Conquer Club

The Arabist via the NYT wrote: I've only had time to look at a handful of the Wikileaks cables, but while many may just confirm certain widely held theories, they also provide tremendous insight into the day-to-day analysis of Embassy officials and a fascinating record of conversations with world leaders, security chiefs, senior politicians and diplomats across the Middle East. It's a treasure trove for any journalist or analyst to understand US positions and compare them to public positions, but even more of a find for doing the same for Middle Eastern states.

There is so much information flowing around about U.S. policy - and often, a good deal of transparency - that a smart observer with good contacts can get a good idea of what's happening. Not so in the Arab world, and the contents of the conversations Arab leader are having with their patron state are not out in the Arab public domain or easily guessable, as anyone who reads the meaningless press statements of government press agencies will tell you. Cablegate is in important record from the Arab perspective, perhaps more than from the U.S. one.

karel wrote:I think wiki leaks should be classified as a terrorist group and the founder of wiki should be hung by a rope....what a jack ass...talk about putting everyone at risk

PLAYER57832 wrote:I am generally for transparency, but this does seem to go beyond what is OK. That so much of this is "nothing", embarrassing, but of no real substance else, makes it worse.

Further, as more of this junk is released, the less people will pay attention. People will pay less attention and more steps will be taken to tighten security. That means it becomes far less likely we will hear of things we ought to hear about. All-in-all, a poor job, from any direction.

The Framers wrote:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Pedronicus wrote:It turns out that Saudi Arabia (that country with loads of military hardware bought from the good old US of A) kept pushing America to invade Iran.

Why the f*ck can't Saudi Arabians launch attacks against Iran using their own men and machines?
The sooner Saudi Arabia runs out of oil and goes back to being a desert shit hole, the better.

It also turns out that Israel came out of these leaks smelling of roses.

Timminz wrote:

The Arabist via the NYT wrote: I've only had time to look at a handful of the Wikileaks cables, but while many may just confirm certain widely held theories, they also provide tremendous insight into the day-to-day analysis of Embassy officials and a fascinating record of conversations with world leaders, security chiefs, senior politicians and diplomats across the Middle East. It's a treasure trove for any journalist or analyst to understand US positions and compare them to public positions, but even more of a find for doing the same for Middle Eastern states.

There is so much information flowing around about U.S. policy - and often, a good deal of transparency - that a smart observer with good contacts can get a good idea of what's happening. Not so in the Arab world, and the contents of the conversations Arab leader are having with their patron state are not out in the Arab public domain or easily guessable, as anyone who reads the meaningless press statements of government press agencies will tell you. Cablegate is in important record from the Arab perspective, perhaps more than from the U.S. one.

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opines that the wikileak cables are just a US conspiracy...

Iran today hit back at the latest batch of Wikileaks revelations, with its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claiming that the leaks were part of a psychological warfare campaign against his country.

GabonX wrote:Saxi.. Regardless of whether or not these leaks are intentional, do you doubt the authenticity of any of the reports so far?

saxitoxin wrote:[i]WMR has learned from Asian intelligence sourcesthat there is a strong belief in some Asian countries, particularly China and Thailand...
http://truthrss.com/2010/07/28/wikileaks-cointelpro/

GabonX wrote:

karel wrote:I think wiki leaks should be classified as a terrorist group and the founder of wiki should be hung by a rope....what a jack ass...talk about putting everyone at risk

PLAYER57832 wrote:I am generally for transparency, but this does seem to go beyond what is OK. That so much of this is "nothing", embarrassing, but of no real substance else, makes it worse.

Further, as more of this junk is released, the less people will pay attention. People will pay less attention and more steps will be taken to tighten security. That means it becomes far less likely we will hear of things we ought to hear about. All-in-all, a poor job, from any direction.

Baa

saxitoxin wrote:regardless as to whether or not WL is real or fake, this blind-trust-in-the-leadership attitude exhibited by these two commenters is how a certain country in central Europe stumbled into committing the Holocaust

saxitoxin wrote:

GabonX wrote:Saxi.. Regardless of whether or not these leaks are intentional, do you doubt the authenticity of any of the reports so far?

That's a good point and, no, even if this were a planned leak it would have to be of real cables. Forged cables of this quantity would involve a conspiracy of thousands of people which would be ridiculous to imagine outside of some Ian Fleming novel. That said, given the sheer quantity of information generated by these missives it would be wholly possible to select only those cables that supported a specific position while not releasing contrary cables. Also, so far as I've seen, nothing released so far has been classified above Secret and mostly - it seems - are recitations of meetings or analysis of open-source information. I think Top Secret cables that contained Signals or Human intelligence would be more interesting in supporting the conclusions the Charge d'Affairs in Yemen or the 3rd Deputy Legation Minister in Singapore or wherever are making.

Though, I could be wrong and you do raise a valid point that merits consideration.

PLAYER57832 wrote:From what I have seen, this stuff is just stupid.

PLAYER57832 wrote:It's just good manners to ignore it.

Pedronicus wrote:I also note that the tabloids are all shunning it in favour of X-Factor.

PLAYER57832 wrote:

Pedronicus wrote:I also note that the tabloids are all shunning it in favour of X-Factor.

This would be a bonus

BigBallinStalin wrote:

saxitoxin wrote:

GabonX wrote:Saxi.. Regardless of whether or not these leaks are intentional, do you doubt the authenticity of any of the reports so far?

That's a good point and, no, even if this were a planned leak it would have to be of real cables. Forged cables of this quantity would involve a conspiracy of thousands of people which would be ridiculous to imagine outside of some Ian Fleming novel. That said, given the sheer quantity of information generated by these missives it would be wholly possible to select only those cables that supported a specific position while not releasing contrary cables. Also, so far as I've seen, nothing released so far has been classified above Secret and mostly - it seems - are recitations of meetings or analysis of open-source information. I think Top Secret cables that contained Signals or Human intelligence would be more interesting in supporting the conclusions the Charge d'Affairs in Yemen or the 3rd Deputy Legation Minister in Singapore or wherever are making.

Though, I could be wrong and you do raise a valid point that merits consideration.

Some may not be forged, but couldn't some simply be misinformation without forgery?

Pedronicus wrote:I'm so grateful to Wikileaks. This is the first time the news has actually contained anything new (and interesting) for ages.

I also note that the tabloids are all shunning it in favour of X-Factor.

PLAYER57832 wrote:

saxitoxin wrote:regardless as to whether or not WL is real or fake, this blind-trust-in-the-leadership attitude exhibited by these two commenters is how a certain country in central Europe stumbled into committing the Holocaust

Trust in leadership??? From what I have seen, this stuff is just stupid. Embarrassing, but not in a fun way, just in a "he farted at dinner" way. It's just good manners to ignore it. I mean, so a lot of Arab countries are not too happy with Iran, some leaders made dumb comments, etc, etc... big deal and not particular true secrets. So, unless there is something really good that all the news media is ignoring, its [yawn].

saxitoxin wrote:It seems there are two scenarios ...

Scenario 1 - Wikileaks is a CIA public diplomacy or honeypot operation, in which case Obama is guilty of great crimes against democracy as democracy can only function in an open environment. When the government begins surreptitiously fabricating news and covertly placing it into the public discourse it is impossible for a democracy to function. In this scenario Americans should deal with him as they see fit, such as impeachment and removal.

Scenario 2 - Wikileaks is an independent source of information, in which case it's proved that Obama is ordering violations of all means of diplomatic covenants by ordering his staff to steal information from friendly foreign powers to use to manipulate opinion to drum-up support for war.

nietzsche wrote:But we know a lot of stuff now, and we don't care, and nothing happens really. For instance we know that W. Bush didn't win in 2000. We know that Iraq didn't have WMD.