WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

@BillRM,

BillRM, You're talking about an exception to the general rule when the politics of Japan was controlled by the military. Japan had taken control of much of the Far East and SE Asia. You are kidding, right?

1 Reply

@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Why is there a second investigation now with a different prosecutor?

I don't know. It could be a few things.

1) The first person could have simply failed their job and a new person was brought in with fresh eyes and saw something different in the case.
2) There's a prosecutor who is looking to make themselves a big case and get a name.
3) Huge international conspiracy.

A
R
The potential motives range

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

BillRM, You're talking about an exception to the general rule when the politics of Japan was controlled by the military. Japan had taken control of much of the Far East and SE Asia. You are kidding, right?

Hell no I am not kidding as there are case after case of the generals being drag into wars by their national leadership.

Hell let go back to the WW2 and the fact that Hitler military leaders did not like going along with his moves toward war from the start of his moving of troops into the Rhine area.

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@BillRM,

Why don't you guys start a WWII thread and discuss it there.

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@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Why is there a second investigation now with a different prosecutor?

Quote:

The two women then instructed Claes Borgstrom, a so-called ‘gender lawyer’ who is a leading supporter of a campaign to extend the legal definition of rape to help bring more rapists to justice.

As a result, in September the case was reopened by the authorities, and last month Interpol said Assange was wanted for ‘sex crimes’.

(This is from an article in the Daily Mail, but similar had been reported in various other media.

Claes Borgstrom is the former Swedish Equal Opportunities Ombudsman and nowadays (again) a lawyer.
He works closely together with the (still) very influential Social Democratic politician and former Minister for Justice Thomas Bodström.

Perhaps, the senior prosecutor didn't want any political 'discussion' ...

Besides that, it's not so uncommon in countries with independent prosecutors, that the first ruling of a prosecutor is changed by his/her senior and the case is opened again.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

The two women then instructed Claes Borgstrom, a so-called ‘gender lawyer’ who is a leading supporter of a campaign to extend the legal definition of rape to help bring more rapists to justice.

That one way of looking at it another is to expand the meaning of rape so broadly that any man can be found guilty of this crime at the whim of any of his female partners one way or another.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

That one way of looking at it another is to expand the meaning of rape so broadly that any man can be found guilty of this crime at the whim of any of his female partners one way or another.

Well, you don't live in Sweden, I think.

1 Reply

@msolga,

"What I see here, JTT, is that some posters to this thread appear to be unwilling to discuss any of the implications of what the Wilileaks have actually revealed."

I have posted several times on a2k about my unhappiness with what I consider the big feet of the USA all over the globe. I am not pleased at all with the Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan situations, although I can understand our government making choices it sees as a matter of stability. Those matters could take threads of their own. I appreciate CJane (or was it JPB) posting about those leaks. The US behavior on that drives me crazy and I prefer to know about it. But, you can't make me or others feel guilty for not grabbing hold of the leaks themselves and running with the leaked info with many more posts. What interests me about the leaks relative to this good thread is whether or not they are traitorous, as specific leaks or the whole shebang, by the leaker(s), the receiver(s) of the leaks, the publishers of the leaks.

What attracts me about this thread is the discussion of the morality or lack of it, the legality or lack of it, of wikileaks, and perhaps future leaking type sites, as a phenonmenon. Plus the legality or lack of it of the prosecution. I find the majority of posts on this thread interesting, from all sides including the middle.

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@BillRM,

You're missing the whole point; it's when the political/military leadership "listens" to the generals to expand their war. Generals follow orders of the leadership - right or wrong. When did the political/military leadership of Japan or Germany listen to the generals?

Yamamoto was against starting a war with the US, because he was educated at Harvard and knew starting the war just "woke up a sleeping giant." When did Hitler listen to his generals?

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@cicerone imposter,

I didn't know that about Yamamoto/Harvard and the sleeping giant thing.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

This might be the first time ever in a thread Hitler has been brought up without implying that someone was a Nazi. This is an achievement. I'm impressed.

A
R
T

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@ossobuco,

That was a great post osso.

But I do feel that I have discussed the "implications". I offered that the events show that things are out of control. That we are incapable of dealing with our intelligence. That's what I think Goethe's Faust is getting at. Science is the Devil.

I think other matters are discussed because there's a denial of that being the "implication". Discussing the details seems to me snow.

But I'm optimistic actually. The realisation that things are out of control might just help us to step back and do something about it. Pretending that things are not out of control seems to me to be a hindrance to our doing so.

Thus I verily believe that most posters here are contributing to further loss of control unless they are having a bit of fun with the rumpling, the overumpling, the underumpling and the "pressed into the mattress" rogering.

I think you take sex too seriously. You should read Balzac. And Sterne.

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@spendius,

spendi, Science is not the devil; people are.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

People are science. Searchers of the tree of knowledge. The rape of Mother Nature.

Still--it's good fun. At our age it doesn't matter much.

1 Reply

@failures art,

Well said

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@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Your analogy doesn't make sense.
It's illegal to go into a mall where innocent people shop and start shooting.

In his prior post Finn wrote:

If you feel confident that this analogy doesn't apply to WikiLeaks because it is a violation of the law to indiscriminately fire a gun in public, and you don't agree with those who believe Assange did violate the law by indiscriminantly dumping the secret cables, remove the legal aspect of it.

If my reason for firing the gun was something other than to harm people, did I not have an obligation to do my utmost to make sure no one was harmed? Or would you wait until you knew whether or not anyone was harmed before you placed that burden on me?

CalamityJane wrote:

However, if you're already in a war zone and many people around you start shooting, does an additional shooter matter?

Yes, of course it does. That's one more set of bullets that might find your heart.

Are you attempting to argue that because anyone who might be considered a victim of Julian Assange was already in danger before the leaks, that any additional peril Assange created for them is immaterial?

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@spendius,

Who, me?

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@spendius,

People are scientists. Science is not evil, but people are.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

People are scientists. Science is not evil, but people are.

However, according to a widely in the news media distributed study two weeks ago scientists are 85% bend towards the left, which might account for Spendius not being their champion.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Quote:

Thanks for responding, msolga. It truly is frustrating for the typical citizen to see young men being sent to fight in a foreign country. However, our perception may not be the same as the troops who feel they are accomplishing something. That is what Captain Wallace and Captain Trembath are saying in the article I posted:

Quote:
''With so many nations rethinking their commitment here, it can seem like a morass of wicked problems, as opposed to our perception from the ground, where you have tangible outcomes as a result of the work we're doing," said Captain Jim Wallace.

Captain Richard Trembath, commander of Patrol Base Musazai, said the Defence Force, the Australian Federal Police and other agencies were working to strengthen what a senior official was recorded as describing as a ''wobbly three-legged stool''.

''It'll be difficult for a while yet, but we have to temper our expectations as Western nations in an Eastern nation. But if we're safer and Afghan people are safer when we leave, that's a measure of success.''

Also, since this thread is about Wikileaks, what do you think of the news item's concluding paragraphs:

Quote:
Soldiers were also disgusted by the actions of WikiLeaks in releasing secret cables on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying they put the lives of Australian soldiers at risk.

''The thing I feel strongest about is the safety of my soldiers, and if through these leaks even one of them … ends up dead because an internet general back in Australia is releasing this information it disgusts me,'' Captain Trembath said.

Of course I share your concern about the safety of our soldiers in Afghanistan, wandel. I felt exactly the same about our soldiers in Iraq,& Vietnam, too, for that matter ...

I believe that soldiers have every right to make their feelings known known about their participation in whichever war their countries have engaged them in. In the article you quoted here Captain Wallace and Captain Trembath said they were concerned about "so many nations rethinking their commitment here" as well as expressing their "disgust" at WikiLeaks in "releasing secret cables on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying they "put the lives of Australian soldiers at risk."
I think both those concerns are valid, from the point of view of soldiers engaged in combat.

However, should the public in those countries (which sent those soldiers to war ) cease questioning the validity of any particular war because of a perceived threat to their troops?

Are the the citizens of those countries not entitled to question why their governments have involved their troops in such wars?

Especially when there is a growing perception that the war is unwinnable? As is the case with Afghanistan.
Say nothing of confusion about what a "victory" in the war in Afghanistan might actually mean?
And while there is growing public pressure to withdraw or troops?

Why shouldn't we question why or troops should remain in Afghanistan till 2014 in such circumstances?

The fact is (compared the the war in Vietnam) the public has had much less information about the real situation in Afghanistan than it is entitled to, because of the secrecy of our governments. It has been the Wikileaks which have filled in the gaps in our knowledge. For which I thank Wikileaks.

We now know what the (then) prime minister of Australia really thought about our involvement in Afghanistan, courtesy of Wikileaks. Completely different to his public pronouncements. Yet our government continued to put our troops lives at risk anyway.:

Quote:

Fairfax newspapers quoted part of one cable which describes how Mr Rudd told visiting members of the US Congress that the national security establishment in Australia was deeply pessimistic about the long-term prognosis for Afghanistan.

The cable says Mr Rudd believed the European nations involved in the Afghan war had no common strategy for winning the war. ....

....Ric Smith, who was Australia's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is quoted referring to the Afghan police as a "train wreck" and saying that increasing funds might be putting good money into a bad situation.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/10/3089711.htm

So yes, I can fully appreciate why our troops might feel angry & disgusted. But I seriously question whether the focus of that anger & disgust should be Wikileaks & not our governments.
Can you understand that it is possible to feel compassion for the dangerous situation our troops have been put in by our governments, while questioning our governments' wisdom at putting them in that situation at the same time?

Now, any response to the issues I asked you to comment on, about the Yemen cover-up, Wandel?
I have done my best to respond to your questions to me about this issue.

1 Reply

WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

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