[Pentegarn]

First and foremost, I am enjoying this discussion immensely. A ton of good stuff was said in the last 24 hours and I am sorry I missed out on it till now

Originally Posted by Zhukov

That's actually a good question. What I think will be the result to 'all of this' is some more leaked information on large banking corporations, the eventual shutting down of wikileaks, and perhaps new laws in some countries preventing it from happening again and making it illegal. I would also say that the positive result is that more people around the globe will have less trust in the political and economic systems which supposedly serve their needs, and perhaps be more inclined to not take everything their government says or does as right and truthful.

While I maintain that not much of anything will happen to anyone, I think people already don't trust their government, so this whole expose aspect was pointless other then to provide specific examples. The only thing wikileaks did was give the world more reason to hate America, I won't go into why this hurts the common man as I covered my viewpoint on this earlier, but I will again reiterate that this is bad and at the very least, I don't see that anything good can come from this in respect to the common man.

Originally Posted by Zhukov

You know, I never actually brought up punishment, and I don't see it as a likely outcome anyhow. You're right in thinking that a trial in the US for anyone committing political or war crimes or some such would be a white wash.

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.

But how can you say Assange starting all this is not an international crime while another kind of espionage is? Assange is the spearhead for this mess, and what he did is orchestrate an internet espionage ring. This isn't journalism, if he really wanted this info to be exposed because of an altruistic belief, then by all means he should have sent it to a media outlet. The fact that he made his own site supports my belief that he is a fame hog. I know you think that the results of this fame (his life being under constant threat) disproves my theory, but I disagree with that. People all the time get something they wished for without any foreknowledge of the consequences, only to realize that what they wished for was more hassle than they believed possible. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it is a proverb for a reason.

Originally Posted by Zhukov

I don't understand this. I will say however that US ambassadors, diplomats, spies, military generals and other ranks... I don't think they get voted in and out every few years. But I don't really know what you are saying here.

These people you listed take their orders from our elected officials, and it is rare for a member of the military to go maverick (though it can happen, hence why we have Court Martials). Those elected offficials rarely last more than a term these days because as a country we have been swinging back and fourth politically every 4 years for the past decade.

Originally Posted by Zhukov

I think we are beyond viewing the Iraq war as a strive for 'justice'. Perhaps weapons of mass destruction..?

This is a separate topic altogether. Though as an aside Bush did keep saying repeatedly we are coming to inspect for years. The desert is a big place and there was plenty of time to bury and hide anything incriminating.

Originally Posted by Zhukov

Anyway, again, nobody is talking about justice. We are talking about the rights of citizens to know what their government is up to. Should Saddam have been allowed to keep his torture secret and classified? The gassing of Kurds?

These things were public though. These things were the counterargument of people who were supporting the war when the WMDs were not there. This is exactly what I mean when i said look at what could happen. We had multiple 'reasons for justice' to go into Iraq, but as it turns out that was a huge mistake.

Originally Posted by Zhukov

Should the Watergate scandal have been kept classified?

We had press with integrity in those days, or at least press without a glaring political agenda. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) how much stuff does not get revealed in a timely fashion, or just gets glossed over on page 10 of the NY Times because to bring attention to it does not fit the agenda of the news source.

Originally Posted by Zhukov

We're talking about the transparency of government, and you are bringing up arguments against punishing people.

Because I am talking results. It takes wisdom to see that everything has a result and takes even more wisdom to exercise caution when you act. Revealing everything would bring about a shit storm of epic proportions, I don't think you realize just how bad it would be, and there would be a world wide ripple effect as a result of sudden worldwide government transparency.

Originally Posted by Tadao

Of course everyone has a different ending, but most people only see what they can immediately put in their greedy little hands, and that is exactly what the world leaders count on.

I think this sentence is the best thing said on this topic. Things happen when you do something as simple as the "TA DA!" and pull back the curtain reveal on something as complicated as world politics. The big picture I laid out in my posts may not be exactly what happens, but something will certainly happen, and it is a good bet that something will bad for all concerned. The big picture is important and very few people want to look at it.

Originally Posted by kahljorn

Why have transparency of Government anyway? its not like people are smart enough to make use of the information. it'd probably just cause fake internet scandal after fake internet scandal and people would get all worked up about shit that doesn't really matter like, "DID YOU HEAR THE GOVERNMENT KILLED ALL THE PUPPIES IN EGYPT."

There's a joke here wrapped around a very lucid point. Most people would look at the things in these reports and scream for justice without thinking what happens after the punishment. That's why I feel classified information should remain so in many cases, not all cases, but in many cases. Most people couldn't handle transparent government