Wikileaks and the sabotage of U.S. diplomacy
No American should take joy, pleasure, or satisfaction from the untold, devastating ways in which the coordinated Wikileaks document dump of hundreds of thousands of State Department cables — nearly half of which are “secret” or “classified”– has undermined U.S. diplomacy.
Here’s the left-wing Guardian of London crowing that its publication of the cables has “sparked a global diplomatic crisis.”
For those of you catching up after the holidays, Allahpundit at Hot Air has the most thorough coverage and analysis of the developing story here. Key passage on the anti-American agenda driving the leaks, the transnationalist left’s use of the “hypocrisy” card, and the cowardly, selective publication of our diplomatic communications versus other nations:
The aim, transparently, is to embarrass the target, but since that’s too petty a reason to justify so vicious a tactic, the exposure is unfailingly dressed up as some sort of high-minded attempt to make the target “live by his principles.” If you take this argument seriously, any confidential communication between government officials should be fair game for leaking so long as it somehow contradicts or questions, however glancingly, state policy. (Hypocrisy!) But of course, they’re not limiting publication to only those documents that undermine official State Department positions; as noted above in the context of Turkey’s foreign minister, a lot of this stuff will simply be bits of intelligence about various international actors and speculation about their motives. Nothing “hypocritical” about it — but mighty embarrassing. In fact, there’s nothing “hypocritical” about arguably the biggest revelation thus far, the report of North Korea shipping missiles to Iran. That sort of cooperation goes straight back to Bush’s “axis of evil” speech; theories about collaboration between the two are a staple of proliferation analyses. There’s no U.S. government “lie” that needs to be exposed there, in other words. It’s simply a case of Wikileaks trying to weaken America’s hand by revealing some of the cards that it’s holding. (emphasis added)
Two other points. One: Note that they don’t say they wouldn’t have published the documents if the crucial hypocrisy component was missing. On the contrary, in their sonorous meditation about George Washington, [the Guardian editors] suggest that they would have done so anyway even though the damage to U.S. interests would have been greatly diminished. That’s further evidence that it’s confidentiality itself that they object to, not hypocrisy, and it follows Simon Jenkins’s lead in ignoring the usual balancing act when weighing the merits of a leak between the sensitivity of the information and the public’s interest in knowing about it. Wikileaks would have you believe that confidential government communications are so inherently anti-democratic that exposing them is virtually always in the public interest, no matter what collateral damage might result. No country in the world has ever followed that standard and no country ever will. (emphasis added) Two: To the extent that they do take the hypocrisy standard seriously, does that mean that less democratic nations aren’t fair game for leaks because, hey, at least they’re living by their principles? Wikileaks’s lack of interest to date in revealing state secrets of, say, China is mighty conspicuous given that cracking Beijing’s culture of secrecy would be a far greater intel coup than publishing U.S. diplomatic cables and might even have major political repercussions for the Chinese regime. But then, China isn’t “hypocritical,” you see. And of course China also isn’t likely to tolerate damaging leaks like this the way liberal western nations are…
Many Foggy Bottom officials have proven feckless under both GOP and Democrat administrations. Hillary Clinton’s “smart power” deserved mockery, for sure. But whatever microscopic kernel of constructive criticism may have motivated the Wikileakers and their abettors is galactically outweighed by the destructive sabotage of secure diplomatic communications.
The America-haters would have us unilaterally disarm diplomatically under the guise of the “public’s right to know.” This is suicide.
Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini described the consequences for the world:
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, on a trip to Qatar, said he did not know the content of the files to be released but warned they would “blow up the relationship of trust between states”, according to Italian news agencies.
“It will be the September 11th of world diplomacy,” he said.
Pay attention to which of our enemies, foreign and domestic, are dancing in the streets.
***
State defends itself:
At their Foggy Bottom headquarters, State has set up an internal working group that is working in shifts around the clock, “monitoring the situation and supporting our senior staff and embassies around the world,” the official said. “We follow the same process whenever a major event occurs.”
Specifically, the cables show that U.S. diplomats in New York were asked to collect Biographic and biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats. Separate cables disclosed on Sunday show that U.S. diplomats overseas were asked for specific reporting on officials from the Palestinian territories, Paraguay, Bulgaria, and Africa’s Great Lakes region.
The State Department officials emphasized to The Cable the distinction between diplomats who collect information as part of a wide range of duties and intelligence personnel, who have a singular and specific mission. The official also argued that other countries do the same thing and that the intelligence gathered by U.S. diplomats also benefits Washington’s allies.
“Information collection is something that diplomats of every country do every day. These areas of particular interest, they’re not just ours,” the official said. “This is information that’s of use to us, and to our allies and friends with whom we’re trying to solve regional and global challenges.”
“We’re not asking our diplomats to do anything substantially different from what they’ve been doing for eons,” the official continued. “Every diplomat and mission around the world is doing the same thing.”
***
J.E. Dyer on media glee:
A free press has often meant an adversarial press, and that in itself is not inherently bad. But an adversarial posture is justified by the constructiveness of its goals. There is a noticeably sophomoric element in the mainstream media’s cooperation with WikiLeaks: an indiscriminate enthusiasm for anything that’s being kept secret by the authorities, regardless of its objective value as information.
…The worth of the latest WikiLeaks dump is greater than zero — and greater even than its value in notifying us about Qaddafi’s voluptuous Ukrainian nurse. Its true value lies in confirming what hawks and conservatives have been saying about global security issues. China’s role in missile transfers from North Korea to Iran; Syria’s determined arming of Hezbollah; Iran’s use of Red Crescent vehicles to deliver weapons to terrorists; Obama’s strong-arming of foreign governments to accept prisoners from Guantanamo — these are things many news organizations are reporting prominently only because they have been made known through a WikiLeaks dump. In the end, WikiLeaks’s most enduring consequences may be the unintended ones.
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Carl: So it’s a code breaker.
Martin Bishop: No. It’s THE code breaker. No more secrets…
Our State Department and our intelligence agencies have been inept for quite some time. Too many America haters inside and out. What to do? What to do?
Too bad Hillary can’t hide those Wikileaks as easily as she hid those billing records for so long.
The Department of Homeland Security was too busy seizing websites for MP3 and video copyright issues to actually deal with this small issue.
I prefer something along these lines — The US is adrift with no friends due to the leaks. Who benefits Obama and the progressives. Mission accomplished.
I see the problem as two fold.
First, nothing is being done (that we are aware of right now) to those who have leaked documents. This has gone on for quite some time and is not limited to this administration. Until the leakers are found and punished then the leaks will continue to happen.
Second, I am not one who normally believes that the government should go after the press, but Wikileaks is not a normal circumstance. What Wikileaks is doing is putting countless people in danger with the sole purpose of trying to damage the United States. This makes them an enemy in my book and it would not hurt my feelings in the least bit if the CIA were to have a clandestine op to send a message to the Wikileaks folks that this type of crap will not be tolerated.
Funny thing that when it comes to openness and the Patriotism of decent, the Liberals were all in a lather about Diplomatic solutions vice Military and how GWB was every name in the book. Now we have Libtard lathering about documents released from a progressive web site and how these documents will their Diplomatic efforts.
Thanks, Michelle, will catch up on this as I have been out of town.
The US soldier who gave away the information should be tried for treason and put before a firing squad. He has endangered our troops and our country. The Wiki-clown, after instructions not to give this information out and did anyway, should be imprisoned for life.
NYT: “We will not publish Global Warming emails because they were stolen, and we just won’t be a part of that.”
NYT: “oooh! Wikileaks docs!”
Cosmo: There’s a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets. It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think… it’s all about the information!
Dick Gordon: National Security Agency.
Martin Bishop: Ah. You’re the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone.
Dick Gordon: No, that’s the FBI. We’re not chartered for domestic surveillance.
Martin Bishop: Oh, I see. You just overthrow governments. Set up friendly dictators.
Dick Gordon: No, that’s the CIA. We protect our government’s communications, we try to break the other fella’s codes. We’re the good guys, Marty.
Martin Bishop: Gee, I can’t tell you what a relief that is… Dick.
Mother: But the key meeting took place July 3rd, 1958, when the Air Force brought the space visitor to the White House for an interview with President Eisenhower. And Ike said, “hey look, give us your technology, we’ll give you all the cow lips you want.”
This egotistical holier-than-thou savior of the planet moron has the kindergarten view that he’s doing a world a favor by airing state secrets and hanging dirty laundry and confidential matters that took years to construct because by some magic way the “truth” will bring “peace”, but only now we’ll have governments who can’t trust us to keep a secret or be our undercover allies, adding to the tensions out there. The U.S. s.o.b. who _stole_ the papers to give to him ought be court-martialed and shot — no life in prison — shot. As for this moron, the U.S. SHOULD release the numbers or names of those killed by his actions to shoot down his Little Miss Innocent claim of no fuss no harm.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
And Fearless Fat Lip will make a statement to the press concerning the WikiLeaks fiasco at 11:35 AM EST. I see a bunch of er’s, um’s and basic sidestepping coming.
NYT: We will not publish any cartoons because they might cause offense in the muslim community.
NYT: We will publish classified documents even if it will cause American deaths.
I once had a secret clearance & was led to believe that there were serious consequences for giving out secret info.
I’d like to know how they got all the secret documents, why isn’t Julian Assange arrested & thrown in jail? Is it because he is Australian (I believe) & therefore not subject to the same laws? Why is he targeting only US secrets? Isn’t there anything anyone one can do to stop him?
1.) EXTREME RENDITION of Julian Assange.
2.) WATERBOARD his butt to get the codes to his website etc.
3.) LIFE in prison in cell with 300 lb musclebound prison rapist.
That ought to take care of this douche bag.
Rogue,
My favorite:
Whistler: I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
Bernard Abbott: Oh, this is ridiculous.
Martin Bishop: He’s serious.
Whistler: I want peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
Bernard Abbott: We are the United States Government! We don’t do that sort of thing.
Martin Bishop: You’re just gonna have to try.
Bernard Abbott: All right, I’ll see what I can do.
Whistler: Thank you very much. That’s all I ask.
Mr Michael said:NYT: “We will not publish Global Warming emails because they were stolen, and we just won’t be a part of that.”
NYT: “oooh! Wikileaks docs!”
Exactly. The NY Slimes personifies hypocrisy.
opps.
Meant to quote…… not strike.
Sadly there ARE Americans who take joy in these leaks-Americans who take joy in anything that hurts or embarrasses America. I do in fact believe the “some” feel this is “some sort of high-minded attempt to make the target “live by his principles.” But I give them no credit for that, none.
I do maintain that we do have a right to stop Julian Assange BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY-he is a treat to nation security, American lives and military preparedness. But Julian Assange is not our primary enemy here; our primary enemy are those Americans, be they in government, the military or other who are providing Julian Assange classified information. Treason? Yes.
These leaks forced us to evacuated locals assisting our Armed Forces in harms way denigrating our effort and thus threatening American lives.
Firing squad? No, hanging. The punishment for spying and espionage is hanging. See the response by George Washington to British spy John André.We have been entirely too gentlemanly with native born spies in the last 60 years thus encouraging more of same.
===
An Armed Society is a polite society.
Resistance is mandatory
I find it hard to believe that all these documents are attributed to one low ranking Army PFC. This stuff is far above his pay grade, I could see a few military secrets but State Department documents is something else. My feeling is that he is nothing more then a red herring. There has to be some high ranking military officials and diplomats involved in something this big.
And without diplomacy, the options of nations will be?
Is this Assange an anarchist?
BTW, where is the American that went after Bin Ladin single-handed
Isn’t this guy due in court for rape? He also had kiddie porn on his computer, but apparently, that isn’t a crime in the liberal land of Sweden, so he wasn’t charged with that.
No one in government can be trusted right now. These “one-world-without-borders” globalists have so infected our corporations and government that we may have to take extreme measures to regain control of our own country.
We can start by securing our borders, shutting down immigration from hostile third-world nations, and beginning high-profile trials for high treason followed by public executions.
That can be followed by slashing the size of both the State Dept and the Pentagon. We need to start from scratch again like FDR/Churchill/Donovan did in WWII when Churchill pointed out to FDR that the entire US government, including the WH, was overrun by communists and nazis.
We are at war and the only ones who don’t seem to realize it are in charge of our own government.
He never cared when he released the names of Iraqi translators and informants – If I recall correctly, something like 40 of the people named in these documents and their families were killed shortly after the release of those documents.
When asked about this, Assange simply shrugged it off.
His motives are unquestionably nothing more than dubious bullsh!t
Background information:
PFC Bradley Manning released the State Dept cables. His Facebook page showed he was a homosexual, linking to pro gay sites. He was listening to Lady Gaga and mouthing the words as a cover while copying the files to cd. All stop gaps to prevent unauthorized access and downloading failed. This guy’s only allegiance was to the militant gay rights organizations.
Democrats still want to allow openly gay individuals to enlist in the military? Now you know why Conservatives are fighting against these sick twisted agendas of gay “more rights than the Constitution allows” groups. We’re also fighting against phony homosexual Log Cabin Republicans promoting open gays in the military.
We have two lesbians in the Supreme court. Elena Kagan’s role in the Harvard Military Recruitment Ban is another example of how militant gays will be taking down our government piece by piece.
Nothing dubious about it. He could have just dumped the entire file at once but decided to “drip, drip, drip” the information with a few hundred postings at a time.
Why is Assange allowed to travel out of his native Australia? They should at least have an arrest warrant out on him if not agents hunting him down. Why hasn’t Sweden arrested him? If the free world would declare him to be a criminal subject to immediate arrest, we would learn something about who he is working for.
Is this a surprise? We have “americans” who believe America is the enemy. Hell, we had a troll here who said there is no such thing as the Unidted States of America because we share land so we are just north America. We have not dealt properly with treasonist bastards – we used to put them to death. Now, they are afforded protection and, in some circles, are given hero status. When we weed out the enemies of our land IN our land, we will have BEGUN keep our citizens safe.
/rant off
Who knew? Assange is just doing the job the lazy sleazy liberal American media won’t do! Make him a citizen, or at least give him sanctuary in San Francisco. In one State dept dump, he has shown what corrupt and incompetent morons we have in that dept, and what worthless and corrupt media people we have covering these (_*_)s. The State dept has been the home of America hating communist elites from the northeast for over 75 years, and Congress, if you want to cut some fat from the budget, I would strongly suggest you look at what we spend on this bunch of Harvard dons who have all the answers to all the questions that no one gives a damn about.
This should spell the end of the “one-world-without-borders” effort. Or the end of freedom. They are incompatible and cannot co-exist so long as so many people are motivated by hate. We are heading into what can best be described as cultural triage.
If they can’t court marshall that guy for the leak, they can at least kick him out of the armed forces for listening to Lady Gaga. As clear cut violation of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as you can find.
Well, left wing wikileaks needs to look no farther than the left wing Obama and Hillary. Birds of a Feather.
On foxnews.com there is a poll asking if wikileak is a terrorits organization if you would like to take it.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/29/think-wikileaks-terrorist-organization/
L
From the range and scope of information that has been leaked, I would find it hard to believe if a four star general had access to all that information.
Standard practice for classified used to be that you only had access to documents to do your job.
I think this was done by multiple people and they need to find them and then build a jail on TOP of them!
***
The WikiLeaks disaster shows how weak and ineffective our Government security protection really is. As a civilian contractor employee I had to follow much more time wasting and ineffective / pointless security “protection” C**P than the Civil Service employees did. The Gubmint set up far more onerous requirements on us contractors, and exempted themselves from the same rules.
***
And as far as really basic security practices–the 2 cardinal rules have to be followed. First–no one without proper clearance should ever get access to classified information. Second–only those with a NEED TO KNOW the information in the performance of their duties should ever get access to the information.
***
I don’t know how an Army PFC could have ever met the need to know requirement to download hundreds of thousands of classified documents. I was always “in the dark” about things I didn’t need to know to do my job. And I always prevented those without a need to know from getting any access to sensitive or classified information, schematics, programs, computer systems, test results, safe combinations, door keys, etc. I would have been disciplined and / or fired–and could have gotten jail time–if I had ever violated these rules–accidentally or willfully.
***
If our classified computer systems do not have these safeguards built in to them then nothing is safe. The employee / service member’s security managers and programmers should be fired for this stupidity. And some prosecutions for failure to properly handle classified material are in order.
***
And as far as the WikiLeaks bas***d Julian Assange–a little CIA “termination with extreme prejudice” is in order. Or maybe a stray Hellfire Missile with his name on it. You can bet that the Russian traitor who outed the Russki spies a few months ago is on a kill list already. And that he will get his buckwheats soon.
***
John Bibb
***
Distraction. There’s more going on here. If information about Russian, or Iranian secret communiques were being leaked, Julian Assange would have already “had an accident” or “disappeared.”
The question I have about this is, who gains from the release of the information?
My guess is that this goes beyond politics. Look at global money makers…those who profit from unrest.
Exactly.
This just proves that entry and exit to and from all government buildings should only be granted after a thorough full-body scanning and aggressive pat down. There are more terrorists in our government buildings than there are at our airports.
Actually, I think some of them are on the other side.
When everything is “classified,” anyone has access to a lot. It helps castrate FOIA inquiries, but invites this.
Wikileaks is just the “messenger.” That is, shutting it down (ala Pirate Bay) won’t stop this sort of embarrassment. This incident is, however, a crisis that can be used, to justify government taking control of the Internet.
It seems a reach perhaps, but one can wonder if this was either planned to lay a foundation for controlling the Internet, or whether it is just an opportunity.
Just a wild guess, but wouldn’t you have to be in the State Department to have access to their cables?
true Rocketman. When I worked for the Army, I caught a contractor walking out of a classified facility with all the data of US chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. It was probably unintentional, but once this information is out in digital form, it is quite easy to copy and distribute. That bell can not be un-rung.
We need to face it. We have an incompetent government. Obama was elected for his politics, certainly not his capabilities, since he never demonstrated any. Under his watch the classified data gets out.
Assange may be getting funding from the above (Soros?), but his own motivation, I’m sure, is purely hatred of America and the desire for attention.
The dirtbag(s) that stole the files should be nailed to a wall. As should have been done to Sandy Burglar. Leaks will continue until the consequences once caught are too horrific to risk it.
WBT Radio poll in Charlotte had 60%+ in favor of the wikileaks. I heard it this morning. I forget the exact figure, but was over 60%.
I had a secret clearance when I worked for a defense contractor. I was a lowly computer operator, yet because of that, I had access to every single classified document the company possessed and had to briefed and cleared on every single program.
No, see, Barry and WH brain trust are all over it.
Gibbs: ‘We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorised disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.’
That ought to do it. They’ve steped up the response to the strongest terms! Assange has to be shaking in his boots.
Grow some nads H. The soldier is clearly guilty of espionage and high treason. Hang him. Assange has stated his intent to derail the US war effort – Clear espionage, sedition and any number of war crimes. Stuff your “strongest terms” where the sun don’t shine and take these dangerous cretin down. Sheesh, what a clueless bunch of spineless eggheads.
Is that the transparency really meant back during the campaign….?
I’ve got an idea. Forget the court marshal. Just send his sorry ASSets to Afganistan to fight. Let’s see how he likes that line of work now that he has made it more dangerous. ;o)
Assange, not being an American citizen, is not subject to the definition of treason in our Constitution.
However, he has clearly violated the US laws on espionage. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t in US territory, he’s committed crimes against the United States itself, we are justified in pursuing him anywhere.
At least one of his sources is known, and in military custody awaiting Court Martial, the military isn’t so feckless on this issue as the civilian authorities.
We can’t try Assange in absentia no matter how much this case cries out that it would be justified, we can’t even arraign him until we can get him into custody. But we can make protecting him a major diplomatic issue, being an accessory to espionage certainly is grounds to forfeit neutral status, which would be more than just egg on Sweden’s face. We are justly offended, if only we have the will to pursue it.
Julian Assange is now releasing an exposé accusing the Prophet Mohammad-Blessed Be His Name-of being a closet homosexual with a harem of little Jewish boys and big dogs. The exposé also accuses the Iranian leadership and Republican Guards of Mohammad like sodomy and with pigs and monkeys too. Keith Oberman, Chris Matthews, Anrea Mitchell and others of PMSNBS have verified the Julian Assange exposé is correct.
Now back to our regularly scheduled show already in progress.
===
Let your self serving rumors be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without them.
After reading the info about the PFC who was responsible for the first leaks (I still am not quite sure I beleive that he is responsible for the State dept docs) I think there may be more people in this soldiers chain of command that are going to find them self in a bunch of trouble.
The fact that he even had inserted a CD into the computer is in violation of the DoD’s policy regarding use of the computer. When I was civilian contracter in Iraq we were not allowed to insert any form of media into the computer. That meant thumb drives, external hard drives, cd/dvd, even MP3 players. This had come down when a bunch of soldiers had received free thumb drives from some giveaway or another only to find out that the 2 GB thumbdrives were actually 4 GB thumb drives with a hidden file that would automatically download information from the computer and once inserted into another computer it would later send the information to the Chi Coms.
It was more than one bitter gay soldier who did the leaking. Especially diplomatic cables.
Considering Obama himself hates the concept of American exceptionalism, and believes the US (at least until he arrived) was the root of all evil, it is likely that someone failry high up in State was also leaking information. Probably someone appointed by Obama.
Is this the WH’s way of sending Hillary into retirement prior to 2012? This makes the State Dept look pretty bad, no?
Fearless leader announces a freeze on Federal workers pay, regarding the WikiLeaks fiasco, Fearless Leader points to his fat lip -
#56 Lindsay,
Would that be the same State Department that leaked the forecast of Iran’s nuclear progress? That State Department? The one with Armitage the leaker letting Libby take the fall?
They don’t need any help. They’d be cheering if Bush were still in office.
I just heard on the news that holder is on the case now, we all will be ok now with that little darling on the job!
L
On November 29th, 2010 at 12:15 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:
It was more than one bitter gay soldier who did the leaking. Especially diplomatic cables.
… most likely he went in the back door to
laysteal the cables…bitter gay soldier who did the leaking..
what ” Oh I didn’t hear about any leaking…was the golden showering consentual with Ass-ange i wonder?
The question is whether the freeze is just on the annual increases for cost of living or whether or not it also freezes automatic step increases?
If it is both, and honestly it should be (BTW I am a DoD Civilian employee)as we do not have the money to afford pay increases of govt employees, I wonder how long it will be till the union cries foul or have they made a deal to have the govt pick up more of the health care costs to off set it? We have a health fair today for us to see what the helath care rates will look like next year, so I will let you know if it went up, down, or stayed the same.
I would hope the CIA, FBI and all the other national security agencies are hot on the heels of these slimy traitors no matter what dept. they slim in. Not to mention finding that POS Julian Assange. Finding them all and never hearing from them again is the way to handle this type of offense…as if it never happened.
As I and others have said on here, clean out the lefties in government all of them, all dept.s starting with the State Dept. it is no more than a safe haven for America haters. Sure it will take until 2012 to start the cleaning.
Well given Obama’s definition of rich, federal pay should be capped at 125K (if married) and 200K (if unmarried).
except that it wont even happen in 2012. The reason that there is still so many lefties in governement is that no matter who controls the Legislative and/or the Executive branch the bureucrats remain the same.
Better yet just get rid of all his czars. That would save nearly as much as the 2 year pay freeze.
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/373/fedpay.png
For an astonishing look at the increases in pay over 150K.
We need Jamie Gorelick to build another wall stat!
Drat! Well you get the drift…
Yeah. Most security software (McAfee, Symantec, etc.) have some type of utility that prevents data loss by blocking file copying to removal media. I’m suprised that the DoD doesn’t have this in place. If they do, then how did this PFC get on the permitted list? If they don’t, why not?
Truesoldier said:
Please let us know what you find – I know in my neck of the woods my Health care tab jumped 37%.
Someone should probably let Palin know that.
Ok from what I am hearing is it is just the cost of living allowance is being frozen, the step increases are not being frozen. In other words a GS 7 step 1 will still get the step increase when they hit step 2 (step 1 is at your 1 year anniversary, step 2 is at 2 years, step 3 is at 5 years and so on).
My guess is that a lot of the proper Security procedures were waived/ignored in the AOR because in a shooting war, you just have to ‘get the job done’! The same for Safety.
I’ve seen it.
Checklists are abreviated, ‘crew rest’ restrictions are waived, safe operating ranges are ignored.
“This is a war zone! We don’t have to follow those bu!!$#it rules!”
S
Well chap, since you are so fond of critiquing a US citizen, how about critiquing the Head of State as in “Me being President…”
Sorry the link.
Quite possibly true, which is why I figure that there will be more heads to roll in the chain of command of the soldier.
True that, True.
They keep saying to “Train like you’ll fight”, but then they forget to “fight like you trained”!
So what your saying is, this is all just a bunch of anal leakage?! Blame it on too much Olestra!
The libtards are all hot to use International Law in the US System, well then lets use International law -put INTERPOL on the case and then drag the rapist to International Court.
Let’s see, the leaker was a young soldier who should never have been allowed access to classified information, but as we now know, a homosexual relationship with one of his fellow soldiers went south and he was pi**ed off. All of this would have been solved by repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I suppose? Then we would have KNOWN he was a security risk.
Some of these are undamaging and quite interesting. I just read a diplomatic cable from the American consul in Tehran… All I can say is that I wish this guy was President instead of Obama, he’s got the “Persian mentality” bang-on.
Ron#83,
Yes they should have known this soldier was a security risk and they should have known the terrorist at Ft Hood was a security risk also! Why does it seem that we get terrorists of the rop type and a gay soldier killing and trying to get American’s killed? This pc crud in our military is getting many American’s killed daily.
L
Could someone please explain how all these secret documents were sent over to the wikileaks owner?
The US should just copywrite the material, then shut claim the domain name. Bingo, Wikileaks is off the air.
Ron#83,
Just because the kid was young does not mean he should not have a security clearance. I know many a young soldier that has top secret clearance that are appalled that one of their own would betray the oath they took and leak information regardless of the reasoning.
If you did not mean that he should not have had access due to his age then I am sorry that I misunderstood.
Alright,
I just got back from the Federal employees health fair where I work and I can tell you that are rate increases are nothing compared to the private sector. It looks like between a total of $150 to $250 (depending on the plan and whether it is single or family coverage) for the entire year (not per month). These are not the union plans by the way, these are the non-union plans.
The plans range from $80 a month for single coverage with high deductible to $400 a month for a family with virtually no out of pocket expenses.
Sent via the internet in a .zip file would be my guess.
Again same question. How does wikileaks obtain years worth of secret documents. Is someone who works for the IT department forwarding scans of secret documents or emails?
Truesoldier. I read several articles about this these exposed documents and they all mention that wikileaks obtained years worth of cables. My question would be, who has access to all these documents and why didn’t our government immediately arrest wikileaks owner. Wasn’t this an attack on our national interests and didn’t this action place many people in imediate danger?
vinny said:
This has been bothering me also – years worth? How was this simper weasel able to access a cache of all those documents? Is there some central hub that distributes the communications? How was he able to access that? I know the Nets I used not too long ago were area and/or site specific.
From reading various posts on this topic, one might come away with the impression that wikileaks is in charge of storring all our secret documents and for some reason they decided to release some of them. How were these “secrets” supposedly protected?
I was thinking the same thing. This was over at Hot Air:
Hey, if the Netherlands can copywrite their money, we should be able to copywrite our Diplomatic and National Defense documents.
So, saying that it is wrong for the American government to lie about who is dropping bombs, saying that it is wrong to use diplomats as spies, and saying that ordering diplomats to steal the credit card numbers from other diplomats equates to hating America.
Yet if I did any of those things, I’d be a horrible person. If my son did any of those things, I’d be a bad parent.
So, why isn’t it being a good citizen to demand good government?
What on earth will it take to shake off the illusion that big government is somehow a good thing?
The State Department has an Office of Being Really Stupid-aka- Alger Hiss’s Legacy- that is generally run by the Secretary herself. At least it has in my life time. In the day of the computer, the internet, Smart Phones and WiFi secrets are going to be ever more difficult to protect.
The ANSWER TO ALL WHO WOULD SPY, SABOTAGE (TERRORISM) SELL/GIVE SECRETS AND SUCH.
But with dignity and respect of course.
===
Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
Resistance is mandatory
Vinny,
The government stores all their classified documents for years and years as they may have relevance to something else in the future. This soldier had a top secret security clearance as he was an intelligence analyst. As an intelligence analyst he would have access to many separate databases from many different alphabet agencies (CIA, NSA, Dept of St) as all these different entities collect intelligence in one form or another. this intelligence is then used by analyst to cross check data and make connections as to whom is doing what, where, why and how.
Hope that helps a bit.
I would also add that this is the hardest type of infiltration to defend against (i.e. someone who already has clearance to access the documents).
Just look at Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen to name two of the more famous cases.
The real harm is not what is in the documents but rather that the documents have been disclosed in such a manner that frankly all but guarantees it will happen again.
That a single private, who was busted from E4 to E3 for assault, scheduled for early discharge yet still allowed unfettered access to classified documents, was the soul source of these leaks it is simply unconscionable.
The problem is that from this point on, no sane person will ever cooperate with the US Government for fear of having their name leaked. No sane government will want to share information with us for fear of having it leaked. In short, our ability to be trusted with critical and sensitive information is terribly compromised.
It is noteworthy that TSA got 10,000 new Secret clearances in September 2010. This administration hands them out like asprin. NOT SMART.
If that SP4 who did this had done it under Bush he would be hailed as a young Daniel Elsburg. Hypocrisy they name is NYT.
Wait… Huh? Are you saying the NYT would NOT have printed the story if it had leaked under Bush? Or that they are somehow critical of the leaker now?
Off topic a bit: Call your Senator tonight…yes tonight and tell them that 2010 midterms will be occurring again if they pass SB510
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cg…
Read the Heritage Foundation article on it…this is a massive power grab by the FDA and “WILL” cost the consumer!!!
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/11/…