"The Shaming of America" - Page 2

Yes, but Wikileaks has NEVER done anything like this. Its silly that Wiki is the target of criticism by some, when they're the one exposing MASSIVE crimes, not committing them. I'm not even saying yr fully criticising Wiki, but I've heard this defensive rationale many times. Wikileaks should be celebrated, they do awesome work. They've exposed horrific crimes and shocking lies. And more interestingly they've educated us on what's really going on in the world. One of the interesting thing Wikileaks has shown is you cannot trust anything the US Army says. Lying is like breathing for them. This may sound niave, but what I'm refrencing is shockingly massive deceptions like the civilian death count in Iraq. Wikileaks is fucking awesome. Probably over 2 million killed in the wars, but they've managed to keep a lid on it. Wiki does their bit to combat this media shut out. I'd never criticise them for making me and millions of other people less ignorant, but I guess lots of people want to remain ignorant to the crimes being committed by their country.

The importance of this development is simply lost on Americans because Wikileaks is ignored in the American press. But the rest of the world is eating this shit up. But I guess the wars are just not part of the public psyche in the states.

So Saudi and Bahrain were pressuring the US to bomb Iran. Bahrain's got that Shia insurrection, probably justified since they're repressed in that country, so I guess it's not too surprising. The bit about the Russian Goverment and they're ties to organised crime was interested also. There's tons of info. Its going to be an interesting week as all the info gets processed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...aks?intcmp=239

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/inte...bles-wikileaks

How I'm keeping tabs on all the info released.

EDIT: Apparently Ali Khomeini has leukemia, interesting.

Direct link to Wikileaks "Cablegate" [watch for for DDOS service outages].

I'm still waiting for the stuff related to Canada to be posted.

What I want form this:

a. Some nice gossipy shit about Greek politicians, for fun.
b. Nice, hard info about Operation Gladio, out of historical interest.

"I love my country, not my government."
— Jesse Ventura

none of this information is particularly novel or noteworthy.... in fact, all it does is underscore that typically what our government says is a concern in public, is an actual concern. The benefit in transparency, in this instance, is unlikely to outweigh the cost in diplomacy.

The US Secretary of State ordering diplomats to spy on high-ranking UN officials is not "particularly novel or noteworthy" and shouldn't be made transparent?

What happens to peoples tax dollars in the form of aid going into Afghanistan isn't noteworthy and the public shouldn't know about it?

(and that's just two examples)

Really?

I, for one, am really hoping for some ball-busting, whip-up-the-mob type shit in the major banking leak, cause otherwise this shit is just a headache in an echo chamber.

Watch Your Mouth

How WikiLeaks' new release will increase secrecy and damage democratic governments.
http://www.slate.com/id/2276169/

Nope. The latter we knew, and the former we (and the rest of the world) assumed.

The latter was NOT known and if the MM in the US ever did their job and asked would have been roundly denied while the former was also denied at every turn. Facts are important for dispelling bullshit, lies and propaganda.

Regardless of 'costs to diplomacy' I think that transparency is incredibly important to help inform people what their governments are doing in their name. If the diplomatic costs are that high maybe the US government should have behaved better in the first place and not done things they obviously find acutely embarrassing now that they're being leaked.

UN spying aside, you're an idiot if you think that candid assessments of, say, Berlusconi's ineptitude (while entertaining) aren't something that should be kept internal. Have you ever, in your life, been in a situation where you work with people you don't like, don't trust, or question their judgment? Are you always completely honest about how you feel? When you're not, isn't that because it's often in both of your best interests for those thoughts to not be shared (even if it's in your best interests, when dealing with such people to be aware).

Sure, I can see that (I am, after all, not an idiot) - but using the two examples above I actually cited, I think a certain level of transparency is incredibly important.

Fair enough. Like I wrote earlier in the thread, I like the principle of WikiLeaks. I just question the overall utilitarian value of mass information dumps like this one. As an American, selfishly, I see little benefit for us (at least with respect to this leak... the Iraq war video one was worthwhile, and I hope the upcoming corporate leaks are as well).

So the juicier stuff for me so far. Disregarding the gossip.

Last year's Russian-Georgian conflict was, according to multiple US sources, instigated by Georgia. So the 'state controlled' Russian media were correct and the 'free and fair' western media weren't. And Saakashvili looks to be as big a douche as he appears.

And something timelier. According to actual statements from Chinese diplomats to South Koreans, China has no problem with a unified Korea under Seoul's control. Having the DPRK as a buffer state is of zero interest to them. In fact it seems like they really don't like the North Korean regime, referring to them as spoiled children. So the balance of power in the Korean peninsula is quite different than it seemed.

Palin wants Assange "hunted down like Osama", apparently.

This is probably good news for the guy - everyone will now forget he exists after three months whilst a full offensive is launched against Wikipedia.

"Assange isn't a journalist." No shit, Sherlock. He's also not a Rastafarian priest. Or a fully licensed chiropractor.

"His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban." Well, actually no, according to both the Afghan government and the US army, you fucking dingbat.

The question that immediately springs to mind, however:

How much of that "no really it didn't do any damage" is truthful and how much of it is hiding the genuine impact for security and/or saving face reasons (particularly for Afghanistan, who's going to look even more ineffectual than they already are if they admit that a bunch of informants got killed/disappeared on their watch)?

I kind of doubt the government is suddenly in the business of handing the public the whole story just because Wikileaks exists, and I don't think I'd trust the Afghan government if they told me the sky was blue.

I don't have first person knowledge of this. So I have to base my opinion on the next best source. In this case and until something better comes up, they're the people I referred to in my post (who would have all the motive in the world to make Wikileaks looks bad, anyway), not that shithead.

I'm certainly not intending to imply Sarah Palin has a better grasp on the situation, just to be clear.

But I can easily see, despite the interest in making Wikileaks look bad, both the military and the Afghan government collaborating to make the impact look minimal. Yes, its' in the governments' interest to make Wikileaks look bad...but not necessarily at the expense of making the country look weaker than it already does, if that makes sense?

Eh, they'll do whatever they can to keep the focus on the outrage instead of what is in the leaks.

So Assange has his own WANTED page on interpol now;
http://www.interpol.int/public/data/...2010_52486.asp

What does that mean exactly? If he travels to any European country, does that mean they can arrest him and have to send him to Sweeden?

for sex crimes? Aussies get freaaaaaakkkkky apparently.

yea, Daily Show just fucking nailed it.

All this hubub is just more proof that the nation-state was the second worst idea in human history. Right after organized religion and just before the Holocaust and paying for parking.

It appears WikiLeaks has either left or been forced off its web host, Amazon.com.

Is anyone up here truly shocked by anything they've read or heard what's in the leaks?

I was stunned - nay, flabbergasted - to hear that the Bush Administration did, in fact, do body counts. Rumsfeld, lying. Imagine that.

Once upon a time I might be disgusted at the US's UN diplomats being instructed to engage in petty thievery, but watching the Republicans defend torture and the conquest of Iraq has jaded me somewhat.

Anyone else not remotely surprised that though we were too slow to shut them down for the military & diplomatic leaks, as soon as Wikileaks announced they were going after Big Money on Wall Street they got instantly kibosh'd?

Oh give me a fucking break.

1) They announced that over a week ago.
2) The site being down does not keep them from disseminating that information through various means.

All I'm sayin' is it's the private sector. Those people expect RESULTS!

Folks are even fretting over Little Mosque on the Prairie.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...da-08OTTAWA136

Some weird theories going on out there most interesting is that Obama and the Gov allowed WikiLeaks to do this because of the dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Republican pundit Monica Crowley has a supposed source inside Hilary's camp that she was ready to resign within a few months and run against Obama in the 2012 election.

Strange times.

Jesus. Do you actually consider the opinions of people who spout that bullshit?

Since there is substantial dirt on Obama too (though admittedly so far he gets off like a saint in comparison to the rest), I doubt that. Killing the Bush torture probe doesnt sit well with me, nor the people around me reading that piece today, at all.

I wonder what the folks who are upset about this thought about the Pentagon Papers.

Kidding aside, this is so much bullshit. But I guess the "America, Fuck Yeah! Go, go land of the free!" brigade will still cling on to their beliefs that the US are magically more free than the rest of the Western world. The Amazon thing is bullshit, too.

My favorite conspiracy theory going around the Net, one that Beck touched upon briefly on his program, depicts the leaks as a CIA/Mossad operation. The reasoning is that this gets it out in the open that Iran's Sunni neighbors would all be willing to use us to deal Ahmadinejad a setback; if the leaks were intended to truly humiliate the U.S., there would have been more dirt on our government's relationship with Israel.

I saw an alternate crackpot theory this morning, wherein someone in Obama's staff was behind the leak, looking to premptively disable Hillary's 2012 Presidential run.

Between this nutjobbery and the goverment's official line that Assange has blood on his hands, but Obama, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Powell, Blair, Bremer, Franks, McCain and Lieberman don't, this little incident has conjured up a smorgasbord of misinformation.

Jesus Christ, they actually worry about TV shows?

Jesus Christ, it's their job to gauge political perception.

...in Canada?

Everywhere. Yes, even in Canada, don't be myopic.

And they're doing a fan-fucking-tastic job of it, apparently.

I'm not sure what you're getting at... I think maybe you're reading too much into a short report, limited in scope, that forms a part of a larger analysis process. If we were expending vast resources analyzing Canadian television, I would be concerned. This is such a non-issue.

Actually, it is pretty clearly an issue for some folks...just another example of those space cadets.

If you don't see how this may cause at least bemusement to people, it's you who's myopic. The US are so jumpy, so eager to find anti-US sentiment in everything and so hilariously heavy handed in their relationship with their 'allies' that statements like that coming from officials cause some concern.

Seriously, if you read a report from a Greek diplomat extrapolating US sentiment towards Greece from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and complaining that it paints Greeks as borderline hysterical and backwards weirdos, wouldn't you think "What the fuck is this guy talking about?"

yes because everyone knows Greece isn't important enough for Americans to form an opinion about. You might as well be from Madagascar analyzing the Dreamworks film. But I'd bet money that China and Russia research how they're portrayed in American entertainment.

Bottom line: yes it's funny when you read it, but put into context it's NOTHING. And you guys are reading way more into it than is reasonable given its limited scope.

Oh, isn't JuddL cute? Getting all worked up defending the honor of his country.

Stellios is absolutely correct.

Worrying about a single minor character, in a fictional story, which is created by a small group of writers is retarded. How does this even qualify has America bashing? Does every single American portrayed in fiction outside of the US have to be a saint?

The funny thing is, 24, a show the report holds up as pro American, has tons of evil Americans, but somehow that is okay because its an American show.

This whole thing is idiotic. They even propose to apply pressure on the Canadian government to stop this. How is that not stifling free speach?

And what are you talking about? How are we reading way more into it? Absolutely no one is blowing this up, other than you. You're the one assigning importance to it. And no one is saying it's not their job, that's a dumb argument. And you yourself admit it's funny, and yet you persist with your vague arguments. Stop being contrarian for the sake of it.

That's not at all what I'm doing. I think you need to pick and choose your battles, and in my opinion this isn't one of them.

How exactly am I assigning importance to it? My point is that there's nothing inherently absurd about gauging the political perception of the United States in a particular country, in part, by analyzing how Americans are portrayed in that country's most popular entertainment. That is, broadly, my point.

As far as this particular piece of analysis is concerned, it's one report, by god knows who, limited in scope and depth. There's no reason to think that his assessment represents the United States Government's. It forms part of a larger analysis process, which, one would hope, is capable of factoring in things like the source of the information.

I'm honestly not trying to be contrarian for the sake of it. Not to be redundant, but I just find a lot of reactions WikiLeaks myopic.