Wikileaks: Support or Against?

Yeah, the CIA would most def. use as this as propaganda ! http://88.80.13.160/

blaah wrote:

Wikileaks is just another propaganda outlet of the CIA. It is all bullshit.

Problem with Wikileak information is that not only is it one side of the story, it probably is just part of the story set in an unknown context. it could be an ironic statement, it could be an response to misunderstood information or a dusin other ways to wrongly interpreted the information read from a document released in wikileak.

This is not freedom of speach as there are no way defend themselves from accusations in media. Governments, diplomats and other would not be able to do any work apart from defending themselves against misunderstood information. Some information also need to be secret as it may risk life’s/business/strategies. Do Wikileak evaluate the source and risk of it's published information?

A lot of the information is good to have released, but it need to be done with some caution source criticism.

I am pretty sure Wikileak has only one agenda. Make money.

oh please wrote:

It's bad for everyone. There is such a thing as too much info. Fact is even with these "leaks", we don't know shit, so all that happens is people get stirred up in a frenzy.

There is without a doubt things that go on in the US (and the world) that the general populace would flip out over, but that's the price that needs paid if you want the life you have.

.

Ah, the old ignorance is bliss philosophy of the anit-intellectual Right Wing.

Information is always good, always power. Which is why the powerful don't want is to have it. If you think that the powerful people who run our society keep us in the dark for our own good, you just haven't been paying attention

Zionist Joe Liebernam (D, Tel Aviv) prevents free speech

"The US struck its first blow against WikiLeaks after Amazon.com pulled the plug on hosting the whistleblowing website in reaction to heavy political pressure.

The company announced it was cutting WikiLeaks off yesterday only 24 hours after being contacted by the staff of Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate's committee on homeland security. . . .

Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material. I call on any other company or organisation that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them."

The department of homeland security confirmed Amazon's move, referring journalists to Lieberman's statement.

Talking Points Memo -- in an article headlined: "How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks" -- detailed that Lieberman's "staffers . . . called Amazon to ask about it, and left questions with a press secretary including, 'Are there plans to take the site down?'" Shortly thereafter, "Amazon called them back . . . to say they had kicked Wikileaks off." Lieberman's spokeswoman said: "Sen. Lieberman hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the site."

That Joe Lieberman is abusing his position as Homeland Security Chairman to thuggishly dictate to private companies which websites they should and should not host -- and, more important, what you can and cannot read on the Internet -- is one of the most pernicious acts by a U.S. Senator in quite some time. Josh Marshall wrote yesterday: "When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation like Amazon has to fry with the federal government." That's true of all large corporations that own media outlets -- every one -- and that is one big reason why they're so servile to U.S. Government interests and easily manipulated by those in political power. That's precisely the dynamic Lieberman was exploiting with his menacing little phone call to Amazon (in essence: Hi, this is the Senate's Homeland Security Committee calling; you're going to be taking down that WikiLeaks site right away, right?). Amazon, of course, did what they were told.

Note that Lieberman here is desperate to prevent American citizens -- not The Terrorists -- from reading the WikiLeaks documents which shed light on what the U.S. Government is doing. His concern is domestic consumption. By his own account, he did this to "send a message to other companies that might host WikiLeaks" not to do so. No matter what you think of WikiLeaks, they have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime; Lieberman literally wants to dictate -- unilaterally -- what you can and cannot read on the Internet, to prevent Americans from accessing documents that much of the rest of the world is freely reading.

The Internet, of course, is rendering decrepit would-be petty tyrants like Lieberman impotent and obsolete: WikiLeaks moved its website to a Swedish server and was accessible again within hours. But any attempt by political officials to start blocking Americans' access to political content on the Internet ought to provoke serious uproar and unrest. If the Tea Party movement and the Right generally were even minimally genuine in their ostensible beliefs, few things would trigger more intense objections than a political official trying to dictate to private actors which political content they should allow on the Internet (instead, you have Newt Gingrich demanding that Assange be declared an "enemy combatant" and Sarah Palin calling for his murder). Remember, though -- as The Post told us today -- it's "authoritarian governments and tightly controlled media in China and across the Arab Middle East" which are trying to prevent citizens from learning about the WikiLeaks documents.

Then we have this equally revealing passage from the Post article:

In many Arab countries, the mainstream media have largely avoided reporting on the sensitive contents of the cables, including accounts of Arab leaders drinking alcohol and siding with Israel in advocating a U.S. military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

I genuinely laughed aloud when I read that. Does anyone think that "the mainstream media" in the U.S. has reported much "on the sensitive contents of the cables" specifically or the WikiLeaks war documents generally? I don't mean salacious gossip or David-Sanger/Michael-Gordan-type Government-serving fear-mongering about America's "enemies" (Iran is operating in Iraq!!; Iran is being armed by North Korea!!; Arab dictators want Iran attacked!!). I mean documents that reflect badly on what the U.S. Government is doing in the world.

Overwhelmingly, the reaction of establishment media figures has been to scorn these disclosures as somehow being both a Grave Threat and Nothing New. Watch this short segment I did yesterday on MSNBC with Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post Editorial Page and former GOP Congresswoman Susan Molinari. Technical difficulties impeded my participation, but what's important is not really what I said, but what they said. Two notes about it: (1) Capehart, who calls himself a "journalist," could not be more contemptuous of WikiLeaks as it shines a light on the U.S. government, and (2) the snickering and disdain toward Assange from Capehart and Molinari are indistinguishable -- totally interchangeable -- because there is no distinction between how most American "journalists" and how standard politicians think about those who are actually providing adversarial checks on U.S. political power; media and political figures are in the same undifferentiated class:

If there's Nothing New in these documents, can Jonathan Capehart (or any other "journalist" claiming this) please point to where The Washington Post previously reported on these facts, all revealed by the WikiLeaks disclosures:

(1) the U.S. military formally adopted a policy of turning a blind eye to systematic, pervasive torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces;

(2) the State Department threatened Germany not to criminally investigate the CIA's kidnapping of one of its citizens who turned out to be completely innocent;

(3) the State Department under Bush and Obama applied continuous pressure on the Spanish Government to suppress investigations of the CIA's torture of its citizens and the 2003 killing of a Spanish photojournalist when the U.S. military fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad (see The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch today about this: "The day Barack Obama Lied to me");

(4) the British Government privately promised to shield Bush officials from embarrassment as part of its Iraq War "investigation";

(5) there were at least 15,000 people killed in Iraq that were previously uncounted;

(6) "American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world" about the Iraq war as it was prosecuted, a conclusion the Post's own former Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote was proven by the WikiLeaks documents;

(7) the U.S.'s own Ambassador concluded that the July, 2009 removal of the Honduran President was illegal -- a coup -- but the State Department did not want to conclude that and thus ignored it until it was too late to matter;

(8) U.S. and British officials colluded to allow the U.S. to keep cluster bombs on British soil even though Britain had signed the treaty banning such weapons, and,

(9) Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.

That's just a sampling.

This is what Joe Lieberman and his comrades are desperately trying to suppress -- literally prevent it from being accessible on the Internet. And "journalists" like Capehart play along by continuing to insist there's "nothing new" being revealed by WikiLeaks despite their never having reported any of this. And since the disclosures, does anyone believe that any of these revelations have received anything close to meaningful attention by the American establishment media? But remember -- as Capehart's newspaper taught us today -- "revelations by the organization WikiLeaks have received blanket coverage this week on television, in newspapers" in Free America -- showing what a Vibrant, Adversarial Press we are blessed with -- but "in many Arab countries, the mainstream media have largely avoided reporting on the sensitive contents of the cables."

* * * * *

If anyone is aware of some sort of campaign to boycott Amazon's web services over its capitulation to Joe Lieberman -- and there should be one -- please alert me to it so I can promote it. Of course, everyone is able on their own to cease using those services even without some formally organized campaign.

Governor Arnold Nazinegger wrote:

After 9-11, the Ambassador from Saudi Arabia told US TV viewers on numerous TV shows, that the illegal 1940s US invasion of Palestine was the primary cause of 9-11 and that the US must end the 70 year military siege, restore the God Given Rights of Palestinians, let them live peacefully and freely in their historic homeland. Yet, in the 9 years since 9-11, Bush and Obama have ignored the Ambassador's pleas.

Why would they base their policy on the profoundly biased and, frankly, insane opinion (albeit one held throughout the unsophisticated and utterly oppressed Middle East)of the Saudi Ambassador? As an Arab, of course he's going to endorse that view of the problems in the Middle East.

The fact is, Israel has been the victim of constant Arab attacks since its founding. And, despite numerous attempts to appease Palestinians and the Arab world in general, their death warrant has been signed and will never be revoked by said Arabs. The Arab world can not continue to cry victim at the hands of a tiny Jewish state in the midst of their sprawling grandiosity.

Remember: 5 million Jews, 500 million Arabs. Who is the real victim here?

The Arab world must stop preaching its culture of victimhood and resentment. Israel is not the cause of their problems but the scapegoat to end all scapegoats.

Well, you know Islam has no beef with Jews. Be they from Palestine, Ethiopia, Russia, Iran, Syria, or Beverly Hills. Arabs and Jews are biologically the same people. Islam has a problem with Zionists, who can be Jewish or whatever religion, or no religion. I doubt if you can live with Zionism in your town. Nobody can. Zionism sucks. It's apartheid streets, apartheid public facilities, racist housing, racist job / work environment, assasination of Muslims, etc. You'd kill then mutha ffffin Zionists too if they were in your ville. No man/woman deserves to be treated that way.

Best thing to happen since the internet

Yorkshire Pud wrote:

[quote]Governor Arnold Nazinegger wrote:

After 9-11, the Ambassador from Saudi Arabia told US TV viewers on numerous TV shows, that the illegal 1940s US invasion of Palestine was the primary cause of 9-11 and that the US must end the 70 year military siege, restore the God Given Rights of Palestinians, let them live peacefully and freely in their historic homeland. Yet, in the 9 years since 9-11, Bush and Obama have ignored the Ambassador's pleas.

Why would they base their policy on the profoundly biased and, frankly, insane opinion (albeit one held throughout the unsophisticated and utterly oppressed Middle East)of the Saudi Ambassador? As an Arab, of course he's going to endorse that view of the problems in the Middle East.

The fact is, Israel has been the victim of constant Arab attacks since its founding. And, despite numerous attempts to appease Palestinians and the Arab world in general, their death warrant has been signed and will never be revoked by said Arabs. The Arab world can not continue to cry victim at the hands of a tiny Jewish state in the midst of their sprawling grandiosity.

Remember: 5 million Jews, 500 million Arabs. Who is the real victim here?

You question who is the real victim? The invaded, mass murdered, occupied, and oppressed Palestinians, or the Israelis, who have free health care and free education courtesy of the US taxpayer? I understand that nobody revels in their victimhood more than the Zionists, but let's apply a little common sense.

The Real UncleB wrote:

Information is always good, always power. Which is why the powerful don't want is to have it. If you think that the powerful people who run our society keep us in the dark for our own good, you just haven't been paying attention

UncleB, do you have children?

Th3 J3st3r should look into lets run

What?!

yeah right wrote:

Yeah, the CIA would most def. use as this as propaganda !

http://88.80.13.160/

blaah wrote:

Wikileaks is just another propaganda outlet of the CIA. It is all bullshit.

Ron Paul said it best:

Wikileaks- In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.

k12 wrote:

The Real UncleB wrote:

Information is always good, always power. Which is why the powerful don't want is to have it. If you think that the powerful people who run our society keep us in the dark for our own good, you just haven't been paying attention

UncleB, do you have children?

Is that your refutation of my view that the rich and powerful are not to be trusted, their words not to be believed?

Phooie.

That Private who did the original leaking could realistically face TREASON charges and full well.

"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society." -JFK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhqZXj6d6oM

Rakanishu wrote:

Ron Paul said it best:

Wikileaks- In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.

Agree strongly with this principle ^^^ .

Rakanishu wrote:

Ron Paul said it best:

Wikileaks- In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.

A little more truth please wrote:

Agree strongly with this principle ^^^ .

Regardless of the material?

To make such a broad statement is naive, at best. Our U.S. military defense strategy is classified. If another immature military member gives that type of information to Wikileaks, is that still simply a matter of people who "are supposed to know the truth?" No, of course not. But please, don't let that stop you from making more Xbox Live-quality debate statements.

If it was a dissident group from China or Iran releasing similar secret information from that country, we'd all agree it was a great day for free speech and freedom of information.

Perhaps we'd be a little disappointed that there was nothing really startling so far.