Thanks. Of course you also made a typo, albeit a less consequential one.
According to the Pentagon, no U.S. military or intelligence operations were compromised by the previous dump, although some Afghans cooperating with the US who were named in the documents have been threatened by the Taliban.
Since the reference to him seems a bit of an appeal to authority (and since Mr. Sanger himself appeals as the “co-founder” of Wikipedia), I find myself compelled to note that Mr. Sanger also accused Wikipedia and Wikimedia of distributing “child pornography” - of course, these accusations had nothing to do with the fact Mr. Sanger set up a competing online encyclopedia, Citizendium, after being ousted from Wikipedia.
Basically, I would take anything Mr. Sanger has to say with an extremely large swig from the mug of STFU coffee.
Rrrright.:rolleyes:
Well, whatever the real number, it’s certainly lower than the number of Americans Bush got killed with his Iraq conquest. :dubious:*
Perhaps the current leak will encourage future presidents to curb their baser urges.
*smiley, IOW
Seems like they are planning to release Russian and Chinese stuff soon as well: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101026/161087816.html
When did proof become the standard for reporting the possible motives for alleged criminals?
It’s much closer to treason than what Libby or the sock stuffer did.
I think too much attention is paid to the role of Wikileaks and too little to security procedures within the Defense Department. Is it really possible for a very junior analyst to simply download hundreds of thousands of classified documents? Even if wikileaks weren’t around it would have been quite easy for him to send the files directly to a bunch of new organizations. And if security procedures are so lax wouldn’t it be trivial for any decent intelligence agency to get their hands on these files anyway? For all we know, Russian and Chinese intelligence has access to all this material and more anyway. Pentagon claims that these releases seriously damage US national security are belied by how little care they took to protect these files. Either that or the Penton is shocking,criminally negligent and it’s the person who desgined these security procedures who needs to be punished.
Owni.fr Claims Wikileaks Leaks revealed in Basel
Not an appeal to authority. Just something I found interesting. Especially considering the fact that some have claimed that Wikipedia is some sort of left leaning anti-American organization.
I think you’d be surprised at how many people have clearances for various things in Washington DC. 20+ years ago my first job was as a USAID contractor and I had to get a clearance. Took a while but once it was done I had access to documents crossing my desk every day that were either ‘Confidential’ or ‘Secret’ classified. Had I felt a need to I certainly could have leaked them. And that was before email…most of the documents were hardcopy. I can only imagine what it would be like today.
Exactly the sort of thing I expected. None of those headlines are at all surprising.
- “Obama prefers to look East than West.”
Of course Obama looks east. So did Bush. And Clinton. It’s not like China just suddenly popped up on the radar when Obama took the oath of office. The US has focused on the east since, at bare minimum, the 90’s when we first setup favored trade status with China.
- “Obama has no emotion towards Europe.”
- “The US sees the world as a confrontation between 2 superpowers. The EU plays a secondary role.”
- “Europe is not so important for the US.”
Didn’t Bush pretty much prove how little the US paid attention to Europe? Europe hasn’t been a focus since the Soviet Union fell. What’s more, Europe should be happy for that. It’s a sign that the US doesn’t think Europe is a shithole anymore. US attention is focused on areas that pose problems for us, like NK or Iran or Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe is no longer a cold war battleground, so we’ve moved on. They’re big boys now. They don’t need the US to hold their hands. We no longer feel the need to play daddy to the entire continent. It’s a good thing. It’s a sign of equality and trust they can take care of themselves.
- From the cover, we read that Ahmadinejad “is Hitler”, Sarkozy is “an emperor without clothes”, Karzai is “driven by paranoia”.
Was there anyone who thought the US was pro-Ahmadinejad? Did someone think the US respects France after the whole Freedom Fries thing? Is anyone shocked that the US has issues with Afghanistan politics?
- From the inside articles, scanned by Symor Jenkins , we learn that the US have a snitch inside the German government, a member of the liberal FDP party.
The US has spies in friendly nations? I’m shocked! Shocked I say! Why this is outrageous, there has never been a case of allies spying on each other!
In other words, if those headlines are the worst and most shocking revelations, this all amounts to nothing. Some specific people might get their nose bent out of shape, Merkel can’t be happy for example, but there isn’t anything new here. A thinking person already knew this stuff years ago.
I hope that you’re right and that this does all amount to nothing.
The documents have now apparently been released, so we shall see.
It seems to be working fine at the moment.
http://wikileaks.org/
I’m pretty much of a mind with the OP. Although I’m all for transparency, I also think diplomatic cables should enjoy some degree of confidentiality. Seems odd some of this stuff would have actually been written down, though.
And I’m also curious about a security situation that allows so much of this stuff to get out anyway.
A very good poston Time’s blog which gives the details and background on this phenomenon. The bottom line: too many people have the power to classify, too many documents get classified and too many people have security clearance.
Muhahahaha. This is ridiculous. We have millenia of civilization and culture behind us.
You are the big (stunted) boys with their M16 and planes which (unfortunately) are real.
How many world wars did the US start?
Your knowledge of American idiom is as lacking as your knowledge of European history.