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On December 02 2010 10:54 Aim Here wrote:
No.
Firstly Parliament isn't 'under the control of the Prime Minister'. The idea is that a majority of the MPs ought to be in favour of the Prime Minister, but they're answerable to the electorate. If anything, the Prime Minister is answerable to Parliament, in that if Parliament wants him to go, he goes. The Prime Minister has formal control over the civil service and the army, and things of that nature.
Secondly, the Chilcot inquiry is an independent public inquiry, appointed by the government directly, not Parliament, ostensibly as an impartial inquiry into the causes and conduct of the Iraq war. If you think the fact that they're Prime Ministerial appointees is grounds for them being politically biased, note also that upper court judges in the UK are appointed in much the same way, and are therefore susceptible to the same bias.
The comparison to judges is inapt. My point is that the Chilcot inquiry is a creature of the Prime Minister, so obviously the government is in the position to "put in measures to protect the US's interests" were it pressured to do so by the foreign service. This is completely different than post hoc influencing a judge who was appointed by the government years ago.
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On December 02 2010 10:55 Grumbels wrote:
In response, (1) this entire argument of "it hurts diplomacy, hence there will be more distrust and military solutions to things" is inane. You don't know this, you can't prove this and it can equally be argued the other way. War is less likely when there's openness, because (I'm paraphrasing someone here, but I forgot who said it first) 'without openness you'll see your enemy as a black box you can project all your fears into. The more you know, the less you can be manipulated by warmongers who play on your fears.'
Several nations have already responded that they can no longer be candid with the US in their negotiations. This, in fact, means that the US, as one of the primary negotiators in subduing Iran and North Korea, will now be operating with less information. This is not a good thing.
Second, diplomats are frequently wrong, that's one of the reasons they loathe transparency. Just by reading some of the cables myself I can spot instances where they were wrong, and I'm sure there are experts around that can investigate the line of thinking used and correct it, now that it's in the open.
We need diplomats to give their candid assessments, even if they may end up being wrong. If they fear their mistakes are shown to the public, they will simply be less candid. I'm surprised so many people do not understand that secrecy is often a necessity for honesty. Why do you think so many states have shield laws for journalists?
(2)(3) are the same argument, I guess. You're saying that anything wikileaks does will only ensure even more secrecy and harsher protections. But there already wasn't any openness until wikileaks changed it, so this doesn't make sense.
No, I'm not saying anything it does. I want it to act as an anonymous (you know, secret) repository of implicating documents. It would serve a very useful function, and would allow openness for the shit we care about. But dumping a bunch of random communications for the sake of destroying that source of communication simply hurts us as a society (yes, as an anti-establishmentarian, this is Assange's goal). There will simply be less communication, and what do we get out of that? A description of Putin as Batman?
Anyway, this is a feature, not a bug: read Assange's goals for wikileaks. He's quite clear that if states will become excessively secret, they're actually making it harder for themselves to function and as a result their power weakens.
Assange thinks it's a feature to weaken diplomacy (aka "harder to function"). I think it's pretty clearly a bug and Assange is simply stroking his egotistical nihilism. I don't know if you remember the buildup to the Iraqi war, but so many people (rightly) criticized Bush for ignoring a diplomatic solution to the WMD "problem" in Iraq. People who hate on diplomacy sound like Bush warmongers.
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On December 02 2010 08:30 Nitan wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 08:26 Half wrote:Regardless, Assange is accused of rape. A judge has issued a warrant for him.
While he's innocent until proven guilty the attitude that he shouldn't have to answer the allegations is absurd. The reasoning I've seen for why he shouldn't answer is a bit misogynistic too. What part about it is "absurd"? It comes down to a question of whether or not he trusts the justice system to make a fair ruling, and the current situation does not suggest they will. Even in normal circumstances, Rape trials in consensual sex turned rape usually come down to his word versus hers, meaning the outcome is never clear cut, they are known to be either notorious difficult to prove, or lead to wrong convictions, so the fact that he is an enemy of almost every single western aligned country does not help his case. So...is it that rape cases are hard for the prosecution to prove or that there are a significant number of wrong convictions? It's not up to him to decide if he thinks the justice system is fair or not. He was in Sweden. Swedish citizens alleged he committed a crime in there. He has to go and answer them. This is the sort of absurd reasoning that let Roman Polanski go free again.
No one needs to answer to anyone. No one is under any authority unless they put them self under it.
It's a bullshit allegation and he knows it. He will be wrongly convicted and sentenced for a very long time for those charges alone. But ye. i guess he should submit cause its the law and all and we all need to answer to our masters.
You make me fucking sick
Oh and there hosting apparantly got shut off http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/01/wikileaks.amazon/index.html?hpt=T1
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On December 02 2010 11:14 FindingPride wrote:
i guess he should submit cause its the law and all and we all need to answer to our masters.
You make me fucking sick
It makes me fucking sick that someone can have so little regard for the law, when it is the law that lets you sit comfortably in front of your computer, insulting other people over the internet.
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On December 02 2010 11:16 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 11:14 FindingPride wrote:
i guess he should submit cause its the law and all and we all need to answer to our masters.
You make me fucking sick It makes me fucking sick that someone can have so little regard for the law, when it is the law that lets you sit comfortably in front of your computer, insulting other people over the internet.
No. The law is black and white. People aren't. The law is wrong. and it wrongs people every fucking day in america. I've seen it many fucking times and it continues to do it. I've seen people go to fucking jail for having a plant for 5 fucking years.
The LAW needs to be FIXED.
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Assange thinks it's a feature to weaken diplomacy (aka "harder to function"). I think it's pretty clearly a bug and Assange is simply stroking his egotistical nihilism. I don't know if you remember the buildup to the Iraqi war, but so many people (rightly) criticized Bush for ignoring a diplomatic solution to the WMD "problem" in Iraq. People who hate on diplomacy sound like Bush warmongers.
Are you kidding me? The reason why we went to the Iraq war in the first place was because of incomplete information. Do you think we would have gone to war had the public had the full view of even the diplomatic cables, which would have shown the doubt and insecurity and uncertainty of the presence of WMDs?
I'm surprised so many people do not understand that secrecy is often a necessity for honesty.
So is responsibility. There is a reason why wikileaks whisteblowers operate in anonymity -there leaks are reviewed in a comprehensive process by 2000 volunteers- The Statements of Diplomats are not given such scrutiny, nor should they be.
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On December 02 2010 11:19 FindingPride wrote:
It makes me fucking sick that someone can have so little regard for the law, when it is the law that lets you sit comfortably in front of your computer, insulting other people over the internet.
No. The law is black and white. People aren't. The law is wrong. and it wrongs people every fucking day in america. I've seen it many fucking times and it continues to do it. I've seen people go to fucking jail for having a plant for 5 fucking years.
The LAW needs to be FIXED.
[/QUOTE]
Some laws need to be fixed, but that does not mean all laws need to fixed or that Sweden's judicial process needs to be fixed. Again, you're being irrational if you think Sweden won't give him a fair trial. Or is your complaint that Assange will be convicted under an unjust law, but he actually did violate it?
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Fuck you bush
User was temp banned for this post.
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Again, you're being irrational if you think Sweden won't give him a fair trial.
Why? Why are we being irrational? Given the suspicious nature of the proceedings, and precedents set in world politics, there is every precedent that he will not be giving a fair trial.
"It is highly unusual for a red notice warrant to be issued in relation to the allegations reported as having been made, since Swedish law does not require custodial orders in relation to the allegation."
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On December 02 2010 11:22 Half wrote:
Are you kidding me? The reason why we went to the Iraq war in the first place was because of incomplete information. Do you think we would have gone to war had the public had the full view of even the diplomatic cables, which would have shown the doubt and insecurity and uncertainty of the presence of WMDs?
Once again, though unsurprising, the point flies over your head. It surely would've been nice if a Wikileaks were around in 2002 to leak implicating documents that the government was not even sure of the existence of WMD's. That, of course, is not what is happening today, because nothing in these cables are that controversial. You fail to realize that this latest leak isn't going to give the public a full view of future cables, because cables simply won't exist anymore, and that means it will be harder to communicate, which, by the way, will make it harder for the actual abuses to be leaked.
I agree with you that openness and candidness are good. I agree that the public should know of the abuses of its government. What you fail to realize is that it is not (or at least no longer) Assange's goal to disclose governmental abuses. He is simply trying to destroy communication channels. What you fail to realize is that secrecy can serve both good and bad purposes. The trick is to keep the secret channels available for good purposes, but to have infrastructure in place to leak documents when it is used for bad purposes. That was what Wikileaks originally started as, but it has since morphed to feed Assange's nihilistic ego.
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On December 02 2010 11:27 Half wrote:
Why? Why are we being irrational? Given the suspicious nature of the proceedings,
The allegations may be suspicious, but what are so suspicious about the proceedings?
I've already explained how it's irrational to go from a 99% prior to a 1% posterior from one single event that doesn't even have that much to do with Swedish judicial procedure.
and precedents set in world politics, there is every precedent that he will not be giving a fair trial.
Such as?
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Whoa, guys, calm down. Jesus. This is a discussion, in part, about Putin being Batman. Less rage please.
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On December 02 2010 11:29 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 11:22 Half wrote:
Are you kidding me? The reason why we went to the Iraq war in the first place was because of incomplete information. Do you think we would have gone to war had the public had the full view of even the diplomatic cables, which would have shown the doubt and insecurity and uncertainty of the presence of WMDs? Once again, though unsurprising, the point flies over your head. It surely would've been nice if a Wikileaks were around in 2002 to leak implicating documents that the government was not even sure of the existence of WMD's. That, of course, is not what is happening today, because nothing in these cables are that controversial.
No. Even if the diplomatic cables of 2002 were released today, it would have drastically reduced the unification of public support to go to war. When the Iraq War began, the public was convinced that the government statement of WMD was an absolute truth. Had an organization like wikileaks existed, the public would have been able to realize the large diplomatic perspective on the justifications on the war on Iraq, and realizing that they were not as unified as they had thought, would likely not have supported the war on the same scale.
You fail to realize that this latest leak isn't going to give the public a full view of future cables, because cables simply won't exist anymore, and that means it will be harder to communicate, which, by the way, will make it harder for the actual abuses to be leaked.
No leaks at all existed prior to these cables. You act as if sensitive information reached public ear via discreet channels at all prior to wikileaks. It did not, and the last time it did was 1971.
I agree with you that openness and candidness are good. I agree that the public should know of the abuses of its government. What you fail to realize is that it is not (or at least no longer) Assange's goal to disclose governmental abuses. He is simply trying to destroy communication channels. What you fail to realize is that secrecy can serve both good and bad purposes. The trick is to keep the secret channels available for good purposes, but to have infrastructure in place to leak documents when it is used for bad purposes. That was what Wikileaks originally started as, but it has since morphed to feed Assange's nihilistic ego.
Yes, I do realize that it is not his goal to specifically disclose illegal acts on behalf of the government. That is not a realistic goal. The true illegal acts committed by our government are kept on channels so high up they will never reach public ear when the information is still relavent.
Rather, his goal is to promote openness and information. When the government is able to communicate to the public on a singular, unscrutinized front, then the democratic process is hindered, because the uncertainties within the bureaucracy itself are hidden to from the public.
In order to expose the secrets kept on the upper echelons of government, we must first create a public reacting to the complete picture of the information available. When the lower echelons of government, such as the cables, are available to public scrutiny, then hiding the larger secrets only becomes harder.
Remember, when we said that there were WMD in Iraq, most media sources just said "ok". It was the result of groupthink on a collective scale, only possible due to the power of the government in not only keeping "the big secrets" from the public (which is a very hard to stop), but also maintaining a unified front by suppressing "the little things" (Like these cables).
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On December 02 2010 11:16 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 11:14 FindingPride wrote:
i guess he should submit cause its the law and all and we all need to answer to our masters.
You make me fucking sick It makes me fucking sick that someone can have so little regard for the law, when it is the law that lets you sit comfortably in front of your computer, insulting other people over the internet.
Straight up fuck the law. If everyone was a chill, good person we wouldnt need any laws. But since there are so many horrible people we kinda need them..
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On December 02 2010 11:49 DisBabylonSystem wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 11:16 domovoi wrote:On December 02 2010 11:14 FindingPride wrote:
i guess he should submit cause its the law and all and we all need to answer to our masters.
You make me fucking sick It makes me fucking sick that someone can have so little regard for the law, when it is the law that lets you sit comfortably in front of your computer, insulting other people over the internet. Straight up fuck the law. If everyone was a chill, good person we wouldnt need any laws. But since there are so many horrible people we kinda need some of them..
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On December 02 2010 11:33 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 11:27 Half wrote:
Why? Why are we being irrational? Given the suspicious nature of the proceedings, The allegations may be suspicious, but what are so suspicious about the proceedings? I've already explained how it's irrational to go from a 99% prior to a 1% posterior from one single event that doesn't even have that much to do with Swedish judicial procedure. Show nested quote +and precedents set in world politics, there is every precedent that he will not be giving a fair trial. Such as?
Such as he pissed off the worlds most powerful people. Power corrupts even law bro.
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On December 02 2010 11:40 Half wrote:
No. Even if the diplomatic cables of 2002 were released today, it would have drastically reduced the unification of public support to go to war. When the Iraq War began, the public was convinced that the government statement of WMD was an absolute truth. Had an organization like wikileaks existed, the public would have been able to realize the large diplomatic perspective on the justifications on the war on Iraq, and realizing that they were not as unified as they had thought, would likely not have supported the war on the same scale.
I agree, and I said as much. Of course, in that hypothetical, it would be much more preferable if wikileaks simply leaked cables pertaining to the Iraq war rather than irrelevant ones, but the overall benefit to society would be clear. Contrast to this leak, where pretty much nothing of public interest has been released. I mean, the biggest stories about this latest leak is whether or not Assange is a douchebag, not about the content of the leak.
No leaks at all existed prior to these cables. You act as if sensitive information reached public ear via discreet channels at all prior to wikileaks. It did not, and the last time it did was 1971.
Uh...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_McChrystal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike_controversy
Again, I support Wikileaks' existence as a repository for documents implicating bad activities. And for a time, that's what they were. They no longer are.
Rather, his goal is to promote openness and information. When the government is able to communicate to the public on a singular, unscrutinized front, then the democratic process is hindered, because the uncertainties within the bureaucracy itself are hidden to from the public.
His goal is to destroy communication channels, thus making it difficult for states to engage in diplomacy, which somehow reduces their power. If he wanted scrutiny, he wouldn't have released the cables, because there's nothing in there to scrutinize. I don't know why you're so naive to think that this leak has somehow increased future openness. The logical response is that security will become tighter.
When the lower echelons of government, such as the cables, are available to public scrutiny, then hiding the larger secrets only becomes harder.
Um, how? Now that Assange has wasted his load on a bunch of gossip, good luck getting larger secrets as governments crack down on communications.
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Again, I support Wikileaks' existence as a repository for documents implicating bad activities. And for a time, that's what they were. They no longer are.
I forgot about the Plame affair, but the Baghdad air strike controversy was released by Wikileaks, as I said (With similar calls about "Hurting American operations without revealing substantial information), and I would hardly characterize Stanley insulting a higher level officer as some kind of "huge leaks".
One government leak since 1972 is not a very good track record.
His goal is to destroy communication channels, thus making it difficult for states to engage in diplomacy, which somehow reduces their power. If he wanted scrutiny, he wouldn't have released the cables, because there's nothing in there to scrutinize. I don't know why you're so naive to think that this leak has somehow increased future openness. The logical response is that security will become tighter.
I never said that the government would respond by opening channels of information. They would close them off. However, if leaks continue to occur, the government will eventually realize that lower level government activity (such as those of diplomats) can no longer be hidden from the public eye.
You say that his goal is to "destroy communication channels". This is inaccurate, but it the core cause of that is accurate. Your position is that if the actions of lower level government officials are impossible to secure from the public eye, then they will disappear altogether. No, it won't. The immediate response is an increased security, and if this security is unable to protect against the freedom granted by the internet and wikileaks, then they will face the reality of lower level official being responsible to the public.
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On December 02 2010 11:59 domovoi wrote:
Again, I support Wikileaks' existence as a repository for documents implicating bad activities. And for a time, that's what they were. They no longer are.
...
Um, how? Now that Assange has wasted his load on a bunch of gossip, good luck getting larger secrets as governments crack down on communications.
Are you saying that what's coming out of these cables is a bunch of gossip that isn't implicating bad activities?
There's plenty of unflattering assessments about foreign politicians, sure. Embassies invite powerful people in for tea and then report back to their countries with what got said, and some of hose make for fun juicy headlines.
But there's also a metric shitload of real substantial leaks coming out of these documents too.
For example, there's the stories about:
The US storing nuclear weapons in secret in Turkey, Belgium, Holland, and Germany
The US has been bombing Yemen, in secret
Storing illegal cluster bombs in secret in Britain
Spying on the Secretary General of the United Nations
The US considering the Sri Lankan government of being guilty of war crimes
Half of the Middle east demanding that the US declare war on Iran
That's a brief sample from 600 cables, out of 250,000 (whether they're cherrypicked for impact remains to be seen, of course). Thanks to modern information technology, the scale of this leak is utterly unprecedented, and it's detailing numerous everyday instances of political wrongdoing, not just a Big Single Lie. But some of these everyday lies would be considered Huge Newsworthy Lies back in the days when the old leaks of the past that you were talking about were happening.
To take the first story, above, the one parallel from the past was the leak that told the British Public that the US was storing cruise missiles at Greenham Common in the early 1980s. That was a big story at the time, caused one national newspaper editor to be 'forced' in court to reveal his sources, the source was jailed for six months, an antinuclear peace camp was set up around that base and it became a permanent news story for ten years.
The second story might be paralleled by the secret bombing of Cambodia, which was revealed by the Pentagon papers (another massive dump of information that wasn't focused purely on US wrongdoing) - that story launched a wave of mass protests all across the United States and led to the infamous Kent State massacre, where US National Guard troops shot and killed a number of students.
If individual Wikileaks stories are having less of an effect than the Sarah Tisdall affair, or the Pentagon Papers, it's not because the revelations in the documents are insignificant compared to those of the past. It's because there's so much information to react to that we're being swamped with stuff that journalists would have killed for back in the Watergate days. Saying that 'We knew the government was bad already' or 'This stuff isn't news' strikes me as just the lazy way of dodging the significance of this leak..
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On December 02 2010 13:03 Aim Here wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 11:59 domovoi wrote:
Again, I support Wikileaks' existence as a repository for documents implicating bad activities. And for a time, that's what they were. They no longer are.
...
Um, how? Now that Assange has wasted his load on a bunch of gossip, good luck getting larger secrets as governments crack down on communications.
Are you saying that what's coming out of these cables is a bunch of gossip that isn't implicating bad activities? There's plenty of unflattering assessments about foreign politicians, sure. Embassies invite powerful people in for tea and then report back to their countries with what got said, and some of hose make for fun juicy headlines. But there's also a metric shitload of real substantial leaks coming out of these documents too. For example, there's the stories about: The US storing nuclear weapons in secret in Turkey, Belgium, Holland, and Germany The US has been bombing Yemen, in secret Storing illegal cluster bombs in secret in Britain Spying on the Secretary General of the United Nations The US considering the Sri Lankan government of being guilty of war crimes Half of the Middle east demanding that the US declare war on Iran That's a brief sample from 600 cables, out of 250,000 (whether they're cherrypicked for impact remains to be seen, of course). Thanks to modern information technology, the scale of this leak is utterly unprecedented, and it's detailing numerous everyday instances of political wrongdoing, not just a Big Single Lie. But some of these everyday lies would be considered Huge Newsworthy Lies back in the days when the old leaks of the past that you were talking about were happening. To take the first story, above, the one parallel from the past was the leak that told the British Public that the US was storing cruise missiles at Greenham Common in the early 1980s. That was a big story at the time, caused one national newspaper editor to be 'forced' in court to reveal his sources, the source was jailed for six months, an antinuclear peace camp was set up around that base and it became a permanent news story for ten years. The second story might be paralleled by the secret bombing of Cambodia, which was revealed by the Pentagon papers (another massive dump of information that wasn't focused purely on US wrongdoing) - that story launched a wave of mass protests all across the United States and led to the infamous Kent State massacre, where US National Guard troops shot and killed a number of students. If individual Wikileaks stories are having less of an effect than the Sarah Tisdall affair, or the Pentagon Papers, it's not because the revelations in the documents are insignificant compared to those of the past. It's because there's so much information to react to that we're being swamped with stuff that journalists would have killed for back in the Watergate days. Saying that 'We knew the government was bad already' or 'This stuff isn't news' strikes me as just the lazy way of dodging the significance of this leak..
Great post. Well said sir.
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EPT
