Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

What's corrupt about Saudi Arabia and the US discussing how to deal with Iran's nuclear program? What's corrupt about the government trying to find out if the Chinese government is involved in global computer hacking? Yeah, let's "hold China accountable" -- I'm sure that thanks to this heroic leak, the Chinese government will be so embarrassed that they'll voluntarily stop with any cyber-chicanery they might be doing!

I found today's revelations unspectacular (exception: first time in years I've come across a reference to Eritrea). But classifying millions of documents because of a fetish for secrecy will lead to an inordinate interest in the trivialities leaked today. Which is to say: I found last July's leaks a lot more interesting than today's.

max think of it as the irl equivalent of no meta on 77 - mad threads are getting moved

ok cracking myself up now, bbl

I think it's fascinating to see what the supposedly good guys are doing behind the scenes, makes you wonder what's going on in the "rogue/evil" countries.

Killing guys like Assange?

i.e. fulfilling Jonah Goldberg's fantasies?

it's funny we never find out, coz they're probably really lenient with truth-telling journalist types

xp

I did find it interesting to learn how hard arab countries are pushing for strikes against Iran. I feel there's probably some value in the public being aware of this?

Ho hum

emeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh admits covering up US military strikes on Al-Qaeda in Yemen by claiming they are carried out by Yemeni forces, according to US documents leaked by WikiLeaks.

yeah who knew saudi arabia had beef with iran, huh? major revelaish there.

xp

One thing I'll say is that these leaks appear to be a lot more entertaining than those boring war documents. Probably harder to justify leaking, though.

http://i.imgur.com/ObiTM.jpg

just gotta love the post-ironic SS symbol on that seal...

One thing I'll say is that these leaks appear to be a lot more entertaining than those boring war documents. Probably harder to justify leaking, though.

― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr-wS5iBv0 (Princess TamTam), Sunday, November 28, 2010 5:58 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm

ha

I'm resolutely against the current wars. Right now, the leaks themselves simply mean another opportunity to criticize these wars. The content of the leaks and whether or not one condones them is more or less irrelevant to me at this moment. Attention has been shifted to US foreign policy and that's good enough for me.

the focus isn't on the wars, though, it's on whatever's juicy. i don't have a big objection to the US being involved in yemen -- obviously torture, avoidable civilian casualties, etc., those i'm against -- but even if i did, i don't see what the leaks do to clinch an argument.

yr kinda conflicted between deprecation and indignation -- either the information is crap/redundant or dangerous but not conceivably both

some of it is redundant, some is possibly a bit damaging

something can useless for making a case against a war (tho Alfred's point is that he doesn't care about making a care against it, just creating awareness -- presumably he believes the case against it has already been made sufficiently and lacks exposure, and maybe he's right) and still be dangerous. for instance a totally meaningless piece of information can blow up into a scandal (a sex scandal is a good example of dangerous useless information) or a person's identity could be exposed and endanger them despite containing meaningless information.

guardian going hot and heavy with this lot anyway

Timothy Garton Ash: A banquet of secrets

the focus isn't on the wars, though, it's on whatever's juicy. i don't have a big objection to the US being involved in yemen -- obviously torture, avoidable civilian casualties, etc., those i'm against -- but even if i did, i don't see what the leaks do to clinch an argument.

― rip whiney g weingarten 03/11 never forget (history mayne), Sunday, November 28, 2010 7:12 PM (14 minutes ago)

they're informative, dude. they don't have to be one or the other

The info published in today's NYT is the kind of color I love to read about in biographies but looks, well, harmless to those of us not in the national security establishment.

there's so much of this stuff

i guess some ppl have probably skimmed through all of the last lot by now, but a lot of it must remain pretty obscure

i wonder about the iraq/afghanistan stuff.....even if names of informants etc are removed, whether they can still be understood contextually etc

yr kinda conflicted between deprecation and indignation -- either the information is crap/redundant or dangerous but not conceivably both

― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Sunday, November 28, 2010 7:21 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh i think the thing about diplomacy is that cables like CAN be both? like there can be common-but-unacknowledged truths abt int'l relations that if openly acknowledged could lead to some... well, maybe not dangerous, but awkward sitautions. "dangerous" is a funny word--i feel a little weirded out by it--i just think this is one of those irritating situations where i dont see how this helps anything, not really even our knowledge of the situation. (i guess i was heartened to see the administration putting its weight behind getting the gitmo detainees off cuba?)

all that being said i still support in principle the idea of a "transparent" or at least "more transparent" gov't. just dont think anyone should be going around touting this leak as anything but evidence that diplomats are doing their "jobs" such as they are.

it "helps" me be entertained too i guess. i dig this kind of insidery gossip shit.

not referring to informant stuff there xp

rather the headlines stuff here, like is it dangerous that arab connivance wrt iran is publicized?

it "helps" me be entertained too i guess. i dig this kind of insidery gossip shit.

― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 00:33 (2 minutes ago)

that make u a ______

feel like the 'massive info dump' is still a retarded media strategy

im sure there are impt nuggets that get lost in the white noise

rather the headlines stuff here, like is it dangerous that arab connivance wrt iran is publicized?

― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Sunday, November 28, 2010 7:35 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nah--tbh i dont know enough about int'l relations to really say but i can conceive of a situation where, say, everyone "knows" gov't x is behind an attack on gov't y but cant "openly acknowledge" it for strategic reasons--if these cables leak and show that the us gov't is openly acknowledging it, it can damage that relationship, undermine the strategy, etc. "dangerous" again i dunno. but.

im sure there are impt nuggets that get lost in the white noise

― rip whiney g weingarten 03/11 never forget (history mayne), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:39 (38 seconds ago)

the signature of this is the insane about of detail really being prohibitive even for dozens of journalists to sift through and cross-reference

obv in web 2.br0 utopia, esp in an organization called 'wikileaks', citizen journalists would do this unpaid, but, um, well

i'd agree that wikileaks is a bit dishonest, clearly they do this just cuz they can, it's a rather remedial logic

i think this stuff is a lot more justifiable than individual case reports from the counterinsurgencies

i'd agree that wikileaks is a bit dishonest, clearly they do this just cuz they can, it's a rather remedial logic

this is false though - they're not dishonest given their mission statement is pretty blatantly to reveal government and corporate secrets. "because they can" is not a motivation so much as it's just...pretty inextricably tied to that action

yeah well i dunno what your 'mission statement' in life is but i'd guess that's not the whole story

there do seem to be some worthwhile goals in here (reunification of n/s korea) that might be threatened by the reveal

it's easy enough to provide an ethical rationale for wikileaks, and it holds in many instances

assange likes being the story tho, being a general mischief in a false-clandestine way, an inverse 007

Many more cables name diplomats’ confidential sources, from foreign legislators and military officers to human rights activists and journalists, often with a warning to Washington: “Please protect” or “Strictly protect.”

this seems dangerous

The Downing Street source said: “We don’t think there will be much about the Coalition Government. There might be some slightly embarrassing things about David Cameron’s time in opposition but it will be nothing compared with what was said about Brown.

“The diplomatic cables were more about Labour. Brown was seen as paranoid and weak and unstable. These files are going to be embarrassing for him.”

It is believed London-based diplomats were shocked by reports of Mr Brown’s erratic tantrums.

President Obama witnessed one outburst first hand. At the G20 Summit in London last year, he said to Mr Brown’s aides: “Tell your guy to cool it,” as the PM threatened to erupt over something that had upset him.

from alan partridge extra/former british diplomat carne ross:

#wikileaks Am torn btw joy at transparency - at last - and anxiety over unforeseen consequences

#wikileaks even a preliminary read of the disclosures suggests that damage will be done eg revelation that US removing Pak uranium

#wikileaks diplomacy will never be the same again after this; diplomats will stop writing down the sensitive stuff

#wikileaks everyone will play this down in public, but no one will trust US dips in quite the same way again, for a while at least

assange likes being the story tho, being a general mischief in a false-clandestine way, an inverse 007

― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Sunday, November 28, 2010 7:56 PM (5 minutes ago)

i guess the more this is repeated the more it becomes received wisdom - i don't get this impression at all though

yeah -- let's forget Assange's motives (and, as I've pointed out, skeptical about the value of the last couple of massive leaks). That's how the American press tried to smear him a few weeks ago.

you could say its irrelevant psychologizing/personalization, but he doesn't dissuade it with his h4x0r shtick

i think he'd do a greater service by getting a few hundred pages of high-level stuff together and redacting any idenitifiable informants etc, than just releasing a quarter of a million documents every few weeks

I agree though, whatever value these leaks will have will be independent of assange himself

naturally

lol at this btw

Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

haha the eu is just like guantanamo detainees

"the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees"

there's got to be a documentary in there