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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.

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.

AZGrizFan wrote:

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 wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
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.

TwinTownBisonFan wrote: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.

AZGrizFan wrote:

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?

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.

Cluck U wrote: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 wrote:

Cluck U wrote: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.

Cluck U wrote: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.

Skjellyfetti wrote: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;

D1B wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
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.

Cluck U wrote:...Open the curtains and watch the cockroaches scatter.