I don’t know about you but I’ve been changing my mind about Wikileaks on an hourly basis. On the one hand, the team behind the whole thing have done us a huge service and deserve a medal. On the other, they’re a threat to civilisation as we know it and should be locked up.
Thankfully, Debategraph offers all sides to the story (and you can get in there add new strands or weight existing ones).
Colin Neill’s first novel Turas peeks into a world in which many Ulster Protestants feel uncomfortable. It’s 2020 and the Irish unification that unionists and loyalists confidently predicted would never happen has become a reality. President Adams is ensconced in Phoenix Park. The newsreader reported that … a short ceremony at Stormont had confirmed the [...] read our review »
Coming up to the Halloween holiday, some people might be frightened of the idea of Voices from the Grave – but for others, the chance to hear an oral history of the Troubles from the mouths of two (in)famous protagonists, PUP leader and former UVF member David Ervine, and Brendan “The Dark” Hughes, is not [...] read our review »
With perhaps the longest title of any book I’ve read this year, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East gives an insight into the lives of people living in Middle East through the eyes of journalist Neil MacFarquhar. MacFarquhar’s father was a chemical engineer [...] read our review »
I’m pleased that there is a way to expose wrongdoing and nefarious government actions (actions done, theoretically, in our name but too often actions to profit the Dick Cheneys of the world).
But simply dumping hundreds of thousands of personal communications is not the way to do it.
A quick glance at the list of topics shows what an impact the Wikileaks’ revelations and modus operandi have had on diverse aspects of modern society and governance.
They have opened up so much for question and debate – which has to be positive, however things finally settle into place.
One point doesn’t seem to be included (though I am open to correction here as I have not perused the entire database).
How will a style of diplomacy that appears to be anchored in the 18th/19th century, with its gossip, informants and two-faced attitudes to the locals, adjust to the 21st century with its instanteous communication worldwide?
To me the behaviour of both sides is questionable. The rape saga is dubious at every level but not impossible. There may be no dark US-Swedish conspiracy (Sweden is proud of its neutrality) and a Swedish prosecutor may be trying to hog the limelight.
On the other hand I dislike Assange’s rock star treatment, even though he behaves like one – the arrogance, the public surliness and bristling at the slightest critical question, the reported groupie behaviour that got him into trouble trouble in the first place, even the vanity of the apparently frequent change of hair dye – is he pretending to disguise himself?
Had the memory stick been passed direct the Guardian or NY Times wouldwe have had all this fuss? I defend the right of states to keep diplomatic material confidential but it really is up to them to protect it.
This is hardly the cause celebre of the hacker into big secrets that publishes by drip.The US case against him is by no means clear.. I don’t see the result as a big test of civil liberties. There is the subjective part of it too – I just can’t warm to this guy.
Wikileaks has done the world a service. Everyone can see for themselves what has been going on. The list is enormous and growing!
The other thing is how fifties gossipy it is. All that’s missing in some of them is the hairnet…
“they’re a threat to civilisation” Really?
WikiLeaks is brilliant for educating the uneducated but for those with a decent understanding of global current affairs it merely provides more evidence to back up what we already think we know.
Of course misleading headlines about WikiLeaks cables don’t do anyone any good. I disagree with the manner the cables are being leaked and reported by newspapers such as the Guardian who are clearly using the cables to make profit with scant evidence being offered to create extravagent headlines.
The whole lot should be released on the WikiLeaks site and people should be allowed to make their own mind up free of journalist spin and opinion. Afterall, WikiLeaks is advocating freedom but I don’t see journalists as free thinkers. They have an agenda, they all do.
I love Wikileaks just for this alone. Mary Ellen Synon has this gem revealing the petty insecurities of the eurocreeps and their project:
“Thanks to Eurointelligence for translating this from Der Spiegel: the Wikileaks documents show how the US has been playing one vain EU leader off another.
Example: Sarkozy was allowed to address a joint meeting of the US Congress in October 2007, so then President Bush immediately invited Chancellor Merkel and her husband to the ‘Western White House’ at Crawford, Texas.
The leaked cables ‘were particularly scathing about Sarkozy, who according to the American embassy, has to intimidate his own staff to such a degree that there is nobody to warn that the emperor has no clothes.’
The cable went on to suggest ‘the US administration have lost all respect for European leaders for whom a joint meeting, or press conference with Obama, constituted a goal in itself.’”
“They are a threat to civilisation”
NO!!! They expose and challenge what we used to call “the man”.
Lord above, they are merely continuing the likes of the anti Vietnam war movement.
Is accepting compfotable lies better than acepting uncompfortable truths?
But simply dumping hundreds of thousands of personal communications is not the way to do it.
They haven’t done that Joe. Only approx 2000 cables released thus far. Its more of drip. Whistleblowers should always be welcome in any democracy. If the likes of Wikileaks had existed 10 years ago, the world might not be in the mess it is.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/exclusive-wikileaks-benefits-public-intelligence-officers/
To someone who reads people like Noam Chomsky’s work the Wikileaks are nothing!!!!
To anyone who avails of independant media,they mean nothing.
Only to the blind consumer of cheap, and that includes the main media such as the BBC, media are the Wikileaks “revelations” news.
Your goverment is evil, your goverment does notvare about YOU, your goverment will let you die for a drop of oil so long as you are stupid enough to fight for them!!!!
That’s news? Seems it is to the masses.
RS,
My misunderstanding. I haven’t visited the Wikileaks site. But I thought it was their intention to dump the lot.
andnowwhat
No it is not news but for some of us its confirmation of what we always thought. Diplomats are a bunch of old women, years out of date with the real world and insufferably pompous about the importance of their own opinions. And there have been some revelations.
Its embarrassing the right people and that’s worth a lot.
Bradley Manning held in solitary confinement.
House said many people were reluctant to talk about Manning’s condition because of government harassment, including surveillance, warrantless computer seizures, and even bribes. “This has had such an intimidating effect that many are afraid to speak out on his behalf,” House said.
Some friends report being followed extensively. Another computer expert said the army offered him cash to – in his words – “infiltrate” the WikiLeaks website. He said: “I turned them down. I don’t want anything to do with this cloak and dagger stuff.”
When the Washington Post tried to investigate the claim, an army criminal investigation division spokesman refused to comment. “We’ve got an ongoing investigation,” he said. “We don’t discuss our techniques and tactics.”
Brian,
This is a good post that looks at the whole rape question in some detail:
http://kateharding.info/2010/12/16/some-shit-im-sick-of-hearing-regarding-rape-and-assange/
The obsession with wikileaks is itself confusing.
The internet is somewhere between anarchy and libertarian heaven. Anything goes. Which is why the autocrats want to have controls.
Meanwhile, if we want, it provides the peer-to-peer communication that got lost when the tribe became the “nation”.
This is one genie that isn’t going to be bottled.
As for all these great “disclosures”, I’ve yet to hit on a major one that wasn’t at least implied in the MSM. The only problem, internationally, is we’ve yet to get the filth on the other participants, so it’s the US solus in the dock. Other informants required, obviously.
As a reader of history, I’d suggest that most “truths” (they’re all debatable because they’re value judgements) eventually rise to the surface. What is happening here and now is that the bureaucracies no longer have a quarter-, a-half century to expunge their dirty work.
I am totally in favour of Wikileaks. But I am not a big fan of Assange who I think Mr Walker describes quite acurately as a “rock star”.
Am also not a big fan of curfews in country manor houses and Ken Loach and John Pilger getting in on the act along with Geoffrey Robinson and Mark Stevens.
I have no idea if Assange is guilty or innocent of the Swedish charges…..the defence that he is being framed certainly has credibility but the sheer clumsiness of a frame does not seem credible.
If every American, Chinese, Sudanese, French, Russian, British etc secret is exposed, I find it amusing rather than disturbing. It does not affect me.
To some extent Assange strikes me as a fantasist with the ability to make his fantasy of international man of mystery come to fruition. Perhaps more Austen Powers than Rock Star.
To be frank I view the sex charges as much more serious and hope that he faces those charges or that they are resolved (I expect that they will)
The problem with thinking the guy is being framed is that you can be left with a lot of egg on face if the allegations stand up. When I saw John Pilger on TV today, I could not help recall Paul Foots decades long fight for Justice for James Hanratty.
To some extent Foots reputation alone had people believing in Hanrattys innocence. Shortly after (??) Foot died, DNA proved Hanratty guilty.
The real problem is that every revolution…….Printing Press, French, etc tries eventually to put a brake on its “advances” demanding a kind of regulation…….tyrrany even…..which is more repressive than before.
The Internet Revolution is at this stage.
If you wanted to smear a person’s reputation then using Sweden’s bizarre rape laws to brand them as a rapist would the ideal way to do it, as Assange’s lawyer points out:
“Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.
Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was embarrassed in August this year when it leaked to the media that it was seeking to arrest Assange for rape, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in its own words there was “no evidence”. The damage to Assange’s reputation is incalculable. More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to rape. Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual sex that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the sex was not consensual.”
It seems there should an EU law against using the legal system of the state to defame a non-citizen, and the Swedish government should be arrested under it via EAW.
Brian : “….To me the behavior of both sides is questionable. The rape saga is dubious at every level but not impossible. There may be no dark US-Swedish conspiracy (Sweden is proud of its neutrality) and a Swedish prosecutor may be trying to hog the limelight……”
So ‘ Watergate’ never happened, the Rainbow Warrior is still sailing the Seven Seas and as I write Dr David Kelly is tucked up at home in the bosom of his loving family with a mug of coco watching a late night film about ‘Open Government’ !
There is a War on, a war fought with boots on the ground and blood on the sands in Afghanistan and Iraq. That same war is being fought in dark cell tonight where people opposed to that are having their testicles sliced open with rusty razor blades having been ‘rendered’ from countries where some semblance of the ‘ Rule Of Law’ would not allow that practice.
There are but two stances in this war, those who realize the reality of it and expose it and those who for whatever reason play footsie with the establishment and find a way to excuse their actions.
This war extends to hard Journalism also, there are journalists like Bob Fisk who risk their lives on a regular and ongoing basis to expose what is happening and there are others who temporarise, excuse vacillate and refuse to investigate any evidence other than that allowed by their Masters Voice as to do so would take themselves outside the cozy consensus into the real world.
I know if I were talking to Bob to-night it would not be about the ‘rape charges’ reality but as to who was at work at the labyrinth pulling the leavers of power in Europe and Internationally to make this happen.
There are those who believe that if events like Watergate, The Rainbow Warrior, Dr David Kelly etc happened then anything can happen and it must be assumed are happening. Your colleagues in Dublin know that 100,000 marched in the last big co-ordinated protest in Dublin. The Garda Officer directly involved in overseeing the policing operation of the Protest March told the Trade Union leaders that 100,000 attended, several union officials confirmed that.
Garda HQ in deference to their political masters gave the figure as 50,000 protesters. Who among your Dublin colleagues exposed this or sought to establish the truth or why Garda HQ lied ?
Like Dr Kelly’s case and the Dublin march numbers we are constantly fed a stream of untruths in the mainstream media. Rape is one of the most unsavory allegations that can be made against someone like our Aussie friend, most women supporters quickly back off followed by most of the ‘politically correct’ male supporters. Other than a pedophile allegation it is the quickest thing to bring down a reputation and muddy the waters.
No problem here Brian believing that there may be a problem with Sweden : thats how the real world works. In this internet age anyone can take a day out of their lifes, hole up with a computer internet and find out what is happening. Ignorance of these things is no longer inadvertent, it is a rationalized, exercised, optional choice!
Some years back, cardiac recovery rest and early retirement gave me some unexpected free time. I thought that I knew the ‘Dark Side’ but Boy, had I a rude awakening, it was an instructive few weeks. However since it would appear that I now know where to find an alternative, authoritative view or two, I thought that I would share this with you all.
http://www.countercurrents.org/rudling081210.htm
There is a problem with some of these sites in that the addresses are often interfered with and do not post live. If this is a problem, please just copy into the yahoo, google or other search box and click!
This is a sex abuse case against a Down Syndrome Young Woman that is percolating away in our neighboring Island, ignored by all save for occasional individual mainstream media and a dedicated networks of international sites that keep the information current and the spotlight on the case.
http://www.henrymakow.com/holly_greig_for_dummies.html
One such person to the fore in this is…… HenryMakow.com ……. Henry is of European birth and lost several close relatives to the Nazi Extermination Camps. He now lives in Canada where his site operates from.
Despite his families experience, Henry is also an implacable opponent of Zionism, believing that the War actions of the Israeli State are detrimental to the Jewish cause.
and the possibility of forming normal relations among the International Community of Nations.
Dr Makow’s latest book ‘Illuminati 2′…Deceit and Seduction, has over seventy articles and is available for $ 20.00. The cover carry a Denis Healy quote….. “…..World events are staged and managed by those who hold the purse strings….” Henry identifies just who these people are and subject their activities to close examination. It is a very worth while read.
We do need an organisation like Wikileaks affiliated to the like of the UN on a permanent basis so that we can eliminate the secrecy and opacity that has been built up around governments, militaries, banks, big busimess and politicians.
They are the ones that are costing lives and ruining peoples health and wealth
Whistle blowing should be recognised and encouraged as an duty.
Wikileaks damages essential diplomacy. Take for example the latest on our man in Belarus. “Bizarre” and “disturbed” is how he is described in certain cables. Should be real fun trying to work with him now. Read up on what UN Sec. Gen. Ban-Ki Moon has to say. Kaido won’t like it. Wikileaks damages essential diplomacy. More or less what ole Ban-Ki said.
Lastly:
(1) MV, only Saudi, Pakistan and the UAE recognized the Taliban govt. ’nuff said.
(2) Alias, get a grip. The allegations are plural. First, that he had penile penetration with a sleeping female. Hard to consent when she is sleeping. Two, he used his body to weigh down a human who was resisting and pinned her arms as well. Three, he continued to engage in sexual intercourse without a condom when he knew that condom protection was the condition precedent to her agreement to such intercourse and she had brought the same to his attention and told him to stop (that’s where the weighing her down with his body and pinning her arms down comes in, as that was his response, or so she claims). For cruel irony, given the thread here on Slugger re abortion, odd that you cannot see why we would consider the last of such conduct to be rape. Lastly, for how lame the claims of some, if this was the CIA, they wouldn’t bother with these allegations. A female agent would meet him at a bar or club. They’d leave and go back to her or his place. They’d have sex. Next morning she shows up at the main station crying and with bruises. As we lawyers say, he said, she said, and the bruises speak for themselves. Perhaps you should join MV in believing in that whole Illuminati crap. And you might want to read this as well:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/olbermann-assange-and-the-holo
(3) A comment from Jezebel.com:
More and more it seems like Julian Assange and all his apologists are arguing that if a guy does enough good liberal stuff, then he’s entitled to a few rapes. And I’m not even sure that he’s anything but an anti-social poseur who wants to break into places with “No Tresspassing” signs posted.
(4) if any of you have the singular misfortune of encountering America’s worst export aka Michael Moore, please remind him once again that they never went bowling at Columbine. Thank you.
Miserable day, so I’m looking for a cheap laugh. For starters, there’s slappymcgroundout @ 9:40 am:
Wikileaks damages essential diplomacy.
Phew! that really will keep me awake a-nights! Who’d have thought these “leaked” messages would be of such incredible intelligence? [Nobody of sense, actually.] Or journalists and commentators had previously bruited large quantities of said “intelligence” around? Dearie me, it might almost be that these diplomats were saying, off-the-record, to the reptiles of the Media precisely what they were saying to Washington.
Beyond that, it’s smoke-and-mirrors. Assange may be the public face of wikileaks; but he isn’t the engine-room — any more than Nicole Kidman or Keira Knightly manufacture the perfume they advertise. It might be convenient for the State Department to have the focus on the man rather than its own embarrassment. Above all, as my old sparring-partner fitzjameshorse1745 @ 11:37 pm pertinently points out, if wikileaks didn’t exist, someone else would be inventing it. In point of fact, an infinite number of media monkeys out there are doing just that.
Believe it or not, the world has not stopped spinning on its axis, nor the various interested parties, of all nations, on all continents, spinning (in the information sense) with it. For a moment or two of diversion, there’s most of “An Audience with Peter Ustinov” on YouTube (I particularly relish the answer to la Grande-Dame Anne Leslie): his views on diplomats are instructive, starting with:
A diplomat these days in nothing, but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally.
One of the joys of this season is the (very expensive) Economist double issue. This gets stuffed with goodies, invariably well-written, which are general essays rather than specific articles. The issue for 19 Dec 2002 had a piece about early diplomats, the personages like Elizabeth I’s ambassador to Russia, Sir Henry Wotton (An ambassador is a man of virtue sent to lie abroad for his country). This Economist writer concluded that then, as now, the diplomat’s field, strewn with facile chit-chat and ruthless lying, was not always one to write home about. [I located an open-access text of the piece at: http://j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/archives/001313.html. Worth the trip.]
Corrigenda to Malcolm Redfellow @ 12:23 pm
1. any more than Nicole Kidman or Keira Knightly manufactures the perfume she advertises. [Singular subject so verbal agreement.]
2. I believe it correctly to be “Ann Leslie”.
Great stuff Wikileaks!
More pleeze!
“But simply dumping hundreds of thousands of personal communications is not the way to do it.”
Those who take this view point are ether liars, crooks or have been blinded by the old worlds way of doing business.(Joe, on this issue I would put you in the latter group)
The fact is allowing governments to drip feed us info which is to their advantage has proved disastrous, especially in the modern age. Need I go any further than mention the economic collapse, Iraq and Afghanistan. (and now Pakistan) the fact is the British and US governments have been murdering and imprisoning people at will behind the backs of their peoples.
Lets look at the charge of dumping cables, for a start they were not personal cables, but US diplomatic cables written by people who are in the pay of the US government, these folk were at work when they wrote them. Christ, they are not writing to the Mrs telling her to get the tea on at 6pm, now are they, nor to their bit on the side asking if they would like a fuck that night.
Besides, as republican stones has already said they were not dumped at all, but are being released in batches, hopefully this will continue until they are all out here.
It is vital this occurs, for if wikileaks were to sensor what they publish, as some have suggested, it would make them no different from what governments do. In that they would also become an arbiter of what we see.
The longer this goes on the more governments and their tame media hacks with their talk of national security and punishing Manning and Assange look like Colin Powell when he fabricated evidence to the UN about Iraq possessing WMDs.
Finally I would ask this question, name me any examples where the publication of the cables has cost a human being their life?
Funny how Manning will spend hard time in prison for decades for decades while blatant liers like Blair and Bush walk free.
Balir’s assertion that he believed the threat to be true is simply blown out of the water by Robin Cook’s (who “fortunately died” shortly thereafter) actions.
Thankfully, the rubbish that the leaks will cost lives is dead in the water. Oddly enough, the accusation came from people who were happy to take thousands of lives based on, what they knew to be, lies.
Once again, the Wikileaks story beggs the question, what the hell have journalists been up to for this past to decades or more? Fuck all if you ask me.
BTW, today’s commenary by Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/
Slappy….”…… Perhaps you should join MV in believing in that whole Illuminati crap…….”
Almost twenty years ago I was involves in assisting a mother whose son was involved in a paedophile ring. His father was a police informer in political circles and protected at the highest levels within the Southern Irish State where in some establishment circles, there is quite a support for that sort of deviant sexual activity.
A High Court Judge of the Irish Superior courts took cesin of the case and had four years experience of it where the State, its agents and servants had their activities gradually exposed. Then came the crunch point : could the child give evidence without compounding the psychological damage already done.
Child and Judge spend forty-five minutes alone in the Judges Chamber, Court resumed, the trial was on, the judge ruled that the State had a case to answer and allowed the mother to continue with her private prosecution against all parties. The father had by this stage fled to the UK to avoid prosecution, the child was kidnapped out to the UK and the whole sorry saga began through the UK courts again.
The child at twelve got £500 spending money, a six week holiday in Spain, a new Mountain Bicycle….. and overnight a very poor memory! The case went no where in the English Courts, the fix was in from the very start. Between twelve and sixteen the child on aggregate got five months school attendance. Before sixteen he was on the street and shortly after his birthday he was forcefully committed to a mental hospital for his own safety. He has in the main gravitated between the street, mental instutions and jail since!
The mother living in Ireland got English School Reports by court order every term, the reports disclosed only a few days school attendance, the case was re entered before the English courts, the latter called all parties in, promises were made until the next period when it all happened again.
On one occasion I tided my self up, got an expensive overcoat and hat, visited the London Masonic Hall Museum and got an events insert for a pocket diary and visited a dozen high-class stationary shop until I got a pocket diary with a blue color to match the masonic colour and icons on the top of the leaflet.
I stood in the back of the public public court office while the mother argued with the senior court official and she was subject to the usual run around and stonewalling. After ten minutes I intervened, came up took off my gloves, produced my diary with the insert card with the masonic logo sticking out the top and slammed it off the counter, looking only at the mother, I completely ignored the Court official.
” Madam” I said to the mother “I have seen quite enough, please take my word for it that this cretin will not even be allowed answer a telephone by this time to-morrow, much less direct an office such as this ”
The official was shocked, he pleaded with the mother to accompany him to the court, the senior divisional judge was found, court was ex-partite and brisk, the mother got a whole raft of over a dozen orders requiring all State Officials to account for their negligence in the case and the Judge gave the mother an abject apology for the way she had been treated.
Of course by the following week the ‘ hidden hands’ had interfered yet again, but it did show how the system really worked. It also began my own personal odessy of investigating Masonic Interference in judicial and other systems and that I turn brought me in into Illuminati areas.
The evidence is there on the net of their corrupt and corrupting influence in all levels of society. However it was only after weeks of constant research following enforced free time from cardiac illness recovery some years back, that I became aware of the full extent of the control exercised by the hidden hands.
As Denis Healy former UK Defense Minister said, ” Workd events are staged and managed by those who hold the purse strings ”
That also applies to the National, regional and local scales, they leave little to chance, their influnce is everywhere and where their interests are at stake, be the chambers in a Bank or Court, their controol is almost absolute !
We are back again in the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ territory, for most of those that took part, there is no denial that there was a Low Intensity War / Conflict fought with all that entailed. For others it was a peacekeeping exercise where the army was used to back up police and civil powers.
Guess it depends on what side of that line you stand to have a particular perspective.
Slappy : you wouldn’t be in the funny handshake club yourself by any chance ?
Going after Wikileaks is shooting the messenger.
This case for me has parallels with the computer hacking/sabotage accusations that have been used to justify the extradition of Gary McKinnon. In both cases, the US government had substandard security protocols in place which made the penetration of systems and access to confidential information, for those who had no business obtaining it, a trivial matter. In both cases, the US have responded somewhat like a bull in a china shop, deflecting attention away from their security failings by trying to smear those who arguably have done them a service in highlighting their poor security standards albeit in a rather embarrassing and public way.
Wikileaks itself provides a convenient lightning rod especially as it makes it easy to allege that the leaks were released by shadowy, nerdy counter-culture types whereas attacking an established newspaper in this way is not so easy – free speech and all that.
The leaks in themselves are far from surprising and I think people who think they will result in a sea-change in the way international relations are conducted are going to be rather disappointed. Ruffled feathers will be smoothed, apologies behind closed doors will be made, things will carry on. The US federal government will move to tighten up their IT security procedures quickly.
With respect to the rape allegations, we have to assume there is a legal basis for a court case and the allegations will need to be heard. There are some questionable aspects to the thing – why would someone go out and buy breakfast the next morning after having endured a rape ? – but all of the facts need to be heard in full in a court of law, not in the court of easily-swayed public opinion.
Organized Rage (Mick? – I checked out your site), I am not one of those Chicken Littles running around saying that the sky is falling nor do I believe that anyone’s life has been put at risk, at least any more that their current situation.
You may have misunderstood me; my point about the thousands of documents was that I didn’t think that a huge dump served any useful purpose. How long would it take one of us to read them all? But Republican Stones explained that for me.
Finally, I take anything Governments tell me with a large pinch of salt. I’ve always been a sceptic (but not a cynic).
I saw this earlier – The Guardian seems to have got more detail on those Swedish rape allegations:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden?intcmp=239
On the question of the leaks compromising anyone’s personal security, I’m not convinced. The Wikileaks revelations appear to be primarily the result of large amounts of reasonably sensitive info being put somewhere that large numbers of people can see them. If the Wikileaks people can get this info, I’m fairly sure that the Russians, the Chinese an a range of other people with the capacity to cause mischief for the US could get them as well.
Joe,
It was not my intention to offend you, thanks for clarifying things. What I find interesting about this, is there seems to be some people within the state apparatus, both here and in north America who welcome the wikileaks, true a noisy element does not, but I wonder if behind close doors they are having it all their own way. Hopefully we will not have to wait for a whistle blower to find out.
Best regards
A whole raft of government agencies use secrecy to justify
their very existence and vast budgets. If you look at some of the cables they would not pay an average touts rent. Is it really a US state secret the Colonel Gaddafi has a Ukrainian medic and female body-guards. Knowing Muammar’s love of winding western media and politicians up, he probably set the whole thing up. In any case this story was in the papers a long time ago.
I think we have all been conned to some degree into believing government cannot function openly. What is becoming increasingly clear due to these leaks, is that argument is built on sand. That is one of the reasons the intel community is encouraging their brought politicos and hacks to cry national security. As they wish to curve ball the debate.
“Alias, get a grip.”
What we have is a he/she said dispute. It looks like a vain young girl who was boasting on her Twitter site about how she was in the company of “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!” the day after one of “the world’s coolest smartest people” had allegedly raped her. So what changed her mind? Well, one of vain young girls that one of “the world’s coolest smartest people” had used his charm to bed called looking for one of “the world’s coolest smartest people” and one of the world’s dumb young casual sex partners discovered that she wasn’t so special to one “the world’s coolest smartest people” after all. The two dumb young casual sex partners bonded in their furry at the cad at connected their squalid little pan for revenge. Anyway, a court will decide. The only reason this tosh got past a British court is because the UK surrendered its sovereignty over its extradition procedure to the EU and so it is required under the European Arrest Warrant procedure to assume that the Swedish prosecution service is acting in good faith and has good evidence. The UK courts are not permitted to laugh at how the Swedish state defines rape or to throw out the case however farcical it is…
“Perhaps you should join MV in believing in that whole Illuminati.”
It was the jooooos wot done it…
There certainly seems to be an attempt to stitch the man up. Someone remarked, perhaps on a different thread, that the Swedish Government wouldn’t simply do America’s bidding. But you don’t need to get to the Government, just the complainants and perhaps the prosecutor.
Still, a Britsih judge will have to decide that there are sufficient grounds to extradite him, then a swedish court will have to decide on his guilt. It’s a terrible thing to be put through if you are an innocent person. I don’t think he will be sent to jail.
Alias, is extradition really just a formality inside the E.U.? Adams, Liam, still has not been returned to answer the accusations against him.
If julian Assange is afraid of being extradited to the US I’m not sure why he thinks he is safe in England. As far as I know Bliar fixed it so that all the Americans had to do was accuse someone. British courts have no ‘right’ to prevent extradition to America.
If that is the case surely he would be better off somewhere like France which at least has a reputation for standing up to America.
I think we need to separate out several issues in the Wikileaks controversy.
Not an easy thing to do as JA is Editor in Chief of Wikileaks
One issue is the question of Julian Assange, the individual and the allegations he is faced with about his private life. This is the person the Swedish authorities want to question about sexual misconduct and his imprisonment, bail and forthcoming extradition hearing in London all constitute one issue
Another different issue is the release the cables, their contents, impact on many political, ethical and economic areas worldwide and the ensuing debate and discussion on diverse problems including freedom of expression in Western liberal democracies.
A third issue, which does seem to be kept reasonably separate is the fate of Manning, who has been accused of leaking the cables to Wikileaks.
See the following article from
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/98489
“I had prioritised solidarity organising and activism for him and Bradley Manning
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/…ning/
now entering his 205th.day, of a relatively publicly unknown incarceration at Quantico U.S. Marine Base, Virginia USA (having been transfered in chains from Iraq-Kuwait-Virginia) accused of providing the initial leaks for WikiLeaks
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
- now featuring in John Pilger’s recently released documentary film “The War You Do Not See” http://www.johnpilger.com/
In recent months, O’Reilly has been running a solo campaign
in England and Ireland to generate support for Welsh/American Bradley
Manning
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/98346?search_text=ciaro…75854
http://london.indymedia.org/articles/6719
Confusing these 3 separate strands in the controversy will mean none is assessed in a true impartial light.
“An ambassador is a man of virtue sent to lie abroad for his country”
I think perhaps you mean, “…sent abroad to lie for his country.”, Malcolm, although your rendering suggests more interesting possibilities.
I am intrigued by commenters who are at pains to point out their support for freedom of information but emphasise their distaste for Assange, whom they claim not to find personable and who might in any case possibly be guilty of criminal offences related to sexual encounters with seemingly otherwise consenting partners.
Either Wikileaks is doing a valuable service or it is not. Assange’s perceived personality (have any of you met the guy in order to judge?) or even his guilt on the charges brought. should they be established, are of no account whatsoever and should not be brought into the equation. The very fact that they are and indeed brought to the fore in order to obscure what is really at issue here strikes me as telling. And telling in Assange’s favour.
I might be missing something here as I’m not fully au fait with this issue as yet but, simply put, I don’t see the position on Assange as terribly relevant – in what respect/s does his innocence or otherwise influence the integrity of the information being released and any consideration of its value ? Likewise, it’s of zero consequence to me what his motivation for providing a channel for its release might be – surely it’s the information itself which is or is not of any interest, no ?
Nunoftheabove,
I think what you are missing is that there is a definite attempt at character asassination which some, foolishly, hope will cast doubt on the veracity of the information.
joecabuck
Yes but that’s my point – just how foolish would one need to be, even if there is some conspiracy here against Assange (which there will no doubt be no end of fools ready to impose whether there is any substance to it or not…)?! Do ‘they’ really think that ‘we’ are that dumb ?!
Slappy : “…. if any of you have the singular misfortune of encountering America’s worst export aka Michael Moore, please remind him once again that they never went bowling at Columbine. Thank you…….”
Every one of his books in my Library Slappy !
Michael may be a bit OTT in the presentation of his material, but even if 50% of his work is discarded, the remainder is still a damming inditement of the American Dream. At least weekly and sometimes more often I post to American Mid-West people who are family, Republicans and Tea Party people.
The third generation are now also getting involved in politics. The surprising thing is when here visiting, which they do bi-annually, they also share many of Michael Moors concerns, they do not deny many of his issues and bug bears, it is just that they have a different take on how these things came about and what the possible solutions are.
Michael is not as off the wall as some of his critics would imply, especially the fat cat legals who have a nice little earner from the problems without contributing too much to the solutions!
Tony Blair & WMD, the Watergate Bulglers & Nixon, Lenihan the Irish Bank Robbers etc, the batting average of lawyers Internationally in contributing to world problems has been fairly consistent.
Michael Moor would have a long way to go to equal that sad and sorry record of the legal profession !
Michael Moore ? Oh please let’s not lower the tone quite THAT much.
Rory Carr @ 9:30 pm:
I was sure I had the Wotton quotation aright; but I checked and found I had the context wrong. Wotton had been sent by the Earl of Salisbury (better known as Elizabeth’s Secretary Cecil) to arrange a couple of royal marriages:
That from the DNB.
That text also reminds me that Wotton was in Dublin with the Earl of Essex, and attempted to draw up a peace treaty with the Earl of Tyrone. At last: a local connection.
Wotton’s final job was as provost of Eton College. His tomb there has the inscription he himself wanted: Here lies the first author of this sentence: “The Itch of Disputation will prove the Scab of the Church”. Inquire his name elsewhere.
Curious how modern much of that remains; and how high-ranking Scotsmen remain short of a sense of humour.
Contrary to whatever impression I may have given so far, I am not too worked up about the merits of Anna V Julian, other than a concern that the old maxim of ‘ presumed innocent until proven guilty’ is observed.
Whenever something like this breaks I check out a few sites that in the past I have found to be reliable. In the same spirit I have shared this information. I do however completely support the release of the information, in as much that can and do colour my objectivity! One of these sites is………. http://www.countercurrents.org/rudling081210.htm
This is one such response and it makes interesting reading as if true it seems that evidence that could be favorable to Julian is being deliberately removed from the public sphere.
Article abstract…….
Proof That Anna Ardin Is Hiding the Truth
In the beginning of September, I note that Anna Ardin has two identical ‘miniblogs’ – one at Twitter and the other at Bloggy.se. It looks as if Anna Ardin’s tweets are posted to both blogs at the same time.
The tweets that are deleted from Twitter are still visible at annaardin.bloggy.se.
Anna missed the fact that she has to delete on each and every blog. Bad luck.
To see if Anna Ardin is really trying to hide her Twitter tweets, I post a comment to Sara Gunnerud’s article WikiLeaks Heroes Can Also Do Stupid Things. The article is published at the Rebella blog, a social democratic feminist blog where Anna Ardin contributes and runs the website.
In my comment I mention the deleted Twitter tweets. After five days, on 13 September, my comment is reviewed and removed directly. I then post a new comment where I mention that one can read the deleted Tweets at annaardin.bloggy.se. My comment is removed directly. A few hours later the entire Bloggy.se site is taken offline. When Bloggy.se reopens at 04:00 in the morning of 14 September, the tweets deleted from Twitter are also deleted from annaardin.bloggy.se.
But it’s not as easy to remove things from the Internet as Anna Ardin thinks. Google takes snapshots of how web pages look – so called caches. If you search for the cached page for annaardin.bloggy.se you can see what it looked like on 19 August. (If the cache disappears, click here.)
Then you can compare the page with how annaardin.bloggy.se and twitter.com/annaardin look.
As we can see, Anna Ardin is doing all she can to hide her tweets. Tweets that indicate Julian Assange is actually innocent of at least the charge of ‘molestation’ that he’s been accused of. It looks like Anna Ardin is doing all she can to get Julian Assange convicted. By deleting and denying acquitting circumstances, she’s perhaps making herself guilty of false accusation.
I simply cannot understand how anyone would take the govts line on this wikileaks issue. And by ignoring the content of the cables and attempting a character assassination (as one commenter in particular has done) of the messenger, it is simply an extension of toeing the establishments line. Such people would have been tucked up nicely in the officers mess on the USS Missouri, whilst those of us tired of the lies are tucked in behind Wilfred Burchett as he treks his way to Hiroshima. What further annoys me is not the bare faced duplicity of the US govt (because anyone who has studied US foreign policy is well used to it at this stage) but the fact that it is so out in the open now and yet we still have idiots trying to defend them. Secretary of State Lady Macbeth is particularly odious in this regards. She blithely strides from the likes of thiss…
“Some of the countries engaging in these behaviors still claim to be democracies. Democracies don’t fear their own people.”
and this..
“Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society.”
and this…
“Internet freedom is not just about freedom of expression, but about what kind of world we live in.”
or this..
“Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress. Historically, asymmetrical access to information is one of the leading causes of interstate conflict. When we face serious disputes or dangerous incidents, it’s critical that people on both sides of the problem have access to the same set of facts and opinions.
“And censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand. I’m confident that consumers worldwide will reward companies that follow those principles.
“…we are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments demands for censorship and surveillance. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right.”
And this…
“The United States is a strong supporter of civil society around the world. Civil society activists and organizations work to improve the quality of people’s lives and protect their rights, hold leaders accountable to their constituents, shine light on abuses in both the public and private sectors, and advance the rule of law and social justice. They are key partners for progress.”
Now compare her attitude when its the US’ dirty laundry out in the open…
http://www.youtube.com/user/statevideo#p/u/80/HmKxCe7m1Tw
Senator Joe Liberman is another blatant hypocrite. One of the main architects of the recent Victims of Iranian Censorship (VOICE) Act, which among other things….
respects the universal values of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Iran and throughout the world;
condemns acts of censorship, intimidation, and other restrictions on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression in Iran and throughout the world
condemns companies which have knowingly impeded the ability of the Iranian people to access and share information and exercise freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly through electronic media, including through the sale of technology that allows for deep packet inspection or provides the capability to monitor or block Internet access, and gather information about individuals.
We don’t need to go into Liberman’s attitude and actions over Wikileaks….do we?
The unadulterated ‘do as we say…not as we do’ mentality on display beggars belief. Yet still we have people lining up to shoot the messenger in order to protect the people and govts who have been lying to them, in order for them to continue being lied to. Its like Orwell in reverse.
..Orwell in reverse..
Great line.
I recently attended a very interesting seminar on Brendan Braken , Churchill’s Minister for information, or is more correct, ‘Minister for dis-information’. Brendan was 100% Irish and his childhood to late teens was one of parental and other rejections, all fairly horrendous stuff of family disfunctionality and psychological damage at an early age. He was taken to Australia by a relative in mid teens and returned in early 20 to UK.
While the main trust of the seminar was on Braken’s early life and his formative processes in his childhood and teen years, the discussion did briefly deal with Big Brother as a side issue as there is a very good argument for the fact that George Orwell based his Big Brother concept on Braken and his Ministery Of Information activities.
Given Brendans Irish background and his extradionary childhood and teen years, it is absolutely remarkable that he should have become the voice of the British Establishment during the War to the extent that did in molding its attidutes and articulated it’s ethos. As extradionary as fact that Joyce the self confessed Black & Tan informer, the anti-establishment voice or rather tormenter of the Brits for the Germans, should be Irish also.
Seems like we were responsible for giving the world the Big Brother concept, that was a new one for me !
I continue to visit slugger despite all the chaff, as every now and again you get pure gold. The posts above from
Munstersview 11:58 and Republican Stones 10:10 are just that.
“Yet still we have people lining up to shoot the messenger in order to protect the people and govts who have been lying to them, in order for them to continue being lied to. Its like Orwell in reverse.” – RS
They’re called statists… and, if course, europhiles. They’re people who fear their own freedoms, and duly become their own worst enemies.
Organized : Thanks for the warm compliment on a cold day!
In my Mid Munster rural area childhood, an Old Neighbor died and it took me two hours to inform all the townland. When in the Sinn Fein AC in the seventies, one had to research the research information needed, make phonecall and write letters to even get access to where the information should be archived, only to find that it was not there after all and a new search had to be undertaken in other libraries or whatever.
I still cannot believe my luck to be able to sit down behind a keyboard and have the digitalised information available flow to screen in a few clicks of a mouse. What is more one builds up a series of International contacts who range from extreme left, through center to extreme right in political views, of different religious beliefs or none, who seek out information from an aware philosophical perspective or simply from an ‘anorak’ basis, as given the very fact that someone is trying to conceal something or dis-inform is enough to get the hackles up and ‘set the game afoot’
http://www.countercurrents.org/rudling081210.htm ……. is one such site.
I have recently on another thread drawn attention to Sonoma State University annual ‘Project Censored’ where thousands of news stories, both national and international are evaluated and the top twenty-five censored stories are then selected. No 10 on their current list investigates how the US actually funds and supports the very Taliban their soldiers on the ground are fighting and dying to overthrow.
Project Censored site can be found at…… http://www.projectcensored.org/the-top-25-index/
The index contains not only the current year but those of previous years also, to the best of my recall around two hundred and twenty five are listed from the suppressed stories while there are also other links to other interesting stories also.
http://www.nexusmagazine.com is another site well worth a visit.
It should be noted that every attempt to put such information out there is often immediately countered by those who have a vested interest in suppressing truth and fact for whatever reason. Recently slugger I suggested that researchers or seekers of information on what was really happening in the North should google and research for themselves….. Low Intensity War/Conflict Northern Ireland.
I pointed out that there were close to two million results. Immediately some bright spark with possible securicat connections and an obvious vested interest in mis-directing and discrediting the sheer volume of these results, pointed out that if ‘flying saucers’ were googled it also brought a high volume of results! That in legal terms is what a presiding judge would refer to in a courtroom exchange as ‘ the argument of the school yard’ !
The ‘ flying-saucer ‘ phenomena is indeed a good example to appreciate how such a process works, the USAF held regular press conferences on the topic, but when the questioning got serious there were always a few plants in the audience claiming they had been abducted and taken to the moon, venus or whatever . Conference over and as these were ‘entertaining’ these were the conference segments that made the late evening tv news.
The net is an extradionary boon, it is up to each and everyone interested in or concerned about clandestine or covert government activity to pursue and seek out this information for themselves. Young Irelander Thomas Davis heart felt plea ” educate that you may be free ” or John Philpott Currans warning that ” Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty ” were never more necessary or appropiate.
Finally everyone should where possible be alert…….. the country needs lerts!
Alias : “…..They’re called statists… and, if course, europhiles. They’re people who fear their own freedoms, and duly become their own worst enemies…….”
The concept of the world as global vilage is now a framework reality and is daily becoming more and more of a structured, functioning one. It is not possible to stop or turn back the clock on that one. The technical problems of my internet connection are handled in Bombay, and, may I add, in a very helpfully and technically accomplished way.
Likewise with the EU project : last week I had to get sort codes etc for my bank card, I did not have my brief case with me and the matter was sorted out in Poland. My youngest son is currently building his own house, he has been working overtime all year, the US company based here that he works for has plans to continue a modest year on year expansion as they have done in past years.
It is not all one way either : Twenty Six County Irish citizens have one hundred and eighty billion euros invested abroad, we recently see where it was in the UK’s own interest to prop up Ireland financially, in my childhood it was said that when England sneezed, Ireland got diorea !
That relationship has balanced somewhat to the extent that if Ireland had an uncorrected financial meltdown, then England to would have experienced a knock on effect that would have seriously impacted in its economy.
Large scale Capital, Industry and Financial Investments are now dealt with on a global basis. My nearest large supermarket is a Tesco store, I was speaking to a student who was in Tiland last year and I enquired as to prices out there…… he did not really know, he had lived out of Tescos out there just like home, as he put it ” some of the stuff was local but most was the same old…… as at home ”
International Capital is Global, that market is to some extent still regionalised as in the North America, South America, Pacefic Ring, China, India, Russia and Europe. However much such markets are internalised, they are also Internationally dependant on export and capital.
As for a small country on it’s own : the country that you hold a passport for Israel, is an advanced technical economy, it even has Nuclear Technology and a Millitary/Industrial sector that not alone is world class, it is a world leader in much of it.
Just how much was Israels economy substatised by the American Taxpayers last year and indeed every other year since it’s foundation ?
However back to the EU. We are still only a half century away from the last devestating conflict that started in Europe, tore most of it’s countries apart and destroyed most of the world as well. That war had it’s genisis in the settlement of the 1914/18 stupid, unnecessary carnage and that in turn etc until we are back past Napolanic wars, Spanish wars etc to the post Roman Empire emergence of Warlords and Nomad Nations !
There had to be a better way.
The EU has not lived up to the vision of it’s founders, it is bureaucaratic, pompus, and clumbsy with a democratic deficit at it’s centre. We are where we are, but it is also capable of evolution into a Peoples Union of proper representative democracy. Kosovo shows the alternative and how close to the past we still are.
One night in the early eighties I stood on the Headlands over a moonlight bay and I could have tossed a stone on to the deck of the nearest Dutch trawler. Pair by pair I watched twenty come in in a grand arc and steam on out having swept the place clean. Repeat that a thousand times or bear in mind the Shell ficaso in the West where Shell are, all but paid to take our bloody Oil and Gas. Yes there are hundreds of examples where we have been robbed blind.
I know all the limitations of the EU project : however neither France, Germany or Italy forced that economically challanged clown Lenihan and the bunch of incompetents around him that are collectivly termed a government, to bail out Anglo Irish and the others. It was the same crony capatalism that bailed out Allied Irish when they over extended in the States, that bailed out the PMPA, that screwed with Larry Goodman etc.
Nothing new there, they did but what they did before and what the Premanent Government will advise them to do again!
Yes 50% of fianna failing are gone to the cleaners : one hundred and fifty two candidates have been selected for FG and Labour; just……. two……. candidates…….are……..new….to ……politics. Some change there !
When I stand in a great catredal in in Southern France as I did last year and I see French, Spanish, Portugese, Irish, Poles and Italians among others spontaniously gather round and join with a visiting Bavarian Choir in the Ave Maria and other hymns, and see the genuine shared feelings and eyes glistening,( including my own, I do not mind adding ), then I can also see what the future could be.
We have spend spent almost one hundred and ninty five decades fighting with each other in this battled scarred Continent of Europe : we have just spend less than five trying to find a way not to do that!
If it takes a few more decades to sort out the politics and format and we can sing together while we are doing it, then this is O’K with me, I can live with that.
More important to me, so also can my sons both already older than their two young British Army Officer cousins were when they fell in battle and left their remains behind in the soil of France !