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It's been a while-the implications of several new Wikileaks revelations.

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Northside Storm, Dec 21, 2010.

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rhadamanthus Member

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B-Bob said:

Oh man. I'm down with the cause, but those are teh suck.

I'm really going to sport a big earnest Assange face on my body. Or a tiny quote by George Orwell.
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lol. I bought two, but not the assange-face ones. That guy is kind of a flaming douche, despite how much I appreciate his work and his courage.

#81 rhadamanthus, Feb 23, 2011

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Good read: Top 10 things revealed by wikileaks that the government would rather you did not know.

1. Innocence is no excuse

The government knew that most Guantanamo prisoners were either innocent or just low-level operatives. The U.S. also pressured Spanish courts to drop investigations of torture at Gitmo. Shoddy CIA evidence collection at Guantanamo has cost millions and bred anti-American sentiment abroad. The Guantanamo Files describe how detainees were captured based on highly subjective evidence. How quickly they were released was heavily dependent on their country of origin (1). According to a U.S. diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners requested that the National Court indict six former U.S. officials for creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture against five Spanish prisoners. However, “Senator Mel Martinez… met Acting FM [Foreign Minister] Angel Lossada… on April 15. Martinez… underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship” (2).

2. “We don’t do Body Counts.” At least not publicly

Gen. Tommy Franks famously told reporters in 2002, “We don’t do body counts.” Yet the Iraq War Logs and Afghan War Diary reveal that the military does track casualties. In most cases the military did not conduct a thorough investigation into Afghani civilian deaths. Instead, they offered victims’ families up to US$2400. The Iraq War Logs, which span the period from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, show 109,000 total deaths. Of those, a staggering 66,081 – two-thirds – were civilians –15,000 of whom were not acknowledged or reported anywhere previously (3). In a leaked cable from the U.S. delegation to NATO, it is stated that, “Norway’s ambassador emphasized the need to avoid a public debate about the reporting of the number of [Afghani] civilians killed,” and the cable went on to state that “U.N. employees themselves in Kabul doubt the method [of tracking casualties] that is used” (4).

3. Common enemies make great friends of despots

The U.S. government had documented Tunisian government human rights violations against its own people, but continued providing aid to Tunisia on the basis of being an ally in the war against “terrorism.” About Tunisia, the U.S. Ambassador wrote, “Tunisia is a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems.” Nevertheless, he recommended the U.S. continued funding Tunisia’s military (5).

4. Torture is better when others do it for you

The U.S. Military violated the U.N. Convention Against Torture by turning prisoners over to the new Iraqi Security Forces, an organization which, according to the State Department’s own reports, has frequently perpetrated prisoner torture. The Convention, which was ratified by the U.S. in 1994, forbids signatories from transferring a detainee to other countries “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” The Iraq War Logs describe thousands of reports of prisoner torture filed against the Iraqi Security Forces, hundreds of which include medical evidence. Methods of torture described include prisoners whipped with heavy cables across the feet, hung from ceiling hooks, having holes bored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, and sexually assaulted. A military order issued in 2004 directed U.S. troops not to investigate these allegations (6).

5. Botched Covert-Ops are never our fault

The U.S. State Department endorsed an occasion when the Yemeni government lied to its people about U.S. participation in air strikes in December 2009 that resulted in civilian casualties. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told General David Petraeus in January, 2010. Saleh also said, “mistakes had been made” in the earlier strikes, lamented the use of U.S. cruise missiles that were “not very accurate,” and welcomed the use of precision-guided bombs instead. Yemen’s prime minister also joked about how his president had “lied” to the parliament about the strikes (7).

6. US Tax dollars spent on child trafficking?!

U.S. taxpayer dollars helped support child trafficking when government contractor DynCorp threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from pimps for entertainment. “Bacha bazi,” or “boy play,” is a practice in which young boys are dressed up in women’s clothing, forced to dance for powerful men, and then sold for sex to the highest bidder. DynCorp was linked to child sex trafficking charges before this incident occurred (8).

7. Freedom of Information. An Act, or just a suggestion?

The U.S. Military attempted to thwart the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by neglecting to release the video (now titled as Collateral Murder) depicting the killing of two Reuters reporters and ten other people. On July 12, 2007, U.S. soldiers manning an Apache helicopter shot and killed 12 individuals in Baghdad, Iraq. Two were Reuters reporters and two were civilians who stopped their van to help the wounded. Reuters news staff were shown the video two weeks after the incident, and then told that if they wanted to receive a copy of the video and other materials, they would have to make a FOIA request. Although Reuters filed the request shortly thereafter, it remained unfulfilled (9).

8. Climate “Diplomacy” is a scam

The U.S. Government offered handouts to third-world countries in order to buy signatories for the adopted version of the Copenhagen Climate Accords, which holds the U.S. to lower standards than every other industrialized nation, including India, China and South Africa. U.S. diplomatic cables show the U.S. offered aid unrelated to climate issues to individual countries, persuading developing countries to break with regional bargaining groups and agree to the Accord (10).

9. Human rights abuses as usual

Leaked U.S. cables contain information about human rights abuses around the world, including many cases in which corrupt governments were trying to hide the truth from their own people. In specific cases, American- and British-based international corporations were implicated. These violations are well-documented and include countries the U.S. has publicly supported, including Tunisia, Columbia, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Si Lanka, Botswana, Egypt, and Papua New Guinea.

10. Protecting torturers is required

U.S. officials put strong, continued pressure on Germany not to pursue charges against CIA officers involved in the extraordinary rendition of a German citizen.In January 2007, a German court issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents related to their rendition of a German citizen of Lebanese descent to Afghanistan, where he was tortured. The case against the agents was later dropped. Diplomatic cables written in the interim period shed some light on the reasons why. According to one German Justice Ministry (BMJ) official addressing concerns from the U.S. Ambassador, international arrest warrants could only be issued once the ministry had evaluated their legal soundness and “foreign policy implications” on a case-by-case basis. Another BMJ official assured the embassy that the cases would not be “handled as routine” and that any investigation would require a green light from Berlin (11).
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#82 rhadamanthus, Jun 2, 2011
rocketsjudoka Member

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rhadamanthus said: ↑

Good read: Top 10 things revealed by wikileaks that the government would rather you did not know.
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All of those things were known about prior to Wikileaks.

#83 rocketsjudoka, Jun 2, 2011
rhadamanthus Member

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rocketsjudoka said: ↑

All of those things were known about prior to Wikileaks.
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Possibly some were known...but wikileaks confirmed them.

#84 rhadamanthus, Jun 3, 2011
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Wikileaks exposes Saudi-Isreali ties. Hmmm.

#85 rhadamanthus, Jun 15, 2011
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Balls of steel. David House tells the US government to go **** itself.

David House is a founding member of the Bradley Manning Support Network. He was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury today in Alexandria, VA. House is among several Boston area residents who have been ordered to testify before the grand jury, which is investigating WikiLeaks.

House and his lawyer entered the courthouse this morning at approximately 10:00am ET, amidst a gathering of supporters who held signs with messages of support for House. The rally also called for government transparency and protection for whistleblowers — and for freedom for accused WikiLeaks source PFC Bradley Manning.

The prosecution initially attempted to prevent David House from taking notes. This was the reason for the recess and reconvening at 4:00pm ET. There was no legal basis for this order, and House was ultimately permitted to take notes.

House was questioned for approximately one hour, beginning at 4:00pm ET. He invoked his Fifth Amendment rights to remain silent. He read from the below statement at 5:00pm ET in the plaza outside of the United States District Court at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria, VA.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) is attempting to codify a task it started over 40 years ago: the political regulation of journalism. The same climate of intimidation that surrounded the Pentagon Papers trial persists to this day as the DoJ seeks to limit the freedoms of the Fourth Estate, using the pretense of alleged violations of the Espionage Act.

The show trial that is now underway in Alexandria VA has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for regulating the media. Using Nixonian fear tactics that were honed during the Pentagon Papers investigation, the DoJ is attempting to dismantle a major media organization—WikiLeaks—and indict its editor, Julian Assange. The DoJ's ever-widening net has now come to encompass academics, students, and journalists in the Cambridge area.

The Administration's goal is to force these individuals to testify against this media organization in an attempt to cast its publications and those of its media partners — the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais — as acts of espionage. The government has also violated my Fourth Amendment rights by executing a warrantless seizure on my laptop in an attempt to identify, target and ensnare Cambridge-based supporters of WikiLeaks.

It is my conviction that the American people must call for a cessation of the Department of Justice's politically motivated harassment.

Starting at 6:00pm ET in Boston, supporters of David House and others who have been subpoenaed by the Justice Department in the WikiLeaks grand jury investigation are rallying at the Boston Courthouse Government Center.
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EDIT: btw, lulzsec totally thwacked the beehive today and obliterated cia.gov...

#86 rhadamanthus, Jun 15, 2011
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How Canada and the US destroyed Haiti's democracy (again)

Pfizer settles first part of massive lawsuit regarding illegal tests on children in Nigeria (wikileaks releases had indicated the company was trying to slander the AG in order to get the case dropped)

#87 rhadamanthus, Aug 12, 2011

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holy crap this stuff pisses me off beyond belief.

#88 MadMax, Aug 12, 2011
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Qball said: ↑

Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone...
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Wow, really?
Are you saying since we are all sinner, it's ok for all these, sometimes horrendous things to go on?

#89 rage, Aug 12, 2011
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rage said: ↑

Wow, really?
Are you saying since we are all sinner, it's ok for all these, sometimes horrendous things to go on?
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my guess is he's suggesting the US should stop pretending like its crap doesn't stink.

#90 MadMax, Aug 12, 2011
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Wikileaks dropped 35,000 US cables yesterday, and asked the web to crowdsource the data. Follow #wlfind on twitter to see what's been found...

Items already noted:
* Privatization of Libya's central bank seen as an "opportunity" by the US government for American banks...
* Walmart has unions in China, but not in the US.
* US Embassies were asked to monitor Gaddafi's communication with other Arab leaders through the Arab press.
* Libya apparently asked the US why a returned gitmo detainee had lost his teeth and use of an arm.
* A Bin Laden "charge sheet" was released which, ironically, cites several international laws the US does not recognize.
* US is heavily promoting GMO in S. America - Monsanto poised to reap the benefits...

Etc. (no links at the moment, wikileaks is being DDoS'd at the moment. Naturally, there is no investigation planned for this attack on infrastructure )

In other wikileaks news, as has been reported virtually everywhere except the US (even in China, lol), former wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg formed a splinter group called "openleaks" and promptly deleted a hard-drives worth of unreleased leaks to spite his former boss. The leaks deleted forever apparently included the TSA no-fly list, all the Bank of America leaks, and a "large atrocity in Afganistan". So yeah - that sucks.

Up next, ~4000 cables from Israel. That should be interesting...

#91 rhadamanthus, Aug 24, 2011
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Turns out, the media had access to the above cables for the last two months and published virtually nothing. If you listen/watch/trust the news as presented by the corporate conglomerates, you're intentionally misinformed.

#92 rhadamanthus, Aug 25, 2011
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Thanks rhad. I've been wondering what's been happening with Wikileaks. Will follow on twitter.

#93 snc, Aug 25, 2011

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~100,000 cables dropped in the last three days. Virtually nothing from MSM.

*Estimate 3 oil spills per day in the Niger delta.
*Pearl rive polluted with heavy metals, causing bone disease in citizens.
*US gov gave econ aid to Gov implicated in massacre of 57 people in Phillipines.
*South Korea sold "experimental" nuclear reactor to Jordan, wants to sell to Turkey and UAE.
*US plan to undermine Chavez....
*For some odd reason, cables refer to GMO crops as "transgender"
*US DOJ trains elite Bangladesh police, who are known to kill suspects in custody
*Burmese and African conflict rubies are shipped through Thailand and then to the USA.
*Italy estimated 18,000 Nigerian prostitutes in Italy were trafficking victims.
*US and Saudi Arabia shared a "common purpose" in Pakistan
*Just an absurd amount of cables devoted to "convincing" nations to use GMO crops from Monsanto - to the point of actively ignoring laws.
*In 2010 US pushed Colombia to ship small arms to Haiti
*Egypt wants Gaza to "go hungry" but not "starve"
*Israel and the US talk openly of assassinating leaders of Hamas.
*UN and the Red Cross confirm attacks by Israeli army in 2008.
*Rwandan cables indicate a US double standard on "terrorism" (extrajudicial killings of genocidal maniacs is "bad", possible terrorists "good") and a still lingering french imperialism.

Corruption abounds...

#94 rhadamanthus, Aug 26, 2011
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Cable reveals us raid in Iraq resulted in 10 deaths, including 5 children. The victims were handcuffed and executed, the house later bombed.

http://t.co/zmvOXBk

Germany exported 184 lethal viruses to the USA for breeding.

http://t.co/ozyfYRX

#95 rhadamanthus, Aug 29, 2011
Last edited: Aug 29, 2011
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rhadamanthus said: ↑

Cable reveals us raid in Iraq resulted in 10 deaths, including 5 children. The victims were handcuffed and executed, the house later bombed.

http://t.co/zmvOXBk

Germany exported 184 lethal viruses to the USA for breeding.

http://t.co/ozyfYRX
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Thanks, Rhad, what is the best way to follow wikileaks?

#96 glynch, Aug 29, 2011
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glynch said: ↑

Thanks, Rhad, what is the best way to follow wikileaks?
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MSM is not doing anything. Follow #wlfind on twitter for crowd-sourced information.

Freeking terrifying that we can only trust a few internet nerds/idealists to report that viruses are being transferred between first-world nations for weaponization....

#97 rhadamanthus, Aug 29, 2011
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The US asked Australia to house and relocate Scientists that worked on Iraq's WMD program.

http://t.co/q4pNgF

Privatization shock doctrine in Haiti - the usual IMF calling card.

http://t.co/FgGfFrv

And another list of findings: http://t.co/4dR5Xqr

The more wikileaks cables you read the more you realize that the world is run by bands of thugs and charlatans. Still nothing from MSM. As the execution story was breaking on twitter yesterday, CNN was giving updates on the new cast for "dancing with the stars".

Orwell was right. So was Huxley.

"Orwell feared the truth would be concealed from us."

"Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."

#98 rhadamanthus, Aug 30, 2011
Last edited: Aug 30, 2011

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rhadamanthus said: ↑

The US asked Australia to house and relocate Scientists that worked on Iraq's WMD program.
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Better there than Pakistan et al, perhaps?

As to the German-US virus transfer, Fort Detrick is possibly the finest and most secure bio-research facility in the world. If you want to know how to fight those kinds of nasty things, you kind of have to have them around to study. I think it's a pretty big leap to assume that the purpose is to actually create weapons. Maybe I missed something, though.

#99 Buck Turgidson, Aug 30, 2011
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And yet again, Wikileaks refuses to redact the names of sources & collaborators from the released documents. From the blurb I read, the State Dept & various "human rights groups" (the word I saw used, not sure who), are unhappy, fearing reprisals.

We absolutely need more transparency, but there *are* things that do not need to know.

#100 Buck Turgidson, Aug 30, 2011

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