[Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Pentegarn

What exactly do you think will be the result of all this?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Again, nobody is calling for sanctions against the US. I have no idea where you got this from. Let's just hope that you are against the sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba also, though. Perhaps even Nth Korea, since that definitely only hurts the working people.

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.

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

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.