WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

I have been reading some of the material that has been leaked, and to be honest I dont have a serious problem with it.

Much of what I have read seems to be what the US thinks of other leaders and what they think of our leaders.

What I do have a problem with is that some of the leaked material contains names and other identifiers of people that help the US gather intelligence, even though it is of a political nature.

ANY person that is identified is in danger of going to prison or being killed, and in some countries their families suffer the same fate.
To not hide the names and other identifiers is in my opinion irresponsible and dangerous.
I do think that whoever leaked all this material should be prosecuted however, simply because some of this material is classified "secret", and the leaker may have put people and intelligence operations at risk.

a great many people left Wikileaks over this very issue, they thought that there should be many more redaction's, the boss disagreed.

Remember what you said one posting ago, Hawk, that talk is cheap[.

Remember what you said one posting ago, Hawk, that talk is cheap[.

Did you catch Anton's posting? Now that wasn't talking cheap. That was a fine assessment that you and yours miss with alarming regularity. You miss it because y'all are so conditioned by propaganda into thinking that you are somehow special when the facts show that the USA is really not so special at all, unless one considers being the biggest terrorist nation on the planet special.

"man up", interesting choice of words, dj. Would it not be manning up if one were to address these issues in a direct fashion instead of taking the wide circuitous routes around every issue you speak on?

It appears to be BoA.

Yup, just arm those mounties with a taser and they are indeed a brave lot.

I am not sure what you are getting at...the normal expectation is that the Chinese were telling the Americans and the ROK what they want to hear, and telling the North Koreans what they want to hear, so I dont think that any secret channel communications to the Americans the South Koreans tell us what the Chinese are thinking. If we knew what they told the North Koreans we would have a better idea. If the Chinese have changed behavior re the Korean question that would also mean something, but so far as I am aware the Chinese have been no more helpful in solving that issue than they have ever been.

I see no basis for MsOlga making anything out of the publication of what the Chinese told the USA and ROK, that her claim that we now know the mind of the Chinese government is fantasy.

This is very telling because I think that it illustrates the USA way to handle things. Now don't go getting your panties in a bunch everyone. It doesn't describe all of course but you currently have a president that led some to have hope after the war criminal Bush et al and here he is still doing some of the same things.

What a hypocrite you are, MM, not to mention dumb. You're worried about others who may have broken the laws of their countries but you want to prosecute the American patriots who leaked this stuff.

Just how difficult could my question have been?

1. You didn't read it.
2. You read it but your mind wouldn't let it be processed. [considering your response this is not at all an unlikely scenario]
3. ...

I don't think, after reading this thread, our own newspaper, listening to TV news, that leaders across the world are taking wickileads real seriously. I just don't see anything negative, on a permanent basis, to be lasting.
This article appeared in the Austin-American Statesman today:
By Mark Landler and J. David Goodman
The New York Times
WikiLeaks cables draw both anger, dismissal from leaders
Clinton works to sooth relations with those upset by frank messages. »
WASHINGTON — Some world leaders expressed anger Monday over the disclosures in confidential U.S. diplomatic messages, even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was confident that the administration's diplomatic relationships would withstand the upheaval.

Clinton's comments came as she prepared to set off on a trip to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. There she will encounter for the first time officials from countries that figure prominently in the diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing government secrets, and published in The New York Times and European publications.

The messages included frank and unflattering characterizations of world leaders by U.S. diplomats.

For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was characterized in the cables as "risk averse and rarely creative," and Clinton's counterpart in Germany, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, was dismissed as having little power. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy was described as "feckless" and "vain," and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was called thin-skinned.

During a news conference, Clinton said many of her counterparts had shrugged off any insults. One of them, she said, told her, "Don't worry about it. You should see what we say about you."

Israel said it found some measure of vindication in the revelations of regional dismay with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the documents supported Israel's assessments of Iran.

"There is not a huge gap between what we say behind closed doors and what we say openly," Netanyahu said, adding such was not the case in other countries in the region.

Some Arab leaders were quoted in the documents criticizing Iran and pushing the United States to take action against its suspected nuclear program, positions they would never take in public against a powerful neighbor.

Netanyahu refused to discuss a cable from the spring of 2009 that quoted Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, telling visiting U.S. officials that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was viable until the end of 2010, but after that "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage." Netanyahu said only that there was no doubt the Iranian program was "progressing all the time."

Iraq also responded to the release of the messages, some of which quoted King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia speaking scathingly about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the leaks "unhelpful and untimely." He said the revelations could damage Maliki's efforts to bring together a government in Iraq.

"We are going through a critical time, trying to form the long-awaited government," he said. "We hope it will not poison the overall atmosphere among Iraqi politicians and Iraqi leaders."

Iran, whose leadership and nuclear program were the subject of some of the most sensitive cables, issued the angriest response, accusing the United States of purposefully allowing the confidential diplomatic correspondence to become public.

The New York Times and the other news organizations that have been reporting on the diplomatic exchanges have published only a few hundred of the messages, out of about 250,000 obtained by WikiLeaks.

On Friday, the Berlusconi government called the WikiLeaks release part of a "strategy" on the part of the United States and the foreign media to discredit Italy.

But Sunday, Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, changed the tone, saying that "the United States is the real victim of WikiLeaks. It's an action aimed at discrediting them," the ANSA news agency reported. The spokesman for the Italian Foreign Ministry, Maurizio Massari, confirmed the comments.

"In the same way that Sept. 11 changed the world from a security standpoint, the news released by WikiLeaks will change diplomatic relations between countries," Frattini said.

A senior Pakistani diplomat said whether or not the cables exposed secret talks between his country and the United States, confidence would be seriously shaken.

"The WikiLeaks explosion of cables come at a time when some officials in Pakistan had started overcoming their distrust, and started talking frankly," said the official, adding that the leaks would "feed further paranoia."

I favor transparency as well, but the choice is not WikiLeaks or information blackout.

If one truly accepts that there are good and important reasons for governments to keep some information out of the public eye then one cannot be pleased with or support WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, because their methodology is total and indiscriminate revelation.

The fact that they have cut deals with so-called responsible outlets like the NYTimes, Der Spiegel etc is not a reflection of a concern that the information be responsibly disseminated. These outlets are merely distributors of the raw product who may or may not apply some degree of editorial judgment.

Clearly, American citizens do not have a legal right to know every detail of every action their government takes. If we did, there would be no such thing as classified documents and laws relating to their release.

Of course governmental transparency is very important and ours has three co-equal divisions designed to check and balance each other. Congress has specific oversight responsibilities as relates to the Executive branch and there is no shortage of historical examples of this responsibility being faithfully (or otherwise) executed; resulting in the revelation of significant secret activities.

We have a very robust and independent press with a battery of information and free speech laws and decisions that both protect and assist its efforts to uncover the truth, and in last century we have added numerous “public watch-dog groups” (from either side of the political spectrum) who have taken on the cause of greater governmental transparency.

There is nothing I have seen in the most recent releases that I believe is particularly harmful to American interests or individuals of any nationality, but then I haven’t studied the information the way members of a terrorist group or foreign security agency might.

I have seen enough credible sources report that the earlier releases concerning Iraq and Afghanistan contained the names of approx 100 Afghan or Iraqi informants, and it doesn’t take an intelligence expert to realize that by revealing these identities, WikiLeak put the individuals and their families at great personal risk. There is no reason at all to believe that they combed the vast amount of data they have dumped to assure that other lives are not now at risk.

I’m sorry if I don’t trust the intentions and competence of journalists any more than I trust those of government officials and bureaucrats. At least there is some means to hold the latter accountable for how they disseminate classified information.

Frankly, I am amazed that anyone is surprised by what has been reported as some of the major revelations concerning these leaks:

Sunni Arabs fear Shiite Iran and want the US to put an end to their threat – INCREDIBLE!
Moammar Gadhafi is a nut who like big breasted European women --- OUTRAGEOUS!
The US spies on UN officials ---- SCANDALOUS!

Are these really indicative of a government that is out of control or overly secretive?

The problem is that amidst these juicy bits of international gossip can be secrets that, once revealed, might lead to actual, serious consequences.

There are people who talk and act like Assange and WikiLeaks are heroic. This is absurd.

Their mission statement



So far they've targeted the US government and (apparently) one of its banks.

Well, during the last few days and perhaps next year.

But why don't you mention their other some hundreds of 'leaked' documents?

but this isn't about me, it's about folks who got caught and are afraid of the fallout, in my personal life i've made disparaging comments about folks, been caught out and had to admit to it, it can be done, i didn't blame the person who told, i faced the situation


as for my responses to most things political or sociological, i don't care enough about them to do more than mock

I wouldn't be the least surprised if he backs down on his threat re: the Russians. He may have looked up polonium in the dictionary.

I've been thinking about Hillary and how this is putting her center stage. Obama, other than a statement through Gibbs, has been silent on the entire affair. What does this do to Hillary's legacy?

I was reading an OP-Ed that flat out said that Obama can not possibly keep her on now. The arguement is that proof that she told her staff to work as spies makes it impossible for her to do her job.

Why is he speaking from an "undisclosed location"? If he thinks wgat he is doing is ok, why hide?