Obviously we are all too busy pounding Twitter search button…

“Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html?_r=1

They are spying on the head of the UN and tons of other people. Requesting iris scans, DNA, fingerprints, and one of the reasons is that they want to know about plans to investigate torture:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-spying-un

We need to start paying attention to possible censorship efforts by at least the British and US governments. EW has alluded to a possible effort to censor the Guardian, I’m hearing rumors of possible spillover of this effort to shut down blogs associated more with economic news in the UK.

I haven’t decided what to think about these dumps. What’s the point? I’d like to see info that connects specific corporate profits to particular government policies.

This is where Sibel Edmonds and Others’ knowledge/appearances at the Capital etc is going to start to tie in…
These documents is a multipronged push-back on the lying,twisting manipulations of US policyplayers and as they are ‘official’ documents, lots more people asking lots more questions, leading to even more disclosures…
The thing is not to get sidetracked.. The whole ‘Which Royal did what with the Butler?!!’,’Resplendent Blonde’s’ and ‘Lazy, Grumpy, lots of Plastic surgery’ is just fun catty gossip.
The important details are going to be tucked behind the fluff… The fall out from this stuff is going to be HUGE and International… Popcorn time is really here… The whole ‘real powerbase’ is going to shift..
Interesting times..
– we should also keep a really close eye on Israel – they are very good at sliding attacks and stuff by US while we are ‘seeing’ something else… There is stuff in the Docs that will hurt Israels ‘image’ They are very well armed and they don’t play by ‘International rules/laws’

WikiLeaks Site Under Attack
The latest WikiLeaks documents dump is expected to be unveiled over several days but it is already under attack according to their Twitter feed.Some major media groups already have these documents and will be publishing. http://www.newslook.com/videos/269677-wikileaks-site-under-attack?autoplay=true

OMG– “Brett Favre played 16 seasons in Green Bay” Perhaps I shall watch some of this foot ball.

Per le Monde, the US government claims this dump by Wikileaks is “illegal” and puts at rish “countless” lives. It’s possible it is and it does, but we’ve heard such “the sky is falling” angst from the US about past disclosures, only to learn later, when many people had reviewed the data, that there was little risk after all.

Such over the top claims by our own government damages its credibility here and abroad and makes it look like we have more to fear from it than from a hundred terrorists hiding in Central Asia, or from purposely unemployable immigrant children who are spoon-fed resources and ideas that lead them allegedly to commit acts the government claims threaten thousands (but only if the government had intentionally let them take place, after having planted them in his mind in the first place).

Wikileaks Cableviewer is up at:

Secret US Embassy Cables

for any here or elsewhere who tend to get a little weak in the knees when critics of wiki-leaks wield the hammer of “soldiers or u.s. allies, killed after being named in a leaked document”,

let me remind you of a few facts:

1) do you recall the wedding parties bombed in iraq from the day of the invasion? likewise in afghanistan?

why?

groups of people together, traveling in vehicles together. very suspicious. better to bomb them and be wrong, than to not bomb them and be wrong.

so bride, groom, their dear families, the musicians, and the cooks get blasted and burned.

if a hundred people died as a consequence of wiki-leaks’ releases that number could not begin to equal the total of inviduals killed by inaccurate or uncaring american military targeting intelligence.

2) do you recall the u.s. military bombardment of the iraqui city of falluja in which thousands of civilians died,
from military bombardment authorized by u.s. commanders?

if another hundred more iraquis or afghanis died as a consequence of wiki-leaks actions, that would equal no more than the tiniest fraction of those killed in fallujah who were not “combatants”.

3) recall the facile phrase the american military and the corporate media use to describe those “oh, shit” killings by american soldiers – “collateral damage”.

if we can speak of our gross errors and negligence in war using such a fine, bloodless exculpatory phrase,

why can’t wiki-leaks’ defenders similarly speak of possible or actual deaths due to wiki-leak’s releases as “collaterall damage”?

4) state’s secrets filings by the gov’t.

one of the hocus-pocus arguments govt attorneys use to convince judges to rule in favor of state’s secret protection for government malfeasance is that diplomatic relations might be affected if the facts of the case were publicly revealed.

wiki-leaks does our nation and constitution a major, major favor when it reveals just exactly is being kept hidden behind the diplomatic curtain.

viz, the lawless behavior of american agents in germany and our govt’s subsequent threat to the german govt in an effort to continue to keep american incompetence and lawlessness hidden.

i’d live to know if any of the diplomatic docs had a bearing on any of our doj’s state secrets pleadings.

finally,

the only reason anyone is dying or will die (including from wiki-leaks’ document releases) in iraq or afghanistan is because we have been waging war there for nearly a decade.

this is the fundamental reality that undermines all govt, and govt sponsored, criticism of wiki-leaks and of julian assange.

need i point out that it is war, war we initiated and war we have maintained,

which puts our soldiers at risk,

not anything wiki-leaks has done or might do.

On the I/P situation…

Bibi in Apr. ’07 and the opposition leader, with Rep. Ackerman…

¶6. (C) Netanyahu commented that Shimon Peres had admitted to
him that the Oslo process had been based on a mistaken
economic premise, and as a result European and U.S.
assistance to the Palestinians had gone to create a bloated
bureaucracy, with PA employees looking to the international
community to meet their payroll. Netanyahu predicted that
Palestinians would vote for Abbas if they believe that he can
deliver the money. He suggested putting in place an
“economic squeeze with an address,” so that Hamas would
receive the popular blame. Asked if Fatah knew how to
conduct an election campaign, Netanyahu said the Palestinian
patronage system should be forced to collapse, which would
have an immediate impact since the entire Palestinian economy
was based on graft and patronage. Instead, he asserted, the
opposite was happening. Hamas was also handling the prisoner
release issue well since they had created the impression that
Hamas was in control of the process and “sticking it to the
Israelis.”

¶7. (C) Congressman Ackerman asked if Abbas would survive
politically. Netanyahu said he was unsure, since politics
were stressful, especially Palestinian politics. The policy,
he added, should be to starve the NUG. If any money is
given, it should go directly to Abbas. Netanyahu said it was
not clear the GOI has a policy, there was a general climate
of weakness. […]

11. (C) Netanyahu stated that a return to the 1967 borders
and dividing Jerusalem was not a solution since further
withdrawals would only whet the appetite of radical Islam.
Ackerman asked if the Palestinians would accept peace based
on the 1967 lines. Netanyahu said he would not agree to such
a withdrawal since the 1967 lines were indefensible, but he
added that the “right of return” was the real acid test of
Arab intentions. Instead of Israel making more step-by-step
concessions, Israel should insist that further concessions be
linked to reciprocal steps toward peace. The Palestinians
must drop the right of return and accept Israel’s right to
exist. The Arab initiative did not meet this standard since
it keeps the right of return open. Israel will only have a
peace partner when the Palestinians drop the right of return.
Asked whether Israel could accept case by case exceptions,
Netanyahu insisted not one refugee could ever return. Israel,
after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to
Baghdad or Cairo.

¶12. (C) Netanyahu said UNSCR 242 was not a bad formula since
it did not specify precisely from which territories Israel
would withdraw. After the withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon,
there was deep disillusionment among Israelis about the
principle of land for peace. Even the noted Israeli leftist
writer AB Yehoshua had said in a recent interview that he
despaired about peace because the Arabs wanted all of Israel.
From 1948 to 1967, the conflict had not been about occupied
territories, but that point had been obscured by “effective
propaganda.” The root of the conflict was an Arab desire to
destroy Israel, which had now become part of the larger
ambitions of radical Islam.

¶13. (C) The 1967 borders were not the solution since Israel
was the only force blocking radical Islam’s agenda of
overrunning Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu proposed that
Israel offer to work with the Saudis against Iran. If Iran
was not stopped, there would be no agreement with the
Palestinians, and the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt
would come under tremendous pressure. There could be no
deterrence against “crazies” such as Ahmadinejad. Netanyahu
advised Congress to expedite the legislative effort for
divestment. If that did not work, we could reconsider other
options. Congressman Ackerman said that if Netanyahu came to
Washington, he would hold a hearing on divestment.

Not a great translation, but here is LeMonde‘s rationale for the CableGate disclosures:

“. . .Finally, it is no coincidence that these new revelations emanating from the United States, the world’s most technologically advanced and, in some ways, the most transparent society, rather than China or Russia. Par sa nature ouverte, une puissance démocratique s’expose à plus d’intrusions qu’un pouvoir fermé ou opaque. By its open nature, a democratic power is exposed to more than a power of intrusion closed or opaque. C’est des Etats-Unis qu’est partie la révolution Internet, c’est là aussi que vit la tradition des “whistleblowers” , ces “sonneurs d’alarme” de la société civile. That the United States what part the Internet revolution, it is here that saw the tradition of “whistleblowers”, these “whistle-blower” civil society. Et WikiLeaks le sait mieux que personne. Wikileaks and knows better than anyone.

Sylvie Kauffmann
Le Monde Édition. . . .”

In the “small world” category – look, there is our old friend Vafa Valapour

From CNET:

‘The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says WikiLeaks should be officially designated as a terrorist organization.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the panel’s next head, asked the Obama administration today to “determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization,” putting the group in the same company as Al Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway.’

And the White House from The Telegraph:

“To be clear – such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government.”

So, for King, “terrorism” means anything he doesn’t like, and for the Administration, the US promotes “open government”.

Not sure which is more absurd.

Any logician will tell you that everything follows from a contradiction.

Didn’t the last WL dump happen when there was some issue regarding the banks that needed the citizens to be looking the other way?

Hope we stay focused on the foreclosure fraud and the pass being manufactured for the banks.

The Afgan documents were released without digital signature. First time in WL history. Anybody know about these documents?