Wikileaks Dun, Dun, Duhhhhhh

[kalm]

Some of this stuff is interesting like Ghaddafi travelliing with a "voluptuous blonde nurse". But most of it isn't too surprising. Mountain out of a mole hill?

1. Many Middle Eastern nations are far more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they've publicly admitted. According to one cable, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly asked the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" -- meaning, it appears, to bomb Iran's nuclear program. Leaders of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle Eastern nations expressed similar views.

2. The U.S. ambassador to Seoul told Washington in February that the right business deals might get China to acquiesce to a reunified Korea, if the newly unified power were allied with the United States. American and South Korean officials have discussed such a reunification in the event that North Korea collapses under the weight of its economic and political problems.


3. The Obama administration offered sweeteners to other countries to try to get them to take Guantanamo detainees, as part of its as-yet unsuccessful effort to close the prison. Slovenia, for instance, was offered a meeting with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions.

4. The vice president of Afghanistan, Ahmed Zia Massoud, took $52 million in cash with him when he visited the United Arab Emirates last year, according to one cable. The Afghan government has been plagued by allegations of corruption. Massoud has denied taking the money out of the country.

5. The United States has been working to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani nuclear reactor, out of concern that it could be used to build an illicit nuclear device. The effort, under way since 2007, has not so far been successful.

6. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered diplomats to assemble information on their foreign counterparts. Documents in the Wikileaks cache also indicate that Clinton may have requested diplomats to gather intelligence on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's plans for Iran, and information on Darfur, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran and North Korea.

7. The State Department labeled Qatar the worst country in the region for counterterrorism efforts. The country's security services were "hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals," according to one cable.

8. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are much tighter than was previously known. Putin has given the high-living Berlusconi "lavish gifts" and lucrative energy contracts, and Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe, according to one cable.

9. Hezbollah continues to enjoy the weapons patronage of Syria. A week after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad promised the United States he wouldn't send "new" arms to the Lebanese militant group, the United States said it had information that Syria was continuing to provide the group with increasingly sophisticated weapons.

10. Some cables reveal decidedly less-than-diplomatic opinions of foreign leaders. Putin is said to be an "alpha-dog," while Afghan president Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia." German chancellor Angela Merkel "avoids risk and is rarely creative." For his part, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, travels with a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

http://news.yahoo.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[AZGrizFan]

1. Many Middle Eastern nations are far more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they've publicly admitted. According to one cable, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly asked the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" -- meaning, it appears, to bomb Iran's nuclear program. Leaders of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle Eastern nations expressed similar views.

You know, these Saudi motherfuckers have F-16's too. Why can't THEY "cut the head off the snake" if they're so damned worried about it?

[kalm]

1. Many Middle Eastern nations are far more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they've publicly admitted. According to one cable, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly asked the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" -- meaning, it appears, to bomb Iran's nuclear program. Leaders of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle Eastern nations expressed similar views.

You know, these Saudi motherfuckers have F-16's too. Why can't THEY "cut the head off the snake" if they're so damned worried about it?

Because it can't look like they want it. We are such enablers.

[AZGrizFan]

You know, these Saudi motherfuckers have F-16's too. Why can't THEY "cut the head off the snake" if they're so damned worried about it?

Because it can't look like they want it. We are such enablers.

Agreed. We gotta stop being the ragheads' bitches.

[bandl]

Billy likes to drink soda.

Miss Lippy's car is green.

[Ivytalk]

Julian Assange deserves a circle of hell all to himself.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

How is this not treasonous? I don't think anyone would confuse me for a right-winger, but holy shit... this fucker needs to be sent to Leavenworth.

[Bronco]

The soldier that leaked the files has been sitting in solitary confinement for many months now.

NY Times story about him from last summer

---

Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case
ny times ^ | 8/8/2010 | ginger thompson

He spent part of his childhood with his father in the arid plains of central Oklahoma, where classmates made fun of him for being a geek. He spent another part with his mother in a small, remote corner of southwest Wales, where classmates made fun of him for being gay.

Then he joined the Army, where, friends said, his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and he wasted brainpower fetching coffee for officers.

But it was around two years ago, when Pfc. Bradley Manning came here to visit a man he had fallen in love with, that he finally seemed to have found a place where he fit in, part of a social circle that included politically motivated computer hackers and a self-described drag queen. So when his military career seemed headed nowhere good, Private Manning, 22, turned increasingly to those friends for moral support.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

[kalm]

How is this not treasonous? I don't think anyone would confuse me for a right-winger, but holy ****... this **** needs to be sent to Leavenworth.

I'm not sure that Sweden has been compromised in any way.

[CID1990]

Assange is just an America hater cloaked in self-righteousness.

If he was all for freedom of information he would go after Russia and China but for two small problems:

1. They are much less free with info than the US.... hence the leaks.

2. He'd be sipping a polonium cocktail within a month.

He's an angry little pu$$y and that's all.

[houndawg]

Don't see anything yet that isn't common knowledge. Karzai Paranoid? Really? Arabs don't trust Persians? Amazing!



Who is this nurse that travels with Qaddafi?

[D1B]

1. Many Middle Eastern nations are far more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they've publicly admitted. According to one cable, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly asked the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" -- meaning, it appears, to bomb Iran's nuclear program. Leaders of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle Eastern nations expressed similar views.

You know, these Saudi motherfuckers have F-16's too. Why can't THEY "cut the head off the snake" if they're so damned worried about it?

Cuz they're right next door, dipshit. You really want that place to explode? Didn't think so.

PM your posts to me before you post em. I'll clean em up and fix em for you.

[Skjellyfetti]

Not a fan of wikileaks leaking military and diplomatic classified info.

But, I wholeheartedly approve of this type of thing:

The founder of whistle-blower website WikiLeaks plans to release tens of thousands of internal documents from a major U.S. bank early next year, Forbes Magazine reported on Monday.

Julian Assange declined in an interview with Forbes to identify the bank, but he said that he expected that the disclosures, which follow his group's release of U.S. military and diplomatic documents, would lead to investigations.

"We have one related to a bank coming up, that's a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it's either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it," Assange said in the interview posted on the Forbes website.

He declined to identify the bank, describing it only as a major U.S. bank that is still in existence.

Asked what he wanted to be the result of the disclosure, he replied: "I'm not sure. It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume."

He compared this release to emails that were unveiled as a result of the collapse of disgraced energy company Enron Corp.

"This will be like that. Yes, there will be some flagrant violations, unethical practices that will be revealed, but it will also be all the supporting decision-making structures and the internal executive ethos ... and that's tremendously valuable," Assange said.

"You could call it the ecosystem of corruption. But it's also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that's not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they're fulfilling their own self-interest," he said.

Assange also told the magazine that his group has material on many businesses and governments, including in Russia, and that it has some documents on pharmaceutical companies, which he did not identify.

More than 250,000 cables were obtained by the whistle-blower website and given to the New York Times and other media groups, which published stories on Sunday exposing the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy, including candid and embarrassing assessments of world leaders.

Before Sunday, WikiLeaks had made public nearly 500,000 classified U.S. files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AS68S20101130" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ivytalk]

Assange deserves a red-hot poker up his Aussie azz.

[YoUDeeMan]

Why is there any problem with the diplomatic exposures? There is a pretty easy set of rules to follow in life...if you don't want it seen, don't put it in writing. And if you put it in writing, then you'd better be man enough to own up to it and face the consequences.

Hillary's speech was hilarious. Our diplomats, mostly appointed by their politically affluent friends, got caught being the 8th grade gossip queens and now they have egg on their faces...and I'm supposed to be upset? Ooooohhhh...I'll work up a hatred towards the evil hackers.

[Ivytalk]

Why is there any problem with the diplomatic exposures? There is a pretty easy set of rules to follow in life...if you don't want it seen, don't put it in writing. And if you put it in writing, then you'd better be man enough to own up to it and face the consequences.

Hillary's speech was hilarious. Our diplomats, mostly appointed by their politically affluent friends, got caught being the 8th grade gossip queens and now they have egg on their faces...and I'm supposed to be upset? Ooooohhhh...I'll work up a hatred towards the evil hackers.

Clucker, it was a bit more serious than an 8th grade slam book.

[YoUDeeMan]

Why is there any problem with the diplomatic exposures? There is a pretty easy set of rules to follow in life...if you don't want it seen, don't put it in writing. And if you put it in writing, then you'd better be man enough to own up to it and face the consequences.

Hillary's speech was hilarious. Our diplomats, mostly appointed by their politically affluent friends, got caught being the 8th grade gossip queens and now they have egg on their faces...and I'm supposed to be upset? Ooooohhhh...I'll work up a hatred towards the evil hackers.

Clucker, it was a bit more serious than an 8th grade slam book.

Haven't seen anything yet that makes me uneasy. Care to share the parts that cause you concern?

[kalm]

Why is there any problem with the diplomatic exposures? There is a pretty easy set of rules to follow in life...if you don't want it seen, don't put it in writing. And if you put it in writing, then you'd better be man enough to own up to it and face the consequences.

Hillary's speech was hilarious. Our diplomats, mostly appointed by their politically affluent friends, got caught being the 8th grade gossip queens and now they have egg on their faces...and I'm supposed to be upset? Ooooohhhh...I'll work up a hatred towards the evil hackers.

This.

[93henfan]

I'm not pleased with this website either, but if it gets our government to ask itself why a disgruntled, douchebag twentysomething that was already busted from specialist to private would still be allowed access to this information, that may be one good thing that comes out of this.

Granted, this is very low-level stuff, but it's still a problem when you have people with motive having access to it.

[kalm]

Not a fan of wikileaks leaking military and diplomatic classified info.

But, I wholeheartedly approve of this type of thing:

The founder of whistle-blower website WikiLeaks plans to release tens of thousands of internal documents from a major U.S. bank early next year, Forbes Magazine reported on Monday.

Julian Assange declined in an interview with Forbes to identify the bank, but he said that he expected that the disclosures, which follow his group's release of U.S. military and diplomatic documents, would lead to investigations.

"We have one related to a bank coming up, that's a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it's either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it," Assange said in the interview posted on the Forbes website.

He declined to identify the bank, describing it only as a major U.S. bank that is still in existence.

Asked what he wanted to be the result of the disclosure, he replied: "I'm not sure. It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume."

He compared this release to emails that were unveiled as a result of the collapse of disgraced energy company Enron Corp.

"This will be like that. Yes, there will be some flagrant violations, unethical practices that will be revealed, but it will also be all the supporting decision-making structures and the internal executive ethos ... and that's tremendously valuable," Assange said.

"You could call it the ecosystem of corruption. But it's also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that's not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they're fulfilling their own self-interest," he said.

Assange also told the magazine that his group has material on many businesses and governments, including in Russia, and that it has some documents on pharmaceutical companies, which he did not identify.

More than 250,000 cables were obtained by the whistle-blower website and given to the New York Times and other media groups, which published stories on Sunday exposing the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy, including candid and embarrassing assessments of world leaders.

Before Sunday, WikiLeaks had made public nearly 500,000 classified U.S. files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AS68S20101130" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Again this will probably just confirm what some suspected all along - that bank CEO's are real life C. Montgomery Burns', thus proving the lack of real investigative journalism from the msm while highlighting the accuracy and prescience of alt news sources like Rolling Stones Matt Taibbi, The Daily Show, and of course the Simpsons.

[AZGrizFan]

You know, these Saudi motherfuckers have F-16's too. Why can't THEY "cut the head off the snake" if they're so damned worried about it?

Cuz they're right next door, dipshit. You really want that place to explode? Didn't think so.

PM your posts to me before you post em. I'll clean em up and fix em for you.

Actually, you're incorrect (but you're used to that, right?). I DO want that place to explode.

[YoUDeeMan]

Still haven't found anything that causes concern.

Some clown on the radio was griping about the Yemen leak...serious security concern that Alcrappa can use the info against the Yemen government - thus negatively impacting our war against terror.



So let me get this straight...AQ and Amnesty International have already reported, with photographs, that US cruise missles attacked a Yemen target with cluster bombs and that civilians were killed. But our collective government brain trust decides to ignore the true reports and instead tries to convince the world that the bombs were actually sent by the Yemen defense forces and that the only people who were killed were a top AQ guy and his minions.

And we send this false information because we don't want the world to know we are using cluster bombs and, heaven forbid, we don't want anyone to know that the Yemen government is actually working with us to defeat AQ.

You have to be kidding. I couldn't find a Hollywood writer stupid enough to come up with that shite...no one would believe it.

My family just watched the Wizard of Oz on Saturday. Our political PR boys are working harder at pulling a bunch of smoke blowing levers than the man behind the curtain.

Open the curtains and watch the cockroaches scatter.

[travelinman67]

...Open the curtains and watch the cockroaches scatter.

Agreed.

Behind the diplomacy and faux smiles, every diplomat understands there's hidden motive...it's part and parcel.

Dropping the niceties and calling a snake a snake is healthy. Sure, there will be unenlightened inbreds who will take offense, but in the long run, growth is good.

Also, what was recently said is true...keep derogatory personal behavior communiques off the web. It's just good practice not to codify "girl talk".

[YoUDeeMan]

More of the BS exposed.

Let's not forget, this is the war Obama said we should be fighting...it is HIS war. And what are we fighting for in Obama's war? A corrupt President, drugs, 150 released prisoners, some of whom now lead the Taliban, and an Afghan VP taking $52 million to a Persian Gulf state.

WAY TO GO OBAMA!! Everyone should be proud of his leadership - and cover up - in his war.

Change....


"An internal State Department cable recounts new details about how Afghan President Hamad Karzai allegedly intervened on behalf of politically connected drug traffickers, prompting the U.S. government to file a formal diplomatic protest and Karzai’s own chief of staff to say he was “ashamed” of his president’s actions.

But the protest, known as a demarche, was never made public and the Aug. 9, 2009 cable detailing the U.S. government’s complaints was classified as secret by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The result was to downplay the depth of U.S. concerns about alleged corruption inside Karzai’s government during a period that the Obama administration was ramping up U.S. aid and troop levels in Afghanistan.

Although U.S. frustrations over Karzai’s actions were publicly reported at the time, the fact that the State Department went so far as to file a formal demarche was never publicly disclosed. Nor were U.S. concerns about the second reason for the demarche: that a detainee committee headed by Aloko was releasing large numbers of prisoners transferred from U.S. custody to an Afghan National Detention Facility despite an Afghan government commitment that the detainees would be criminally prosecuted in Afghan courts.

According to the cable, the Afghans had released 150 detainees without any trial since 2007, including 29 who had previously been at Guantanamo. (Although the cable doesn’t mention it, at least two former Guantanamo detainees transferred to Afghan custody in December, 2007, Abdul Rauf Khadim and Mullah Abdullah Zakir, have since reemerged as leaders of the Taliban.

Another WikiLeaks cable, first reported Sunday by The New York Times, reported that Afghanistan’s Vice President Ahmed Zia Massoud had been found to have been carrying $52 million from Kabul to a Persian Gulf state."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40436590/ns ... s-security" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No wonder Hillary tried to attack the leak. We should be ashamed to support such information being made pubic.

[CID1990]

Everybody plays this game.

As an old mentor once said, "In foreign affairs there are no allies, only interests."

That diplomats are tasked with reporting back to their governments the activities, tendencies, pecadilloes and desires of foreign leaders and officials is not news. They take instructions and report back. That's the job.

Anybody wonder why the response of most of the governments mentioned in these leaks is mostly reserved and even quiet?