…at least in the eyes of one American diplomat in Zimbabwe. In the Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy sense.
What do you make of the latest Wikileaks document dump, so far?
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Berlusconi’s a crook, the arab states are egging on the yanks to unleash hell on Iran’s nuclear facilties, the U.S. spies on everyone
There’s laughter value at the embarrasment for the Americans and a few countries will indulge in a bit of righteous indignation but is there really anything we didn’t know?
“There’s laughter value at the embarrasment for the Americans and a few countries will indulge in a bit of righteous indignation but is there really anything we didn’t know?”
It’s easy now in hindsight to say we “all knew” what was going on.Well we didn’t,it was always at best a suspicion and for some, an educated guess. I am of the opinion that what has been released is still only small fry, and what they really get up to, will never see the light of day.
This unfortunately will change nothing, the people will retire to their beds at night and sleep sound knowing that, the faceless men and suits will protect them and their interests.In a few months it will be business as usual.
Haven’t seen the actual communique, but the one from Zimbabwe that referenced Australia was apparently titled “The End is Nigh”. WTF?
Let’s hope the diplomat was talking about Mugabe. But still eerie.
I’m amused that the quoted international movers and shakers appear to have used the dialogue of Austin Powers’ “Dr Evil” as their style manual.
It’s simultaneously comic and vulgar.
One would have thought that the US government dirt file might have died with J. Edgar Hoover.
However, the State Department took a prurient interest in a the living arrangements of a homosexual British MP that emulated perfectly the salaciousness of that jowly old transvestite G-Man.
Ah, nostalgia.
McClelland in an apparent brown nosing exercise on prosecuting Assange:
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/www/ministers/mcclelland.nsf/Page/Transcripts_2010_FourthQuarter_29November2010-DoorstoponleakingofUSclassifieddocumentsbyWikiLeaks
Cobblers. If the source is not the Commonwealth (and no intent to damage the Cth) he can forget about espionage legislation under the Criminal Code.
No intent to assist an enemy of the Cth, so he can forget about treason as well.
(Prediction, they’ll cancel his passport when all else fails, battle in the Federal court?)
Not to mention implied rights of political communication under the constitution.
I think that one of the most damning parts so far is Hillary’s order to diplomats to spy on UN people from Ban Ki Moon downwards, contrary to UN covenants. Credit card details, biometrics, frequent flier data, passwords to communication networks etc.
CREDIT CARDS FFS!!! Maybe that order came from The Ben Bernank so they don’t have to print money if they can steal it? (Crazy Bolton would die laughing if that was the plan.)
Like if anyone else in the US is caught stealing credit card info, that’s a *cough* not a criminal offence?
Look on the bright side. At least it is acknowledged that Australia failed to convince any other nation to commit the same sycophantic errors as we did.
The Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm…
“National Security”?
National security applies as to spies, etc.
Assange is about demonstrating the employ of “National security” as a foil for suppressing unsavoury information that gives the lie to the national security imperative as main motive for much of Washington’s policy making, over time.
“one of the most damning parts so far is Hillary’s order to diplomats to spy on UN people… contrary to UN covenants…”
Yes, this got me so concerned that I actually phoned the Chinese mission to the UN and asked them if they ever spied on other UN diplomats. They said no, of course not. They sounded very hurt that I would even think such a thing. The people I spoke to were very honest and forthright, so I believed them at once. You should, too!
“CREDIT CARDS FFS!!!”
Yep, if I was a spy, that would be like the absolute last straw for me, too. I mean, really. What is this world coming to?
SIR BEDEVERE: And… where, exactly, is the UN located?
ANGRY PEASANT: It’s in… it’s in… (VERY LONG PAUSE) It’s in New York.
SIR BEDEVERE: Good! And what sort of goods and services are for sale in New York?
ANGRY PEASANTS: Churches! / Very small rocks! / Bistro supplies! / French horns!
KING ARTHUR: (from rear) Everything.
SIR BEDEVERE: Good! And, do people with diplomatic immunity and fat expense accounts living in a city where everything is for sale, tend to leave an interesting information trail…?
KING ARTHUR: Sorry, you um, you lost me just now.
SIR BEDEVERE: Yes, I’m sure there’s nothing to that line of thought, I was just speculating.
ROBERT MCCLELLAND would do better to shut his mouth than appear a shill and sock puppet for the USA aka Howard. Why should he be bothered with it except to do a favour for a pissed off USA spooks.
Good way to make Labor look like Howard Govt, also a good way to be on the wrong side of is probably popular opinion.
GO on McClelland, make an ass of yourself and Labor by being the USA sex toy once more.
Funny, that’s exactly what the Americans were saying until yesterday, until … oh, now I get it!
I was rather surprised that the US had to resort to using their diplomats to try to get credit card details. I’d always assumed that if the US government asked, the banks and/or the visa/mastercard networks would just quietly turn over that sort of information. Especially since they’d be using their cards in the US.
I don’t think the information leaked so far is really damaging to the US. Probably more embarassing for the countries they were talking to – eg those countries in the middle east asking the US to bomb Iran who would protest loudly if the US actually did. Kind of makes you wonder how sincere protests by middle east governments to US behavior really are, or if they’re just doing it for internal consumption.
The Daily Mash have an excellent rant on the topic.
j_p_z: ‘course the Chinese have spies in their embassies – Third Assistant Cultural Attaches and the like. But they get their orders from the Guó?nbù, not the local ambassador (who often prefers to stay ignorant) or the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
That’s what mystifies me. Hillary Clinton has little or no practical knowledge of spycraft. Neither does your average diplomat. So what’s she doing mucking around with stuff that should be left to the CIA?
#14: What is Hillary Clinton doing mucking around with stuff that she knows next to nothing about? Was that your question?
Cuz it’s been my question too, since like 1992 or so.
JPZ, it happened for eight years under Dubya. Why should it be a surprise that the Democrats would present Hillary Clinton, on their turn?
As I understand it, as Secretary of State, Clinton’s empire includes the CIA, the in house intelligence service for State (eg, foreign service). During the Bush years, we all remember the battles betwen Rumsfeldt and his military intelligence and Colon Bowel, representing State and the CIA’s approach to the pertinent issues. If the diplomats can’t sell their message the military steps in with more straight forward, if you like, “solutions”, like the nuclear one they advocated for Cuba in the early sixties.
I’m intrigued by the cable/cables (mentioned in one NYT report,) that several Australians have gone missing in the Middle East.
Are they 1)idiot tourists
2)teenage runaways
3)people who will eventually end up being revealed to be innocent nobodies like Dr. Haneef
4)dangerous suburban radicals from the outer suburbs of our big cities
5)dead
6) none of the above?
Those missing Australians in the Middle East could also be
1)runaway spouses
2)on the wrong end of a family court decision who have disappeared with the kids
3)people who’ve jumped bail on non-terrorist charges
4)absent-minded.
5)married to some-one from a Middle Eastern country and they haven’t wanted to tell the rellies back home.
6)bigamists
7)polygamists
I do think I’ve just about exhausred all the possibilities now.
A quick scan thru the Guardian revealed a marvellous story, involving the Duke of York on tour out in the boondoggles of west Eurasia, demonstrating that this ugly individual has acquired both his fathers extraordinary talent for Pythonesque era ranting and bigoted attitudes.
Not so flattering was the info that our prospective Basil Fawlty himself is likely indebted to the Saudies, to quite some considerable degree.
Ugly and nasty, but will it be carried in our newspapers?
What’s the game changer? — wikileaks. And, it must be said a very poor security system, according to TGA on the Guardian, 3Mil Americans had access to this information. I mean it’s a bit like the Brits leaving top secret documents and confidential cabinet informations on the tube, except maybe not that incompetent… 3Mil people and one of them was a 22yr old in war zone. Good idea? Circumspect? No — Complete fail. Makes you wonder how well designed the rest of the response to (post) 9/11 is?
But back to wikileaks — I mean during the cold war there were informants and defectors, but it was a dangerous, stressful business — but now, you can have a bad day, your boss yelled at you or whatever, and you think, “F*ck you! I’m sending photocopies of this companies privates to wikileaks!” And you do.
Nope, the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence, who reports to the President.
Craig Murray nails it http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/11/raise_a_glass_t.html
Hillary now sez:
ie The US is the international community?
What garbage.
Yep Rob W.
That makes for a companion-piece for the Guardian story about the Duke of York in Uzbekistan and the darker aspects of the relationship of the British Upper crust with the oil-rich Saudies.
Shorter Hillary: Wikileaks is preventing the international community from peacefully plotting war on the international community.
Wikileaks is endangering war.
From Rob W’s Craig Murray link:
This is le mot juste on the cult of intelligence.
In a democracy a primary function of the intelligence community is to concoct plausible lies to mislead the citizenry that funds the institutions that concoct those lies. As we can see, these lies by no means fool our supposed enemies.
These lies are in the “national interest” only insofar as the “national interest” is identical to the interests of interlocking governing, corporate, military and cultural elites.
Hopefully Wikileaks will enable citizens to perceive how these lies are constructed and in whose interests they are constructed.
Maybe, these power elites will then be forced to think up new ways to keep their taxpayers in the dark.
Wikileaks on China and North Korea, from the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea
Seems China is prepared to go for a friendly unified Morea run from Seoulm if not unduly influenced by Americ Not surprising. Foregn intervention in North Korea, wjether by the Japanese or supportee by the US has always made them nervous. If not aggressive. But this time round, they obviously don’t want a war.
So the whole world waits for Kim senior to die.
Um, correction – Kprea, not Morea. Can’t see very well this morning.
Assange should be congratulated on a personal level for using his obvious anger to such constructuve (and entertaining) purposes. A weaker man with his skills could very easily have decided a life of industrial blackmail or website phishing as better recompense for the awful childhood he had.
In the end it won’t matter, because his inevitable prosecution by the US will make Hicks look like a model of procedural justice. (The bright side being that the public will develop an irreversible consciousness for the need of a Bill of Rights.)
Paul, that article also notes that the Chinese don’t have that much influence on NK, and some people think political collapse will come after elder Kim’s death. “We may not like them, but they’re a neighbour.” It also says that the Chinese see their strategic interests with Japan and the USA, and would be happy with a reunified Korea with close political ties to the US.
Hardly the opinions of a power hellbent on conquering the world.
sg,
Agreed. The idea of China wanting to have major influence outside its immediate neighbourhood is ludicrous in the extreme and completely ahistorical. Seems everyone is playing a long game on this one.
Isn’t it interesting that the perceptions of the noble Wikileakers as championing truth and freedom everywhere (“Assange is about demonstrating the employ of “National security” as a foil for suppressing unsavoury information that gives the lie to the national security imperative as main motive for much of Washington’s policy making, …. The people discomfited by these leaks are people who deserve to be discomfited. Truth helps the people against rapacious elites – everywhere ….. Wikileaks will enable citizens to perceive how these lies are constructed and in whose interests they are constructed.”) so frequently come from the same people who perceived the leakers of the East Anglia e-mails as vile tramplers over truth and freedom?
You know, those (I am quoting from some of you) who said stuff like “stole a vast amount of private e-mail communication … Disgusting invasion of privacy… the authors of these e-mails have their views misrepresented … Feeding the conspiracy theorists.”
Surely it cannot be that whether a leak is noble or ignoble depends solely on whether the contents of said leak support or not the pre-existing views of the progressive left?
You may be right in some cases Wozza – but I for one, abnd many others, are more concerned about the contents of the leaks in both cases.
East Anglia – meh.
Wikileaks – big news.
Absolutely correct Wozza! It mystifies me how some people think that you may be a halfwit.
A parable for you j_p_z:
Well H&R that will be interesting, the Pentagon/FBI have been working on that for some time with nil visible result. Assange was not in the jurisdiction when Manning allegedly stole the data, no aiding and abetting him to do that, no conspiracy prior to it as well.
Plus 1st Amendment protections (that apply to the New York Times also leaking this stuff) so any prosecution has some really significant problems.
(Unless of course they allege he caused malicious damage by jamming up the New York sewage system with broken condoms from the Swedish backpackers where he stayed?)
I dunno, Wozza.
I feel a lot more reassured about the NK situation now because of info from Wikileaks. (Provided NK doesn’t go completely insane between now and the elder Kim’s demise.)
I’m also somewhat reassured by the fact that the US told the Saudis they didn’t intend to invade Iran despite the Saudis strongly urging them to do so. Nobody was going to get them involved in a shitfight between Sunnis and Shi’ites, np matter how much oil they had.
And anybody who didn’t think the US was responsible for bombing the shit out of Al-Queda in Yemen before the Wikileaks leak was, to say the least, naive.
Nor should anybody really be surprised by the revelation that the Saudis are still backing Al-Queda. The big question there is why the hell the Us hasn’t done anything about it.
Corruption in Afghanistan and Pakistan – dah! One could make a similar comment about the lack of security round Pakistan’s nuclear materials, and the revelation that NK sold missiles to launch warheads to Iran etc, etc,- you really think they wouldn’t?
Nothing breaching Australian security (or indeed world security) was found in either the Iraq or Afghanistan leaks and nor is there anything likely to be found in this current crop of leaks. (Wikileaks do go through it very carefully, apparently) Unlike the East Anglia leaks, the major newspapers given access to the leaks, so far, are not using them irresponsibly. All we’re really getting is a bit of amusing gossip about world leaders that heaps ofpeople already knew about anyway. Like 2 macho men like Berlesconi and Putin enjoy eavch other’s company. Some members of the British royal family behave like boors. Wow! Gaddaffi doesn’t like to walk up more than 30 steps and has a luscious blonde nurse. Wow! So far as I’m aware he hasn;t veen a well man for some time.
Now, wuth the East Anglia leaks what we had a gross misuse of the material by climate deniers. Somewhat differing ethical standards to Wikileaks, I’d say.
Yes, PB.
The major Wikileaks revelation so far is not that the national security elites worldwide are lying manipulators. Most intelligent people already knew that, without necessarily having detailed knowledge of their techniques.
No, the big revelation is how hamfisted and amateurish they are in weaving their threadbare webs of deception. They’re not supermen. They’re dills.
Katz, indeed. I got the same impression by the way, going through Australian diplomatic cables from 1938-1945. (Don’t worry Wozza, there’s no need for me to leak them to Wikileaks. They’ve all been published by DFAT or are in files open to the public in the Australian Archives. (well, one or two are still in sealed brown envelopes, at British insistence.)
As for diplomatic cables saying nasty things about people, Wozza, you should read the US diplomatic files from the American Revolutionary period. You can see how the Yanks got into the habit of doing this kind of thing very early, even before they declared independence in 1776. Our cables are much more circumspect.
I think, Wozza, it largely depends on whether the people in question are hiding something. The East Anglia crew weren’t hiding anything, so the information was not relevant to the public interest and so leaking it is simply an invasion of privacy.
Also this was a leak, whereas East Anglia appears to have been theft. You do understand the subtle difference between leaking something and stealing something, don’t you?
In both cases my expectations have been largely met – the East Anglia scientists were not up to unholy mischief, our noble protectors in the foreign service are largely arseholes, the Saudis are evil and the Chinese are better international actors than they are usually given credit for.
Meh, in all respects.
This is not consistent with the phrase “Hide the Decline”.
Rigging of peer review, fixing the firing of magazine editors, etc. is very much consistent with trying to hide something.
One could be forgiven for thinking the East Anglia CRU crew did little else but plot how to hide things.
I’m going to aasume that ‘hide the decline’ has already been explained to you SATP, and that you’re just being silly.
Don’t get me wrong, PB, on the whole I have no objection to Wikileaks, for exactly the reasons you adduce. I have a problem with, or at least a wry smile at, the intellectual inconsistency which suggests leaked information is a good thing if it makes people we disagree with squirm, but a bad thing when people we agree with are the squirmers.
I mean, take sg’s latest: “East Anglia crew weren’t hiding anything, so the information was not relevant to the public interest”. This is a completely circular argument, even if true (my judgment, and that of not a few others, is that the leaks in question showed that they were hiding things, but let’s play what if). If the information was not public no-one would have been able to judge whether they were hiding anything or not. Unless of course you have a super-censor of infallible judgment deciding what goes out and what doesn’t. Conroy, anyone?
And on theft vs non-theft, come off it. The Wiki-leaks material was “stolen”, if you want to use an emotive term, just as much as the East Anglia stuff, or are you suggesting that its owners – the State Department in the case of the diplomatic cables in the article – freely gave them to Assange?.
One of the more daft cables has the Saudis suggesting the US microchip released Guantanamo Bay detainees the same way one would microchip horses. The American response was “Horses don’t have lawyers.”
FDB, every last bit of climate fakery has been explained to me.
Only the blind faithful remain adhered to that cult. It was all bogus. One helluva con job. The only ones who stick to the faith are those who invested so much intellectual capital in believing in it. They would lose too much face to back down now.
But that isn’t the point.
Sg’s obtuse excuse for opposing one theft, whilst agreeing with another is merely double standard.
Wozza has a valid point. One cannot condemn the CRU hacking yet give wikileaks a free run with what it is releasing.
Rightwing troll de-rail being attempted. Back to Wikileaks …
No Wozza, we decide whether a theft was appropriate or not after the fact, when we see what is revealed. If nothing useful or important is revealed, or it turns out to have served no purpose (as in the East Anglia situation), we assume that it was doen for malicious or propagandistic purposes. If on the other hand it turns out to have been valuable and in the public interest, we applaud it. I don’t think the logic of this is any different on the left than on the right. In fact I’m sure you’ll find plenty of right-wing bloggers decrying wikileaks even though a few months ago they were making as much of the East Anglia stuff as they could.
The difference between leak and theft apparently does need explaining to you, right? A leak comes from within, e.g. as in the case of a soldier leaking information he had access to (which is what happened here). It’s a public interest action. Theft comes from without, and may or may not be done in the public interest. Or perhaps you don’t comprehend the difference between “whistleblowing” and “rumourmongering”?
SATP, your comments show you clearly don’t understand the scientific process or in fact any of the science of climate change. Do you know what “decline” they were “hiding”? And do you understand the difference between a journal and a magazine?
Has it occurred to anyone that if Wukileaks had dumped a whole lot of material from Iran or North Korea equivalent to this dump from the Us State Department, Hillary Clinton and Robert McLellamd would be calling Assange an international hero? All somebody has to do is send them to him.
Interestingly, the US government appears to have known for some time that the Saudis were major funders and supporters of al Qaeda, yet have kept that little secret from the world and especially US military personnel and their families and bereaved.
Instead, Cheney twisted logic, concocted forgeries and told outright lies to implicate Saddam Hussein as an abettor of al Qaeda.
Geez, all Cheney had to do was to read the dispatches of his own diplomats to discover the real culprits.
But he didn’t. Seems that in the choice between oil and the truth, Cheney chose oil.
A leak comes from within, a theft comes from without, eh sg?
So if I remove a computer or two, and, oh, there’s some rather nice art work in the corridor let’s bag that too, from my workplace when I go home, that isn’t theft.
I think you’ve just rewritten hundreds of years of criminal law.
Theft is about the ownership of what is thieved; it is NOT defined by either who did the thieving or the nature of the article thieved.
Sorry PB it wasn’t an intentional thread derail – I intended it to be a comment on the differing ways to interpret the ethics of the Wikileaks situation. But you’re right, it is now getting O/T and I will stop.
Would it be theft Wozza if the art work belonged to someone else and had been appropriated by my workplace? And if it were theft, would it be wrong?
I’m glad to see that, true to type, you have just penned a few comments explicitly opposed to all forms of whistleblowing. The world is definitely a safer place for all of us without whistleblowers to reveal the sneaky shenanigans of our bosses.
I presume you also think anyone who defects from North Korea with a briefcase full of their nuclear secrets is also a criminal bastard who should be sent straight back?
Ecuador has offered residency to Assange, no questions asked. I wonder if he’ll take it.
Dontcha just love the Bolivarian Revolution!
Sigh, let’s bury that dead body again.
Further
Really SATP and Wozza, you should read wider, even a backyard plodder like me can find these outcomes with a few inquiring keystrokes. And don’t tell me that all members of these review committees were conspiring such and suches without substantial evidence.
Ootz: The millisecond the CRU emails entered the public domain, the climate scam was over.
The IPCC is a laughing stock, the gabfests (eg Copenhagen etc) are just that, irrelevant gabfests. The general public is telling pollsters they are no longer hoodwinked into believing, and are voting accordingly.
The.Scam.Is.Over.
It.Is.That.Simple.
I’ve got to admit I’m not entirely comfortable with this stuff getting leaked. It may make diplomats a lot more circumspect about what they write home, in circumstances where they should be frank and fearless.
Still, SATP is still completely clueless. It’s nice that some things never change.
The folks who hacked into the US government’s files certainly committed theft and possibly some more serious crimes.
However, Wikileaks is simply a site where files may be uploaded. It is completely open for anyone to upload, rather like a dumpster. The owner of a dumpster is not a thief if someone drops an item into it. But that ownership must be established by the purported owner of the item so deposited.
When the persons who administer Wikileaks peruse the files uploaded to them, they may or may not be in a position to determine who is the actual owner of any given file.
Indeed, if I recall correctly, Julian Assange invited a representative of the US government to peruse these files with the intent, among other things, of allowing the US government to assert ownership of the files.
Remarkably, this US government representative refused to do so. If no one from the US government is prepared to justify any claim they may have over any property, why should persons in possession of these items assume any particular person or organisation own them, or indeed that these items are what they purport to be?
Wikileaks is entirely in their rights to treat these documents as if they were forgeries but nevertheless go along with the ruse, pretending all the time that they believe the files to be genuine.
Unless the US government shows that these files are real, Wikileaks has no reason not to assume otherwise.
Yeh, at least there is some certainty in the SATP stupidity.
If I am so clueless, at least I am in good company. i.e. the rest of the world.
Of course, being called clueless by Two of the shallowest commenters on this site is more of a positive endorsement than an epithet. (Pride)
Exactly Katz @56, WL is just like any other MSM receiving leaked information. However, where the difference is, WL does not release the info with spin attached. Assange motto is “We release, You decide”. I assume that is a hard concept to get the head around when yuo are spoon fed.
Katz’ comment at 56 has me thinking further. Given the stuff about private info on computers, etc being raided by US intelligence, it’s hard to se how they could “own” someone elses personal info, without being “thieves” themselves?
PW: but the US make their own laws. That’s the key difference. Happens all the time – terrorism is very carefully defined to exclude state actors, for example, to avoid the PR problem of US actions being classed as terrorism. We do exactly the same thing. Quite blatantly at times, when we re-classify actions or groups based on political pressure (question: Fretilin, terrorists or not?)
It does make sense, one of the key elements of a modern state is that citizens largely give up our rights to commit violence (etc) in exchange for the state promising to do so on our behalf when justified. From there it’s lawyers all the way down, which is why anarchists have such a field day with corrupt politicians.
“Still, SATP is still completely clueless. It’s nice that some things never change.”
We keep him here and occasionally feed him treats for his pure silliness value. I think one of the mods has invented him to keep us entertained.
moz, there is already talk amongst the repugnants, in the U.S., about the possibility of declaring Wikileaks a terrorist organization.
Here is a Republican congressman’s attempt to fit up Julian Assange:
These assertions are, of course, patently untrue, irrelevant and bizarre.
1. Wikileaks is available as a repository for all sorts of leaks, not just US government leaks.
2. Clearly Wikileaks does not publish everything. Some things, no doubt, are not worth reading or perhaps are actually unreadable. To exercise control over what may or may not be published is not a terrorist act, unless it can be argued that to publish leaked Iranian documents is also a terrorist act.
3. It appears that Congressman King believes that the only “bastards” in existence are those who represent US interests. This assumption tells us more about the state of mind of Congressman King and the Republican Right than it tells us about the methodology and intentions of Wikileaks. I’d be reasonably confident that Julian Assange regards Kim Jong Il as a “bastard”.
But on the other hand, I’d love to see Congressman King’s interpretation of US anti-terrorist legislation tested before the Supreme Court of the United States.
PK: “To have a mistress is French. To be found out is American.”
Heh heh, nice. But y’know, when you’ve got a different gal in every county, ya just accept that a slip-up here and there is the cost of playing the game. That’s what I’d call American.
But I agree with you that having only _a_ mistress is decidedly French.
btw, Stuxnet sent me an email. It said, “Please continue discussing the usefulness of Wikileaks; it is a highly fascinating topic, and squirrel!
Speaking of American slip-ups, what do Charlie Chaplin, Charles Manson, and Frank Lloyd Wright have in common?
#14: What is Hillary Clinton doing mucking around with stuff that she knows next to nothing about? Was that your question?
Not quite, j_p_z. If it was only Clinton, then that would be a reasonable paraphrase of my question. But Condoleezza Rice also encouraged US diplomats to spy on UN diplomats. She might have even started it. Colin Powell’s name hasn’t been linked to the practice as far as I am aware, and he was the last Secretary of State. So if it’s folly, it’s bipartisan folly – Rice for initiating it, and Clinton for continuing it.
Since I obviously wasn’t clear, I’ll rephrase myself and ask the question again. Why are State Department employees – trained to be the diplomatic corp of the US Government, and with different skillsets from your average Intelligence officer – encouraged to be spies in such a brazen and insecure fashion?
I’d say it for the spooks: if they’re going to invite someone to spy, they’re not going to advertise the invitation on a network like Siprnet (“3,067,000 served in 1993″).
Australia “uninfluential”? Humph.
This little mouse has spawned two of the greatest megolomaniacs on the planet: Rupert Murdoch and Julian Assange, one from the far right and one from the far left, now astride the world…
Can’t wait for the Assange movie. He is sooo filmic. Who would you cast? And how will the movie end?
“Who would you cast?”
Sean Penn
Yes Fine, particularly in view of the fact that he’s been out campaigning for the Haitians, God bless’im..
Ktaz @ 66:
They were all prosecuted under the Mann Act.
But Chaplin was not American. He remained a British Subject until he died.
SATP of course. And the movie ends with him throwing beer slops on the floor of his favourite pub for respite in 50C heat, while CIA agents and prosecutor Ny from Sweden are melting outside.
Peter Kemp, much as my showbusiness CV could do with some updating, alas physically I bear little resemblance to Mr Assange.
That’s alright, SATP, Sean Penn doesn’t look much like Joe Wilson either.
Bit of bleach, it’d work.
Tim Robbins could do it. Hard to make a biopic that doesn’t totally blow.
Chaplin wasn’t American, but the Mann Act was.
After watching the Social Network a few nights ago, and just now noticing it was Kevin Spacey who produced and narrated Hackers Wanted, I reckon there’s a good chance he’ll be producing your Assange biopic.
Paul@27 is right: the idea that China is not foursquare behind North Korea is seismically important, far more so than the tittle-tattle about Berlusconi or Prince Andrew.
I’d suggest that North Korea will collapse sooner rather than later. The fact that South Korea hasn’t collapsed or started offering concessions will start to make NK reconsider their position. If one NK general led a division to the DMZ and had them down arms, it would be the beginning of the end.
NK goes the way of DDR within two years.
I hope you’re right, Andrew. The people of North Korea have been emiserated for far too long.
I’m just happy the war maneuvers in the Yellow Sea are about to end. A bloody dangerous pressure game that is. The yanks would scream if tried did something like that near their coast.
C’mon cringers!
Why should a non-Australian play the role of the most notorious living (and dead!) Australian?
Ben Mendelsohn is a natural for the Assange role.
The Israelis are celebrating Assange’s achievements.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/israel-says-i-told-you-so-on-iran/story-e6frg6zo-1225963522638
Irrelevant of course, since we all agree that who squirms and who cheers as a result of any leak makes no difference at all to the ethics of the situation.
Ethics?
Governments have been caught lying to their citizens. This mendacity breaches the contract between governors and governed in a responsible democracy.
Andrew E @ 78,
True, but I was watching a Sinologist on ABC2 this morning, who claimed the attitudes to North Koreaexpressed in the cables, which were apparently pretty ;ow level, and that while they may have been the views of a low-level diplomat, they did not reflect the view of the Politburo etc, where the decisions about N. Korea are made. So I don’t know how earth-shaking ithe attitude of China to North Korea currently is.
Uts no comfort at all to me to find my conclusion aboiut the unbreakable bond between China and North Kprea, with its consequent possibility of military action set forth in my recent blog post – click name- still appears to be right.
Katz, if a Cate may look at a Queen and a couple of aussies sit near the pinnacle of the hollywood A list, and a couple of other sheilas frequently receive honours for their roles in American tv series then I think that believing an Australian must play Assange is more symptomatic of the cringe. I reckon you could roll the suggestions thus far into one movie and have Penn hunting down Robbins, Penn all barely repressed violence, Robbins slightly hapless, less than worldly but with just enough douchiness to set you wondering. Clint Eastwood to direct. Oh Wait …
“This mendacity breaches the contract between governors and governed in a responsible democracy.”
Sorta like when a Prime Minister goes into an election saying “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”, and comes out saying that there will be one within a year, you mean Katz?
Sort of.
However, rescinding a promise, which may have been forced by changing, and perhaps unknowable, circumstances, tends to be less of a breach of trust than a lie about the past.
For example, one may promise a child a sweet, only to discover that the child has diabetes. In that case it would be most harmful to carry out the promise.
On the other hand, it is very difficult to construct an example of an ethical lie about the past. As Wikileaks have demonstrated, Dick Cheney, for example, lied repeatedly about the Saudis being actual source of support for al Qaeda. Could Cheney say in his defence to the American people, “I knew the truth, but I figured that you preferred cheap gas to being told the truth.”
We have a right to know and Assange is one of the few people enforcing that right. The discomfort of (ahem) journalists, exposed by Assange as total mushrooms, is a joy to behold.
Let us celebrate unrestrainedly then, Katz – we have at last found something we can agree on, even if “sort of”.
Your metaphor – the great Australian voting public and its Prime Minister as child, parent and promised sweeties – is one I can support too.
Oh fabjous day.
Wozza said:
That’s not strictly speaking correct. What we will have within a year is a framework for pricing CO2 explicitly, which could be in the form of a tax or a cap and pwermit auction system rationing rights to emit. This latter system (a “market mechanism” in their nomenclature)is still their policy, but because the multi-party committee includes all those who favour a price on carbon, Gillard cannot exclude the carbon tax proposal without pre-empting the committee.
It was a mistake of course to promise before the election that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. Now I’m no admirer of Gillard, but in her defence on this one she probably figured that the ALP would win in its own right or lose completely rather than be dependent on cross-benchers to form government. In either case, she figured she was not going to fall short.
What she should have said of course was that if re-elected, the government would move swiftly to put an explicit price on emissions rather than one of the implicit pricing models favoured by the coalition. Pressed further, about whether that might include a carbon tax, she might simply have said that this would not be their preferred model but ultimately, this would be a matter to be determined by the 21st parliament.
Fran, you’re right of course – it was “we must decide in 2011 on a way of pricing carbon that …… can be legislated” in the recent speech to CEDA, the recollection of which I was working off.
But let’s face it, any “way of carbon pricing” will put up the price of energy and anything with energy embodied in it – to all intents and purposes, Abbott’s “everything” – in a way which is equivalent to a consumption tax in its impact on the person in the street, or in the voting booth. To draw the semantic distinction isn’t going to save her from accusations of backtracking on the clear “the Government I led will not…”, and nor should it.
There too much hiding behind semantics, and the pretend get out of jail free card of the hung Parliament, from this Government in trying to wriggle out of firm previous commitments. Gillard’s desperation to give away whatever it took to form Government was in her own control; she cannot blame anyone else for her principles and promises being apparently so valueless that they were abandoned in an instant for considerations of personal political power.
Meanwhile, in what passes for the real world, Interpol has issued a warrant or Red Notice for Assange’s arrest and Ecuador has apparently withdrawn its residency offer.
I love how Australia is bending over backwards for America, saying Assange will be arrested if he ever returns here, which is odd because he hasn’t broken any Australian laws IIRC. If he’s broken international law then that’s what Interpol is for, hell Interpol will nick him for breaking American law IIRC.
Wozza said:
Not at all. The current “way of carbon pricing” (making dumping free) puts up the cost of roads, and the health system, causes losses in commuting time, lower productivity, and over the longer term with damage the interests of everyone depending one way or another on land exposed to sea level rise. It’s putting up the cost of grain as crops fail and forcing us to re-examine how we use water in agricultural areas.
The Abbott method will transfer some of this cost to the taxpayers in reduced services, higher debt or higher taxes.
An explicit price on CO2 will settle some of this burden onto the most intensive users of hydrocarbon energy services.
It’s not a semantic distinction. Unlike the coalition who abandoned the idea in 2009, the ALP’s policy has favoured an explicit price on CO2 since 2007. The politica-semantic shenanighans have come from the coalition’s desire to use GBNT as a slogan and thuis to cast Gillard as favouring “a tax”. Tax angst is classic populism.
Yet cap and trade is not a tax. It is a way of allowing business as a whole to allocate amongst themselves the cost of a good (n this case the right to emit CO2) by auctioning off these rights. The cost is fixed by the state only indirectly, which the players in effect work out the ways in which they do compliance (how many permits and how much BPR). Saying it is a tax just illiteracy-as-populist politics
Nor is it right to repsent the government as hiding behind the hung parliament. If one believes that the parliament should determine policy, then what any executive must do is negotiate with it respecting the process. To do otherwise would be dictatorial, surely.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Assange is now a fugitive for publishing a whole bunch of what is essentially low-level diplomatic correspondence + a couple of juicy bits – for publishing stuff that adds a bit of colour to historical narrative but not a great deal else.
PB – actually it’s for the sexual assault case.
I might add Wozza, that in this matter, as in others, Abbott speaks only of those parts of the ledger that suit his claims.
He speaks of “a great big new tax” and “rising energy costs” but he negelcts compensation provided for in the system. In so far as funds from putting a price on CO2 emissions are imposed, there will be rebates and tax cuts for the bulk of those imposed upon, so for most people the cost impost will be neutral or better. He skips that, which makes what he is doing deceptive.
One of the more amusing spectacles occurred yesterday in which Greg Hunt made himself appear foolish just so he could avoid a form of words acknowledging that the opposition also favouyred a carbon price or taxpayers paying. One Basil {don’t mention the war} Fawlty award to him:
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Greg Hunt is the Opposition’s climate change spokesman. The Coalition is arguing for direct climate change action and doesn’t support a price on carbon. That’s despite the Coalition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull yesterday declaring that Tony Abbott is putting a price on carbon too. It’s just that the taxpayer will bear the cost.
GREG HUNT: Our approach is direct action. And what’s important here is that we’ve been very up-front. {irony award!!! FB}
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And who pays for direct action?
GREG HUNT: We’ve been very up-front that in the first year it would be $300 million, the second year $500 million, the third $750 million and the fourth a billion dollars. That would start on the 1st of July 2011.
{IOW, he’s very up-front that he’d rather not say who pays for direct action}
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: So Malcolm Turnbull is right isn’t he when he says that the Coalition is putting a price on carbon. It’s just that the taxpayer is paying for it?
GREG HUNT: I’ll characterise it as direct action.
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But do you agree with Malcolm Turnbull that it is putting a price on carbon?
GREG HUNT: My phrasing is very clear that we are creating an emissions reduction fund for direct action. That’s our phrasing. {emphasis added by me here: FB}
SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But you don’t, well that might be your phrasing but you don’t disagree with Mr Turnbull’s comments yesterday?
GREG HUNT: Look I’ll say it again. We’re creating a carbon buy-back. And people can characterise it as they wish. I have no problem with that.
{IOW, Yes, but he’d rather not say the words: FB}
So who was playing semantic games?
According to Assange’s lawyer, the two complainants turned from sufficiently contented lovers into vengeful litigants when each discovered the existence of the other.
One may observe that it seems a little strange that both women in this allegedly conflictual relationship with each other would join an action against the defendant. However, it is possible that Assange’s behaviour has outraged Swedish sensibilities of which I am unaware.
On the face of it, therefore, either Assange’s lawyer’s story is not accurate, or these women have been induced to join in this action by a person or persons unknown.
Penn would want to direct it as well. He and Robbins could get into a bit of fisticuffs about it.
“I might add Wozza, that in this matter, as in others, Abbott speaks only of those parts of the ledger that suit his claims.”
This is also the tactic of Wozza@86. Though he goes a little further and makes up her words, for himself, that suit him.
Fran, this is now totally O/T (mea culpa for starting it, but I plead provocation). Much as I would like to play, it belongs in another thread, another time.
As a final general point though, it is just incontrovertible that a carbon price will put energy prices up. Period. Whether there is compensation from the Government – thus ultimately from the tax payer, and therefore actually in macro terms more costly for the taxpaying body as a whole, since they finish up paying the energy cost compensation plus administrative costs/churn – or whether the Government pays directly as the Coalition proposes and, as you say, the costs come back in debt taxes or lack of services, is irrelevant.
It may indeed be that this is worth doing because of other costs avoided that are now being incurred as externalities (though I note that avoiding most of those you list won’t happen unless and until other big emitters join the party) I am not arguing about that.
Joe2, go to your room please, the adults are trying to talk.
This analysis of Assange’s philosophy and motivation for Wikileaks makes for interesting reading. It’s based on an essay Assange wrote in 2006. Some key blockquotes:
and
FDB, read this morning somewhere that the sexual assault case against Assange had not yet resulted in any charges under Swedish law and he was just being sought as a witness, His swedish lawyer was advising him to front because there was no case and he would wipe the floor with the said litagants, or words to that effect. And get off.
Things must have really hotted up the last few hours or so.
I’m no patriot, as people will know, but if I were, I’d be pleased that Assange was an Australian who was making a splash other than as an Austrian.
All jokes aside, he’s a seriously interesting and courageous fellow. Anyone who annoys that many powerful people without him/herself being a powerful person or offending the public interest can’t help but elicit my admiration.
If people are concerned about Assange’s future (and we probably should be), let us not forget about the brave Bradley Manning.
“Joe2, go to your room please, the adults are trying to talk.”
Not until you prove to me that you did not just make up this quote…
… supposedly of Gillard, yourself, you misrepresenting ratbag, uncle Wozza.
The Ecuadorians have withdrawn their offer of residence to Assange. I suppose they get lent on (and not by the Bolivians.)
joe2 @ 106 – she was pretty clear about it before the election
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/climate/gillard-rules-out-imposing-carbon-tax-20100816-1270b.html
What exactly is it that Assange and Wikilinks are saying that certain commenters on this thread apparrently don’t want us to think about let alone hear? There must be something. Its the only explanation I can think of for the constantly annoying de-rail by several commenters on carbon pricing which so far as I’m aware has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Just so I can follow the Wikilinks thread, please, please, transfer your de-rail to Saturday Salon or somewhere else that it belongs.
What I find strange about outrage in relation to Wikileaks, is that I’m not seeing the same outrage directed to the news outlets reporting on the content of the cables. Our own dear ABC opens every news service with a breathless account of what has been leaked today. Oh, but it’s so shocking what Assange has done.
Yes, good point Fine. Maybe it’s shocking because he’s showing them up for the poor excuses for journalists that they undoubtedly are.
And I second the point about the annoying (and boring) de-rail.
Assange sure knows how to piss people off. If outrage were edible, he could feed the world.
While carbon pricing was clearly OT I was obviously not going to let the coalition talking point pass uncorrected.
Some things are like housekeeping. Boring they may be, but you can’t simply ignore them.
And while I said I wasn’t going to debate further since it was O/T, and I’m not, neither am I going just to let Fran away with the assertion that I have been “corrected”.
Sorry, Fran, that was not a correction. It was your view. It may come as a shock to you, but that is not always the final word.
Housekeeping. Sorry.
I think PB’s point was that you should probably consider taking the conversation to another thread where people other than yourselves may be interested.
“If outrage were edible, he could feed the world.”
Edible outrage.
Yes, adrian. I’m sure all the journos are grateful that they don’t have to do much work themselves.
Well there you go, Chris@108. I had not realised she had been that adamant. My apology Wozza.
OMG did de-rail again! Sorry Paul. We will go Johnny Depp to play Assange in the movie.
Re the Swedish matter:
http://wlcentral.org/
Sweden is in breach of a European convention of human rights, from his English lawyer earlier:
http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/18/assange-lawyer-sweden-breached-human-rights-law/
My own theory is that the Swedish prosecutor’s mania to get Assange back to Sweden in chains (he offered interviews with prosecutor Ny but was rebuffed while in Sweden and then was given the OK to leave to country BTW) might be part of a dirty deal with the US for a dodgy extradition application by the US.
Something is rotten in the state of
DenmarkSweden.Yes Peter Kemp, there is something a bit redolent at the bottom of all this. Realistically, Sweden has never been the same since the death of Olaf Palme; it’s another place that has been dragged out of its own way of doing things by US driven globalisation.
Johhny Depp. Best Suggestion so far Joe2.
From somebody who knows what Governments try to do with you when you make the shit hit the fan.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8173913/assange-rape-charge-could-be-a-set-up-wilkie
(Fran,
next time you are so damned stupid to fall for an attempted RWDB derail, please, for my sake at least, do your “housekeeping” on Saturday Salon. Several of us have learned that is the best way to deal with the right wing trolls who feel uncomfortable with particular left wing talking points and try to stuff up a thread. If I choose to make any more comment on this extraordinarily dull issue you can find it on Saturday Salon. Which is one of the many reasons, in their wisdom, the people who run this blog have created that thread for.)
Johnny Depp – and we have a winner.
You can BET there are actual screenwriters out there with the synopsis already written. Maybe hedging with a few different endings… first President of the World, swimming-pool full of shark-eating piranhas, &c &c
Johnny Depp it is, he did do a very good Gonzo journalist. Wikileak the apposite of fear and loathing, minus the drugs of course.