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[Deku]

Could you be any more inaccurate?

Is he wrong though? I had a PM conversation where I said the same thing.

All this stuff was from one big leak. The implied stuff about Russia and china are US views on both, not stuff coming from either countries. Which Assange implied when he was trying to dodge the heat from failing to redact enough documents with the Iraq warlogs.

And the hype/buildup was more or less Episode I level met with the reality that well, reality is far more boring than the conspiracy theorists hoped.
That's not so say some groups won't find fodder for their 'causes' but the general apathy isn't because the public is disengaged as has been implied. It's because it's really not all that engaging unless you're a student of foreign policy, or have some sort of agenda.

 

[Meadows]

It obviously won't be 250,000 more cables of grade A stuff. 247,000 of it will probably be about changing the coffee filter or some security guard's shift rota needing to be changed.

 

[Vorador]

And this is only after around 500~ of the cables have been leaked.

I heard Wikileaks released a few weeks ago a heavily encrypted "insurance" file weighing around 1.6 Gb on bittorrent networks. It was recently disclosed that is the content of the leaks, and in case of something happening to Assange they would release in the wild the password to that file.

 

[Deku]

And this is only after around 500~ of the cables have been leaked.

I heard Wikileaks released a few weeks ago a heavily encrypted "insurance" file weighing around 1.6 Gb on bittorrent networks. It was recently disclosed that is the content of the leaks, and in case of something happening to Assange they would release in the wild the password to that file.

I'm sure some of the contents will include state department protocols and procedures that would be deemed top secret just because you don't want other people to know.

But Assange's worldview, if his hyping of his wikileaks stuff is any indication, appears to be stuck in the 5th grade.

He probably thought Russia being a mafia state was world shaking.

 

[Yo Gotti]

It doesn't need to be "World Shaking", obviously 95% of the population isn't going to care. 95% of the population didn't care about the killings in Iraq, the molestations going on behind closed doors in churches around the world, and the countless other atrocious scandals that get exposed left and right in the world.

For better or worse that 95% "not caring" is the same as them forfeiting any "power" they have to make change. The 5% that do care will change things accordingly, for example, the developments in Spain that are happening as a direct result of these cables being leaked.

 

[Ether_Snake]

US defended Pak, shielded ISI chief after 26/11 strikes?

In yet another Wikileaks disclosure, which could lead to awkwardness in Indo-US relations, a leaked cable suggests that the US might have tried to not just suppress information related to involvement of Pakistani agencies in 26/11 but also defend ISI. The cable from US embassy in Pakistan to secretary of state Hillary Clinton in January 2009 says "premature dissemination" of this information could escalate tension between India and Pakistan.

Foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing boys', WikiLeaks cable reveals

A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young "dancing boys" to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try and "quash" the story, according to one of the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.

In a meeting with the assistant US ambassador, a panicked Hanif Atmar, the interior minister at the time of the episode last June, warned that the story would "endanger lives" and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public.

The episode helped to fuel Afghan demands that contractors and private security companies be brought under much tighter government control. However, the US embassy was legally incapable of honouring a request by Atmar that the US military should assume authority over training centres managed by DynCorp, the US company whose employees were involved in the incident in the northern province of Kunduz.

There is a long tradition of young boys dressing up as girls and dancing for men in Afghanistan, an activity that sometimes crosses the line into child abuse with Afghans keeping boys as possessions.

Never mind Julian Assange, where in the world is WikiLeaks, after Amazon kicked it off its servers by bending in the mildest of political breezes?

According to the Los Angeles Times, the WikiLeaks' online archives are safely stored in a bomb shelter inside a Swedish mountain, which looks remarkably like a Dr Evil-style lair:

Truly the stuff of spy films, the site features solid steel doors and high-powered computers and is resilient against a nuclear attack.

:lol

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates

 

[Lard]

The Guardian has learned that the intelligence shopping list is drawn up annually by the manager of Humint (human intelligence), a post created by the Bush administration in 2005 in a push to better co-ordinate intelligence after 9/11.

The manager of Humint sets out priorities for the coming year and sends them to the state department. The actual form of words used in the diplomatic cables is written by the state department, based on the CIA's list of priorities.

The cables are tailored for each embassy, such as the US mission to the UN.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-cia-united-nations

 

[Funky Papa]

US embassy cables: President Karzai's half-brother is 'kingpin of Kandahar'

As the kingpin of Kandahar, the President's younger half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK) dominates access to economic resources, patronage, and protection. Much of the real business of running Kandahar takes place out of public sight, where AWK operates, parallel to formal government structures, through a network of political clans that use state institutions to protect and enable licit and illicit enterprises. A dramatic example is the Arghandab river valley, an agriculturally rich and heavily-populated district strategically located at the northern gate to Kandahar City, where the President's direct intervention in the Alikozai tribal succession increased Karzai political dominance over two of the most valuable resources in Kandahar -- fertile land and water. The tribal power structure in Kandahar seriously complicates our efforts to bring formal justice and modern governance to the region.

 

[nyong]

They have released plenty of stuff unrelated to any of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#Leaks

I'm talking about the U.S. government here. People are delusional if they think that wikilinks is capable of holding our government accountable, like Big Brother to the Big Brother or something. It's laughable even. All the media fuss over Iraq and our diplomats is based on information obtained from a single source, a single Army Private. This is near certain fact. The flow of information appears to begin and end with Private Manning.

There is nothing to suggest that wikilinks has another informant imbedded in the U.S. government because there is nothing noteworthy they've released (or claimed to have) that isn't traceable to Manning. Insofar as our government is concerned, wikilinks is now in the dark.

 

[Lard]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/germany-us-afghan-funds-wikileaks

The US military has been charging its allies a 15% handling fee on hundreds of millions of dollars being raised internationally to build up the Afghan army. Germany has threatened to cancel contributions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-elite-afghans-millions-cash

WikiLeaks: Afghan vice-president 'landed in Dubai with $52m in cash'
Ambassador in Kabul reports pervasive 'wealth extraction' by establishment and apparent powerlessness of US to stop it

Canadian ambassador calls Tunesia's claims it does not torture "bullshit,"
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/12/02/wikileaks-tunisia002.html

 

[Igo]

I'm talking about the U.S. government here. People are delusional if they think that wikilinks is capable of holding our government accountable, like Big Brother to the Big Brother or something. It's laughable even. All the media fuss over Iraq and our diplomats is based on information obtained from a single source, a single Army Private. This is near certain fact. The flow of information appears to begin and end with Private Manning.

The US is certainly a lost cause in that regard but these leaks are powerful enough to alter public perception in countries whose citizens do hold their government accountable.

No one but the Wikileaks staff know where they go from here but they sure as hell have gained a lot of mind share as a result of these leaks which will ensure further acquisitions.

 

[Funky Papa]

British cables pouring in

Foreign Office does not regret evicting Chagos islanders

He asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago's former residents.

...

"We do not regret the removal of the population," since removal was necessary for the BIOT to fulfill its strategic purpose, he said. Removal of the

population is the reason that the BIOT's uninhabited islands and the surrounding waters are in "pristine" condition. Roberts added that Diego Garcia's excellent condition reflects the responsible stewardship of the U.S. and UK forces using it.

Wowie.

From the wikipedia:

Officially part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Chagos were home to the Chagossians for more than a century and a half until the United Kingdom evicted them in the early 1970s in order to allow the United States to build a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, and only by military and civilian contracted personnel.

 

[Funky Papa]

On William Hague being America's lapdog

The DCM asked Hague whether the relationship between the UK and the U.S. was "still special." Hague said he, David Cameron and George Osborne were "children of Thatcher" and staunch Atlanticists. Speaking more broadly, Hague acknowledged that this was a hard question to answer. Politicians, in his view, "sit at the top of the pyramid" of the general public and it is unclear whether the British people will maintain the network of ties to America that has sustained the special relationship. For his part, said Hague, he has a sister who is American, spends his own vacations in America, and, like many similar to him, considers America the "other country to turn to." Asking his Senior Advisor her views, Helic (who is Bosnian), said, "America is the essential country." Hague said whoever enters 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister soon learns of the essential nature of the relationship with America. He added, "we want a pro-American regime. We need it. The world needs it."

The little shit.

 

[Ether_Snake]

The new popcorn.gif

 

[AceBandage]

Anything on what makes the special sauce so special?

 

[Jenga]

Anything on what makes the special sauce so special?

an illegal genocide perpetuated by america

 

[Ether_Snake]

Gordon Brown an 'abysmal' prime minister - US Embassy in London

In a scathing assessment of the former prime minister, George Bush's last ambassador to London blamed Brown for presiding over a "post-Blair rudderlessness" which prompted senior Labour figures to complain of their despair to the embassy.

The diplomatic cables confirm that Barack Obama's allies were irritated by Brown's intense manner: he interrupted a Thanksgiving call to the current president's ambassador to lobby for a Tobin tax on financial transactions in the face of US opposition. "Prime minister Brown continues to press hard … despite being fully aware of US opposition to the tax," Louis Susman wrote in December last year.

pen portraits of the likely Labour leadership contenders

These cables are going to keep British politics junkies busy for a while. Here's pen portraits of the likely Labour leadership contenders written by US diplomats in 2008. "As Gordon Brown lurches from political disaster to disaster," the cable begins, "Westminster is abuzz with speculation about whether he will be replaced as Prime Minister and Labour Parxty [sic] leader, and, if so, by whom."

The list ranks David Miliband first, and doesn't even mention his brother Ed as a contender. The Guardian has the highlights here but the American portrait of Ed Balls is particularly interesting:

Balls has performed badly as Schools Secretary and is accused of shirking responsibility.... Balls has shown himself to be less than suited to the top job: his public speaking is derided as "dull," his slightly awkward manner as "charmless," and he has many enemies within the party, precisely because of his relationship with the PM. Party insiders accuse him of cowardice because he tells Brown what he thinks Brown wants to hear.

Brown ally swore at aides to demand coffee

One Private Secretary told us Vadera would regularly scream from her desk, "Get me a cup of coffee" with a string of expletives attached, something almost unheard of in the polite British civil service and prompting three scheduling assistants to leave her office in three months. She also reportedly had screaming matches in front of subordinates with Development Secretary Douglas Alexander while she was at DFID. Insiders tell us she was moved from DFID at Alexander's request, though the move was billed as a promotion to the media. It is worth noting that Vadera can also be charismatic and charming, especially with external visitors.

:lol

Real-time update of the leaks here as they come: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates

 

[Ether_Snake]

US has lost faith in Mexico's ability to win drugs war, WikiLeaks cables show

Classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks also reveal a growing sense of alarm within Mexico's government that time is running out in the battle against organised crime and that it could "lose" entire regions.

The memos detail blunders in the fight against drug cartels and a desperate search for a new strategy to save President Felipe Calderón's administration from a bloodsoaked fiasco.

[...]

The US has lost confidence in the Mexican army's ability to win the country's drugs war, branding it slow, clumsy and no match for "sophisticated" narco-traffickers.

Classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks also reveal a growing sense of alarm within Mexico's government that time is running out in the battle against organised crime and that it could "lose" entire regions.

The memos detail blunders in the fight against drug cartels and a desperate search for a new strategy to save President Felipe Calderón's administration from a bloodsoaked fiasco.

The assessments, made in a cable to Washington earlier this year, are bleak contrast to Mexican insistence that the state is prevailing in a war declared by Calderón in 2006. Four years later drug-related violence has killed more than 28,000 people and brought cities such as Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana to the brink of anarchy, with mayors, police chiefs and ordinary people gunned down with impunity and beheadings shockingly common.

Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez, the undersecretary for governance, told US diplomats that "pervasive, debilitating fear" had infected even relatively safe parts of the country. "He expressed a real concern with 'losing' certain regions."

[...]

"They [the Americans] have a clear responsibility in this because they are providing the market for the drug dealers and the criminals," President Calderón said. "They need to do a lot more in terms of reducing the consumption of drugs and to stop the flow of weapons towards Mexico.

 

[Duracelllll]

quick request, any chance a date can be added to each link when you added it to this page? It's going to get hard to find which new links to check each day

Secret deal let Americans sidestep cluster bomb ban

British and American officials colluded in a plan to hoodwink parliament over a proposed ban on cluster bombs, the Guardian can disclose.

According to leaked US embassy dispatches, David Miliband, who was Britain's foreign secretary under Labour, approved the use of a loophole to manoeuvre around the ban and allow the US to keep the munitions on British territory.

Unlike Britain, the US had refused to sign up to an international convention that bans the weapons because of the widespread injury they cause to civilians.

The US military asserted that cluster bombs were "legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability" and wanted to carry on using British bases regardless of the ban.

Whitehall officials proposed that a specially created loophole to grant the US a free hand should be concealed from parliament in case it "complicated or muddied" the MPs' debate.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Why the world needs Wikileaks

Good interview

And:

In his CNN interview Putin used the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defence against WikiLeaks. Like the Iranian president, Putin suggested that the contents of the cables are part of deliberate ploy to undermine his country.

:lol

And now China's turn:

The Chinese government seems to be upping the anti-WikiLeaks rhetoric. Ananth Krishnan, the Beijing correspondent of the Hindu, just tweeted this:


WikiLeaks content "absurd and ridiculous", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu says.

And for those who claim Wikileaks are terrorists:

Here's an interesting antidote to all those American calls to treat WikiLeaks as a terrorist organisation. Writing in the LA Times two frustrated US federal investigators write that if WikiLeaks had been around in 2001 it could have helped prevent 9/11. They argue that information their superiors wanted bottled up could have been leaked to the site alerting the world to the possibility of a terrorist attack.

The 9/11 Commission ultimately concluded that [would-be terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui was most likely being primed as a September 11 replacement pilot and that the hijackers probably would have postponed their strike if information about his arrest had been announced.

WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors' seeming indifference. They were indeed stuck in a perplexing, no-win ethical dilemma as time ticked away. Their bosses issued continual warnings against "talking to the media" and frowned on whistle-blowing, yet the agents felt a strong need to protect the public.

 

[Broken Arrow]

It appears the DNS for Wikileaks.org is down...

 

[PantherLotus]

I realize that 9/11 was fucking gigantic in terms of the history of world events (if not for the number of deaths then for the coverage and scope of terror), but something funny just struck me after reading the idea that WikiLeaks might have prevented the attack:

It definitely would have prevented the War in Iraq.

 

[Duracelllll]

It appears the DNS for Wikileaks.org is down...

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-new...er-domain-killed/story-e6frfku0-1225965334266

WIKILEAKS has been taken offline after its domain host EveryDNS.net terminated the whistleblower website's account. "WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks," WikiLeaks tweeted, after its website went offline for the third time in a week.

EveryDNS.net said in a statement on its website it had terminated services to WikiLeaks, which it had hosted for four years.

"EveryDNS.net provided domain name system (DNS) services to the wikileaks.org domain name until 10pm EST, December 2, 2010, when such services were terminated."

It did not give any reasons for the termination, which comes amid massive controversy for WikiLeaks. On Sunday it began releasing 250,000 US diplomatic cables in its biggest leak so far, angering leaders across the globe.

WikiLeaks will now need to register wikileaks.org - which it owns until 2018 - with another domain host in order to get its site up and running again.

The outage came after Amazon.com Inc. announced yesterday it would no longer host WikiLeaks from its web servers because the site violated its terms of service.

Also yesterday, Sweden said it would issue a new international arrest warrant for the website's founder Julian Assange over allegations of rape and molestation.

Australian-born Assange has not been seen in public since Sunday, but he is reportedly in a location in southeast England.

Assange was not on the run, his London-based lawyer Mark Stephens said.

 

[jorma]

I realize that 9/11 was fucking gigantic in terms of the history of world events (if not for the number of deaths then for the coverage and scope of terror), but something funny just struck me after reading the idea that WikiLeaks might have prevented the attack:

It definitely would have prevented the War in Iraq.

The most gigantic thing about 9/11 was probably the reaction to it, and how it was used as a tool - enabling the hawks to initiate a war that has so far cost about one million Iraqi deaths.

 

[speedpop]

Never really thought about that before. And like a house of cards, the dominoes fall.


Also when will they ever learn. Taking down a website will stop nothing.

 

[Aurora]

Nice leaks about Russia.

 

[Dabanton]

I realize that 9/11 was fucking gigantic in terms of the history of world events (if not for the number of deaths then for the coverage and scope of terror), but something funny just struck me after reading the idea that WikiLeaks might have prevented the attack:

It definitely would have prevented the War in Iraq.

I wonder what the world landscape would be like if that never went ahead.

 

[Zenith]

Anyone against these leaks now can only be some US-centric imbecile not concerned about any other country. We definitely needed to hear all the stuff on the UK cables, and I'm sure many countries are glad to hear how US diplomats double as spies.

 

[curls]

On William Hague being America's lapdog

The DCM asked Hague whether the relationship between the UK and the U.S. was "still special." Hague said he, David Cameron and George Osborne were "children of Thatcher" and staunch Atlanticists. Speaking more broadly, Hague acknowledged that this was a hard question to answer. Politicians, in his view, "sit at the top of the pyramid" of the general public and it is unclear whether the British people will maintain the network of ties to America that has sustained the special relationship. For his part, said Hague, he has a sister who is American, spends his own vacations in America, and, like many similar to him, considers America the "other country to turn to." Asking his Senior Advisor her views, Helic (who is Bosnian), said, "America is the essential country." Hague said whoever enters 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister soon learns of the essential nature of the relationship with America. He added, "we want a pro-American regime. We need it. The world needs it."

The little shit.

Grrr. We have a bunch of short sighted cunts running the country.

"Children of Thatcher"? Oh man! They are so getting voted out next election. :lol

Also fuck David Milliband!

 

[Funky Papa]

US embassy cables: Afghan tribal elders threaten to 'fight Nato like the Soviets'

8. (SBU) A six-person delegation of two tribal elders, two Provincial Council members, and two religious leaders brought a similar, but more severely worded message, to the PRT February 9: stop the special operations at night that kill civilians and terrify our women and children. If you don't, you will lose our support. We will close our shops, block the streets, move to the mountains and fight you the way we fought the Soviets. We want to help you fight the Taliban who terrorize us during the day, but the special operations are doing more harm than good.

 

[Witchfinder General]

A lot of this stuff is fascinating but a lot of it is well known (like the US administration knowing about the ISI's involvement with the Mubai attacks and how civilian casualties are eroding support with Afghan tribal leaders) if you read up on articles and books about said topics.

 

[Chinner]

On William Hague being America's lapdog


The little shit.

can you fix the link?

 

[Lard]

Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party has identified the top-level national party employee responsible for passing secret information on to US diplomats during the negotiations to form the current German government in 2009.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,732579,00.html

 

[Roi]

Heads start rolling in WikiLeaks affair
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The WikiLeaks affair has claimed its first victim after Germany's vice-chancellor Guido Westerwelle on Thursday (3 December) sacked his chief of staff for spying for the Americans.

http://euobserver.com/9/31416?

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Anyone against these leaks now can only be some US-centric imbecile not concerned about any other country. We definitely needed to hear all the stuff on the UK cables, and I'm sure many countries are glad to hear how US diplomats double as spies.

It's not like anything really bad has come out of these things. If anything I'm happy with the way the Obama administration has fought to protect America and it's interests. This stuff may suck if you not American, but I can't find anything to complain about.

 

[Mecha_Infantry]

Julian will be on live from 1pm to answer your questions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-julian-assange-online

 

[Binabik15]

http://euobserver.com/9/31416?

If only Westerwave would be sacked. We need leaks showing our government´s dirty laundry.

Edit:

http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/kulturheute/1333420/

Seems like we´ll get dirt on them soon enough. And dirt on Assange+Spiegel? Interesting.

 

[Funky Papa]

can you fix the link?

It looks like The Guardian removed the article (?) but you can still see the cable using Google's cache.

 

[NotWii]

It appears the DNS for Wikileaks.org is down...

Yep

IPs still work
http://46.59.1.2/
http://213.251.145.96/
http://88.80.13.160/

And they just got a brand new domain!
http://www.wikileaks.ch/

 

[curls]

It looks like The Guardian removed the article (?) but you can still see the cable using Google's cache.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/04/08LONDON930.html

 

[kottila]

The relationship between Norway and Sweden is under some duress after cables claiming that Norway had long decided to go for F-35 over Swedens JAS and still going through the process claiming it to be a fair competition

http://www.thelocal.se/30584/20101203/

 

[jorma]

The relationship betwenn Norway and Sweden is under some duress after cables claiming that Norway had long decided to go for F-35 over Swedens JAS and still going through the process claiming it to be a fair competition

http://www.thelocal.se/30584/20101203/

We should send them a bill for those hundred of millions we spent on trying to get the order. It's not like they cant afford it anyway.

 

[kottila]

We should send them a bill for those hundred of millions we spent on trying to get the order. It's not like they cant afford it anyway.

The whole thing was setup as a big fuck you for the Telenor/Telia-fusion failure

 

[Mecha_Infantry]

achanth
Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the
topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?

Julian Assange:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.

.

 

[theignoramus]

We do not regret the removal of the population since removal was necessary for [Diego Garcia] to fulfil its strategic purpose...establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago's former residents....[Britain's] environmental lobby is far more powerful than the [islanders'] advocates

well that's lovely.

 

[Dirtyshubb]

.

This is the first thing i think of when it comes to revealing government secrets but sadly it never delivers, hopefully one day my dreams of an Alien reveal will come true

 

[NotWii]

.

I just came here to post that

webbots right again!

 

[Suitcase Test]

Julian will be on live from 1pm to answer your questions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-julian-assange-online

Here's the direct link to his answers: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks

 

[Lard]

Now Egypt wants nukes

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/wikileaks-egypt-considering-nuclear-arms-if-iran-gets-them

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

So who exactly from the state dept. was spying on UN members and other governments? DSS agents or actual diplomats?