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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr-wS5iBv0 (Princess TamTam), Sunday, 28 November 2010 22:58 (thirteen years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/ObiTM.jpg
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr-wS5iBv0 (Princess TamTam), Sunday, 28 November 2010 22:59 (thirteen years ago) link
just gotta love the post-ironic SS symbol on that seal...
― Ignore Me! (Viceroy), Sunday, 28 November 2010 23:39 (thirteen years ago) link
― 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
― max, Sunday, 28 November 2010 23:49 (thirteen years ago) link
ha
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Sunday, 28 November 2010 23:50 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 28 November 2010 23:59 (thirteen years ago) link
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), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:12 (thirteen years ago) link
yr kinda conflicted between deprecation and indignation -- either the information is crap/redundant or dangerous but not conceivably both
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:21 (thirteen years ago) link
some of it is redundant, some is possibly a bit damaging
― rip whiney g weingarten 03/11 never forget (history mayne), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:22 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― Mordy, Monday, 29 November 2010 00:26 (thirteen years ago) link
guardian going hot and heavy with this lot anyway
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Timothy Garton Ash: A banquet of secrets
― 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
― overtheseas aeroplanes I have flown (k3vin k.), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:27 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:28 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
― 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.
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
it "helps" me be entertained too i guess. i dig this kind of insidery gossip shit.
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
not referring to informant stuff there xp
rather the headlines stuff here, like is it dangerous that arab connivance wrt iran is publicized?
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:35 (thirteen years ago) link
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 00:33 (2 minutes ago)
that make u a ______
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:36 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― rip whiney g weingarten 03/11 never forget (history mayne), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:39 (thirteen years ago) link
― 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.
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 00:40 (thirteen years ago) link
― 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
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:41 (thirteen years ago) link
obv in web 2.br0 utopia, esp in an organization called 'wikileaks', citizen journalists would do this unpaid, but, um, well
― rip whiney g weingarten 03/11 never forget (history mayne), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:42 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:43 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― overtheseas aeroplanes I have flown (k3vin k.), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:51 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah well i dunno what your 'mission statement' in life is but i'd guess that's not the whole story
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:53 (thirteen years ago) link
there do seem to be some worthwhile goals in here (reunification of n/s korea) that might be threatened by the reveal
― .\ /. (dayo), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:53 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:56 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― .\ /. (dayo), Monday, 29 November 2010 00:58 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr-wS5iBv0 (Princess TamTam), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:01 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 01:02 (thirteen years ago) link
― 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
― overtheseas aeroplanes I have flown (k3vin k.), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:04 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:06 (thirteen years ago) link
you could say its irrelevant psychologizing/personalization, but he doesn't dissuade it with his h4x0r shtick
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:07 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:10 (thirteen years ago) link
I agree though, whatever value these leaks will have will be independent of assange himself
― .\ /. (dayo), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:10 (thirteen years ago) link
naturally
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:16 (thirteen years ago) link
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.”
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:18 (thirteen years ago) link
haha the eu is just like guantanamo detainees
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 01:22 (thirteen years ago) link
"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
― rappa ternt sagna (jim in glasgow), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Hakka to Haka -- former jihadi turns to rugby and acquires NZ citizenship
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:26 (thirteen years ago) link
The group has said it intends to post the documents in the current trove as well, after editing to remove the names of confidential sources and other details.
i kinda doubt how effectively this can be done w/ 251,287 files
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:27 (thirteen years ago) link
ctrl+f
― .\ /. (dayo), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:28 (thirteen years ago) link
― rappa ternt sagna (jim in glasgow), Sunday, November 28, 2010 8:24 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
yah or hilarious screwball comedy
― max, Monday, 29 November 2010 01:30 (thirteen years ago) link
directed by Jason Reitman and starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:31 (thirteen years ago) link
not sure if a few dozen ppl skimreading stuff with very localized information can 100% determine what information is potentially revealing to concerned intelligence agencies/other unfriendly ppl who will know exactly what to look for
― rouxymuzak (nakhchivan), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:32 (thirteen years ago) link
THERE ARE SEVERAL LESSONS FOR THOSE WHO WOULD NEGOTIATE WITH PERSIANS IN ALL THIS: - --FIRST, ONE SHOULD NEVER ASSUME THAT HIS SIDE OF THE ISSUE WILL BE RECOGNIZED, LET ALONE THAT IT WILL BE CONCEDED TO HAVE MERITS. PERSIAN PREOCCUPATION WITH SELF PRECLUDES THIS. A NEGOTIATOR MUST FORCE RECOGNITION OF HIS POSITION UPON HIS PERSIAN OPPOSITE NUMBER. - --SECOND, ONE SHOULD NOT EXPECT AN IRANIAN READILY TO PERCEIVE THE ADVANTAGES OF A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP BASED ON TRUST. HE WILL ASSUME THAT HIS OPPOSITE NUMBER IS ESSENTIALLY AN ADVERSARY. IN DEALING WITH HIM HE WILL ATTEMPT TO MAXIMIZE THE BENEFITS TO HIMSELF THAT ARE IMMEDIATELY OBTAINABLE. HE WILL BE PREPARED TO GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL, INCLUDING RUNNING THE RISK OF SO ALIENATING WHOEVER HE IS DEALING WITH THAT FUTURE BUSINESS WOULD BE UNTHINKABLE, AT LEAST TO THE LATTER. - --THIRD, INTERLOCKING RELATIONSHIPS OF ALL ASPECTS OF AN ISSUE MUST BE PAINSTAKINGLY, FORECEFULLY AND REPEATEDLY DEVELOPED. LINKAGES WILL BE NEITHER READILY COMPREHENDED NOR ACCEPTED BY PERSIAN NEGOTIATORS. - --FOURTH, ONE SHOULD INSIST ON PERFORMANCE AS THE SINE QUA NON AT ESH STAGE OF NEGOTIATIONS. STATEMENTS OF INTENTION COUNT FOR ALMOST NOTHING. - --FIFTH, CULTIVATION OF GOODWILL FOR GOODWILL'S SAKE IS A WASTE OF EFFORT. THE OVERRIDING OBJECTIVE AT ALL TIMES SHOULD BE IMPRESSING UPON THE PERSIAN ACROSS THE TABLE THE MUTUALITY OF THE PROPOSED UNDERTAKINGS, HE MUST BE MADE TO KNOW THAT A QUID PRO QUO IS INVOLVED ON BOTH SIDES. - --FINALLY, ONE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THE THREAT OF BREAKDOWN IN NEGOTIATIONS AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT AND NOT BE COWED BY THE POSSIBLITY. GIVEN THE PERSIAN NEGOTIATOR'S CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS, HE IS GOING TO RESIST THE VERY CONCEPT OF A RATIONAL (FROM THE WESTERN POINT OF VIEW) NEGOTIATING PROCESS.
― Mordy, Monday, 29 November 2010 01:32 (thirteen years ago) link
that whole document delivers on lulz
― Mordy, Monday, 29 November 2010 01:33 (thirteen years ago) link
I was about to post that Mordy, it's great. It's from 1979 btw.
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr-wS5iBv0 (Princess TamTam), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Iraq: Any plan B? ------------------ 3.(C) MbR restated the UAE's support for the US in the region, noting "the UAE is the only country that is 100 percent with the US." MbR said UAE support for the US effort remained firm, but asked what is "plan B" should the current US approach not stabilize Iraq. Senator Lieberman quoted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying "plan B is to make plan A work."
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipr-wS5iBv0 (Princess TamTam), Monday, 29 November 2010 01:46 (thirteen years ago) link