial it eventually was.
If you look back and watch the turmoil the Papers caused you'd think it was the worst that could possibly have happened to the US, the sky is falling, the world is ending, the commies win and they'll have their next party congress on wall street, all because Ellsberg betrayed the country and should be hung, quartered and drawn, right after being subjected to much worse ordeals
Ummm, because it is different information? (Score:3)
While I don't agree with a lot of what is going on, this automatic assumption that any leak = good on the part of many I also disagree with. I believe the pentagon papers leak was good over all because the public needed to know the information and that needs was enough to outweigh any harm it would cause and just generally breaking the oath and trust to keep information confidential he'd taken. So the reason it was a good thing was the context, what was leaked, and why.
So Wikileaks can very well be seen as
Re:Ummm, because it is different information? (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't seen anything that I've said "Yes, the public needed to know this, it is important and shouldn't have been secret."
Its probably because you are self-filtering information that contradicts your own opinion. There are in fact many examples of information in these documents that the American public has a right to know. Here is a clear cut example:
The United States has been knowingly lying to the American public about its participation in military strikes in Yemen. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley in answered "No" to the question "Is the U.S. involved in any military operations in Yemen?" But the documents reveal the answer was a lie. Crowly was not misinformed. He was lying. Dont you believe that US citizens have a right to know when killing is being done in their name?
A good article with several links, and fascinating audio: http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/12/08/wikileaks/ [salon.com]
Re:Ummm, because it is different information? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ummm, because it is different information? (Score:5, Informative)
That's because the actual contents of the leaks are not the point. The leaks themselves are the point.
Wikileaks' goal is essentially to make secretive regimes so paranoid about leaks that they clamp down on themselves, crippling their ability to communicate and operate efficiently.
In Assange's words:
Source [wordpress.com]
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The problem is that not all secretive systems are unjust. I mean, a healthy relationship with your girlfriend (I know this is Slashdot, but humor me) is a "secretive system" and obviously your relationship would suffer if all your conversations, arguments, and snarky comments about her relatives and bitchy friends were suddenly thrown out in the open. In Assange's terms, your relations wou
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:5, Informative)
Then you had sure as hell better lock up all the good people at MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, Reuters, the AP, etc, etc, because the information certainly hasn't gone through the proper reviews yet and it's still technically classified. Therefore, they are publishing and distributing classified information, lock them up!
Leaking the information in the first place is certainly illegal, there's little doubt in the argument that the man or woman (most likely Manning at this point) committed a crime. However, it has been shown that freedom of the press trumps the vague term national security, did you even read the link the GP posted? Here's some highlights regarding the Justices' decision:
He [Justice Hugo Black] was against any interference with freedom of expression and largely found the content and source of the documents to be immaterial.
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote separately to explain that the publication of the documents did not qualify as one of the three exceptions to the freedom of expression
The President of United States possesses great constitutional independence that is virtually unchecked by the Legislative and Judicial branch. "In absence of governmental checks and balances", per Justice Stewart, "the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in [these two areas] may lie in an enlightened citizenry - in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government."
Justice Thurgood Marshall argued that the term "national security" was too broad to legitimize prior restraint
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:5, Insightful)
Divulging classified information may be a felony, but it's a felony in this country. It's hard to argue we should arrest a foreign citizen who hasn't set foot in American territory or stolen the documents himself. Now arresting the person who leaked the documents to Assange is a different matter.
By your point of view, if someone leaked information detailing Iran's nuclear program, we should immediately send them back to Iran to be executed. After all, it's clearly against the law
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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You can't have it both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Either Assange is subject to US law or he isn't. If he is, he should be protected by the First Amendment. If he isn't, then they have no legal right to prosecute him.
All of the idiots who want to temporarily suspend the law to punish one person always forget that it could be their turn sooner than they think. And, frankly, I'd rather not continue to establish the precedent that the world's most powerful country gets to arrogantly ignore international law and kidnap people to kill or torture them. In fifty years, it could be someone else putting hoods over US citizens who dare to mention the truth in public.
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you think that?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
"Congress SHALL MAKE NO LAW ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;" seems pretty clear to me. Rights belong to the people, all the people, not just citizens or certain classes of people.
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:5, Informative)
1. The NY Times and Wikileaks are two different beasts when it comes to "journalism". If they aren't, then every spy could be issued with a press pass from his intelligence agency's house organ and be immune to prosecution. This may be a matter for the courts to delineate further, but it's clear to reasonable observers.
The NT Times and Wikileaks are immune from prosecution under US law because they did not steal the information themselves (nor ordered anyone to steal it). That has already been delineated by the US Supreme Court. Whether or not they are journalists does not even enter the picture.
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:5, Insightful)
I have not studied the issue, but I have seen credible arguments that the leak of the Pentagon Papers was ultimately destructive of the best interests of the American people. I do not have an opinion one way or the other at this point and the event happened far enough in the past that I am not going to do the study needed to decide. I will say that those who at that time promoted the idea that publishing the Pentagon Papers was a good idea were pushing a destructive political agenda.
Eh? You haven't studied the issue, you don't intend to study the issue, but you'll go ahead and declare that those who supported the release were pushing a destructive agenda. Why doesn't that surprise me? Seems like the sort of thing that people do when they can't be bothered to actually get informed on a subject. Just find some source that agrees with their pre-conceived notions and declare their verdict on the issue.
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I have studied those people. I know who made a big deal back in the early 70s about the Pentagon Papers. I don't need to do a study of the Pentagon Papers and what was in them and what effect that had on the country.
Seriously?
You haven't studied the issues "those people" were concerned with and spent their lives addressing, yet despite living in a wilfully self-created bubble of ignorance about them, you somehow believe you have "studied those people"?
How does that chain of illogic even begin to make sense for you?
Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all (Score:4, Interesting)
I have not studied the issue, but I have seen credible arguments that the leak of the Pentagon Papers was ultimately destructive of the best interests of the American people. I do not have an opinion one way or the other at this point and the event happened far enough in the past that I am not going to do the study needed to decide. I will say that those who at that time promoted the idea that publishing the Pentagon Papers was a good idea were pushing a destructive political agenda.
Maybe you should take some time to study the issue. It could also be that the motivation of the people trying to suppress the publication was political. Maybe they knew that if the American public was aware of the real circumstances of the war it would rapidly lose support. Unlike subsequent wars, the Vietnam War relied on a draft to provide cannon fodder. Over two million Americans fought, more than 300,000 were wounded, more than 75,000 were permanently disabled, and nearly 60,000 killed. I'd say the American public had a right to know everything about why we became involved in Vietnam and what our long term odds of prevailing were. Daniel Ellsberg helped write the Pentagon Papers. He knew exactly what was in them and felt it was vital that the American people be aware of that information. He expected to spend the rest of his life in prison when he leaked them. He performed a great public service and was willing to sacrifice his freedom for the remainder of his life. Anyone that is willing to spend the rest of his life in prison in order to provide vital information to the public is a patriot in my eyes.
What I can't get my head around... (Score:5, Insightful)
What I can't get my head around is al those people that spend their time complaining that Wikileaks is not careful enough in redacting the documents and is putting lives at risk. I mean talking about a skewed world view... Not one death on the whole planet has been directly or indirectly attributed to any of the Wikileaks revelations. Not one! Not even by US state officials who would have every reason to do so if they could only find one!
Meanwhile, what digging in the wikileaks files has confirmed or revealed (so far) about the US: torture ongoing after Abu Graib, systematic lying to the electorate and the governments of friendly powers, the killing of thousands upon thousands of civilians including women, children, the elderly, even handicapped people by US armed forces, lying about civilian death tolls, the killing in cold blood of enemy forces after they surrendered, systematically turning a blind eye to the use of torture by allied forces, complicity in having allies break their own national laws in order to support the US war effort... do I have to continue?
Seriously people...do you really want to spend your time and energy arguing about the way Wikileaks redacts the leaks?
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Those people are idiots. Assange offered the government the opportunity to negotiate for redactions, and was turned down because they, in effect, wanted the entire thing redacted. As in none of it released.
Strikes me as a bit suspicious that if it's really that damaging that they didn't accept that the materials were out there and at least try to contain the damage.
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Oh I understand the US government's refusal to redact perfectly. They probably asked themselves the next questions and came up with similar answers:
You're forgetting to add that by delineating between what should be released and what shouldn't, they would in effect be admitting that the things they say are OK to release were improperly classified.
Re:What I can't get my head around... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pffft. Those same people didn't seem to mind Wikileak's standards for redaction when they published papers by governments hostile to the US. Indeed, as I recall, those people didn't object in the slightest to leaks about any other government at all. Or indeed, leaks about corrupt organizations (other than popular American brands).
The US government's position that Wikileaks has endangered informants is also questionable (given that one of those "informants" was feeding bad information and assassinated 7 CIA agents, another was a hoaxer, an unknown number of these informants have been killed by Predator strikes, and an unknown number have been discovered through inept US handling). It's also not terribly consistant with history, since informants have traditionally been regarded as expendable and informing entirely at their own risk.
(I'd also note that informants for other governments over the course of history and for the Taliban have generally had a low survival rate at the hands of the US or other Western powers. I'm curious as to how these objectors explain why it's ok for one side to persecute collaborators but not the other.)
It's one rule for those you like, another for those you hate. Politics as usual.
It's also the American obsession with winning. The idea of losing is evil in their eyes, although anyone going to war is naive to pretend that the outcome is guaranteed. The reality is that the war cannot be "won" - partly though ineptness on the Allied forces, but also because nobody has been willing to actually say what "winning" means. There's no victory conditions to achieve and therefore no benchmarks to test against. The "war against terror" has no defined opponents (even the "Taliban" isn't a unified entity but an ill-defined collection of tribes and external parties with few - if any - objectives in common and certainly no leadership structure), so we can't even say "winning is beating such-and-such an opponent in some way".
Re:What I can't get my head around... (Score:4, Informative)
Here is the excerpt:
The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange. It's a chilling statistic, but then he states: "On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased."
So, because of the truth, 1,300 people were killed, not because of corruption and a unstable region?
Hiding the truth is good, because we fear the truth?
Coward.
Slashdotted already? (Score:2)
Not a good argument (Score:2)
Just because the statements made against Ellsburg back in the 70s were similar to those made against Wikileaks now doesn't infer that Wikileaks has the same moral high ground. Either Wikileaks' actions stand on their own merits, or they fail.
Drawing a poor analogy: If I call someone a liar, it's not automatically a falsehood just because Joe Wilson called Barack Obama a liar a year or so ago. You have to look at the circumstances and evaluate whether the statements are true in each case.
Written by Michael Ellsberg (Score:4, Informative)
"Daniel Ellsberg, who released the pentagon papers in 1971, has written an editorial on the subject..."
The editorial was written by Michael Ellsberg, not Daniel Ellsberg, though it quotes Daniel Ellsberg.
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Check out Daniel Ellsberg's site.
http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/public-accuracy-press-release#more-451
you'll find he's very much involved with the editoral posted above.
Assange is going to come out of this a hero (Score:5, Insightful)
Assange is going to come out of this a hero. The "rape charge" is already falling apart. The press is now mostly supporting Assange. Give it a week, and there will be calls for resignations of some Government officials.
Some of his opponents are already in trouble. One of the "commentators" calling for calling for Assange to be killed [upi.com] is now the subject of a complaint that he was inciting to commit murder.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks [wikileaks.ch] remains online, and response times are good.
Wilkileaks on Guantanamo (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of the cables shed light on why closing down Guantanamo is so hard. The US has some captured Kuwaitis, and Kuwait doesn't want them back. [wikileaks.ch] Kuwaiti Minister of Interior Shaykh Jaber al-Khalid Al Sabah: "If they are rotten, they are rotten and the best thing to do is get rid of them. You picked them up in Afghanistan; you should drop them off in Afghanistan, in the middle of the war zone." About a group of Iranian drug smugglers the US had captured after their boat foundered, he said "God meant to punish them with death and you saved them. Why?"
Re:Wilkileaks on Guantanamo (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are drug smugglers being kept in Guantanamo? Wasn't that particular prison designed for highly dangerous terrorists? Drug smugglers aren't terrorists.
Now, one can argue that the drug trade funds terrorism, and that argument is being made quite a bit, but why not bring terrorism charges against every day US citizens buying and selling drugs then?
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It fell apart within the first few hours when the boss of the person that laid the charges came into work and dismissed the charges, but by then, ironically, they had been illegally leaked to the press. The charges been only been revived because it is politically convenient.
Re:Liability not a hero (Score:4, Informative)
Those quotes are not from Wikileaks insiders. The first is from the lawyer representing the victims, and the others are from "an acquaintance".
This is worse than the New York Times in 1971 (Score:5, Insightful)
The New York Times, after publishing the Pentagon Papers, did not have its bank accounts frozen. Their legal defense was able to proceed without losing their defense fund.
Overblown Response (Score:3)
Wow, interesting early comments. I remember the Pentagon Papers release (their release caused Nixon to go into a paranoid overdrive that resulted in Watergate) and the blowback it caused due to the government's lies.
Frankly, the more secrets they release, the more transparent national leaders' lies will be to the public. That's not to say that's good or bad, it just is.
As for being a traitor to America or Russia or the banking system, riiiiiight.
Different era (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking back at History (Score:4, Insightful)
When Lenin and his crowd of happy murderers took over Russia during WW1, the various Revolutionaries who started running the Russian foreign Service started publishing ALL of the Tsar's Diplomatic files.
As the Tsar had been talking with everyone in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, his diplomats had sent home thousands of reports - polite and impolite, about all sides of the War, and how it all started.
The diplomatic cr%p hit the fan, and outraged people and governments everywhere; it was one of the reasons President Wilson announced his policy of "Open Agreements, Openly Agreed to" as part of his peace plans.
We've been here before, and we'll be here again. Diplomacy is about haggling with people you'd prefer to shoot, which results in agreements that everyone hates, but can't live without.
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It could just mean that he's been smeared as a rapist to try to discredit him, which he has.
Re: Assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history (Score:5, Informative)
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/ [firedoglake.com]
Re: Assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history (Score:4, Insightful)
No, in other words, she worked directly with a group funded by the CIA.
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You mean consexual sense, of course.
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Yes, and locked up for that. Good riddance, I say. Sex is dangerous, and that's precisely why we have Playstations and D&D.
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I misread that as PlayStations and the Department of Defense.
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But he didn't tell the women he was having a one night stands with that he might have a one night stand with someone else as well! She might not have had a one night stand with him if he had said so! He also said he would call her back and then he didn't!
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Assange accused of having consexual sex?
Yes. The formal charge is consensual sex contrary to the condom laws of Sweden. Previous charges of non-consensual sex have been dropped.
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One of the articles on the subject it is a crime in Sweden to use emotional pressure to get someone to have sex. If that was rigorously enforced in most countries the prisons would be REALLY full.
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Re:No Surprise There (Score:5, Funny)
Then you should use AMD instead.
Now VISA.COM is down! (Score:5, Funny)
I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
The Leak is Leaked and every corporations are pressured by the government to take silly actions against Wikileaks. All before we get any analysis of the content. Now it seems that everyone blasting Wikileaks must be for selling boys for sex parties (one of the cover ups documented in the leaks).
Yeah, they called Putin "Batman", and yeah the US has been twisting arms all over the world to get governments to lie to their people. But selling pretty little boys out for sex and covering it up because an American company was involved?
The "Danger" to American Diplomacy is accrued when our diplomats are involved in totally unethical and immoral behaviors. The "Danger" gets paid out when the documentation of such things gets out to the public. If our government wants to protect its diplomatic efforts, then DON'T ACCRUE the risk in the first place. Then you don't have to fear the leaks.
And if Mastercard and Visa (who now look like they want a world safe for the KKK and those that sell "Boys for Sex") would just wait for the Analysis before bowing to pressure, then they might get out of this without looking like fools.
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
I think putting this fear in the hearts of the powerful is the point of, and value of, Wikileaks. Regardless of whether they've broken a world-changing story so far, they've produced a chilling effect on corruption.
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I think putting this fear in the hearts of the powerful is the point of, and value of, Wikileaks. Regardless of whether they've broken a world-changing story so far, they've produced a chilling effect on corruption.
According to JA's writings, that is their immediate aim. Their strategic goal, however, follows from this: by making secret groups more leaky, those groups are forced to slow down or compartmentalize their internal communications and control, thus making them less effective and less co-ordinated.
Pretty much the same approach we use to tackle Al Quaeda, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of whether they've broken a world-changing story so far, they've produced a chilling effect on corruption.
It isn't so much corruption that is shut down, as American diplomatic operations [independent.co.uk]. Dealing with actual corruption would require a scapel, not the blunt object of the Wikileaks releases.
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
One more thing: people seem to forget that (unlike Ellsberg), Julian Assange does not actually have a classified status. I.e. he didn't actually leak the cables, or for that matter anything he publishes on the site. To the extent that the information is damaging, it is as much a failure on the part of our national security to protect the information from being leaked in the first place. Wikileaks is just an easy target. To actually clean up our fragile intelligence classification system would be expensive and, though it is the real problem here, those responsible for making the information so easily 'leak-able' have chosen to demonize the messenger instead.
This is why I support Wikileaks and not those trying to hush them. If this is a national security issue (and not just a transparency issue), it has everything to do with our gov't's ability to keep the information secure and nothing to do with wikileaks. Let me say it again: he didn't commit espionage to obtain the information; he was GIVEN it.
That being said, the press needs to be questioning the gov't to find out what steps have been taken to limit access to information that endangers our national security. I'm guessing nothing unless they find a way to outsource the mgmt of classified information to a multi-national company like Haliburton for twenty-seven times the cost, otherwise there's no money for it.
Re: (Score:3)
[I]t is as much a failure on the part of our national security to protect the information from being leaked in the first place.
Exactly so.
Why aren't heads rolling at the state department?
Why is only one low ranking military misfit under arrest?
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, meanwhile, said the people who originally leaked the documents -- not Assange -- are legally liable, and he told Reuters news agency the leaks raised questions about the "adequacy" of U.S. security.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/12/08/1283306/australian-fm-says-us-to-blame.html [tri-cityherald.com]
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
the odd of getting a conviction on anything more than receiving stolen property are a toss up at this time.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. The cables are not stolen property. Data can only be property if it is subject to copyright. US government documents are never subject to copyright. The only way they could get him on receiving stolen property is if the media that the cables were on was US government property. I doubt anyone at wikileaks would have accepted it if that were the case. If the DOJ tries him for receiving stolen property, the case would be laughed out of court by the first judge that saw it.
I also doubt that an Espionage Act conviction would survive. Its pretty clear that the act only applies to actions by people within the United States, otherwise we would be using it to prosecute and execute all of the Gitmo detainees for lying in an attempt to interfere with US millitary forces.
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
Julian Assange [...] didn't actually leak the cables [...] If this is a national security issue, it has everything to do with our gov't's ability to keep the information secure and nothing to do with wikileaks.
I just used the last of my mod-points, but you deserve to be modded up just to make sure more people see this point.
The reason it was leaked is that, IIRC, 3 million people have access to this intel. We heard about it because of wikileaks, but isn't it likely that much much more has been sold to any nation that wants it?
There might be a few allies who, out of politeness, haven't sought this info, but very few rivals. So the only people this stuff is news to is us.
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Now it seems that everyone blasting Wikileaks must be for selling boys for sex parties (one of the cover ups documented in the leaks).
Not that I'm doubting you, but I hadn't seen this reported. Citation?
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/12/wikileaks_texas_company_helped.php [houstonpress.com]
What?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish there was a +1 - holy fucking shit moderation. Every time I think my opinion of the US government can not get any worse, something else comes up. What's next? Am I going to find out they've been abducting little girls from daycare and shipping abroad as sex slaves to fund human mind control research?
Don't answer that, I'll wait for the Wiki Leak.
There really is no limit at all to human depravity.
Re: (Score:3)
That's disturbing close to what North Korea did with Japanese schoolgirls, only it was probably to train spies in addition to being sex slaves.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Text of the cable: (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/213720 [guardian.co.uk]
Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 11:37
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 001651
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/A, INL, EUR/RPM
STATE PASS TO NSC FOR WOOD
OSD FOR FLOURNOY
CENTCOM FOR CG CJTF-82, POLAD, JICENT
KABUL FOR COS USFOR-A
EO 12958 DECL: 06/23/2019
TAGS PREL, PGOV, MARR, MASS, AF
SUBJECT: 06/23/09 MEETING, ASSISTANT AMB MUSSOMELI AND MOI
MINISTER ATMAR: KUNDUZ DYNCORP PROBLEM, TRANSPORT FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES AND OTHER TOPICS
REF: KABUL 1480
Classified By: POLMIL COUNSELOR ROBERT CLARKE FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND ( D)
1. (C) SUMMARY: Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli discussed a range of issues with Minister of Interior (MoI) Hanif Atmar on June 23. On the Kunduz Regional Training Center (RTC) DynCorp event of April 11 (reftel), Atmar reiterated his insistence that the U.S. try to quash any news article on the incident or circulation of a video connected with it. He continued to predict that publicity would "endanger lives." He disclosed that he has arrested two Afghan police and nine other Afghans as part of an MoI investigation into Afghans who facilitated this crime of "purchasing a service from a child." He pressed for CSTC-A to be given full control over the police training program, including contractors. Mussomeli counseled that an overreaction by the Afghan goverment (GIRoA) would only increase chances for the greater publicity the MoI is trying to forestall.
2. (C) On armored vehicles and air transport for presidential candidates, Atmar pitched strongly to have the GIRoA decide which candidates were under threat and to retain control of allocation of these assets. He agreed with the principle of a level playing field for candidates but argued that "direct support by foreigners" demonstrated a lack of confidence in GIRoA. If GIRoA failed to be fair, international assets and plans in reserve could be used. On another elections-related issue, Atmar claimed that two Helmand would-be provincial candidates (and key Karzai supporters) disqualified under DIAG rules had actually possessed weapons as part of a GIRoA contract to provide security for contractors.
3. (C) Atmar also was enthusiastic about working out arrangements with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) in RC-South to partner with the Afghan Border Police (ABP) on training and joint operations to extend GIRoA governance south. He is considering giving BG">BG Melham, a highly regarded Afghan officer, responsibility for ABP in Nimruz and Helmand provinces. END SUMMARY.
KUNDUZ RTC DYNCORP UPDATE
4. (C) On June 23, Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli met with MOI Minister Hanif Atmar on a number of issues, beginning with the April 11 Kunduz RTC DynCorp investigation. Amb Mussomeli opened that the incident deeply upset us and we took strong steps in response. An investigation is on-going, disciplinary actions were taken against DynCorp leaders in Afghanistan, we are also aware of proposals for new procedures, such as stationing a military officer at RTCs, that have been introduced for consideration. (Note: Placing military officers to oversee contractor operations at RTCs is not legally possible under the currentDynCorp contract.) Beyond remedial actions taken, we still hope the matter will not be blown out of proportion, an outcome which would not be good for either the U.S. or Afghanistan. A widely-anticipated newspaper article on the Kunduz scandal has not appeared but, if there is too much noise that may prompt the journalist to publish.
5. (C) Atmar said he insisted the journalist be told that publication would endanger lives. His request was that the U.S. quash the article and release of the video. Amb Mussomeli responded that going to the journalist would give her the sense that there is a more terrible story to report. Atmar then disclosed the arrest of two Afghan National Police (ANP) an
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised (Score:4, Informative)
09KABUL1651 [wikileaks.ch]
Re:No Surprise There (Score:5, Interesting)
Go ahead and post one. Who keeps you from doing it?
Freedom of speech swings all ways, it also means that you may post here something that people might not like. I would like to see it! Give me ONE good reason why Wikileaks is wrong in what it's doing. So far nobody manged to convince me, but I would very much enjoy reading a good reason why Wikileaks should cease to exist.
I do think that Wikileaks did a great service to the world, but I do not benefit from listening to opinions that match mine. People telling me that I'm right do not give me any meaningful input. I already "know" that I'm right. People are always in the assumption that they're right. But to be "more right", I need more input. More input allows me to adjust my position, to test that input against my existing input and either verify or falsify my point of view. Welcome to science. It works for opinions, too!
Only an input that challenges my point of view and presents me with an antithesis can offer me more insight. So please do. I would be happy to hear it!
Re:No Surprise There (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some valid points on both sides, and my personal beliefs on the matter tend run in line with Wikileaks. However, anything brought up here that may look at this with any negative light on Wikileaks are usually censored with mod points (and, based on my experience, met with anti-American insults).
Re:No Surprise There (Score:4, Insightful)
how well will logic resolve if the numbers come in that more than half the population of the world supports the leak/publication of these documents ? democratic terrorists ?
I am Australian and it is extremely disturbing to me to see just how much influence the US Govt has over who is elected Prime Minister of Australia.
Re: (Score:3)
If the scenario you paint is becoming real, freedom and democracy as we know it is dead.
Re:No Surprise There (Score:5, Insightful)
You miss the fact that many of us are anti-Republicrat. I love the USA and hate the idiots running it into the ground the last 50 years. Both sides of the fence, most 3rd parties, and a sadly growing number of the general population that are happy to give up essential liberties to infringe on other's liberties they don't like.
Don't bother protesting, both my mind is made up, and my country's collective government's mind.
Ah yes. Another prick who has made up his mind that he's right and anyone who disagrees is obviously wrong and you don't need to think about anything, ever. You are the reason this country is going down in flames.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you enjoy living under tyranny? I ask because what you are describing with relish are the actions of a tin-pot dictatorship at the level of North Korea. Is that what you wish America to become?
Re: (Score:3)
Ellsberge and Assange are two peas in a pod. Why would anybody be surprised by this? This merits a front page story here?
Unless there's a /. page 2 I haven't noticed, isn't every story a "front page story"?
I can see some merit here - the "good leak" guy saying "you know, the only difference between me and him is that history hasn't moved on far enough for him to become a hero too."
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying Ellsberg is looking for attention?
I doubt it. But this isn't the first time his name has come up regarding the comparison, and it's coming up a lot more often now, so it's reasonable to see him writing this, whether it's solicited or not, so as to reduce the flood of questions.
Re:raep (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but there was this:
Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him.[24][25] In his autobiography, Liddy describes an "Ellsberg neutralization proposal" originating from Howard Hunt, which involved drugging Ellsberg with LSD, by dissolving it in his soup, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington in order to "have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak" and thus "make him appear a near burnt-out drug case" and "discredit him". The plot involved waiters from the Miami Cuban community. According to Liddy, when the plan was finally approved, "there was no longer enough lead time to get the Cuban waiters up from their Miami hotels and into place in the Washington Hotel where the dinner was to take place" and the plan was "put into abeyance pending another opportunity".
Re:Difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Every government on the planet is calling for Wikileaks to shut down. It seems like they are twisting the legal system, and that we are being governed by immoral, corrupt bastards who will break any law, twist any fact, in their effort to smear anyone who dares speak the truth.
Under that standard, and under the belief that Tom Jefferson said that a corrupt government has no authority, I see that Wikileaks has no option but to use any and all means to defend itself. The governments will piss on their own laws and due process to crush Wikileaks; therefore Wikileaks is perfectly justified in trying to destroy the governments' credibility by publishing every bit of damaging info that they can.
Anyone who thinks that any truly dangerous information that Wikileaks has isn't already in the hands of our enemies is living in a dream world. Wikileaks' greatest "crime" is revealing that the massive security appartus of the state has no idea what the hell it is doing and is useless against anyone with a brain. It's a money & freedom consuming monster that does more harm than good to the society it purports to protect.
Re:Difference (Score:4, Insightful)
No, he is quite correct. Every government in the world is corrupt, not only that but every government that has ever existed was corrupt. The only difference between them is the degree of corruption. Anyone who believes otherwise is a naive dolt who has no business outside of a kindergarten.
Why is this so? It is very simple: governments are nothing but collections of people with power over others. In this analysis it is irrelevant what basis that power is derived from - be it hereditary despotism or democratic media circus or something else entirely - it matters not. That is because people are imperfect and corruptible to various degrees irrespective of their location in the world or a political scheme they were raised within. Laws of probability alone guarantee that a number of corrupt individuals is present, and was present, in every possible governmental scheme, with the absolute numbers present increasing with the size of a government. Even if others within the same government detect the corruption and work against it (which itself is based on chance) there will be only so many that get expelled and due to natural generational cycles they will be replaced with new crooks elsewhere.
Its basic, historically testable, undeniable logic. It is the way things are. Corruption-free government is a theoretical ideal that has never been (and will likely never be) achieved as long as the nature of the human race does not somehow change dramatically.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The NYT wouldn't ever say, "Look if you go after our reporter we'll release even more information!" They would take a stand or not take a stand. So Wikileaks really throws any media protection they may have had out the window. They've moved into a retaliatory mode. I'm not sure this doesn't make their actions combative and therefore a legitimate threat.
The NYT has much more resources and people than Wikileaks does.
Put yourself in their shoes:
I have all this juicy information that I think the public should know about. I want to comb through, redact, and release the info (with the help of large news orgs like NYT), but I'm scared that I may get disappeared before I've had the chance. I've distributed an encrypted copy of the info for which the key will be released if I'm dead to make sure the info can't be suppressed, and to reduce the benefit of killing m