Thread: WikiLeaks
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Zhukov Zhukov is offline
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Old Dec 22nd, 2010, 07:59 AM       
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Originally Posted by Pentegarn View Post
1) A while back I pointed to an example article from wikileaks you posted that was both stolen (as all these leaked documents are) and how it effects the military, you ignored it then, and I am not going to repeat myself because you will ignore it now
Thanks for telling me what page that is on, but I think I found what you are talking about:

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Originally Posted by Zhukov
CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in Western Europe, 11 Mar 2010 - This classified CIA analysis from March, outlines possible PR-strategies to shore up public support in Germany and France for a continued war in Afghanistan.
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Originally Posted by Pentegarn
Looks like that is a military secret to me, it is classified, it is designed to help get support from other countries, and yet now, thanks to some espionage (exposing classified documents about strategies can be called nothing else you see) this particular strategy has been compromised. Why did the whistle need to be blown on this? To show the US uses PR to gain support from other countries? Unless you live under a rock you should know every country does this. Now that this is out there the people have gained nothing, yet the US just lost face in a PR campaign they felt was necessary.
Funnily enough, I didn't just ignore it then; here is my response:

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Originally Posted by Zhukov
Assange didn't commit espionage to obtain the information. It was given to wikileaks by most likely a member of the US military. It's not espionage, nor is 'exposing classified documents' considered espionage. The fact that such classified information is leaked through this particular website is NOT proof that said website used espionage to obtain it. That's not proof that Assange is a spy, a head of a spy ring, a hacker, or assisting or being an accessory to spies.
If you are referring to me not responding to the threat that leak poses to the military, ok. I don't consider it breaking news that the US spends money on public relations to drum up support for war, you agree with me, so why is it's revelation so dangerous? Why do people not deserve to know for sure that it happens? Why does it 'compromise' the strategy if people know that there is a strategy? I'm asking you why it's so dangerous that this information is leaked.

I also don't think you can just say that a document is stolen; you have to tell me how you know it's stolen. Saying "they are all stolen" isn't sufficient. The documents are uploaded anonymously to Wikileaks, the only person accused of ANYTHING by the US government is Bradley Manning, who didn't steal anything, but has been charged with 'unauthorized use and disclosure of U.S. classified information', so he was entrusted with information that he then passed on. No stealing.

Seriously. Nothing has been proven to be stolen. Even if there was stolen information, it doesn't change what the information says, and it doesn't change a people's right to know what their government is up to.

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2) the reason you think BC's childishly talentless cartoon was funny is because he is the only person who has your back
Nah, they were funny. It was a big see-through sheet attacking people. Haha.

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3) regarding examples of your heartless to somkescreen your weak stance, I gave 2 glaring examples, and even repeated them many times (gassing kurds to counter my Iraq transparency example, and your stance that I thought the holocaust should have been hidden which you made not because you honestly believed I thought that, but to make me look heartless so you could draw attention away from my point. Well, either that, or you really were moronic enough to believe that I thought the killing of 6 million people should have been or even could have been hidden. So either I am right about you, or you are a moron)
If you don't think the holocaust should have been kept classified, then why? Why should that have been uncovered? The government deemed it classified.

Pentegarn, your arguments led to me asking you questions based on what I considered the next step in your logic. You stated that governments should have the right to keep things classified if they deem it necessary, so I followed on and asked you if a government (Nazis) had the right to keep things (holocaust) classified that they deemed necessary. I didn't ask you if it was ok to kill 6 million Jews, I didn't ask you if you hated Jews and were a Nazi and whether or not you would commit genocide, I asked you if THAT was an exception from your statement, or if it didn't come into it at all, or whatever. I asked you what you thought and you considered it an 'ad hominem' attack. Same with Saddam; he was a government, he decided that gassing people and torturing people should be kept classified, and I asked you if he had that right and whether it should be respected. MY point is this: if a government decides what should be secret and what shouldn't, they will inevitably cover up their mistakes and crimes under the cover of 'it's classified', the numerous gaffes and crimes shown on wikileaks backs this up.

You also thought that the Watergate scandal was ok to be out in the open, but only because it was released by a respectable newspaper, and not a website. I don't see how this fits.


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4) Assange is a cyber terrorist, a holder of documents he knows do not belong to him (a thief if ever there was one despite your counterargument based entirely in semantics) He not only knows they are stolen, he has no qualms about threatening the US with them, has done so before, and continues to do so now. And please, don't try to say "well he is defending himself" he fired the first salvo in this little war, are you telling me the governments have no right to defend themselves?
Again, you are just stating he's a 'cyber terrorist' who steals or has other people steal things for him without any substance. Still, even if it was all true (which you have not proven) what difference does it make? Do people not deserve to know what their governments are up to?

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5) I noticed you ignored my SSA point, a domestic government installation, that has the US primary information item for every US citizen that if it were transparent as you wish so hard for it to be would render hundreds of millions of people naked to identity thieves.
Your social security information and other private stuff like that isn't really relevant to this discu... uh, argument. Nobody is calling for that to be 'transparent', Julian Assange is not releasing credit card numbers on Wikileaks. It's not like a society can't choose what it wants to be known as public knowledge and what should remain private. Geez. I didn't ignore you when you pointed that out, I stated that Blasted Child already addressed it by saying what I have said just then, but more thoroughly.

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6) You want a break down explained. Honestly I had thought you smart enough to know what could happen long term and were just ignoring it, but since I find I was mistaken about you I will give you one scenario

-Assange releases 250000 US documents, some of which could have military secrets in them, many of which have things that aren't the worlds business, some of which were bad, but nowhere near as bad as what they prevented.
What are these military secrets, and what does their secrecy prevent?
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-The world, galvanized by internet outraged, appeals to the UN


-The UN creates sanctions to hurt the US financially, but all it really does is eliminate the upper middle, middle, and lower middle class rendering the country mostly poverty stricken with a 2% of the population unaffected.
- Also, the UN passes a law that says every first born US citizen needs to be genetically engineered to only have one working eye. This is called 'The Mark'.

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-The more zealous, anti american entities of the world decide the US has yet to suffer enough, and with what they now know about the domestic security of the US multiple terrorist cells decide to all attack, lives are lost in the millions, some countries may even find a weakened America a tempting target so they could strike too, which would mean war on US soil
- America's common enemies enter a triad of hatred, lead by the Neo-Soviets, China and The Greater Iranian Sphere of Prosperity.

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-The US economy collapses, this now means exports of dozens of countries shut down, this also means, that food that used to be shipped to third world countries has also ceased, so now millions of people who rely on US agriculture must starve, and millions who rely on US spending to feed their families are also ruined.
-Julian Assange accends to throne of Emperor of Mankind. The 350 year war against America begins.

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That's just one possible way it could shake out, death, war, and world hunger all to satisfy your desire for sudden total transparency. Personally, I do not think the ends justify the means in that scenario, and would rather not take the chance of it coming to pass.
You're nuts. That is complete speculation and 'worst case scenario', thrown in with a little ignorance and a dash of patriotic militia well-wishing. I've got nothing to say except that. Here is my "scenario", which I think is a little more realistic:

Documents are released, people want their government to start being more honest, nothing much else happens worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things.

If there was transparency in the government then maybe, just maybe, they would stop, or cut down on, institutionalised abuse, crime, environmental destruction, and economic lies, because an angry public would protest and not allow it. Maybe.


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Also I can't help but notice (nod to Tadao for inadvertently reminding me of this) that transparency doesn't seem to stop despot leaders like Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein so what good will it do with countries that are not committing atrocities at the level those leaders have? Countries have had the need for secrets because petty people have made it so. You can't change human nature and trying to force it to change is a pointless and dangerous endeavor.
Seriously, don't drag the fallacy of 'human nature' into this otherwise ... ok, it's idiotic already, just don't make it worse. YOU CAN'T CHANGE HUMAN NATURE WE ARE HARD WIRED TO GREED. Anyway, I think you will find that the people of North Korea by and large believe that their beloved leader is a god, a benevolent ruler of a utopia surrounded by post apocalyptic hell holes infested with Ameri-Demons. Kim Jong-Il and Sadaam are hardly the poster boys of an honest government; their citizens didn't know what they were up to. If you want to know why 'The World' doesn't fix the problems in North Korea, even though it knowns about them, it's because it doesn't give a shit about the people, and only cares about the status quo. This is also why your scenario of unadulterated fiction would not happen; the UN would not place sanctions on the USA.


/end typical communist debate techniques.
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