Someone laid out exactly how the leaks wouldn't hurt troops but fuck if I can actually find it. :(
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I think I read something like that over at the BBC.
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It's not like our government isn't bright enough to use leaked documents to make the enemy think they have the upper hand, then SURPRISE! If I was at the table, I would be suggesting leaking a few "truths" to gain advantage.
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You know what wouldn't hurt the troops? Leaving!
HHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHH WHAT A FUNNY JOKE YOU SEE |
Fuck the troops. They just got laser guided grenade launchers. :rolleyes
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That's like saying a woman who gets raped in America by a foreigner has no rights to justice because the rapist was from another country. You just think he should avoid the US justice system because it was a crime against an entity you clearly dislike |
Of the documents released by Wikileaks the most recent come from February and I doubt they pertained to troop placement. Most of what was released that did have to do with that kind of thing was what we were doing the last few years. As in shit that is already done and gone.
As far as "targeting America" I think thats unfair. Just because American whistle blowers come forward / release info 10:1 compared to other countries doesnt necessarily mean he is anti-America. Someone in this thread, I think The Leader, pointed out how a whistle blower in China or Russia was more likely to turn up missing. Quote:
Classified information? Just because someone in a position of authority stamps something classified we shouldnt even question it? Just because? What if what they are doing is illegal and wrong? As far as the USSR goes... Part of what he released, while coming from American diplomat offices, detailed the dirty laundry of other countries. I mentioned it before some of the documents linked Putin to the Litvinenko murder and the Russian government in general as having ties to organized crime. The only difference here is we didnt really need leaked documents to know that about Russia. |
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Hopefully people from more nations choose to speak out about criminal activities that their governments are responsible for. We all know it happens, but when it comes to light as fact, something you can't dodge, then more and more people will demand change. Quote:
All we have to go on about Nth Korean abuses stems from defectors, some reasonably high ranking, that have pretty much 'exposed' all the information that any sane person would need. Who doesn't know that North Korea is a horrible place to live where government sanctioned torture and crime, as well as political espionage etc, goes on daily? Not that it has anything to do with Julian Assange or wikileaks, since they can't magic up a whistle-blower from nowhere, and can't hack into Nth Korean government documents, but do we NEED Nth Korean leaked information, or do we need to find out the secrets from the western governments, the ones that claim to serve and protect us and the ones that claim their wars are legal, and that torture is not something they partake in? We need to know what is going on with our own governments (and I really hope that more Australian documents come to light) since you and I are citizens of our own countries, and can affect change if needed. Quote:
Interesting note that I was unaware of at first, before the first major leak of US documents, all 500 thousand odd cables were made available to US analysis. Wikileaks itself checked all the content and blanked out any names they thought might be too sensitive or too dangerous to put in public. Requests by wikileaks for the documents to be reviewed by the US were rejected. Wikileaks sent to the US ambassador in London a request: that wikileaks "would be grateful for the United States Government to privately nominate any specific instances ... where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm..." Obviously the US government isn't too concerned about 'lives at risk' since it rejected the call on the grounds that US departments would "not engage in a negotiation" with wikileaks about the documents. Surely it would have been better for those at supposed risk if you read through the documents and blanked their names? Even IF you believed wikileaks wouldn't follow through on it's promise to respect such instances of individual risk, wouldn't it be better to TRY rather than just WE DON'T NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS and leave it at that? Wikileaks still blanked out many names, as previously stated, in the interests of privacy. Quote:
So you think that Julian Assange is doing all this for fame? The guy has had calls to assassinate him, serious ones. People in the US government have asked for him to be hunted down and neutralised. Fame? Honestly, there are better ways. It's a lot of work just for 'fame'. Wikileaks has been operating for, what, 5 years, and Assange himself is only just now 'famous', and I honestly believe that he would prefer it if he wasn't so widely known. Quote:
How do you know that classified information is classified for a GOOD reason? It's classified so that normal every day people don't get a chance to decide for themselves. Who decides what should be classified and what shouldn't? The same people that the classified documents are about... doesn't that strike you as a little bit of a bias? Knowing what we know now about most of these 'classified documents', they are kept secret for the sole reason that people wouldn't find out about criminal behaviour and therefore not endanger lives, but endanger the system of abuse the US government upholds. Why do Sri Lankan war crimes need to be kept classified? Most of the leaked documents are classified because it is scandalous criminal activity that is going on - the exact same things that citizens of any country should know about their government. Quote:
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What I was referring to though was thee fact that our PM has called him a criminal and said his actions are illegal. I think US officials have just stated how they want him to disappear, not that he has broken the law. If he has supposedly committed a crime against Australia (Which is unlikely) then if he is captured/detained (which is likely) he should get a fair trial in Australia. Note that you need to have proper reasons to BRING him to trial first. Or should. |
Jesus christ walls of text from everyone. I don't see why people are hating on this guy. It seems he's trying to start a revolution against all the censorship the country has been letting seep in. This government was SUPPOSED to be transparent. That's why they CAME here. Y'know.
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Eh, you start typing and you can't stop.
Thanks for splitting the thread, I was actually going to suggest it. |
If the US government actually puts him on trial for any such charges that in itself will give them more of a black eye than anything he could ever do.
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WTF guys, we aren't pussies over here. We are gonna find him, forcibly bring him back, then stick him in a box until we feel like abusing him. OH NO! The people might think less of us! In the last 20 years have seen no reason to believe that my government gives 2 shits about what the people think of them.
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Pentegarn, you make it sound like Assange has personally hacked computers world-wide just to disclose random secrets.
As Zhukov has pointed out, all he's done is provide a platform for whistle blowers. And the material published there is not protected by ethical principals of confidenitality - like patients' journals or personal details - instead it's conversations between the powers that be, dialogues between ambassadeurs and politicians elected by us, the people. As a Swede I'm interested in knowing that Sweden has secretly more or less joined NATO, and has ongoing deals and agreements with the USA that hardly even our prime minister knows about. I don't think you should regard this as an attack aimed specially at the USA; I think virtually all governments and secret agencies etc will get their fair share. |
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That kind of 'classified' deal is the kind of thing that will end in people being harmed, killed, tortured, displaced etc. The secrets and lies of governments surrounding the Iraq and Afghan wars are responsible for more deaths than any documents on wikileaks will ever be. |
I get why you and Zhukov would feel the way you do. That being said I still think that some things are best left a secret. In fact because of the way the government in America exists I would go as far as to say it is pointless in many cases to leak secrets at all (putting aside the military ones I mean, which I still maintain should never be disclosed by or even to the private sector) because our elected officials often do not stay in power for very long (a trend that is starting to show even in places where there are no term limits to speak of).
Tadao kind of brushed against that point in his last statement. The reason the US government has little to no regard for their image has a lot to do with these term limits. So lets say WikiLeaks dros a full disclosure on all the things that happened while Bush Jr. was in power, what will exposing and wrist slapping the current president really accomplish? Nothing, Bush Jr. is no longer in power and Obama had nothing to do with what he did, he is far too busy committing his own crimes to care what Bush Jr did, and whoever replaces Obama will care about as much about what Obama is doing now. So let's say the UN drops all sorts of trade embargos to punish the US government, well what is the point then? The criminal is no longer in power, and the US as a country is now hurt economically. But who is that really hurting? The answer is it is hurting people (US citizens mostly) who had nothing to do with the crime itself. So in this call for blood all we would really accomplish is crippling the innocent economically. |
Honestly dude, you have got to be joking. Don't bother about war crimes or criminal espionage because, hey, it all happened under HIS election, not the current one. I mean, really.
So I guess you don't think the Nuremberg trials should have gone ahead? I mean, Hitler was cactus already. Pentegarn, if you want to be apathetic towards what your country is doing then fine. Just don't assume that other people are ok with letting all this shit wash over them; in the US or around the world. |
I don't think wikileak's main purpose is to point fingers, or create scapegoats, but to try to change the rhetoric amongst those in power, and increase transparency. To tell tax payers and voters all over the world that, "look, this is the cynical jargon of your representatives, this is how they secretly trade and deal and form unholy pacts."
When people with political or economical power remain unscrutinized for too long, corruption and negligence will grow. We must always pressure them to remain open and frank. This time they were caught with their pants down, let's just applaud those who enabled us to see it. |
I think they're goals are a little more earnest than the shitty Anonymous' "Let's Troll the Man" policy.
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Nice try on playing the Nuremberg trials card, but those were individuals on trial, you keep calling an entire country out though and you don't seem to be asking 'how will my bloodlust effect the innocent?' If you want the individuals responsible thats fine, but quit it with America needs to pay. I don't recall having a say in what was done in these things leaked, yet according to you I, along with all the other citizens trying to just live their lives, should be punished because you think "America needs to pay" EDIT: Also, kind of hypocritical to think one kind of criminal espionage is perfectly acceptable (wikileaks) and another kind is wrong (anything done by an American) |
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If wikileaks "Targetted" any other country, they prolly woulda been arrested or some shit already.
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You didn't have to say it, I am just following your logic to the proper conclusion. Just think about what you are proposing for a moment.
What exactly do you think will be the result of all this? If the individuals are to be punished, who will do it? The UN? Well according to you people who commit a crime, no matter where they commit it need to have it done in their country so it couldn't be the UN, as the US will not recognize their jurisdiction to do so. As I am pretty sure the US won't bother putting the politicians on trial who did these things, that would be a wash. Well that would then leave current leaders that the world would demand pay. The current leadership however did not have a thing to do with what happened, so again, if we follow your axiom that a criminal face their charges in their home country only, you will get nothing as a result. Now the world is even more pissed and at this point the UN steps in, they have only one thing they can do at this point, sanctions that likely would jack up the import taxes the US pays. The only people that will hurt though is the common man because those jacked up costs will get passed on to the consumer. The economy here is already hurting enough, we have people in numbers rivaling the amount there were in the 70s not making ends meet. What do you suppose will happen to those people when this demand for justice reaches this inevitable point? People all over the world get away with all sorts of horrible things all the time, and the reason many of these things go unpunished is because the consequences of punishment have a ripple effect on those who have nothing to do with the crime in question. The world is not as black and white as a political leader gets punished and then that's it. Look at Iraq. Did Saddam need punished? The black and white answer is yes. But look how it actually shook out. Do you honestly believe it was better for an outside entity to force a punishment on a sovereign nation? The country is mired in civil war, rampant terrorism, and has no real organized security to speak of. All because Bush Jr. made a demand for justice that was not thought out to the inevitable conclusion it was bound to have. |
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No, I didn't say "people who commit a crime, no matter where they commit it need to have it done in their country" or thereabouts, I said that Assange hasn't done anything illegal, BUT out Prime Minister has insinuated that he has, calling his actions criminal, but not bothering to tell us what crimes. I said that if he has broken Australian laws then he should at least be told what the charges are and given a chance to defend against them, rather than just have the label of CRIMINAL stuck on him and hunted down for the US governments behalf. If, however, people do commit international crimes, such as war crimes, then I think that the UN is capable of handling the trial. Well, better than anyone else at the moment. This has gotten off topic though, as neither I nor Blasted Child have mentioned anything about bringing any criminals to justice. Quote:
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Should the Watergate scandal have been kept classified? We're talking about the transparency of government, and you are bringing up arguments against punishing people. |
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