WikiLeaks Cable Dump Goes Live

Here’s the NYT overview. Here’s one interesting detail:

Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”

Here’s that cable.

And here’s the Guardian’s overview. The Guardian makes clear that we peons won’t get the full dump.

The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier earlier this year and passed to WikiLeaks. Assange made them available to the Guardian and four other newspapers: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to “dump” the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department’s fears, it also initially intends to post only limited cable extracts, and to redact identities.

Consider this an open thread.

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  1. Elliott says:

    as I said before
    The initial scandal is that these documents could be so easily leaked.

    If it was Manning, he was low ranking and used CDs, absolutely shocking lack of security.

  2. fatster says:

    And this one is specially for David Dayen’s attention wherever he is.

    “An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoys supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he is undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignores his edicts.”

    LINK.

    • rosalind says:

      from the cables at the guardian link:

      Biographic and biometric data, including health, opinions toward the US, training history, ethnicity (tribal and/or clan), and language skills of key and emerging political, military, intelligence, opposition, ethnic, religious, and business leaders. Data should include email addresses, telephone and fax numbers, fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans.

      how the frak do you collect an “iris scan” from someone without their knowledge? (i really don’t want to know the answer to that, do i?)

  3. SirLurksAlot says:

    am a big fan of EW’s careful analysis and can’t wait to see what turns up in this latest docu-dump. Here’s to Assange posting the whole thing before he gets extradited and locked up by the swedish bikini team.

    • emptywheel says:

      Frankly, I think this is a piece of shit dump.

      Some of the outlets–not sure which–vetted which ones would get released. So already it says that editors like Bill Keller got to decide what was “in” this dump. Which makes it thoroughly unsurprising that it’s “Iran-Iran-Iran!!!”

      I do know that Iceland got a warning. There was no realease about Iceland included. The fact taht Iceland would need a warning make it likely there were economic meltdown docs in there, but surprisingly, those haven’t been released.

      • SirLurksAlot says:

        :::blushing:::

        Hi Marcy ! Too bad it’s a lousy cherry picked leak. Wiki-Lame Fail.

        Still, it may make a few people squirm, and clearly got their attention. thanks for all the great ASCII and here’s to you getting back on national teevee again sometime soon. the last time was AWESOME.

        cheers

      • mattcarmody says:

        Assange should have made docs available to Novaya Gazeta in Russia or to Russia Today. Either outlet would have been more than happy to post the entire dump especially in light of the arrest of a Russia Today film crew outside of Ft. Benning

      • marc5 says:

        It will be interesting to see the differences between the mass-media curations and whatever is provided via the Wikileaks site(s). Especially as the mass-media versions are pretty much all most people will hear about.

        I’m assuming of course that there will be differences, and that the DDOS attacks Wikileaks sites are now experiencing is spin control, by other means.

  4. Palli says:

    Finally a war when we, the people, can learn the stupidity, lies and crimes that truly is war before any of the survivors write their novels or generals their memoirs.

  5. jo6pac says:

    well this will be fun except for those that have already died from the line of fire. I have to check it out later, the sun is out so time to going outside.

  6. Mason says:

    Condi and Hillary turned the State Department and U.S Embassies into intelligence gathering operations.

    Washington wanted intelligence on the contentious issue of the “relationship or funding between UN personnel and/or missions and terrorist organisations” and links between the UN Relief and Works Agency in the Middle East, and Hamas and Hezbollah. It also wanted to know about plans by UN special rapporteurs to press for potentially embarrassing investigations into the US treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, and “details of friction” between the agencies co-ordinating UN humanitarian operations, evidence of corruption inside UNAids, the joint UN programme on HIV, and in international health organisations, including the World Health Organisation (WHO). It even called for “biographic and biometric” information on Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of WHO, as well as details of her personality, role, effectiveness, management style and influence.

    * * *

    In one directive that would test the initiative, never mind moral and legal scruples, of any diplomat, Washington ordered staff in the DRC, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to obtain biometric information of leading figures in business, politics, intelligence, military, religion and in key ethnic groups.

    Fingerprints and photographs are collected as part of embassies’ consular and visa operations, but it is harder to see how diplomats could justify obtaining DNA samples and iris scans. Again in central Africa, embassy officials were ordered to gather details about countries’ military relations with China, Libya, North Korea, Iran and Russia. Washington assigned high priority to intelligence on the “transfer of strategic materials such as uranium”, and “details of arms acquisitions and arms sales by government or insurgents, including negotiations, contracts, deliveries, terms of sale, quantity and quality of equipment, and price and payment terms”.

    The directives, signed simply “Clinton” or “Rice”, referring to the current and former secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, form a central plank of America’s intelligence effort and reveal how Washington is using its 11,500-strong foreign service to glean highly sensitive information on both allies and enemies.

    * * *

    Taken together, the directives provide a vivid snapshot of America’s perception of foreign threats which are often dazzlingly interconnected. Paraguayan drug traffickers were suspected of supporting Hezbollah and al-Qaida, while Latin American cocaine barons were linked to criminal networks in the desert states of west Africa, who were in turn linked to Islamist terrorists in the Middle East and Asia.

    Link.

      • Mason says:

        I don’t know how far back it extends. My dad was a Foreign Service Officer. He joined the State Department right after WWII. I always knew that the CIA had somebody working undercover in every embassy, usually associated with the Agency for International Development, or AID. Diplomats aren’t supposed to engage in spying. I believe that’s a violation of international law although lots of countries violate it, particularly the old Soviet Union and Israel.

        Now it seems like intelligence gathering has become one of the primary responsibilities for foreign service officers. I wonder when that job went from hit and miss part-time to full time and how fast the transition was?

        Seems to me that effective diplomacy requires confidentiality and trust. Spying renders effective diplomacy impossible. I’m not surprised because I only see the US engaging in bully behavior. Our mucho macho leaders consider diplomacy a weakness, apparently, so they brushed it aside and decided to spy full time.

        • gigi3 says:

          The embassy plants began long before Condi & Hillary. I just read The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph L. Trento. He cites numerous examples and specifically references US AID. Trento states that Averell Harriman, JFK’s Ambassador-At-Large, was running a covert, parallel operation during Viet Nam and that McGeorge Bundy and Michael Forrestal (WH staffer/Viet NAM liaison) were suspected of taking orders from Harriman. He also links the murders of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother directly to Harriman.

  7. jackie says:

    Its the beginning of the dam breaking and there is enough stuff in the ‘bits that are being released to bring up even more questions (and answers).. For most people, this is the first they have heard of any of this…and it will be a shock..

  8. emal says:

    Yeah I read somewhere that NYT vetted the documents with the US gov’t officials prior to publishing them…and these officials suggested redactions, some of which the NYT used and others that they claim did not. It’s one of those things that makes me go hmmmmm…the more things change the more they stay the same…it’s the same mo they used during the Bush Cheney years based when the held stories for a year after vetting them with the officials all in the name of (cough, cough..national security issues/concerns). Just who is controlling whom here…and who is trying to con whom here with the idea of a truly independent 4th estate.

    • marc5 says:

      That first IP maps to France, FWIW. That the WL crew would spin-up an on-demand Amazon EC2 instance on this dump day is not at all particularly odd. I suppose it depends on other WL servers having differing content.

      But there’s so much spy vs spy in this mix that the whole melodrama of “dump day” and press embargos seem fascinating but with a whiff of manufacturing.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Not good news. They’ve either changed their server to the US or its routed through a US filter.

    • thatvisionthing says:

      Probably neither here nor there anymore, but it used to be (beware!) http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks in December 2008 — it came up in a Daily Kos comment about Swiss bank Julius Baer freezing Wikileaks domain; I clicked it then, it froze my browser (IE), needed restart, and then after that wanted to install new software, which I wouldn’t do. Couldn’t get past that so I quit going online with that computer, which died shortly enough anyway. Now I use Linux. I know nothing tech, I make up rubber bands and ghosts running the tubes, and I never clicked that link again.

    • hcgorman says:

      if anyone notices references to Guantanamo…including (but not limited to…) deals being made for countries accepting detainees….could you please post. I saw there was reference to Belgium and one of the stans but the search engine isn’t very good and I was not able to see the actual context.
      thanks

    • shekissesfrogs says:

      My son says that EC2 is automatically scalable and can be hosted in Ireland or asia – it’s cloud hosted, it could have something to do with the DOSS attacks they were facing earlier today.

      • eblair says:

        I’m told by my internet guru that anyone can get a server up on EC2 in minutes. Basically, serving(?) doesn’t get any easier I guess.

  9. GlenJo says:

    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.

  10. joanneleon says:

    Via Murdoch’s Times (UK) which is subscription only and shows a bit of the story on the front page:

    Washington had mole in German government
    Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition was thrown into confusion tonight after leaked US documents showed that Washington had a secret mole in the German government. The source, according to Der Spiegel magazine, was a “young, ambitious minute-taker from the Free Democratic party” who painted a devastating picture of the squabbles within the coalition between Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the junior Free Democrats. Not only did the mole turn over dozens of documents, he also provided barbed pen portraits of his colleagues. Wolfgang Schäuble, the Finance Minister, is described as an “angry old man, neurotic, who sees enemies everywhere”. The Chancellor comes off more lightly: “When cornered she is tenacious but risk-averse and rarely creative.” These judgments were passed on,
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/?CMP=KNGvccp1-times%2520london

    The Sunday Times version has a scary Muslims picture on the front page with the headline Britain fears Islamic fury over new leaks and no teaser text from the story. It’s all behind the paywall.

    This news organization supposedly did not get the advance copy of the cables, so where did they get the info for these stories?

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      The Times (UK) is right wing, about the same as the conservative Daily Telegraph (unaffectionately known as the Torygraph).

  11. Knoxville says:

    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.

  12. SueTheRedWA says:

    My husband and I are trying to figure out how a lowly soldier was able to download diplomatic cables and other information. It doesn’t pass the smell test.

    • TarheelDem says:

      Are these from the same source as the Afghanistan leaks?

      My impression is that they came from a different source. And lowly soldiers with high intelligence clearances operate a lot of the secure communications networks of the government.

      • eblair says:

        Lol. Good question. Has anybody in the corporate media asked Gates how the investigation is going? Andrea Mitchell said she’d never seen him so upset. Lol. But we don’t hear anything about that investigation or this one.

  13. Siun says:

    Most of the media sites are planning multiple days of coverage so we are only seeing the tip of what even they will release …

    let’s hope the wikileaks site manages to stay up so we can dig through it all

  14. lsls says:

    Ya know..some of the info sounds like one of those papers that claims aliens landing in New York or something…or like “Onion” stories…the Putin/Berlusconi stuff is completely ridiculous…I’m just about ready to call this whole shebang a Borat psyop bunch of BS…maybe to drum up war with Iran or distract from the real problem happening…N Korea.

    LS

  15. Ymhotep says:

    On dumps, x-ray machines and terrorists: “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” Franklin D. Roosevelt. Peace

  16. Mary says:

    I’m thinking some of the primary “biometric” info they were collecting, but which isn’t mentioned as specifically, is voiceprint info. For some, this is easy to get from publically available info, for others, notsomuch. But since the UK has revealed that they are using voiceprints you have to figure that the US has been doing it for a long long time covertly. I’m guessing that’s part of Hayden’s careful references to “the program that the President has revealed” and Bush’s “al-Qaeda calling” references describing a part of the TSP. Hayden could pretend there was no “data” mining for that and that it really was something that wasn’t contemplated when FISA was passed – that they could just troll through all calls to pick out voices instead of content. Then, of course, troll through content. And all with pretty unreliable tech.

    Oh well, the good thing is that everyone is being so very careful with what they are leaking (/s) bc, after all:

    The White House said the leak of the diplomatic cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders and may put at risk the lives of named individuals living “under oppressive regimes.”

    Apparently, those particularly at risk include district prosecutors, local police chiefs and pregnant teenagers as well as airport communications engineers.

    Oh wait – sorry. Those folks are only at risk from an Obama regime that is operating under oppressively limiting rules of engagement.

    My bad. Or at least, someone’s bad. I guess with the Goldsmith/Bellinger/Obama approach to forever war on civilians, they’ll eventually get all the kinks worked out. So handy that they can experiment with their doctrines on real, live (or formerly live) human beings.

    • Ymhotep says:

      Wasn’t it Chuck Schumer who introduced HR 2580 on November 2,1995 that demanded a 5 year jail sentance for anyone “publicly engaging in speculation or publishing or transmitting baseless conspiracy theories regarding the federal government?” He called it The Republican Form of Government Guarantee Act. Considering that Obama is very new to this game your criticism of him seems somewhat overwrought. Peace

      • Mary says:

        Well, I’m not sure I follow how Schumer’s old legislative efforts (he’s been really big on wiretapping and wanted huge powers to the Presidency during Clinton’s tenure as well) somehow means that I’m overwrought (?) when I point out that Obama is killing off civilians with his deliberate policies just as much as “oppressive regimes.”

        In any event, Obama has been involved in politics for longer than I have – and they were pretty integral to all his background. From getting into Harvard, to his prelaw considerations, to his Sidley experience, to his community organizer time, to his blood and guts Illinois introductions.

        So no, I don’t believe he’s “very new to this game” and he also has had the incredible benefit of the best minds in the country pretty much throwing themselves at his feet for years now, including this 2 year pre-election campaigning period. It’s not being “new” that’s the problem; it’s his decisions and decision process. When he picks Summers over Krugman or Stiglitz or Rougini – it’s not because he’s a newbie. When he picks Brennan and Kagan – it’s not because he’s a newbie.

        When the choices and policies involve destroying this nation’s economy, engaging in and supporting torture, and cherry-on-topping it all with allocation of incredible resources to kill off civilians the world over, I don’t think it’s overwrought to object. I’d think it was irresponsible to do otherwise.

    • mzchief says:

      There were just a few 6 figure hirings of telecomm engineers in Portland and Los Angeles:

      Saw this come and go really fast near Nov. 7th (Yahoo! Hot Jobs listings now gone):

      “Cisco Voice / Unified Communications Engineer – 130,000 Per Year –OR–Portland CA–LosAngeles”

      There are still some of the same top-shelf boutique recruiters out doing their thing even after 20 years.

      All of this cloak and dagger stuff and the associated theater is craptastic (hat tip Christy). Sure burns a lot of resources like those that could go into sheltering, feeding, clothing, educating and providing real medical attention (preventative and otherwise) to real live human beings.

      “Fly Like An Eagle” (Space Jam Soundtrack) by Seal (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gF2UySGZAU )

      • Mary says:

        I’m sure if they are pressed hard enough, the US will cough up its standard 1500-2000 blood money payment, all the while expressing regret that he brought it on himself by living in the same country they were occupying.

        One of the new online stories about the wikileaks involves the Yemeni President agreeing to lie to the press and his people about the US bombings in Yemen.

        http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101128/wl_mideast_afp/usdiplomacymilitaryinternetwikileaksyemen

        Well continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh said in January talks with General David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the Middle East …
        … the remarks prompted Yemen’s deputy prime minister to “joke that he had just ‘lied’ by telling parliament” that Yemeni forces had staged the strikes against Al-Qaeda

        What a joker.

        OTOH, I did sympathize a bit with him on this:

        And during a meeting about Al-Qaeda with John Brennan, the US deputy national security adviser, Saleh was “dismissive, bored and impatient,”

        Too bad Obama has felt the need to balance the karma by being obsequious, fascinated and dogged re: all things Brennan.

  17. jackie says:

    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’

    • cregan says:

      I say the Geezer still has some life. What kind of life, who knows.

      As for Wikileaks, from all I have read so far, there doesn’t seem to be any big damaging revelation. A lot appears to be stuff you suspected was going on, but didn’t have anything to pin down.

      Such as, Iran A’jad being compared to Hitler. Yeah, the niceties of diplomacy dictate you don’t have an official do it in public, but, lots of other people make this comparison, so it isn’t some earth shattering expose.

      Now, if a diplomat, and the entire State Department, was comparing him to Ghandhi or something like that, THAT would be news.

      The rest of what I’ve seen seems to be along the same lines.

  18. earlofhuntingdon says:

    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).

    • mzchief says:

      The truth and the possibility of telling the truth is soooooo scary.

      By the way, PDX college kids get recruited on campus to go to Alaskan fish canneries to work 10 hour days for multiple weeks. They can collect a few thousand dollars for these stints. One told me it’s one of the only prospects for work at all. Not even enough minimum wage jobs to go round. Recall that the last cannery on the continental US is closed (“So Long Sardines: America’s Last Cannery Closing,” CBS News, 14 Apr 2010, link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/14/national/main6394365.shtml ). A homeless guy used to have work as an Alaskan fisherman. This is very dangerous work but he comes from a fishing family (know how rare that is) and knows how to do it and stay alive.

      So, again, check out how the system is manipulated with your tax dollar$ and is actually being used against you.

    • Rayne says:

      You know the easiest way to encourage people to believe that the stuff they are reading is the real deal? Have government officials wring their hands over it and cry “Woe is us!”

      Presto! It must be legitimate stuff, there’s no way any of it could be contrived or manipulated at all if the government appears upset about it, right?

    • Mary says:

      Countless Lives?

      Interesting how they apparently can never count the lives lost, whether they are due to drones, illegal wars, white phosphorous, toruter or Libyan/GITMO assisted suicides, on the one hand, and releases of cables dissing Putin on the other.

      Then there were the guys doing the counting who told us what all these wars were going to cost originally – Iraq was going to be a “pay for itself” (excluding funeral costs) war.

      Makes you wonder if basic math proficiency might go a long way towards avoiding war. Not that we’ll ever know, now that there’s no money for education.

      @80 – not in over his head, just in the same head as the people who brought us the prior 8 years of disaster – the wrong head more than over his head. He’s plenty competent if he were working for something other than personal payoffs the same and Bush and Cheney had been.

      @81 – And I remember, too, the soldiers who figured out that, for awhile, it worked for them to lure children around them with candy bc “the enemy” was hesitant to shoot at the soldiers while they where surrounded by kids. IIRC, they got a commendation for coming up with such a great idea. Till it quit working.

      @83 – Why does that make me think of the Borg?

      You know Mad Dog, I’m not sure how I feel about the Wiki Holdbacks. It could go a lot of ways. If they are going to keep dibblets coming out, over time, then maybe it’s just a rolling dislosure that’s going to de-emphasize things as they come out. But if they’ve kept some really hot things back for now, then out them later, it’s going to call more and more into question why none of the 5 news outlets that had access did anything with them.

      nolo has a pretty damn good point @88 with that bolded quote. Remember how often the press repeated the talking point, during the illegal wiretapping, that if you weren’t doing anything wrong, you didn’t have anything to worry about? A government working for good should be pretty well bolstered to withstand embarassment. Too bad we haven’t seen anything like that during the last decade.

      I do think that even with the dribblets that have come out, it’s too dismissive to say there isn’t anything new or important there. Lies by the Yemeni President to the Yemeni parliament, as an accomodation to Petraeus – that’s fairly important. It kindasorta brings to mind Miliband playing pong between the UK’s parliament, courts and press as to whether or not it really was the truth or not that Obama was threatening to hold back information on terrorists attacks in Britain.

      Just because our Congress has nothing but Chuckles Schumers, it doesn’t mean that every legislative body in every country shrugs off being lied to.

      I think the Yemeni Parliament

      • MadDog says:

        …You know Mad Dog, I’m not sure how I feel about the Wiki Holdbacks. It could go a lot of ways. If they are going to keep dibblets coming out, over time, then maybe it’s just a rolling dislosure that’s going to de-emphasize things as they come out. But if they’ve kept some really hot things back for now, then out them later, it’s going to call more and more into question why none of the 5 news outlets that had access did anything with them…

        Fair enough. Though I’m still leaning towards WL and Julian buttering up the MSM Big Boys, and dismissing the value of us insignficant blogger serfs.

        • bmaz says:

          Well call me crazy, but I think it may largely be just the WL insatiable desire for self serving PR and fundraising that could come from it.

        • fatster says:

          Have you seen this, Mary?

          Canadians handed children over to notorious Afghan security, CBC reports

          “The Canadian Forces in Afghanistan have for at least four years captured children accused of co-operating with the Taliban and transferred them to a local security unit suspected of torture, according to CBC News.”

          LINK.

      • thatvisionthing says:

        John Le Carre on Democracy Now last week:

        DENIS MOYNIHAN: January of 2003, one of the largest antiwar marches in world history happened just behind us here.

        JOHN LE CARRÉ: I took part in it, yeah.

        DENIS MOYNIHAN: And what are your reflections now?

        JOHN LE CARRÉ: Well, I think that my anger still stands. I can’t understand that Blair has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretenses has committed the ultimate sin. I think that a war in which we refuse to accept the body count of those that we kill is also a war of which we should be ashamed. We’ve always got to be careful of that. I think that—I wasn’t speaking as a prophet, I was just speaking as an angry citizen, I suppose. I think it’s true that we’ve caused irreparable damage in the Middle East. I think we shall pay for it for a long time.

        AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, about what’s happening with Tony Blair with his new book out, with event after event being canceled, eggs being thrown at him, the anger on the streets?

        JOHN LE CARRÉ: Well, I don’t know what the level of protest was in the United States by the time you went to war in Iraq, but here I think an aggregate of about three million people marched in Britain. The first march in which I took part must have numbered something like a million. And so, the—and I remember we stopped, this huge crowd, which was being really very crudely manhandled by the police at the edges. We stopped. We were all wedged together and looking into Downing Street, where the Prime Minister’s residency is. And nobody seemed to speak, but a kind of feral roar of popular will rose. And I tried to imagine what is must have been like for Blair sitting inside that building and hearing that sound. It was like a huge cry that goes up at a football game or something like that, where you actually—it is no longer verbalized. It’s just this animal seething noise. And I think it will always be remembered of him that he took us to war, as most people perceive, on the strength of lies.

        JOHN LE CARRÉ: …this suggestion that there are those in the know and those not in the know, and that those not in the know are second-class citizens, is extremely dangerous to society. And I think we have to address it all the time.

        We have no idea. We don’t have a spokesman for these intelligence services, either one of them, either one of the three main intelligence services. We have inspired leaks. We have people who seem to speak with authority. But when somebody tells us suddenly that we’ve gone on to red alert, and there are tanks outside London Airport, or whatever it is, we don’t know by what process this definition reaches us. It’s very easy inside an intelligence service to develop a capsule mentality. You live inside the bubble. The one thing you begin to lose is common sense, a sense of balance. And particularly when it’s men, all together, men in a room. I

        • Mary says:

          Thanks – I hadn’t seen that. Interesting that you can get few thousand tea partiers here in the states and it is non-stop Faux news, but a few million worldwide marching against war, and a million in the UK, and it got pretty much no news. Le Carre makes a lot of very pointed observations there and I particularly like the one you highlighted, about using dissemination of information to create tiered citizens

          @107 – No, I hadn’t seen that fatster. That’s a pretty gut wrenching thought. Did you see they’ve disabled comments bc of legal issues they say? I couldn’t get the 4 that they supposedly had to pull up. Interesting, too, that they got the info on the briefing by a freedom of information request – something that wouldn’t happen here. There is no free access to any information about lies, shipments of torture victims to Libya, etc. Instead, we have Lindsey Graham coming out in front of the wikileaks releases by pretty much forcing Obamaco to start toeing the line on attacking wiki.

          Lindsey, who got a private viewing of torture videos from Abu Ghraib and hasn’t ever felt the least bit compelled to do one God Damned thing about it other than praise the torturers – – but for damnsure he’s all about making people pay for the release of information about US drone bombings in Yemen.

          You know, there wasn’t just one party to the Yemeni President’s lies to his parliament about Yemen’s forces being responsible for the bombings in Yemen. You only got the Yemeni President’s lies by having Gen. Petraeus lie to America as well.

          So in essence, Lindsey is all about having King David disseminate disinformation to the US public and US press. A little thing that used to be against propaganda laws here. I’m guessing no one is going to be bothering to follow up on Petraeus’ *lapses* in truth here.

  19. earlofhuntingdon says:

    With perhaps tongue in cheek and a gout d’ironie, le Monde closes its column on why it’s publishing extracts of this Wikileaks data dump with these observations about the nature of American society, and the model (or myth) it has aspired to and sold to the world:

    Enfin, ce n’est pas un hasard si ces nouvelles révélations émanent des Etats-Unis, le pays le plus avancé technologiquement et, d’une certaine manière, la société la plus transparente, plutôt que de Chine ou de Russie. Par sa nature ouverte, une puissance démocratique s’expose à plus d’intrusions qu’un pouvoir fermé ou 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. Et WikiLeaks le sait mieux que personne.

    In brief, the US is the model open society, with a long tradition of allowing public discourse about things closed societies prohibit. The irony comes from the inference that it is no longer so.

  20. jackie says:

    Questions;
    Does WL have some/(enough) of the ‘missing e-mails’?”
    Who put the ‘secure e-mail switching system in?”
    And; (just because..lol)
    Does it lead to Mr Cheneys desk?

    ‘This avalanche of cables from the internal, supposedly secure e-mail switching system linking US embassies abroad with the state department and Pentagon’
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11859472

    • MadDog says:

      I sure wish Wikileaks had a real Search capability over at their Cableviewer.

      For example, after downloading a CSV file with description of cables from Thailand (here) and then opening up the file in Excel, you can find this entry if you search for CIA:

      12/7/2005 Embassy Bangkok “120 – 122 Wireless Road and 95 Wireless Road
      Bangkok, Thailand” ETRD, PGOV, PHUM, PTER, TH, BURMA, CIA Secret Prisons, Southern Thailand

      (My Bold)

      Unfortunately, Wikileaks Cableviewer doesn’t allow you to Search for this cable and their Browse functions don’t seem to help in finding it either.

      • MadDog says:

        Nor can one find this cable:

        11/4/2005 Embassy Bangkok “120 – 122 Wireless Road and 95 Wireless Road
        Bangkok, Thailand” PREL, PTER, KPOW, TH, CIA Secret Prisons

        (My Bold)

        Note the 11/4/2005 date on this Bangkok Embassy cable. Per EW’s Torture Tape Destruction Timeline:

        November 4, 2005: The timeline event reads: “At ODDO request, [redacted]CTC[redacted] drafts language to be included in a cable from [redacted] requesting DDO approval to destroy the tapes. [Redacted]CTC[redacted] sends the language to [redacted] and the ODDO front office, as well as OGC for approval. The plan was for [redacted] to cut and paste the text into a cable and send it to HQs for approval.” (Document 25; PDF 103-104)…

        • MadDog says:

          Yeah, I’ve downloaded the existing Wikileaks file and just like Wikileaks Cableviewer, there is only a small portion of the cables available.

          In the case of the Wikileaks download, the file is only 10 MB in size while the original “Insurance” file size that Wikileaks provided is almost 2 GB.

          The almost 2 GB file size is also what has been discussed in the MSM, so we really are getting just a smidgen of what actually exists.

        • fatster says:

          Does this help?

          “So far, Wikileaks has published on its site 220 of 251,287 of what it describes as US “cables”; however, it has given the files in full to five media groups, including the New York Times and Guardian newspapers.”

          LINK.

        • PJEvans says:

          And it also says they’re planning to release all of them gradually over the next few months.

          There’s a link to a bit-torrent file, but I don’t know how complete it might be. (it’s being echoed at pirate bay.)

        • MadDog says:

          And the DemocraticUnderground site has a spot-on description of the real state of play on the public availability (or not) of this Wikileaks document dump.

          I’d like to make an additional point to those made over at DU:

          Wikileaks used to make the material it acquired publicly available at their website.

          Now, it’s all about feeding the MSM Big Boys like the NYT, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel.

          PR? You betcha! Protection? You betcha!

          To Wikileaks, us serfs provide insignificant amounts of either, so why not play footsie with real powerbrokers?

  21. orionATL says:

    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.

  22. Frank33 says:

    Did someone mention Biometrics? When I need some Biometrical Apps, I go to Biometrics-R-Us. Also known as SAIC.

    Collecting and registering personnel into biometric databases is key to helping identify insurgents throughout the USCENTCOM AOR. Under the task order, SAIC will provide the U.S. military and coalition partners with biometric enrollment support at entry ports throughout Iraq. SAIC has supported biometric-enabled enrollments in the USCENTCOM AOR for the past six years.

  23. CTuttle says:

    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.

  24. nolo says:

    As to the “propriety” of the CableGate leaks (gushers), I think The Guardian’s Simon Jenkins gets it just right, tonight, thus:

    . . .America’s foreign policy is revealed as a slave to rightwing drift, terrified of a bomb exploding abroad or of a pro-Israeli congressman at home. If the cables tell of the progress to war over Iran or Pakistan or Gaza or Yemen, their revelation might help debate the inanity of policies which, as Patterson says, seem to be leading in just that direction. Perhaps we can now see how catastrophe unfolds when there is time to avert it, rather than having to await a Chilcot report after the event. If that is not in the public’s interest, I fail to see what is.

    Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment. . . .

    Indeed.

    Namaste

    • Mary says:

      No real good input – maybe one of the technophiles can weigh in.

      You might find this interesting, though.

      Global Rainmakers, Inc. has rolled out a program to use blanket the whole city of Leon, Mexico with iris scanning and face recognition.
      http://singularityhub.com/2010/09/26/iris-scanning-set-to-secure-city-in-mexico-then-the-world-video/

      GRI’s eye scanning systems aren’t more secure than others on the market, but they are faster. Large archway detectors using infrared imaging can pick out 50 people per minute, even as they hustle by at speeds up to 1.5 meters per second (3.3 mph).

      So it may not be all the difficult or complex to pull off getting an iris scan if you have excuses for pictures or even for getting relatively close to someone.

      The problem has typically been that getting the image of the iris itself is slow and requires people to come very close to the scanning device. GRI has focused on improving the iris acquisition side of the technology, increasing the speed and range of their devices. Not only that, but they are bringing the costs down. A 30 person per minute device (the HBox Mini) costs around $48,000. Yet smaller devices, ones suitable for ATMs or desktop computers are falling below $2000.

      With billions allocated for torture and black ops to help insure the death of soldiers and children, I’m guessing it might not be that expensive to come up with something that would pretty easily have allowed them to collect this info.

      Per these guys (also in a story about Leon)
      http://www.fastcompany.com/1683302/iris-scanners-create-the-most-secure-city-in-the-world-welcomes-big-brother?partner=yahoobuzz

      It took less than a second for my irises to be scanned and registered in the company’s database. Every time I went through the scanners after that–even when running through (because everybody runs, right, Tom Cruise?) my eyes were scanned and identified correctly.

  25. nolo says:

    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
    . . . .”

  26. Arbusto says:

    Found this interesting from Times of India 11/29/10 article. Who’s not on the list?:

    The cable, in the form of a National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD), requests for “continued Department of State reporting of biographical and biometric information on key NAM/G-77/OIC Permanent Representatives, particularly China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Senegal, and Syria; information on their relationships with their capitals.

    If we’re in an endless war against Islamic bad boys, why isn’t Saudi Arabia listed (Could be elsewhere?). Aren’t their moguls key financiers of al-Qaida.

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Wikileaks-peeks-and-shrieks-in-first-cache-of-documents/articleshow/7008562.cms

    • klynn says:

      A great observation. EW, Arbusto may deserve a hubcap for noticing the country missing from the list. Rather odd to be missing especially after the 9-11 Commission Report:

      We do know that soon after arriving in California, the two al Qaeda operatives sought out and found a group of ideologically like-minded Muslims with roots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, individuals mainly associated with a young Yemeni and others who attended a mosque in San Diego. After a brief stay in Los Angeles about which we know little, the al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego under their true names. They managed to avoid attracting much attention.

  27. captjjyossarian says:

    Is this supposed to distract us from the massive continuing fraud being committed by our largest banks?

  28. eblair says:

    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.

    • MadDog says:

      From Wikileaks Cableviewer FAQ page:

      How many are there and what period do they cover?

      Wikileaks will publish 251,287 cables, originating from 274 embassies and dating from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010…

      At this stage of Wikileaks document/cable dump, it seems to me like the overwhelming majority of cables are from the period 2005 through early 2010.

      I’m unsure why there aren’t more from earlier (or why there were any at all from dates like 1966).

      • Rayne says:

        I ran across a reason last night at Der Spiegel; there was some change in the network supporting the cables which allowed them to be gathered in a way not previously possible. I suspect the older cables might have been resent within the network as reference content, but I can’t be certain.

        But this assumes the entire ball of wax isn’t planted content.

        [edit: The network supporting embassies was only populated by 125 sites in 2002 and by 2005 there were 180 connected, according to The Guardian. The SIPRnet dispatch data bank was established sometime in 2004 to allow state personnel to retrieve archived messages from a central repository — which is why the bulk of the cables originated in 2005 and later.]

  29. jackie says:

    Falklands? 1966?

    ? There is a difference between the date on the cable and the 12/28/66 date…

    ‘SUBJECT: EXTENDED NATIONAL JURISDICTIONS OVER HIGH SEAS

    REF: STATE 106206 CIRCULAR; STATE CA-3400 NOV 2, 1966

    ¶1. PRESS REPORTS AND VARIETY EMBASSY SOURCES CONFIRM
    NEW ARGENTINE LEGISLATION UNILATERALLY CHANGING SEAS JURIS-
    DICTION NOW UNDER ADVANCED REVIEW. REPORTEDLY LAW WOULD
    ESTABLISH SIX MILE TERRITORIAL SEA, PLUS ANOTHER SIX MILES
    OF EXCLUSIVE FISHING JURISDICTION, PLUS ANOTHER EXTENDED ZONE
    OF “PREFERENTIAL JURISDICTION” FOR FISHING PURPOSES. DRAFT-
    LAW UNDER CONSIDERATION IN ARGENTINE SENATE BEFORE JUNE 28
    COUP WOULD HAVE DEFINED ZONE OF PREFERENTIAL JURISDICTION
    AS “EPICONTINENTAL SEA OUT TO 200 METER ISOBAR”. IN SOUTHERN
    ARGENTINA THIS ZONE SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES WIDE AND BLANKETS
    FALKLAND ISLANDS.

    ¶2. NAVATT STATES ARGENTINE NAVY THINKING OF PREFERENTIAL
    JURISDICTION OUT TO 200 MILES (AS IN PERU, ECUADOR, CHILE)
    RATHER THAN EPICONTINENTAL SEA. 200 MILE LIMIT DOES NOT
    RPT NOT REACH FALKLANDS. ARGENTINE NAVY OFF TOLD NAVATT
    “200 MILE LIMIT SOON WILL BE STANDARD THROUGH HEMISPHERE”.’

    http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/1966/12/66BUENOSAIRES2481.html

    • jackie says:

      I guess that bit was quite important? lol!!
      (but 1966 is still an odd place to start for the lifted docs.)

      ‘200 MILE LIMIT DOES NOT
      RPT NOT REACH FALKLANDS’

        • jackie says:

          I’m starting from the oldest Cable and reading my way forward..1972’s Cable is the Shah of Iran, needing F4s now’ rather than waiting until 1973 delivery date.. Interesting and odd stuff…

  30. jackie says:

    Too funny.. Israel still does not allow openess regarding its nukes and yet uses the IAEA to push aginst Iran.

    ¶7. (C) GOI technical experts said they have been lobbying the
    Europeans and IAEA on several issues. First, the GOI would
    like a clearer and more detailed listing of all activities
    covered by the suspension, along with timelines for each
    step. Second, they want more robust verification measures
    and greater focus on Iran’s denial of access to IAEA
    inspectors. Third, the Israelis insist that any final
    agreement must be endorsed by the UNSC to ensure that
    noncompliance will be dealt with at an appropriate level.
    Fourth, Israel is pushing the EU-3 to define benchmarks that
    would signal a failure of the process, and to identify the
    concrete consequences of such failure.
    http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2005/03/05TELAVIV1593.html

    • jackie says:

      Interesting Cable..
      ‘The MFA’s office director for the Gulf states said that
      Israel would maintain its low-profile diplomatic activities,
      such as supplying IAEA members with intelligence material
      related to the Iranian program. She said the MFA believes
      that any overt Israeli pressure would backfire, leading to a
      surge of Arab support for Iran and focusing attention on
      Israel’s own nuclear activities.’

  31. radiofreewill says:

    You know, making politicians play honestly by informing the public of the facts and presenting opposing viewpoints was the original purpose of having a Fourth Estate.

    It’s amazing to see just how far we’ve veered away from fact-based reality into ideological spin…

    When Bush co-opted the government as CIC, he also turned ‘the media’ into his ‘war-time’ propaganda arm – and, we haven’t corrected back yet…

    And, now, it takes a ‘fact-bomb’ of our own making – previously ‘hidden’ from us for ‘our own good’ – to remind us of what we’ve lost in the intervening decade.

    The fallacy of ‘not looking back’ in our case is that we’ll never get back on the tracks of Principle and Reason, rooted in Common Sense, that we jumped when Bush’s irrationally emotional response to 911 put us out on the slippery slope of out-running our resources by inflating a 100-man gang into an ideological existential threat.

    By not looking back, Obama is not only abdicating his moral responsibility to do the right thing by the people and the Constitution, he’s insuring that we’ll complete the trainwreck of our national demise in a fog of fanciful talk – all the while getting ‘waterboarded’ with our own truth, supplied by Wikileaks.

    In the absence of morality there is the thievery of the disadvantaged, too.

    So, first, we urgently need better Leadership from Obama, or we’ll almost certainly be drowned in our own moral weakness.

    And, second, we need a healthy, vibrant Fourth Estate – of our own – if we are to have any hope to survive as a Nation conceived in Liberty, and with Justice for All.

    • Gitcheegumee says:

      Well, consider the foreign investors in the media-such as Prince AlWaleed’s enormous stakes in CNN and Fox News,or Carlos Slim in the NYT.

      About a year ago,EW did a thread entitled “We are all BCCI,Now”.Remarkable series of comments,and although dated December,’09 ,they are as pertinent or possibly more so than when they were originally written,imvho.

      Incidentally, does anyone know any updates on the $2bn of Iranain assets ordered frozen in Citibank acoounts ,last December,by NY court order?
      Any thawing yet?

  32. klynn says:

    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.

  33. Mary says:

    EW’s rep weigh in
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/wikileaks-update-us-tries_n_789031.html
    with the observation that the catastrophy is the dissolution of “trust.”

    You’d think maybe he might mean whether or not we could trust our CIA to not assist with blowing up American missionary families and leaving American toddlers dead in a South American jungle. Or whether we could trust our Congress to investigate and our Department of Justice to prosecute such a murder.

    Apparently – not so much.

    You’d think he might mean the lack of trust when Gen Petraeus and Obama stake out Yemen as their Laos and lie about American bombings there. Or the trust we should be able to have in our Congress to investigate and our Department of Justice to prosecute violations of domestic propaganda laws.

    Not so much. Instead, he’s concerned that Putin can’t trust Obamaco to keep his touchy feelies with Berlusconi under wraps from the American public.

    Strange idea of what constitutes a catastrophe of trust.

    • Arbusto says:

      I like this quote from the article:

      In Washington, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called the release very damaging.

      “The catastrophic issue here is just a breakdown in trust,” he said Monday, adding that many other countries – allies and foes alike – are likely to ask, ‘Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?’ “

      So says the head of CongreLeaks.

      Fuck me for a hypocrite Pete said later.

  34. Mary says:

    And at the end of the linked huffpo article, Koh finds time in his “hey, how long do I need to keep faking a torture investigation” tour to go after whistleblowers and threaten Assange.

    These are the things McCain could not have wrought.

  35. Mary says:

    Apparently when it comes to foreign legislators, Obama’s all in favor of a repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/28/us-spies-dossier-alan-duncan

    He used the US embassy to gather info on Alan Duncan’s “friendships” with other men. Duncan was shadow minister for prisons and is now minister for international development and is gay.

    Also – you have to wonder what, if any, effect it will have on the el-Masri case pending in the European Court of Human Rights to find out that American pressure on Germany to protect American torture guards resulted in dropped extradition requests
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/wikileaks-how-the-reverberations-will-be-felt-in-downing-street-and-far-beyond-2146367.html

      • Mary says:

        Most of that part of the el-Masri case is buried or on hold, but the Open Society Initiative does have a case for him currently pending in the European Court of Human Rights – that’s the one that I thought might get impacted by the revelations that the US was threatening Germany to prevent investigation and extradition. It opens up their jurisdictional portal a bit more.

  36. eblair says:

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

  37. fatster says:

    US embassy cables: UN seeks answers from Washington
    United Nations official says US order to diplomats to glean intelligence on UN leadership may breach international law

    LINK.