Wikileaks

[moreluck]

IF OUR GOVERNMENT REALLY WANTS TO KEEP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SECRET,


THEN OUR GOVERMENT SHOULD KEEP THEM IN THE SAME PLACE WHERE OBAMA'S COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS AND BIRTH CERTIFICATE ARE KEPT.

 

[wkmac]

IF OUR GOVERNMENT REALLY WANTS TO KEEP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTSSECRET,


THEN OUR GOVERMENTSHOULD KEEP THEM IN THE SAME PLACE WHERE OBAMA'S COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS AND BIRTH CERTIFICATE ARE KEPT.

I wonder what would happen to the outcry from Mama Grizzly and "her cubs" towards wikileaks if Assange and friends were to leak Obama's actual birth cerficate and college records among other things?

Hmmmm!

 

[Lue C Fur]

IF OUR GOVERNMENT REALLY WANTS TO KEEP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SECRET,


THEN OUR GOVERMENT SHOULD KEEP THEM IN THE SAME PLACE WHERE OBAMA'S COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS AND BIRTH CERTIFICATE ARE KEPT.


That is one secure place where that is kept.

 

[wkmac]

Was Assange and Wikileaks as it pertains to marketing a Strategic Genius?

 

[Babagounj]

IF OUR GOVERNMENT REALLY WANTS TO KEEP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTSSECRET,






THEN OUR GOVERMENTSHOULD KEEP THEM IN THE SAME PLACE WHERE OBAMA'S COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS AND BIRTH CERTIFICATE ARE KEPT.

Nice idea

 

[wkmac]

My favorite line from the linked piece below is:

There is a delicious irony in the fact that it is now the so-called liberal democracies that are clamouring to shut WikiLeaks down.

Live With the WikileaksWorld or Shutdown the Net!

Wikileaks is also exposing the so-called Statist civil liberty left for the hypocrites that they really are not that the "free speech" right is omitted!

But then this same one half of the 2 headed statist monster along with their shoulder partner, the so-called limited gov't right are both nothing more than slave owners and slavery promoters to begin with so why should anyone be surprised at seeing the truth of it all.

[video=youtube;oOGq_1710U4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGq_1710U4[/video]

 

[bbsam]

Highly possible outcome: All of wikileaks is exposed...and nobody cares. The world shrugs it's shoulders and goes on with everyday life.

 

[Lue C Fur]

 

[wkmac]

Highly possible outcome: All of wikileaks is exposed...and nobody cares. The world shrugs it's shoulders and goes on with everyday life.

In the early 70's as Jefferson Airplane was devolving into Jefferson Starship, Paul Kantner and others from JA put out an album side project entitled "Blows Against the Empire" and today I saw a little piece on "Blowback" that I have to say made me smile and think back to that album!

I also think instead of saying "Highly Possible Outcome" the more correct word instead of possible is probable!


Did you see where Sen. Joe Stali...Lieberman is now wanting to go after the NYTimes over the releases? But then I always considered Lieberman a "AINO" to begin with. That's "American in name only" not that he's alone either in the body we call the Senate or the rest of Washington DC for that matter!


The more people exert their liberty, the more the state exerts back to protect it's false status and thus they will continue to feed on each other until a tipping point takes place. When, What and How are the big unanswered questions going forward!

 

[wkmac]

For the cartoon crowd, this speaks volumes!

To quote Assange, "Crush the BASTARDS!"

 

[wkmac]

"From Jefferson to Assange"

Good read from respected journalist Robert Scheer over at Truthdig.

 

[bbsam]

Is it just me or does that picture of Assange look vaguely like Lieberman 15 years younger?

 

[av8torntn]

"The WikiLeaks de facto declassification of privileged material makes it case closed: Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and intended to restart his program once the heat was off. "


"Wired magazine's contributing editor Noah Shachtman -- a nonresident fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution -- researched the 400,000 WikiLeaked documents released in October. Here's what he found: "By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction (emphasis added). ... Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict -- and may have brewed up their own deadly agents."

Link

 

[wkmac]

"The WikiLeaks de facto declassification of privileged material makes it case closed: Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and intended to restart his program once the heat was off. "


"Wired magazine's contributing editor Noah Shachtman -- a nonresident fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution -- researched the 400,000 WikiLeaked documents released in October. Here's what he found: "By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction (emphasis added). ... Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict -- and may have brewed up their own deadly agents."

Link

Let's now concede all this as being fact, that the WMD claims against Iraq are indeed true. If the wikileaks revelations are the proof then so be it but taking this now as fact, 2 obvious questions come to mind in relation to Bush adminstration action in knowledge of this WMD fact which we all now agree on.

1) Why did the President go before the nation and say this

[video=youtube;soohikNdbWs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soohikNdbWs[/video]

and

2) Why didn't the Bush administration thus declare themselves vindicated and wrongly charged as lying to the American public?

Because it was secret you say? Wikileaks actions prove it being secret. Go back and look at Colin Powell's presentation to the UN and thus the world and in light of what he showed, tell me again how such revelation (based on Elder's op-ed) needed to be kept secret?

If one wants to take this from Wikileaks and turn it into a positive, all's fair in love and war but actions sure don't seem to back up the words!

IMO, A Criminal's a Criminal, No Matter How Powerful!

Let’s get back to that double standard for enemies versus friends of the state. Imagine, if you will, that the U.S. government has been supplying arms and military advisers to Satan. If you don’t read Mother Jones or In These Times, you’re probably blissfully unaware of the fact. But imagine that for some reason Satan stops taking orders from Washington, or does something that causes him to be regarded as a liability. Why, the very next day the White House Press Secretary would be standing up in front of the Press Corps, announcing in the most shocked tones what they’d just discovered was going on in Hell! Why, Satan has been making war on his neighbors and Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against His Own People! Oh, the humanity! Oh, we have to stop him — now! And then a twenty-year-old photo would resurface of Don Rumsfeld shaking hands with the Devil.

As the old joke goes, the U.S. government knew Saddam had WMDs because it kept the receipts. It knew he’d been making war on his neighbors, because its military advisers were giving him all kinds of handy tips on how to do it.

Look, if something’s a crime, it’s a crime no matter who does it. It’s a crime to kill people who are doing you no harm, and to take or damage their stuff. It’s a crime to send someone else to rob and kill innocent people. It’s a crime whether you’re Joe Blow, or you call yourself “Commander-in-Chief.”

A criminal’s a criminal, no matter how powerful.

I don't think the WMD's were ever exposed to public light of day because they all had "Made in USA" clearly stamped on the side! Reports of trucks driving off in the middle of the night? Saddam's buddies or shadow world CIA contract drivers? Hell, even Al Qaeda is "A Shop" creation!


Just like the anthrax found in those attacks were made in US labs and a lab scapegoat was made the patsy!

BTW: Tell Larry to be careful what he uses because so far of the 1000's and 1000's of cables, only a little over 1000 have made it to public disclosure. And what hasn't made it out could be earth shaking. Did it ever occur that may be the reason for all the attacks from CyberCom on Wikileaks and the hot pursuit of Assange to shut him down before they went public?

To late, the cyber war has started and will only accelerate from here. Better learn how to use TOR folks as the iron fist is being pushed to slam down hard and it's taking the bait!

 

[av8torntn]

I don't think the WMD's were ever exposed to public light of day because they all had "Made in USA" clearly stamped on the side!

BTW: Tell Larry to be careful what he uses because so far of the 1000's and 1000's of cables, only a little over 1000 have made it to public disclosure.

I'd be willing to bet that is not true at least for the majority of the weapons and I know for a fact it is not true for some of them. I will still take the position that I took on the current event forum several years ago but it's really because I do not think we use 152mm rounds as a delivery system. I did have an unfair advantage and in a sick way it was kinda funny reading the way the masses attacked me for my position. I will say that it was not uncommon knowledge that there were WMD's found in Iraq and only a little bit of the information has come out and I feel fairly confident over the next few years even more will come to the surface. The simple slogans like "Bush lied people died" serve the left well but the real world is often a little more complicated than that. I think the most interesting part of the wiki thing is the confirmation of chemical labs that were found in Iraq not the weapons themselves as most anyone with any ability for independent thought had already come to that conclusion and the only real question was how much and what types were found. I think you have used wired as a source before and they have a blog about some of the labs found up right now. I used Mr. Elder, well because I am a fan, even though I understand what he does and really probably mainly because I understand what he does.

You asked what was the reason for the secrecy and I gave what I thought that the answer was when this topic came up in 06. That was just my opinion and it has evolved a little over time but it would have been horrible for someone to have figured out what they had and used it against our troops just to make a political point. The evolved part is that I think they may have also been trying to avoid exposing the other nations that were involved.

BTW: You could tell Mr. Elder to be careful but I don't think he'd listen to you. From all the outlets that are reporting on the hundreds of thousands of documents they dumped it seems there were more than one or two pages on this topic.

I am disappointed as I predicted four people would wanna challenge that article. You were one of the four. You can go back and forth and I have to admit that I do not really follow the logic that you are using up there but I am certain that you cannot follow my rambling here as it it more of a collection of random thoughts. Powell did say in his speech at the UN that there were some type of specialized tubes or rods or something and like I said a few years ago as far as I know they never found anything like that. To be fair you can at least admit that the party line did change over time from there were no WMD's to there were no stockpiles of WMD's and to most honest people that was a clue and to leave that out is at the very least misleading. But it was hard to hide the fact that the insurgency used old sarin rounds as an IED on US troops as it was reported by every major news outlet at the time.

Peace back at ya but for some reason I do not have those any longer as an option to use.



Proof that Bush did not really keep WMD's in Iraq a secret as he authorized the release of this summary of a heavily redacted document in 2006. At the time they promised more was to follow which I do not remember happening. There are also pictures all over the internet of banned delivery systems that have been found in Iraq and honestly none of them look American but I am far from knowledgeable in that area. This story from Feb. is as overly dramatic as the Bush lied people died crowd but you get the point about pictures floating around and I do not even see a big old USA painted on the side of that rocket.

To understand how it takes so long find not release the information on the finds you would have to have a little understanding of what happened just before and during the invasion and as you have said before that you are opposed to war no matter what based on your past experiences. That is a fair and very understandable position but I have a problem with those that feel the need to make up their own facts to justify opposition just as you guys are opposed to those that had to make up their own facts to support the pro war position.

I highly doubt anyone made it this far but if they did my apologies for wasting two minutes of you life.

 

[Jones]

Here's the Noah Shactman article that Larry Elder is referencing in his article. I think he (Larry Elder) way overstates the case for vindication, but ymmv.

 

[wkmac]

AV,
Appreciate the response, we agree to disagree and let history over the coming years tell the story. However, again taking the position of conceding the WMD in Iraq, what greater purpose does it serve for Bush to go before the US public and say what he said when as we're all conceding here, the truth was that there were in fact WMD's in Iraq after all? First he said there were and made the case to the world in order to justify the Iraq war and then as the wikileaks data Elder refers too, and you sourced in your post sez that WMD did in fact exist in Iraq, Bush goes before the public again and then claims in an admission that it did not and even goes on to try and at least give other credibility in reasons to then be over there. What's the political mission here? Is he telling the truth when he argued for WMD in Iraq and then lying later as per the vid in saying there now wasn't? Why would he do this?

But let's go one step further, first off of the 200k plus cables wikileaks has, only around 1000 have been released so far. To quote Politico on 12/7 after Assange's arrest:

Today marks the ninth day since WikiLeaks began releasing its batch of U.S. embassy cables, yet to date the site has released fewer than 1,000 of the roughly 250,000 cables in its cache, according to The New York Times.

source

Also if you research the NY Times, Der Spiegel and I think Guardian (don't quote me on that last one) all 3 news outlets have all along insisted that Wikileaks uphold to certain standards and all 4 players in previewing the documents have redacted information if anyone felt that lives would indeed be at risk or other legit secrets would be compromised. Even Assange himself has admitted there are legit reasons to keep some things secret. Also, the vast majority of the cables, emails, etc. in Wikileaks' hands are yet to go public and thus the reason for gov't actions over the last nearly 2 weeks in an effort to prevent more from coming out. Let's all be honest here, in scale very little has come out and the flipside of this coin as William Phaff said so well in a piece at Truthdig,

The WikiLeaks thus far published are less interesting for their content, which reveals very little that was not already obvious or predictable to anyone who follows American foreign policy and international relations,...

so none of this was really any big surprise. On a personal note, I've had more fun out of anything released with the fact that Hillary was in effect engaged in identity theft making her nothing more than the common street level thief. In recent days she's even stated that her stint as Sec. of State will be her last forray in public service so did the fraud revelations do her in as a career? You'd think repubs would champion wikileaks unless they all know beyond those origin 1000 cables released is the other shoe that has yet to drop?


The reactions of State actors of shock and horror is all put on much like the neighborhood ladies who all knew who was cheaping on who and then when it all came out public, they put on the front of shock in public display so as to pretend they never knew all along. Yeah and the men know too and of course play their respected parts but it's all a farce.

At the end of the day, the only people caught clueless in the whole deal are all us poor schmucks who slave and work day in and day out to support these worthless bastards we stupidly "elect" to dominat.....rul.....govern us.

Wikileaks has been talking to these media outlets for several months on what would be disclosed first and in fact the gov't knew well ahead of time also. The media outlets insisted the gov't be given opportunity to input, you know, "sir we have this information, care to respond?" yet they choose not to or in effect took the "no comment" route. This way makes it easier to play the role of victim.

But now that the truth on Iraq WMD is out there, conceding Elder's point as fact, and it was known to be coming, why then in just recent days and going back to Bush's comments in public that no WMD was found, would Bush again even in his latest book say this concerning WMD in Iraq,

"That was a massive blow to our credibility—my credibility—that would shake the confidence of the American people." He then adds: "No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do."

Now on the one hand, you insist WMD was there and quite honestly I've always thought that was correct but we may disagree on how they got there and why they were there to begin with. I never believed Saddam was the only bad guy over in Iraq. I also believe there is good reason as to why they were never found as in made public and yet again you and I may disagree on that as well. Do you think they went to Syria? Ooooo! Syria! Go back 28 years and look at events but then start coming forward, watch the pieces move on the board and then you might start putting together the puzzle but you may also not like what it shows either!

But regardless what you or I say or think, the simple fact is the man who ultimately held the final decision, the man if you will accept on it's face, saw all the data, all the secret documents, all the inside details and yet he himself claims that no WMD was in fact found in Iraq, the commander in chief said this, your boss if you will, then how is it you continue to claim otherwise or are you calling Bush a liar? If not a liar, then why the deception by Bush to the public and how does this from the standpoint of greater good make us safer and in the chief duties of constitutional authority, defend this country? Why do we believe him in both cases (Iraq has WMD, Iraq doesn't have WMD) yet what he sez are 180 degress apart from each other?

As a lowly soldier, you claim almost firsthand knowledge of WMD in Iraq (you're not a contractor for "The Shop" are you?) yet your highest commander sez there were no WMD in Iraq. Tell me, why in this case should I believe you and not him? I'm willing to accept your claim although ultimately you may dislike why but can you at least see the problem with this whole thing to begin with. Someone at the top is lying but why? And it still leaves serious questions about the war and it's true purpose to begin with but let's focus on the WMD for now.

Lastly, what I find funny in all of this is that in the first 2 data dumps of the Iraq and Afghan war, there was the 15 minutes of fame if you will and then all was quite. Oh sure, there were grandstanding politicians getting the mileage they always get but once the blovating was done, life for all returned to normal. This latest disclosure however goes to the heart of the emperor himself as being naked and OMG look at the reaction. "We can just blovate when only soldier's arse's are on the line (besides that's what we pay them for anyway) and then do absolutely nothing else but when Assange has the unmittigated gall to expose "us" for what "we" are then we have to by any means crush him!" I would hope that if the public learns anything from the actions of wikileaks, it observes the reactions of our elected "leaders" and we begin to see them for what they really are, regardless of party or side of the isle in which they sit.

I can still do this!

 

[Jones]

FYI, the smilie option isn't available for a "quick reply". Click the "Go Advanced" button and you will see all your old friends are still there

 

[wkmac]

A Conservative Case for Wikileaks

[video=youtube;BRysDp0bnyM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRysDp0bnyM&feature=player_embedded[/video]

 

[moreluck]

Also, if you just type a colon and right parenthesis in the quick reply at the end of your message, you get....