Talk about a apology tour. This is humiliating and embarrassing. The fallout will be huge! ============ President U.S. in Damage Control After Vast Leak of Diplomatic Cables
Published November 29, 2010 Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The release of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents forced the Obama administration into damage control, trying to contain fallout from unflattering assessments of world leaders and revelations about backstage U.S. diplomacy.
The publication of the secret cables on Sunday amplified widespread global alarm about Iran's nuclear ambitions and unveiled occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea. The leaks also disclosed bluntly candid impressions from both diplomats and other world leaders about America's allies and foes.
In the wake of the massive document dump by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and numerous media reports detailing their contents, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to address the diplomatic repercussions on Monday. Clinton could deal with the impact first hand after she leaves Washington on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Middle East -- regions that figure prominently in the leaked documents.
The cables unearthed new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran's growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan's atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.
None of the disclosures appeared particularly explosive, but their publication could become problems for the officials concerned and for any secret initiatives they had preferred to keep quiet. The massive release of material intended for diplomatic eyes only is sure to ruffle feathers in foreign capitals, a certainty that already prompted U.S. diplomats to scramble in recent days to shore up relations with key allies in advance of the leaks.
Nov. 4: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks during a press conference in Switzerland. YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN State TV: Bomb kills Iranian nuclear scientist Comedy Legend Leslie Nielsen Dies At 84 Australian police investigate WikiLeaks founder You Found Someone's Debit Card. Do You Pick it Up? When Picking a Cruise Ship: Is Bigger Better? At Clinton's first stop in Astana, Kazakhstan, she will be attending a summit of officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a diplomatic grouping that includes many officials from countries cited in the leaked cables.
The documents published by The New York Times, France's Le Monde, Britain's Guardian newspaper, German magazine Der Spiegel and others laid out the behind-the-scenes conduct of Washington's international relations, shrouded in public by platitudes, smiles and handshakes at photo sessions among senior officials.
The White House immediately condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents, saying "such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."
U.S. officials may also have to mend fences after revelations that they gathered personal information on other diplomats. The leaks cited American memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats -- going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the diplomatic spying allegations. "Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years."
The White House noted that "by its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions."
"Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," the White House said.
On its website, The New York Times said "the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match."
Le Monde said it "considered that it was part of its mission to learn about these documents, to make a journalistic analysis and to make them available to its readers." Der Spiegel said that in publishing the documents its reporters and editors "weighed the public interest against the justified interest of countries in security and confidentiality."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed the Obama administration was trying to cover up alleged evidence of serious "human rights abuse and other criminal behavior" by the U.S. government. WikiLeaks posted the documents just hours after it claimed its website had been hit by a cyberattack that made the site inaccessible for much of the day.
But extracts of the more than 250,000 cables posted online by news outlets that had been given advance copies of the documents showed deep U.S. concerns about Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs along with fears about regime collapse in Pyongyang.
The Guardian said some cables showed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program. The newspaper also said officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear program to be stopped by any means and that leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran "as 'evil,' an 'existential threat' and a power that 'is going to take us to war,"' The Guardian said.
Those documents may prove the trickiest because even though the concerns of the Gulf Arab states are known, their leaders rarely offer such stark appraisals in public.
The Times highlighted documents that indicated the U.S. and South Korea were "gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea" and discussing the prospects for a unified country if the isolated, communist North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to implode.
The Times also cited diplomatic cables describing unsuccessful U.S. efforts to prod Pakistani officials to remove highly enriched uranium from a reactor out of fear that the material could be used to make an illicit atomic device. And the newspaper cited cables that showed Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, telling U.S. Gen. David Petraeus that his country would pretend that American missile strikes against a local al-Qaida group had come from Yemen's forces.
The paper also cited documents showing the U.S. used hardline tactics to win approval from countries to accept freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It said Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if its president wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and said the Pacific island of Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees.
It also cited a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that included allegations from a Chinese contact that China's Politburo directed a cyber intrusion into Google's computer systems as part of a "coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws."
Le Monde said another memo asked U.S. diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials that included Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers. They were asked to obtain fingerprints, ID photos, DNA and iris scans of people of interest to the United States, Le Monde said.
The Times said another batch of documents raised questions about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. One cable said Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe, the Times reported.
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Sunday called the release the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy," in that everything that had once been accepted as normal has now changed.
Der Spiegel reported that the cables portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in unflattering terms. It said American diplomats saw Merkel as risk-averse and Westerwelle as largely powerless.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, meanwhile, was described as erratic and in the near constant company of a Ukrainian nurse who was described in one cable as "a voluptuous blonde," according to the Times.
WikiLeaks' action was widely condemned.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it was an "irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents," while Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the document release "unhelpful and untimely."
In Australia, Assange's home country, Attorney General Robert McClelland said law enforcement officials were investigating whether WikiLeaks broke any laws.
The U.S. State Department's top lawyer warned Assange late Saturday that lives and military operations would be put at risk if the cables were released. Legal adviser Harold Koh said WikiLeaks would be breaking the law if it went ahead. He also rejected a request from Assange to cooperate in removing sensitive details from the documents.
At this point, all Assange can do is try to one-up his latest treason, so as to stay as high-profile as possible, and delay the dirt-nap.
Isn't he up on sexual assault charges, or is that Chicago politics trying to needle him.
In a rEALLY odd case, he is being charged for sexual assault by SWEDEN!!!! Given the Swedes rather expansive viewpoints on sex, he musta REALLY chit his copybook!!
What could possibly motivate someone to do such a thing?
250,000 messages. That's incredible. This has got to be the ultimate computer hack.
It will be intesting to see just what the fallout is and I sincerely hope there aren't any lives lost because of this. I'm not seeing anything earth shattering in the brief details cited but somewhere in the 250,000 I'm sure there is.
At this point, all Assange can do is try to one-up his latest treason, so as to stay as high-profile as possible, and delay the dirt-nap.
And if there's any creative imagination in the federal gummitup, there ought to be some very clever counter-intelligence tactics being applied now or soon. For example �
� "Salted" documents cleverly released that'll have disastrous effects in Al Quaeda's and Taliban's upper echelons (indicating, for example, that certain trusted leaders therein are CIA plants).
� Cleverly implanted documents, identical to Wikileaks' releases, that can be identified as fakes � allegedly by Wikileaks.
Some of Washington's proven skills in creative chicanery ought to be applied in our national interest, to our national benefit. But I'm not holding my breath or sleeping soundly in blithe, blind trust.
He's leaking stuff related to Israel now, I believe.
The Mossad should step in anytime now.
Let him release anything related to Russia, and it'll be done. Fast... and ugly.
Truer words...
If I was concerned about my own well-being and wanted to look forward to a long and happy life, Isreal and Russia would be among the last countries that I would want to tick off!
He's leaking stuff related to Israel now, I believe.
The Mossad should step in anytime now.
Let him release anything related to Russia, and it'll be done. Fast... and ugly.
Truer words...
If I was concerned about my own well-being and wanted to look forward to a long and happy life, Isreal and Russia would be among the last countries that I would want to tick off!
Sadly, we should be in that list.
Frankly, all it takes is one soldier killed from this guys actions and he should lay along side the honored dead.
It is beyond understanding, that an outfit such as wiki leaks, doing so much damage to America, is not touched because to do so would be politically incorrect.
Where is our National will to survive? The sort of releases done by this outfit would have caused a war in the not so distant past.
It is beyond understanding, that an outfit such as wiki leaks, doing so much damage to America, is not touched because to do so would be politically incorrect.
Where is our National will to survive? The sort of releases done by this outfit would have caused a war in the not so distant past.
Well, it's because we have the Great BALL-LESS ONE in charge..
I'm sure he's arranging an apology meet even as I type this..
Two more YEARS of this dickhead.....ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!
If I was concerned about my own well-being and wanted to look forward to a long and happy life, Isreal and Russia would be among the last countries that I would want to tick off!
Sadly, we should be in that list.
We are in that list--just way at the other end from Isreal and Russia.
Here is a news flash. Just because a civilian does not see any truly damaging intel in all the information leaked does not mean it is not there. Hard working .gov employees and contractors who do the majority of intel gathering are immediately in danger when this kind of crap happens. The public never sees the true fallout.
Something as simple as placing a person at a physical location at time X can be huge. Not to mention a myriad of other issues.
On a separate note, Diplomats in general are the bitchiest and most back stabbing group of self absorbed government employees I have ever had the displeasure of having to deal with. It seems the smaller the embassy post, the more pompous and ridiculous their antics are.
while i'm in general agreement with the gist or tone of most of the posts here, i do believe there's more to it.
in an age of the internet, i'm sure a lot of folks was just waiting for this to happen. the internet and it's availability has opened the door to the "antics" of the individual.
an individual downloaded the stuff, another individual held it awhile before forwarding to a news outlet. the news outlet chose to publish it.
It seems the only ones who care in America are the Patriots who still think this country has potential. The rest of America is at the mall shopping. kwg
I would think that their would be hidden signatures in each of these documents that are added when they are displayed/printed and identify the person who looks at them. That way we could easily arrest the person responsible for this treason.
Right now,I suspect the Obama Administration is about as popular as a fart in a space suit with America's supposed "allies" abroad including the UK.
Can't see much international goodwill/co-operation continuing after this...I suspect most country's caught up in it will publically brush it off, but wil be thinking about a cooling off period until after Obama goes.
Personally If I were David Cameron, I'd be sending M16 to Kenya to look for a certain document that then might find its way onto Wikileaks...
the only upside of this mess is that it makes hussein and hillary look like the azz wipes they really are.
Precisely.
It seems the major upshot of all of this is, "Look, folks, politicians and political appointees are small-minded, vicious, corrupt, vacuous idiots."
It sure makes the government squeal, along with a hearty helping of the government worshippers here at the Campfire; but seriously, folks, who among us here didn't already know that?
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department will prosecute anyone found to have violated U.S. law in the leaks of classified government documents by online whistleblower WikiLeaks, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday.
"This is not saber-rattling," said the attorney general, who declared that the Obama administration condemns the leaks.
Holder said the latest disclosure, involving classified State Department documents, puts at risk the security of the nation, its diplomats, intelligence assets and U.S. relationships with foreign governments.
"To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, who put at risk the assets and the people I have described, they will be held responsible; they will be held accountable," Holder said at a news conference on another topic. He called the WikiLeaks probe "an active, ongoing criminal investigation."
the only upside of this mess is that it makes hussein and hillary look like the azz wipes they really are.
Precisely.
It seems the major upshot of all of this is, "Look, folks, politicians and political appointees are small-minded, vicious, corrupt, vacuous idiots."
It sure makes the government squeal, along with a hearty helping of the government worshippers here at the Campfire; but seriously, folks, who among us here didn't already know that?
You [bleep]' retarded dumbass...
It ain't about politicians, or the .gov, it's about putting American service personnel and citizens lives NEEDLESSLY at risk; about putting the lives of those that they work with to secure and defend freedom at risk.
Of course, seeing that would require your brain-damaged head not be completely up your cowardly ass.
It ain't about politicians, or the .gov, it's about putting American service personnel and citizens lives NEEDLESSLY at risk; about putting the lives of those that they work with to secure and defend freedom at risk.
One more time, with feeling.
1. Neither the modern US military nor its civilian henchmen secure or defend the freedom of anyone but the politicians they serve. (You and I have already established this.)
2. Said politicians have been putting military and civilian--especially civilian, if you look at the leaked numbers--lives at needless risk for many, many years now.
3. It is the job of military personnel to be put needlessly at risk by their politician overlords.
Finally, even Assange's worst (informed) enemies can't come up with a single actual concrete example of any innocent person's life being put in danger by the leaked documents.
I don't imagine that will be the case forever, but the fact that it's the case now demonstrates the rabid, slavering indiscriminacy of the government worshippers.
Finally, even Assange's worst (informed) enemies can't come up with a single actual concrete example of any innocent person's life being put in danger by the leaked documents.
Seriously?
The most recent leaks have just been leaked.
I suspect it will take a little time before the brown skinned folks are able to sift through it all and decide what suicide bomb to don next...
And define "innocent". I suspect you don't count the members of the U.S. armed forces in that...
It ain't about politicians, or the .gov, it's about putting American service personnel and citizens lives NEEDLESSLY at risk; about putting the lives of those that they work with to secure and defend freedom at risk.
One more time, with feeling.
1. Neither the modern US military nor its civilian henchmen secure or defend the freedom of anyone but the politicians they serve. (You and I have already established this.)
2. Said politicians have been putting military and civilian--especially civilian, if you look at the leaked numbers--lives at needless risk for many, many years now.
3. It is the job of military personnel to be put needlessly at risk by their politician overlords.
Finally, even Assange's worst (informed) enemies can't come up with a single actual concrete example of any innocent person's life being put in danger by the leaked documents.
I don't imagine that will be the case forever, but the fact that it's the case now demonstrates the rabid, slavering indiscriminacy of the government worshippers.
Thank you, for once again proving that you are one of the most mentally retarded members here at the 'Fire.
You haven't a clue as to how much a disgrace you actually are, and that you can't grasp reality or even common decency is telling on many levels.
� Thank you, for once again proving that you are one of the most mentally retarded members here at the 'Fire. �
Au contrere, mon frere!
Bro' Barak is far from mentally retarded!
Intellectually retarded would be more like it � a common affliction of those who equate great knowledge and superior intellect with wisdom and judgement, especially when a tightly focused pet obsession further clouds their judgement.
� Thank you, for once again proving that you are one of the most mentally retarded members here at the 'Fire. �
Au contrere, mon frere!
Bro' Barak is far from mentally retarded!
Intellectually retarded would be more like it � a common affliction of those who equate great knowledge and superior intellect with wisdom and judgement, especially when a tightly focused pet obsession further clouds their judgement.
As I've said before, Dr. Howell, I would jump at the opportunity to have a respectful, reasoned debate with you about some of these issues. I'm constantly looking for opportunities to learn more, and I'd be (and have been) honored to learn from you, if you have something to teach me.
I promise not to lose my temper or call you names.
Are there at least fundamental premises we can agree on?
� Thank you, for once again proving that you are one of the most mentally retarded members here at the 'Fire. �
Au contrere, mon frere!
Bro' Barak is far from mentally retarded!
Intellectually retarded would be more like it � a common affliction of those who equate great knowledge and superior intellect with wisdom and judgement, especially when a tightly focused pet obsession further clouds their judgement.
he always did say he was going to release documents and make this the most transparent admin. in history, close getmo, hold public hearings of terrorists, appointed more anti american people into government than has ever been done before, spewed his own version throughout the world of how bad we are. hell the list is endless. (just to stir the conspiracy theory) heheheheeee
Congressman calls for anti-Wikileaks offensive By John Timmer | Last updated about an hour ago As the fallout from this weekend's document drop continues, at least one US Congressman wants the US government to go on the offensive. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who will be chairing the House's Homeland Security Committee come January, sent letters to Obama administration officials on Sunday, asking that Wikileaks and its public face, Julian Assange, be declared both terrorists and spies.
For the espionage accusations, King sent a letter to Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, requesting that he consider bringing charges under the Espionage Act, specifically a section that deals with "gathering, transmitting or losing defense information." The section provides a laundry list of ways of obtaining information that fall under the law, but highlights that they must be done with intent or reason to believe that it will do injury to the US.
According to King, Wikileaks fits the bill. The repeated leaks, King alleges, "manifests Mr. Assange�s purposeful intent to damage not only our national interests in fighting the war on terror, but also undermines the very safety of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan." His letter also points out that one of the site's sources, a Private Bradley Manning, has been charged under precisely this statute.
If espionage won't do, however, King has a backup plan: terrorism. In a separate letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he asks that the Department undertake a review to determine whether Wikileaks could be designated a Foreign Terrorist organization. The letter says that the site fits the bill since it's: a) foreign, b) engaged in "terrorism," and c) threatens US security. The terrorism bit comes from the Defense Department's determination that the previously leaked materials had provided "material support" to a large number of terrorist organizations.
Of course, catching up with Assange is easier said than done. King recommends that Clinton work with the Swedish government to see if there's any way that Assange "can be brought to justice." Even without a public spokesman, however, there's no guarantee that the leaking would come to an end.
he always did say he was going to release documents and make this the most transparent admin. in history, close getmo, hold public hearings of terrorists, appointed more anti american people into government than has ever been done before, spewed his own version throughout the world of how bad we are. hell the list is endless. (just to stir the conspiracy theory) heheheheeee
true enough.
even though the ol Barak and i march to diabolically opposed drummers, he seems to bring forth a good view of things from time to time, or not. whether i agree with him isn't a kosher issue in the least.
name calling, on the other hand, is about as low as a tax-paying American can go, imho.
there's only one kind of treason, and it's the only crime defined in the Constitution, so some future government couldn't expand the scope of the crime.
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."
The maximum penalty declared by Congress is death.
Sorry, Amigo, teaching wisdom isn't in my job description or my tool kit.
I'm not sure that it can be taught logically. (Experientia docet.)
� Pray for it. (And for humility.)
� Lay your fondest intellectual convictions on the altar.
� Get ready to change your mind.
Well, gee, that's pretty much the way I do it already. As a matter of fact, I never would have gotten anywhere near where I am unless I had been willing to lay my fondest intellectual convictions on the altar with humility and gotten ready to change my mind. I'd probably still be a nominal Republican with very little political awareness other than "Republican good, Democrat bad."
I don't know whether you've been watching, but right here on this very forum I've undergone a great many intellectual changes as I learned new things, some of them pretty sweeping. And I'm sure there are a great many more changes still in my future, if the Lord is willing. I had hoped that you'd be part of some of them.
I'm not sure that the implication that your intellectual changes are so worthy that others should have undertaken them as well is a sign of an open mind.
realizing the door swings both ways, but just sayin.
Being called low, by Gus (and whatever chemically-induced state he's in)...
Can't say I'm fretted by that.
don't worry about it. it happens all the time. i once had a DI to tell me he hoped i died.
heh, i didn't.
words are just words.
but, as long as you continue to pay taxes, you'll likely recieve many passes. quit payin' taxes and the IRS will be down on you like a chickin' on a june-bug.
The government has been doing things that it shouldn't be doing,...as it *always* does.
Somebody got the info and told the people about it.
Now the government is red faced and pissed,..and it's encouraging all of its sheep to start screaming a bunch of nonsense about treason and compromising national security.
The way I see it,..the biggest threat to our national security is the idiocy of the people who make up the federal government.
The government has been doing things that it shouldn't be doing,...as it *always* does.
Somebody got the info and told the people about it.
Now the government is red faced and pissed,..and it's encouraging all of its sheep to start screaming a bunch of nonsense about treason and compromising national security.
The way I see it,..the biggest threat to our national security is the idiocy of the people who make up the federal government.
well, yes. exactly.
but, pls remember the gov't is nothing if not a projection of the People?
sure, it get's off course from time to time. the People (we voters?) need to reign it in, reposition it, and point it more toward the "right direction."
right now, it's off-course, and we're all arguiing over who best can get it back on the "right course."
given technological change, the mistakes and right answers accrued in the past, and forecasts for the future, which turn in the road should we take?
I'm not sure that the implication that your intellectual changes are so worthy that others should have undertaken them as well is a sign of an open mind.
realizing the door swings both ways, but just sayin.
Hubris is a butt kicker.
It's a good point.
I've gotten to be pretty good at praying for humility, but accepting the answer when it comes is a whole other discipline.
The government has been doing things that it shouldn't be doing,...as it *always* does.
Somebody got the info and told the people about it.
Now the government is red faced and pissed,..and it's encouraging all of its sheep to start screaming a bunch of nonsense about treason and compromising national security.
The way I see it,..the biggest threat to our national security is the idiocy of the people who make up the federal government.
well, yes. exactly.
but, pls remember the gov't is nothing if not a projection of the People?
sure, it get's off course from time to time. the People (we voters?) need to reign it in, reposition it, and point it more toward the "right direction."
right now, it's off-course, and we're all arguiing over who best can get it back on the "right course."
given technological change, the mistakes and right answers accrued in the past, and forecasts for the future, which turn in the road should we take?
the Crossroads? ever heard of it?
Off course? Says who? It's precisely on the same course it's always been on, the same course every government steers. Get bigger and bigger and more expensive and more powerful. Erode your subjects' liberty as quickly and as deeply as you can get away with. Enrich your politicians and their cronies by destroying the economy. Regulate away all innovation so that big corporations who are threatened by innovation will grease your politicians. Commit atrocities, cover them up. Continually find new scares and emergencies to keep your subjects frightened and at war and less averse to giving up their liberties.
And on and on.
Until your subjects say it's enough and start hanging your politicians from lampposts. Or until your depredations so weaken the country that it's taken over from outside. Or until the economy is such a disaster that not even your most devout worshippers believe you anymore.
Then it's over, and if your former subjects are stupid enough, they'll replace you with a new government and you can start all over.
Nah, I'd say the ol' ship of the State is right on course.
yes, indeed. a very powerful statement. even more powerful if the Ruskies, Chinese, Indians, and Brazillians among others had been standing beside her and shaking their heads in agreement.
oh well, life goes on.
the Age of the Internet advances forward. Individuals do count, don't they?
That may be the way to go, though. "Remember: Republican good, Democrat bad. Hillary is a Democrat. That means she's bad, okay? So if she says that Julian is bad, what does that mean? Anyone? Anyone? That Julian is actually good, that's right! Very good, Johnny. Here, have a chocolate. One day, if you study hard, the rest of you will learn to think as clearly as Johnny."
I would think that their would be hidden signatures in each of these documents that are added when they are displayed/printed and identify the person who looks at them. That way we could easily arrest the person responsible for this treason.
It's my understanding that a leaker (if not the leaker) has been identified and apprehended and is now incarcerated awaiting trial.
I would think that their would be hidden signatures in each of these documents that are added when they are displayed/printed and identify the person who looks at them. That way we could easily arrest the person responsible for this treason.
It's my understanding that a leaker (if not the leaker) has been identified and apprehended and is now incarcerated awaiting trial.
Yep, Pfc. Bradley Manning, who looks like a poster boy for gays in the military. Just saw Hillary reading a statement where she refers to the "alleged cables". I guess old speech habits die hard.
Why all the fuss about Wikileak anyway? As I recall the NY Times published leaked classified information at least twice that gave Bin Laden a heads up on our ability to track his communications and his financial operations. Put American lives at risk and zero outcry from the Obama/Hillary crowd. No prosecutions from the Bush administration either.
there's only one kind of treason, and it's the only crime defined in the Constitution, so some future government couldn't expand the scope of the crime.
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."
The maximum penalty declared by Congress is death.
Thank you Steve for the reply. What Wiki leaks has done is treason as I see it. Wiki is levying war against us and is an enemy of the US. It is posing a great and grave danger to our men and women serving us all over the globe. 163bc
there's only one kind of treason, and it's the only crime defined in the Constitution, so some future government couldn't expand the scope of the crime.
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."
The maximum penalty declared by Congress is death.
Thank you Steve for the reply. What Wiki leaks has done is treason as I see it. Wiki is levying war against us and is an enemy of the US. It is posing a great and grave danger to our men and women serving us all over the globe. 163bc
Not according to the addled, hare-brain trust of Barak and Bristoe.
Thank you Steve for the reply. What Wiki leaks has done is treason as I see it. Wiki is levying war against us and is an enemy of the US. It is posing a great and grave danger to our men and women serving us all over the globe. 163bc
Treason? Really? Can treason be committed against the US government by people who are not its subjects?
For example, take Saddam Hussein. Was he committing treason when the US government invaded his country?
And no, WikiLeaks is not posing a danger to "our men and women serving us all over the globe," if by that you mean the US military forces occupying 135+ foreign countries to impose the will of US politicians on them. The US government itself poses a far greater danger to them than WikiLeaks could even if it wanted to.
Try not to fall so easily for the propaganda of the likes of Hillary Clinton and other sleazy politicians. Consider the source and do some checking of your own. Have an open mind.
I don't know whether you've been watching, but right here on this very forum I've undergone a great many intellectual changes
O yea I've been watching. You get loonier with each post. Patting yourself on the back and thinking yourself an intelect or a great thinker doesn't make you one. Smarts and good common sence are 2 entirely different things but I doubt you can grasp that concept. You are a way out there loonie bird. 163bc
The ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee has called for the prosecution of the source of the Wikileaks controversy, saying that the leak amounts to a treasonous act and has put the lives of Americans at risk.
The ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee has called for the prosecution of the source of the Wikileaks controversy, saying that the leak amounts to a treasonous act and has put the lives of Americans at risk.
Now, if Wikileaks is getting funding from an enemy of the United States, or if it can be proven that Wikileaks intentions are to weaken the United States through it's actions, then they should be considered an enemy of the U.S., but "treason" isn't really applicable.
Those 501 c3 Org's set up by Wikileaks or their supporters, need to be blown up however and investigated to the fullest extent.
True. I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I thought differently. All I said about Manning was that he was a human being with a conscience.
I'll say further that he did the right thing. Of course, the closer you are to a government, the more likely it is that you'll be imprisoned for doing the right thing, since every government depends for its survival on a lot of wrong things being done. Given that he had a conscience, I think he was a little silly for joining the military, and a lot silly for getting involved with intelligence.
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Now, if Wikileaks is getting funding from an enemy of the United States, or if it can be proven that Wikileaks intentions are to weaken the United States through it's actions, then they should be considered an enemy of the U.S., but "treason" isn't really applicable.
Yes--except that I'd say "an enemy of the US government," since it's actually a good thing when the subjects of the US government know more about the crimes it's committing in their name.
Remember, folks like Muslim jihadists are told that the subjects of the US government are the ones in control of it; that's one of the reasons they attack civilians. If the government's subjects are being held accountable for the actions of the government, it stands to reason that they ought at least to know what those actions are.
Enemy of the government, friend to its subjects. Can we agree on that, at least?
Smarts and good common sence are 2 entirely different things but I doubt you can grasp that concept. You are a way out there loonie bird. 163bc
Okay, let's explore this a little. If you have something to teach me, I certainly want to learn it.
Given a template like, "You say that A, but common sense clearly indicates that B," can you give me useful examples of A and B?
(Please do try to make B something other than a simple regurgitation of standard government propaganda, though.)
Here is a little something I can teach you Barak. Good, honest, hard working, patriotic Americans citizens and possibly their loved ones who have put their lives at risk to ensure you can babble about your a + b bullshit might die because of these leaks. That my friend is a very real concept that I hope you can wrap your thirsting for knowledge mind around. Your wish for a totally open and transparent government is a fools game and if it ever happens it will be only for a very short while befoere it ends. You may not know it, realize it, or choose to believe it, but it is a very harsh world out there with a whole bunch of evil people that wish to do YOU & me (and anyone else)great harm. I hope it does not happen but if that evil gets by those that are protecting you and lands at your feet a very useful example of A and B will be very clear to you. At that point it will be too late which is often when those who lack good common sence realize it. 163bc
Is the concept of patriotism applicable to country or government?
That's what it boils down to.
A thinking man knows the difference... and also knows which choice government personnel will make.
I"ve said on here many times it's among the most amazing things I've ever encountered. People piss and moan and bitch and grip about all the BS that government does and says and talk about how they aren't to be trusted at any time for any reason but then they turn around and defend it until their dying breath.
Simply amazing.
I say screw the government. And its politicians. They are not your friend, your provider, your security, nor anything else they claim and pretend to be. They play a game of make believe. And work very hard to make people believe. All the way to the point of forcing it if you don't believe by imprisoning or killing you.
And people, while saying out one side of their mouth, and very regularly, they don't trust the government, trust them and defend them and side with them, every time. I can't say as I've ever encountered a more glaring hypocrisy.
If people don't learn the difference between country and government of a country this country will be lost. And very soon ,too, I might add.
I can't buy that. He is/was a soldier, sworn to obey the lawful orders of his superiors. Those lawful orders included regulations that prohibited the copying and dissemination of classified information. At the very least, he disobeyed orders.
That said, I see the whole thing as an extension of the general policy of Americans to blame someone else for any and every problem. How so? The politicians, brass hats, and other originators of all the leaked documents, videos, and suchlike, transmitted their information in the clear. One of the first principles of OpSec is that there are no secure networks. Had they (the hats & suits) never heard of encryption?
The whole bamn datch of them up and down the line made this possible. IF the investigators that cleared him for his EBI done their job properly, it wouldn't have happened. IF the document writers had modified their language, it wouldn't be a big deal. IF encryption had been used, wikileaks would have had nothing to feed on.
Hang 'em all as an object lesson in the wages of stupidity.
You'll be able to judge the rightousness of our government by its eventual response. And I'll tell you what that eventual response will be. It will attempt (regardless of whether it is Republican or Democrat controlled) to assert new and somewhat Draconian controls on the Internet. You'll see things proposed like government issued Internet passwords, various other controls, and lots and lots of previously innocuous sites labled as subversive and forced to close under threat of prosecution.
That is exactly what will happen and I assume all of the government cheerleaders on here will be doing cartwheels as the 'Campfire' is forced to close.
True. I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I thought differently. All I said about Manning was that he was a human being with a conscience.
I'll say further that he did the right thing. Of course, the closer you are to a government, the more likely it is that you'll be imprisoned for doing the right thing, since every government depends for its survival on a lot of wrong things being done. Given that he had a conscience, I think he was a little silly for joining the military, and a lot silly for getting involved with intelligence.
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Now, if Wikileaks is getting funding from an enemy of the United States, or if it can be proven that Wikileaks intentions are to weaken the United States through it's actions, then they should be considered an enemy of the U.S., but "treason" isn't really applicable.
Yes--except that I'd say "an enemy of the US government," since it's actually a good thing when the subjects of the US government know more about the crimes it's committing in their name.
Remember, folks like Muslim jihadists are told that the subjects of the US government are the ones in control of it; that's one of the reasons they attack civilians. If the government's subjects are being held accountable for the actions of the government, it stands to reason that they ought at least to know what those actions are.
Enemy of the government, friend to its subjects. Can we agree on that, at least?
The Government and the citizens of the U.S. live in a symbiotic relationship. Though the actions of the former often impose on the latter, attacks on the former by outside sources or traitors can still effect and harm the lives of the latter.
Knowing that the U.S. tried to get enriched uranium out of Pakistan, because it feared the direction of Pakistan's leadership, is not a truth that helped American's much.
Now if Pakistan reacts in a way that causes American blood to be shed, whether directly or indirectly, I would say it wasn't really worth the price of transparency.
Let's say there was a Wikileaks in 1945 and one of the cables leaked was that the Indianapolis was transporting atomic bombs to Tinian. The Japs intercept with every sub in the Pacific and the U.S. is forced to invade Japan or at a minimum, the delay costs the U.S. another 10,000 lives while we continue to fight.
Was the "truth" worth it?
In theory, a Wikileaks in the 1940's would have you and I speaking German or Japanese and this freedom of expression we are exchanging at this very moment is a forgotten footnote in history.
Smarts and good common sence are 2 entirely different things but I doubt you can grasp that concept. You are a way out there loonie bird. 163bc
Okay, let's explore this a little. If you have something to teach me, I certainly want to learn it.
Given a template like, "You say that A, but common sense clearly indicates that B," can you give me useful examples of A and B?
(Please do try to make B something other than a simple regurgitation of standard government propaganda, though.)
Here is a little something I can teach you Barak. Good, honest, hard working, patriotic Americans citizens and possibly their loved ones who have put their lives at risk to ensure you can babble about your a + b bullshit might die because of these leaks.
Well, okay, I guess simple regurgitation of standard government propaganda it is. One works with what one has.
First, of course, is the possibility that that argument may be nothing but complete government fabrication. (So far it has been. Check it out on your own: to this point no WikiLeaks information has led to anything more serious than government officials being really, really embarrassed.) Governments, their politicians, and their intellectuals all lie for a living; that's why swallowing government propaganda is usually a dangerous thing.
But, just for the sake of argument, let's suppose it's all true.
Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose a criminal has a knife to the throat of your daughter, and orders you not to move or he'll stab her, and you move, and he stabs her.
Who is responsible for your daughter getting stabbed? You? I don't think so. I think it's the criminal who put her in that position who's responsible.
So...you're concerned that there are people in the position of depending for their safety on certain information not being released. Suppose the information gets released and they're harmed.
Who's responsible for the harm that comes to them? The people who did the releasing, or the government that put them in that position without control over the information in question?
I think the answer to that question's pretty clear. What should also be pretty clear, I think, is that if the government is indeed responsible it will do anything in its power to convince people that the responsibility lies elsewhere.
If instead of just accepting the propaganda you actually examine it a little, usually it'll fall apart on its own.
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Your wish for a totally open and transparent government is a fools game and if it ever happens it will be only for a very short while befoere it ends.
From your keyboard to God's Internet browser, my friend. From your keyboard to God's Internet browser.
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You may not know it, realize it, or choose to believe it, but it is a very harsh world out there with a whole bunch of evil people that wish to do YOU & me (and anyone else)great harm.
Once again, try to take a step beyond the propaganda rather than stopping right where the newsreader stops.
"Why" is frequently a good next question, just as a rule of thumb. Suppose it's true what they say about lots of people wanting to kill us. Why do you suppose that is?
I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader.
I'm sorry it worked out this way; I was hoping you had something other than government propaganda to teach me. Most of the propaganda I've already considered.
I can't buy that. He is/was a soldier, sworn to obey the lawful orders of his superiors. Those lawful orders included regulations that prohibited the copying and dissemination of classified information. At the very least, he disobeyed orders.
Yes, he disobeyed orders. Yes, he broke his oath. Yes, he committed treason. Still, he did the right thing.
The only other conclusion available would be to support the N�rnberg Defense.
The Government and the citizens of the U.S. live in a symbiotic relationship.
You mean parasitic, right? The government coercively draws its essence from the vitality of the populace, like a leech on a cow. The populace does all sorts of things for the government that the government couldn't possibly do for itself. Does the government do anything for the populace that the populace couldn't do for itself?
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Knowing that the U.S. tried to get enriched uranium out of Pakistan, because it feared the direction of Pakistan's leadership, is not a truth that helped American's much.
If the government knew that its darkest secrets would one day (one day soon, hopefully within the terms of office of the politicians responsible) be exposed to the light in the view of its subjects, it would be less likely to get involved in places it shouldn't be sticking its nose. I think that'd be a good thing, not a bad thing.
I can't buy that. He is/was a soldier, sworn to obey the lawful orders of his superiors. Those lawful orders included regulations that prohibited the copying and dissemination of classified information. At the very least, he disobeyed orders.
Yes, he disobeyed orders. Yes, he broke his oath. Yes, he committed treason. Still, he did the right thing.
The only other conclusion available would be to support the N�rnberg Defense.
Where you and I disagree is that you consider his orders against general dissemination of classified information unlawful; I don't.
If the government knew that its darkest secrets would one day (one day soon, hopefully within the terms of office of the politicians responsible) be exposed to the light in the view of its subjects, it would be less likely to get involved in places it shouldn't be sticking its nose. I think that'd be a good thing, not a bad thing.
Brings to memory documents sealed from public view surrounding JFK's murder.
Who is hiding what? And why? Too bad these documents weren't leaked long, long ago. How many on here defend the governmetn's position of keeping that all hidden from public scrutiny?
Y'all deal with Barak, if you choose. I'd rather just have him get his way, and the next prison riot end with him and his getting what they've earned at the hands of those that they find more worthy than actual patriots, service personnel, and Americans.
The Government and the citizens of the U.S. live in a symbiotic relationship.
You mean parasitic, right? The government coercively draws its essence from the vitality of the populace, like a leech on a cow. The populace does all sorts of things for the government that the government couldn't possibly do for itself. Does the government do anything for the populace that the populace couldn't do for itself?
Symbiotic, parasitic, the result would be the same.
A population without government, is easy prey for a Nazi Germany, a USSR, an 1812 Britain, a 2010 China.....
If a government can keep secrets from the people, then the people can in no way be said to have control over said government. It is really that simple. It is a simple either/or question. Either the government is accountable to the people and can keep no secrets, or it is not accountable to the people and can keep secrets.
Let's be honest about the situation. If a government that is not accountable to us is what we really want, let's at least have the courage to recognize it for what it is and stop pretending that it protects our "freedom" and other such nonsense when it reality, it does precisely the opposite.
Are we adults or are we children? Adults should be able to process information and make rational decisions based on what they perceive as their best interests. Children must be shielded and have information withheld from them because as children, they are not capable of deciding what is in their interests and therefore, there is no need to confuse or incite them with useless information.
A government that can not responsibly keep certain things confidential is at the mercy of the mob.
No, it isn't. Our government is protected from the mob in that it is a representative republic with elections set at clear and determined intervals. Thus, any elected official is completely free to vote in any manner for any program whasoever, provided it is constitutional of course, and the public has NO LEGAL RECOURSE WHATSOEVER until the next election. However, that elected official SHOULD NOT be able to mask his action in secrecy so that he is not accountable to the public at the next election.
Where you and I disagree is that you consider his orders against general dissemination of classified information unlawful; I don't.
I'm sure they were perfectly lawful, in the typical government sense of the word, although I'd prefer to use the term "legal." (I recognize a big difference between natural law and human legislation.)
But I don't give a rip whether things are that kind of lawful or not: I care whether they're right or wrong.
Children must be shielded and have information withheld from them because as children, they are not capable of deciding what is in their interests and therefore, there is no need to confuse or incite them with useless information.
And big daddy/mommy government considers the public its very own children. They're smarter than the rest of us, doncha know... and do everything they do for our own good, too!
Let's see what's hidden pertaining to JFK's murder. C'mon. Let's see it.
Is big daddy/mommy governmetn protecting itself or the public by hiding this? Is it protecting certain politicians? Was there treason involved? Really! What is being hidden and why?
The Government and the citizens of the U.S. live in a symbiotic relationship.
You mean parasitic, right? The government coercively draws its essence from the vitality of the populace, like a leech on a cow. The populace does all sorts of things for the government that the government couldn't possibly do for itself. Does the government do anything for the populace that the populace couldn't do for itself?
Symbiotic, parasitic, the result would be the same.
A population without government, is easy prey for a Nazi Germany, a USSR, an 1812 Britain, a 2010 China.....
Is this the standard line about how a government fights for its subjects?
It doesn't, really, you know. A government forces its subjects to fight for it. A government threatened by a Nazi Germany doesn't think to itself, "Oh my goodness, our subjects won't like being subjects of Nazi Germany! We'd better fight to protect them from that!" It thinks to itself, "Oh my goodness, if Nazi Germany takes over, we won't have power anymore! We'd better mobilize our subjects to fight to protect us from that!"
And nobody has ever explained to me yet A) why such an aggressor would want to invade and take over a society without a government, or B) exactly how such an aggressor would go about it.
I mean, a society of sheep herded by a preexisting government is fairly easy to take over: you just replace the existing government with your own, and the sheep just go on being sheep. Easy.
But how do you take over a society of small wolf packs with no experience at being sheep? Why would you even want to subject yourself to such an experience?
Correction: I guess there are still people who try to take over Somalia and Afghanistan; it may after all be true that the only limitless natural resource in the universe is human stupidity. Okay, consider A) withdrawn; but I'm still curious about B). So far, nothing tried has worked in either Somalia or Afghanistan. Have you a new idea?
Is big daddy/mommy governmetn protecting itself or the public by hiding this? Is it protecting certain politicians? Was there treason involved? Really! What is being hidden and why?
C'mon!
And another thing I'd like to see which ALL 3 BRANCHES of the federal government have CONSPIRED to keep hidden from public view is BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION AND TRAVEL RECORDS!!!
Smarts and good common sence are 2 entirely different things but I doubt you can grasp that concept. You are a way out there loonie bird. 163bc
Okay, let's explore this a little. If you have something to teach me, I certainly want to learn it.
Given a template like, "You say that A, but common sense clearly indicates that B," can you give me useful examples of A and B?
(Please do try to make B something other than a simple regurgitation of standard government propaganda, though.)
Here is a little something I can teach you Barak. Good, honest, hard working, patriotic Americans citizens and possibly their loved ones who have put their lives at risk to ensure you can babble about your a + b bullshit might die because of these leaks.
Well, okay, I guess simple regurgitation of standard government propaganda it is. One works with what one has.
First, of course, is the possibility that that argument may be nothing but complete government fabrication. (So far it has been. Check it out on your own: to this point no WikiLeaks information has led to anything more serious than government officials being really, really embarrassed.) Governments, their politicians, and their intellectuals all lie for a living; that's why swallowing government propaganda is usually a dangerous thing.
But, just for the sake of argument, let's suppose it's all true.
Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose a criminal has a knife to the throat of your daughter, and orders you not to move or he'll stab her, and you move, and he stabs her.
Who is responsible for your daughter getting stabbed? You? I don't think so. I think it's the criminal who put her in that position who's responsible.
So...you're concerned that there are people in the position of depending for their safety on certain information not being released. Suppose the information gets released and they're harmed.
Who's responsible for the harm that comes to them? The people who did the releasing, or the government that put them in that position without control over the information in question?
I think the answer to that question's pretty clear. What should also be pretty clear, I think, is that if the government is indeed responsible it will do anything in its power to convince people that the responsibility lies elsewhere.
If instead of just accepting the propaganda you actually examine it a little, usually it'll fall apart on its own.
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Your wish for a totally open and transparent government is a fools game and if it ever happens it will be only for a very short while befoere it ends.
From your keyboard to God's Internet browser, my friend. From your keyboard to God's Internet browser.
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You may not know it, realize it, or choose to believe it, but it is a very harsh world out there with a whole bunch of evil people that wish to do YOU & me (and anyone else)great harm.
Once again, try to take a step beyond the propaganda rather than stopping right where the newsreader stops.
"Why" is frequently a good next question, just as a rule of thumb. Suppose it's true what they say about lots of people wanting to kill us. Why do you suppose that is?
I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader.
I'm sorry it worked out this way; I was hoping you had something other than government propaganda to teach me. Most of the propaganda I've already considered.
Barak, you continue to prove my point.....like i said a couple pages back, You get loonier with each post. Patting yourself on the back and thinking yourself an intelect or a great thinker doesn't make you one. Smarts and good common sence are 2 entirely different things but I doubt you can grasp that concept. You are a way out there loonie bird. 163bc
� I'd be (and have been) honored to learn from you, if you have something to teach me. �
No one can teach the unteachable.
Saying "I'm teachable," no matter how sincerely one may say it, isn't always accurate.
Too often, it includes the secret attitude if you can make me accept what you say.
The truly teachable are receptive, not resistant.
A drowning man is not picky about whether you toss him a cotton rope or a sisal rope, an old rope or a new rope, a half-inch rope or a one-inch rope.
A boy who (a) doesn't know how to swim, (b) knows that he doesn't know how, and (c) wants to know how isn't inclined to argue with whatever the swimming instructor tries to teach him.
The more I think about this situation, and any other, the more I tend to agree with Barak, Bristoe and others who say "NO MORE SECRETS"!
If government officials have something to hide, they're not our servants. (well, we all understood that long ago) If government personnel needlessly put lives of our troops, or the civilian populace, in jeopardy, then they are not our servants (southern border comes to mind as does Nappy's appointment to her position). If government personnel conspire to hide dingleBarry's past and JFK truths from public, they're not our servants (and there's thousands upon thousands of other topics along this line).
Fact is governmetn is serving itself. Fact is government is hiding things they know they'd be tarred and feathered for. Fact is they cannot be trusted and they know it and work together protecting each other while leaving our troops, and the rest of us, out standing there bare naked and unprotected. Fact is they consider themselves an elite class that is not answerable to us. Fact is, we have identified our enemy. And it AIN'T US!!!!!
A drowning man is not picky about whether you toss him a cotton rope or a sisal rope, an old rope or a new rope, a half-inch rope or a one-inch rope.
But a man who was formerly drowning but now has a good hold on a nice one-inch hawser won't like being pelted with monofilament fishing line while he's trying to concentrate on climbing out.
I love to learn; but what I love most to learn is stuff that's better or more true than what I already know. If I know that tomatoes are delicious and healthy and can be used to make wonderful Italian dishes, it doesn't do me any good to read a book from the 1700s telling me that they're deadly poison--other than that it's a mildly amusing piece of trivia that might be entertaining at parties.
Over the past dozen years or so, I've found many, many things that I formerly believed that turned out not to have been true, and I've joyfully replaced them with things that are much more true--although they may still not be completely correct.
If you have something for me that's more true than something I already believe, I will replace mine with yours just as joyfully. If you have something that's not as true as what I already believe, I'm interested in that too, simply because of the personal respect I have for you; but even in the face of that respect, more-true will trump less-true every time.
A drowning man is not picky about whether you toss him a cotton rope or a sisal rope, an old rope or a new rope, a half-inch rope or a one-inch rope.
But a man who was formerly drowning but now has a good hold on a nice one-inch hawser won't like being pelted with monofilament fishing line while he's trying to concentrate on climbing out.
I love to learn; but what I love most to learn is stuff that's better or more true than what I already know. If I know that tomatoes are delicious and healthy and can be used to make wonderful Italian dishes, it doesn't do me any good to read a book from the 1700s telling me that they're deadly poison--other than that it's a mildly amusing piece of trivia that might be entertaining at parties.
Over the past dozen years or so, I've found many, many things that I formerly believed that turned out not to have been true, and I've joyfully replaced them with things that are much more true--although they may still not be completely correct.
If you have something for me that's more true than something I already believe, I will replace mine with yours just as joyfully. If you have something that's not as true as what I already believe, I'm interested in that too, simply because of the personal respect I have for you; but even in the face of that respect, more-true will trump less-true every time.
I hope that doesn't cause offense.
Proving Dr. Howell's points more concretely than anything or anyone else could.
Obviously, you can learn nothing from me � as you've no doubt already noticed.
On the contrary, it's difficult for me to accept that a man of your experience could possibly not know something that's more true than what a man of my experience knows.
Rules of engagement are proof the fed government doesn't care whether or not our troops return home safely.
Who that actually wants a job completed sends in people with their hands tied behind their backs?
Something is very, very wrong. How long are you all going to keep supporting and worshiping government?
How long?
Okay, for the sake of argument, what's your alternative then?
Either take control of it or eliminate it. Should be obvious government is the problem and not the solution. Equally as obvious, if one wants to win a war he fights like he means it, kills and destroys everything in sight and goes home.
Don't get me wrong, I"m upset about some of the leaked information, too. I've got loved ones over there fighting ()with their hands tied). But maybe some of this information NEEDED leaked. Same as dingleBarry's past and JFK infomation needs leaked. Leaking information and laying it all out for everyone to see certainly can't all be bad.
Alternative.... for argument's sake... Take it back. And don't be afraid who you have to beat up and/or expose to do it. Military personnel's hands are tied, the American people's aren't. And sooner or later they will have had enough. Personally, I'm hoping for sooner than later.
'Tisn't a matter of what I know that you don't know.
'Tis a matter of what I know that you won't accept.
Unless you're talking about wisdom revealed from on high that you can't defend and therefore can't afford to have challenged, you're guessing, my friend.
I have enough people making assertions at me that they can't support, it's true. But I sense that what you have is different. Give me a try. You haven't yet.
You mean parasitic, right? The government coercively draws its essence from the vitality of the populace, like a leech on a cow. The populace does all sorts of things for the government that the government couldn't possibly do for itself. Does the government do anything for the populace that the populace couldn't do for itself?
Symbiotic, parasitic, the result would be the same.
A population without government, is easy prey for a Nazi Germany, a USSR, an 1812 Britain, a 2010 China.....
Is this the standard line about how a government fights for its subjects?
It doesn't, really, you know. A government forces its subjects to fight for it. A government threatened by a Nazi Germany doesn't think to itself, "Oh my goodness, our subjects won't like being subjects of Nazi Germany! We'd better fight to protect them from that!" It thinks to itself, "Oh my goodness, if Nazi Germany takes over, we won't have power anymore! We'd better mobilize our subjects to fight to protect us from that!"
And nobody has ever explained to me yet A) why such an aggressor would want to invade and take over a society without a government, or B) exactly how such an aggressor would go about it.
I mean, a society of sheep herded by a preexisting government is fairly easy to take over: you just replace the existing government with your own, and the sheep just go on being sheep. Easy.
But how do you take over a society of small wolf packs with no experience at being sheep? Why would you even want to subject yourself to such an experience?
Lebensraum...
Brezhnev Doctrine...
Mao's belief that an aggressive attitude should be maintained against any capitalist societies...
Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev all believed that communism could only succeed by crushing capitalist nations.
Which of the above ever bypassed lands because they didn't have a central government?
Every tyrant in history wanted to spread their empire in able to increase wealth and the easiest means of obtaining wealth is by taking over land and subduing it's inhabitants.
I assume by "B" you question the ability for Russia or China to physically and logistically invade the U.S.?
It took only a few years for the Russian fleet and Air Force to disintegrate from lack of maintenance after the fall of the USSR.
The same would likely happen with the U.S. a few years after anarchy or whatever variation of government-less reality we would entertain.
Russia could take Alaska in a weekend.
Russia and China could build up in Mexico over a few months time and choose the date they want to enter. They don't even need to invade east of the Mississippi. They can stop at the River, thumb their nose at the main population and hold 90% of the U.S.'s natural resources.
I assume by "B" you question the ability for Russia or China to physically and logistically invade the U.S.?
Yup.
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It took only a few years for the Russian fleet and Air Force to disintegrate from lack of maintenance after the fall of the USSR.
Because the government was in charge of maintaining them, and the government was busy trying to keep itself alive and didn't have the resources to maintain idle machinery.
If they were privately owned, either they'd be maintained or they'd be lovingly preserved in storage, because their owners would definitely either want to use them or sell them--now or eventually. Leaving them out in the weather to rust wouldn't serve either objective.
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Russia could take Alaska in a weekend.
Would Alaska notice?
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Russia and China could build up in Mexico over a few months time and choose the date they want to enter. They don't even need to invade east of the Mississippi. They can stop at the River, thumb their nose at the main population and hold 90% of the U.S.'s natural resources.
What is an army going to do with natural resources? To make use of natural resources, you need factories for building things, not tanks for blowing things apart.
Barak, you are assuming a violent group of somebody is going to act rational. What rational did the Huns have? The Mongols?
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What is an army going to do with natural resources? To make use of natural resources, you need factories for building things, not tanks for blowing things apart.
Barak, you are assuming a violent group of somebody is going to act rational. What rational did the Huns have? The Mongols?
Do you mean rationale? They had tyrannical governments guaranteeing them a steady flow of abashed, meek livestock to enslave.
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What is an army going to do with natural resources? To make use of natural resources, you need factories for building things, not tanks for blowing things apart.
That's what the slaves are for.
Cool, but where do you get the slaves? Slaves aren't much good for fighting.
Thank you Steve for the reply. What Wiki leaks has done is treason as I see it. Wiki is levying war against us and is an enemy of the US. It is posing a great and grave danger to our men and women serving us all over the globe. 163bc
Treason? Really? Can treason be committed against the US government by people who are not its subjects?
For example, take Saddam Hussein. Was he committing treason when the US government invaded his country?
And no, WikiLeaks is not posing a danger to "our men and women serving us all over the globe," if by that you mean the US military forces occupying 135+ foreign countries to impose the will of US politicians on them. The US government itself poses a far greater danger to them than WikiLeaks could even if it wanted to.
Try not to fall so easily for the propaganda of the likes of Hillary Clinton and other sleazy politicians. Consider the source and do some checking of your own. Have an open mind.
Isn't the US military involvement in over 135 foreign countries - to DEFEND America? That's what I have always been told by most members around the fire.
Russia rolled into Czekoslovacia(sp) and did just that. They used their own troops for fighting and enslaved the populace. It also worked for the Romans for a good while.
Isn't the US military involvement in over 135 foreign countries - to DEFEND America? That's what I have always been told by most members around the fire.
Defend America? In Belgium? Germany? Italy? Serbia? Spain? Turkey? Britain? Defend America from what, exactly? What is Turkey going to do to threaten America that troops stationed in Turkey could stop?
Lots of people have been taken in by the propaganda that service in the military equals defense of the American public. I call BS, unless somebody can show me a mechanism. I say service in the military equals defense of the ruling elite.
Russia rolled into Czekoslovacia(sp) and did just that. They used their own troops for fighting and enslaved the populace. It also worked for the Romans for a good while.
Once more: how do you enslave a well-armed, independent, self-sufficient populace that isn't accustomed to slavery, especially if you represent a thundering minority in their midst?
how do you enslave a well-armed, independent, self-sufficient populace that isn't accustomed to slavery, especially if you represent a thundering minority in their midst?
Easy, you kill half and tell the other half what awaits. Hostages work, you'd be amazed at the co-operation you can get from a man when you hold a gun to his family's head. History is full of peoples being enslaved by others. And examples of small armies holding large populations under submission.
how do you enslave a well-armed, independent, self-sufficient populace that isn't accustomed to slavery, especially if you represent a thundering minority in their midst?
Easy, you kill half and tell the other half what awaits. Hostages work, you'd be amazed at the co-operation you can get from a man when you hold a gun to his family's head. History is full of peoples being enslaved by others. And examples of small armies holding large populations under submission.
How do you kill half? I can see how you might get three or four by surprise, but after that you're going to be losing guys every time you turn your head. And even if you do get some hostages, do you think folks who are used to doing on their own without a government are going to meekly submit to whatever you say, or are they going to show up unexpectedly behind you and blow your head off?
Hint: what happens in Afghanistan when British, Russian, or US forces try that? Success? Another hint: no.
And yes: small governments hold large populations in slavery all over the world. But it's always populations who are accustomed to being held in slavery. Who holds the Bedouins in slavery? The mujaheddin? The Somalis? If they (at least the first two groups) can manage to stay unenslaved with practically no technology, imagine how much more successful tough, resourceful, independent folks could be with modern technology. Cheap unbreakable encryption, digital ham radio, onion-routing networks, repudiable encryption, digital cash--and those are only the elements I know a little about because of my area of expertise. I'm sure there are many others that could be put to use to frustrate and bypass an invading force bent on domination.
But not with sheep--there you're right. A society of sheep will always be enslaved, whether it's invaded or not.
Russia rolled into Czekoslovacia(sp) and did just that. They used their own troops for fighting and enslaved the populace. It also worked for the Romans for a good while.
Once more: how do you enslave a well-armed, independent, self-sufficient populace that isn't accustomed to slavery, especially if you represent a thundering minority in their midst?
If you think you can hold out long against the US military.... Think again
Russia rolled into Czekoslovacia(sp) and did just that. They used their own troops for fighting and enslaved the populace. It also worked for the Romans for a good while.
Once more: how do you enslave a well-armed, independent, self-sufficient populace that isn't accustomed to slavery, especially if you represent a thundering minority in their midst?
If you think you can hold out long against the US military.... Think again
Nice thought, but the Afghans and the Iraqis have been making monkeys of them for almost a decade now.
(It didn't escape my notice that when I talked about enslaving a populace, the US military as a tool for doing so seems to have popped immediately into your mind.)
Just a thought. If US military machine (or UN, for another example) were unleashed on the American people, do you think their hands would be tied behind their backs as they have been in recent "wars"?
And (with fear of sounding like Gus) what would the American liberal population do, in comparison to what they do now and have been doing since viet nam conflict?
� Unless you're talking about wisdom revealed from on high that you can't defend and therefore can't afford to have challenged, you're guessing, my friend. � I sense that what you have is different. Give me a try. You haven't yet.
All right � try this:
God has always preferred that He mandate our behavior.
Satan offered the option of each person managing his own behavior.
God's people insisted that instead of Him, they wanted human rulers.
God said All right, you can have your own rulers, but you won't like 'em.
God let us have the institution of human government. Even those rulers whom He approved at first sooner or later became fatally flawed, polluted, tainted, imperfect � because they were humans, neither God nor gods.
So we have, ostensibly, three choices � � God � self � government
I believe that the three are really � God � self (with Satan pulling the strings of human nature) � government (with God's permission)
Other things have helped change my mind. R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii calculates that in the twentieth century alone, states murdered about 162,000,000 million of their own subjects. This figure doesn�t include the tens of millions of foreigners they killed in war. How, then, can we speak of states �protecting� their people? No amount of private crime could have claimed such a toll.
Talk about a apology tour. This is humiliating and embarrassing. The fallout will be huge! ============ President U.S. in Damage Control After Vast Leak of Diplomatic Cables
Published November 29, 2010 Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The release of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents forced the Obama administration into damage control, trying to contain fallout from unflattering assessments of world leaders and revelations about backstage U.S. diplomacy.
The publication of the secret cables on Sunday amplified widespread global alarm about Iran's nuclear ambitions and unveiled occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea. The leaks also disclosed bluntly candid impressions from both diplomats and other world leaders about America's allies and foes.
In the wake of the massive document dump by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and numerous media reports detailing their contents, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to address the diplomatic repercussions on Monday. Clinton could deal with the impact first hand after she leaves Washington on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Middle East -- regions that figure prominently in the leaked documents.
The cables unearthed new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran's growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan's atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.
None of the disclosures appeared particularly explosive, but their publication could become problems for the officials concerned and for any secret initiatives they had preferred to keep quiet. The massive release of material intended for diplomatic eyes only is sure to ruffle feathers in foreign capitals, a certainty that already prompted U.S. diplomats to scramble in recent days to shore up relations with key allies in advance of the leaks.
Nov. 4: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks during a press conference in Switzerland. YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN State TV: Bomb kills Iranian nuclear scientist Comedy Legend Leslie Nielsen Dies At 84 Australian police investigate WikiLeaks founder You Found Someone's Debit Card. Do You Pick it Up? When Picking a Cruise Ship: Is Bigger Better? At Clinton's first stop in Astana, Kazakhstan, she will be attending a summit of officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a diplomatic grouping that includes many officials from countries cited in the leaked cables.
The documents published by The New York Times, France's Le Monde, Britain's Guardian newspaper, German magazine Der Spiegel and others laid out the behind-the-scenes conduct of Washington's international relations, shrouded in public by platitudes, smiles and handshakes at photo sessions among senior officials.
The White House immediately condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents, saying "such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."
U.S. officials may also have to mend fences after revelations that they gathered personal information on other diplomats. The leaks cited American memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats -- going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the diplomatic spying allegations. "Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years."
The White House noted that "by its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions."
"Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," the White House said.
On its website, The New York Times said "the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match."
Le Monde said it "considered that it was part of its mission to learn about these documents, to make a journalistic analysis and to make them available to its readers." Der Spiegel said that in publishing the documents its reporters and editors "weighed the public interest against the justified interest of countries in security and confidentiality."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed the Obama administration was trying to cover up alleged evidence of serious "human rights abuse and other criminal behavior" by the U.S. government. WikiLeaks posted the documents just hours after it claimed its website had been hit by a cyberattack that made the site inaccessible for much of the day.
But extracts of the more than 250,000 cables posted online by news outlets that had been given advance copies of the documents showed deep U.S. concerns about Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs along with fears about regime collapse in Pyongyang.
The Guardian said some cables showed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program. The newspaper also said officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear program to be stopped by any means and that leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran "as 'evil,' an 'existential threat' and a power that 'is going to take us to war,"' The Guardian said.
Those documents may prove the trickiest because even though the concerns of the Gulf Arab states are known, their leaders rarely offer such stark appraisals in public.
The Times highlighted documents that indicated the U.S. and South Korea were "gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea" and discussing the prospects for a unified country if the isolated, communist North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to implode.
The Times also cited diplomatic cables describing unsuccessful U.S. efforts to prod Pakistani officials to remove highly enriched uranium from a reactor out of fear that the material could be used to make an illicit atomic device. And the newspaper cited cables that showed Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, telling U.S. Gen. David Petraeus that his country would pretend that American missile strikes against a local al-Qaida group had come from Yemen's forces.
The paper also cited documents showing the U.S. used hardline tactics to win approval from countries to accept freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It said Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if its president wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and said the Pacific island of Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees.
It also cited a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that included allegations from a Chinese contact that China's Politburo directed a cyber intrusion into Google's computer systems as part of a "coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws."
Le Monde said another memo asked U.S. diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials that included Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers. They were asked to obtain fingerprints, ID photos, DNA and iris scans of people of interest to the United States, Le Monde said.
The Times said another batch of documents raised questions about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. One cable said Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe, the Times reported.
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Sunday called the release the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy," in that everything that had once been accepted as normal has now changed.
Der Spiegel reported that the cables portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in unflattering terms. It said American diplomats saw Merkel as risk-averse and Westerwelle as largely powerless.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, meanwhile, was described as erratic and in the near constant company of a Ukrainian nurse who was described in one cable as "a voluptuous blonde," according to the Times.
WikiLeaks' action was widely condemned.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it was an "irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents," while Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the document release "unhelpful and untimely."
In Australia, Assange's home country, Attorney General Robert McClelland said law enforcement officials were investigating whether WikiLeaks broke any laws.
The U.S. State Department's top lawyer warned Assange late Saturday that lives and military operations would be put at risk if the cables were released. Legal adviser Harold Koh said WikiLeaks would be breaking the law if it went ahead. He also rejected a request from Assange to cooperate in removing sensitive details from the documents.
I am not defending this guy,but is it really a bad Thing that Iran now knows that other Arab Countries are not their allies?????That and the two Nuke Scientists who got killed and maimed should send them a big message and maybe Achmadinnerplate will be ousted!!!!Just sayin
I am not defending this guy,but is it really a bad Thing that Iran now knows that other Arab Countries are not their allies?????That and the two Nuke Scientists who got killed and maimed should send them a big message and maybe Achmadinnerplate will be ousted!!!!Just sayin
not bad, but already known not to be the only ramification of the dump
� Unless you're talking about wisdom revealed from on high that you can't defend and therefore can't afford to have challenged, you're guessing, my friend. � I sense that what you have is different. Give me a try. You haven't yet.
All right � try this:
God has always preferred that He mandate our behavior.
Satan offered the option of each person managing his own behavior.
God's people insisted that instead of Him, they wanted human rulers.
God said All right, you can have your own rulers, but you won't like 'em.
God let us have the institution of human government. Even those rulers whom He approved at first sooner or later became fatally flawed, polluted, tainted, imperfect � because they were humans, neither God nor gods.
So we have, ostensibly, three choices � � God � self � government
I believe that the three are really � God � self (with Satan pulling the strings of human nature) � government (with God's permission)
Which one do you trust?
No, that is fundamentally flawed thinking. There are only TWO choices: God or Satan.
If one is ruled by God, then government is an afterthought as that a Christian can spiritually flourish in any circumstances without regard to material conditions. In any case, a Christian will behave the same regardless of the government and will tend to make a good citizen for any government.
If one is not ruled by God, then one is ruled by Satan. Government enjoys no divine sanction from God that would sanctify it apart from God. If a government, any form of government whatsoever, is ruled by Godly men, it will tend to be a good government. If a government is not ruled by Godly men, any form of government whatsoever, it will tend towards evil.
As that it is a Biblical fact that most men are by definition ungodly, then the governments run by them will be evil. The condition of man is evil. The advantage of a limited government or Barak's version of anarchy, is that the power of these evil men is somewhat limited.
But not with sheep--there you're right. A society of sheep will always be enslaved, whether it's invaded or not.
OK the best historical model I can find for this is the Spartan/Helot relationship. Spartans defeat a formerly free group and hold them in bondage with far fewer numbers. And it lasted quite awhile. I'm just saying that it happens and it's going to be tried again, to fail or not.
Using the fictional Barakastan, would it not be better to stop an enemy at the border before the looting begins than to live under an oppressive boot. Gorilla war is an option but that sucks.
Best of all is to kill your enemy before he has a chance to kill you.
They know that everybody gets on board when they engage in war.
You might want to rethink that. Just look at the members here, no shortage of folks that would probably be categorized as libertarian who think we oughtn't to be in Afghanistan or Iraq. And we're all scary gun owners.
But I'm stubborn, too � I'm gonna stick with God and His program, with all due respect to all y'all who know so much better � determined to lean not unto mine own understanding.
Come Z-Day, through the Omega revelation, we'll all know for sure.
Will my current understanding be extrapolated or exterminated?
God has always preferred that He mandate our behavior.
Satan offered the option of each person managing his own behavior.
Are you arguing that free will comes from Satan?
--not an attack; I just want to know where you're coming from before I respond.
No. Strive to understand rather than to assume that you must vie.
Questions of clarification are how I strive to understand, Dr. Howell. It only occurred to me after the question was posted that you might take it as a challenge, which is why I edited the post.
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The option to choose for yourself comes from God.
Satan offers a specific menu entry � which "dish" to choose.
I agree.
Originally Posted by Ken Howell
God has always preferred that He mandate our behavior.
I'm not sure I agree here, but perhaps we just state it different ways. I'd say that God values a particular mitzvah much more if we do it of our own free choice because we enjoy pleasing him than he does if we do it with protest under compulsion because he mandates it. His first preference, I believe, is always that we freely choose to serve him, which is why he gave us the ability of free choice in the first place.
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God's people insisted that instead of Him, they wanted human rulers.
God said All right, you can have your own rulers, but you won't like 'em.
Of course: the curse in I Samuel 8. I've read it many times, and marveled at how closely the US government today parallels God's predictions through Samuel.
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God let us have the institution of human government. Even those rulers whom He approved at first sooner or later became fatally flawed, polluted, tainted, imperfect � because they were humans, neither God nor gods.
No disagreement. I never read anything bad about Othniel--grandson of Caleb and the first Judge of Israel--but then he wasn't a ruler and couldn't justly have been said to have presided over a State.
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So we have, ostensibly, three choices � � God � self � government
I believe that the three are really � God � self (with Satan pulling the strings of human nature) � government (with God's permission)
Which one do you trust?
God, of course. We all agree, I hope, that no human government comes anywhere near being trustworthy. I myself am certainly not trustworthy, as witness my earlier comments about thoroughgoing changes to my beliefs over the past dozen years. (That is, the ones I held before were obviously untrue, and while I feel confident that the ones I hold now are less untrue, there's no reason to believe any sort of pinnacle has been reached or passed.)
God's the only one left; and of course he's absolutely trustworthy.
So...having established mostly common ground, where do we go next?
But not with sheep--there you're right. A society of sheep will always be enslaved, whether it's invaded or not.
OK the best historical model I can find for this is the Spartan/Helot relationship. Spartans defeat a formerly free group and hold them in bondage with far fewer numbers. And it lasted quite awhile.
I'm just saying that it happens and it's going to be tried again, to fail or not.
Probably true. Luckily, there's every reason to believe that a free society will be a market paradise of thriving economy and high technology.
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Using the fictional Barakastan, would it not be better to stop an enemy at the border before the looting begins than to live under an oppressive boot. Gorilla war is an option but that sucks.
True enough. If a free society foresaw a threat from a neighboring State, most probably defense insurance would raise the price of the border property significantly; but it would then be defended much more competently and securely than anything we see the US government doing presently.
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Best of all is to kill your enemy before he has a chance to kill you.
As long as you can be sure enough that he's really your enemy to have your action stand up in court, sure.
I'll bet a $ or 2 that both the Israelis and Saudis would love to get their hands on Assange over this. The man is totally screwed, 'cause the Israelis and Saudis don't let little things like "due process" get in the way of solving a problem with, as they used to say, "extreme prejudice".
If PFC Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who has been arrested for providing this information to Assange, is proved to be involved in this mess, he should be court martialled and, if convicted, executed as a warning to other who might inclined to steal U.S. Government documents. If not executed, 52 years of being raped and beaten in the general prison population would be viable alternative.
I'll bet a $ or 2 that both the Israelis and Saudis would love to get their hands on Assange over this. The man is totally screwed, 'cause the Israelis and Saudis don't let little things like "due process" get in the way of solving a problem with, as they used to say, "extreme prejudice".
If PFC Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who has been arrested for providing this information to Assange, is proved to be involved in this mess, he should be court martialled and, if convicted, executed as a warning to other who might inclined to steal U.S. Government documents. If not executed, 52 years of being raped and beaten in the general prison population would be viable alternative.
Jeff
But tell us how you really feel. Let it all out. They should just put the little SOB up against the wall and shoot him. Oh and televised would be good!
I'll bet a $ or 2 that both the Israelis and Saudis would love to get their hands on Assange over this. The man is totally screwed, 'cause the Israelis and Saudis don't let little things like "due process" get in the way of solving a problem with, as they used to say, "extreme prejudice".
If PFC Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who has been arrested for providing this information to Assange, is proved to be involved in this mess, he should be court martialled and, if convicted, executed as a warning to other who might inclined to steal U.S. Government documents. If not executed, 52 years of being raped and beaten in the general prison population would be viable alternative.
Jeff
Nope.
Put him point on patrols in Afghanistan in areas he's known to have compromised.
Figure a south Alabama "negro" machinegunner, of about 6'5", 285 lbs, as the "enforcer" of the platoon.... with a 5'7" 145 lbs Puerto Rican from NYC as the "instigator"....
Well, you get a coupla' points there,...for "Diversity".
I want to know why Monkey ChitFace shouldn't be backing his play, e.g. "Yes, he disobeyed orders. Yes, he broke his oath. Yes, he committed treason. Still, he did the right thing."
and be with him,...offering spiritual counseling,...and speaking bravely?
Amid the international uproar over newly released WikiLeaks documents, Israeli officials capitalized on an unexpected public relations coup: confirmation that the specter of a nuclear Iran has Arab states just as frightened � and nearly as hawkish � as Israel.
�I don�t see any damage. Quite the opposite,� said Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz in an interview with Israel Radio. �Maybe there�s an indirect benefit that the truth is coming out, that the entire Middle East, including Arab states, are very fearful from the Iranian nuclear threat, and are calling on the West to be much more aggressive toward Iran.�
Well, you get a coupla' points there,...for "Diversity".
I want to know why Monkey ChitFace shouldn't be backing his play, e.g. "Yes, he disobeyed orders. Yes, he broke his oath. Yes, he committed treason. Still, he did the right thing."
and be with him,...offering spiritual counseling,...and speaking bravely?
There are a few anarchist libertines out there. Essentially, they believe that being an anarchist means they shouldn't ever have to follow any rules of any kind for any reason--ever.
They generally believe, though, that other people should follow rules--preferably the rules they set for them.
Libertines are not deep thinkers and have no grasp of the glaring logical contradictions in their lifestyle. Rush Limbaugh used to call them "long-haired dope-smoking maggot-infested FM types."
No, of course I'm not a libertine, in either the political or the social sense.
If PFC Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who has been arrested for providing this information to Assange, is proved to be involved in this mess, he should be court martialled and, if convicted, executed as a warning to other who might inclined to steal U.S. Government documents. If not executed, 52 years of being raped and beaten in the general prison population would be viable alternative.
Jeff
He may very enjoy that. He did, after all, do this out of spite for Don't ask, don't tell.
There are a few anarchist libertines out there. Essentially, they believe that being an anarchist means they shouldn't ever have to follow any rules of any kind for any reason--ever.
They generally believe, though, that other people should follow rules--preferably the rules they set for them.
Libertines are not deep thinkers and have no grasp of the glaring logical contradictions in their lifestyle. Rush Limbaugh used to call them "long-haired dope-smoking maggot-infested FM types."
No, of course I'm not a libertine, in either the political or the social sense.
There are a few anarchist libertines out there. Essentially, they believe that being an anarchist means they shouldn't ever have to follow any rules of any kind for any reason--ever.
They generally believe, though, that other people should follow rules--preferably the rules they set for them.
Libertines are not deep thinkers and have no grasp of the glaring logical contradictions in their lifestyle. Rush Limbaugh used to call them "long-haired dope-smoking maggot-infested FM types."
No, of course I'm not a libertine, in either the political or the social sense.
Close enough. A rose is a rose.
If you can point out some of those glaring contradictions to me, perhaps I can learn something from them.
It's good to see there is still some folks on the fire who think for themselves rather than letting politicians and radio personalities do their thinking for them.
Originally Posted by Archerhunter
Is the concept of patriotism applicable to country or government?
That's what it boils down to.
A thinking man knows the difference... and also knows which choice government personnel will make.
I"ve said on here many times it's among the most amazing things I've ever encountered. People piss and moan and bitch and grip about all the BS that government does and says and talk about how they aren't to be trusted at any time for any reason but then they turn around and defend it until their dying breath.
Simply amazing.
I say screw the government. And its politicians. They are not your friend, your provider, your security, nor anything else they claim and pretend to be. They play a game of make believe. And work very hard to make people believe. All the way to the point of forcing it if you don't believe by imprisoning or killing you.
And people, while saying out one side of their mouth, and very regularly, they don't trust the government, trust them and defend them and side with them, every time. I can't say as I've ever encountered a more glaring hypocrisy.
If people don't learn the difference between country and government of a country this country will be lost. And very soon ,too, I might add.
The government has been doing things that it shouldn't be doing,...as it *always* does.
Somebody got the info and told the people about it.
Now the government is red faced and pissed,..and it's encouraging all of its sheep to start screaming a bunch of nonsense about treason and compromising national security.
The way I see it,..the biggest threat to our national security is the idiocy of the people who make up the federal government.
I just don't understand why so many here are running to the aid of a government who has systematically raped us of our rights and money for their own empowerment and benefit.
I sure as hell don't trust my government and I believe the more transparent they are, the less mischief they'll be able to cause behind closed doors.
You know better than that. It's not the .gov, it's the American PEOPLE put in danger by this crap that gets folks worked up.
.gov is one thing, and on that, I think you know that you and I (and many) agree. But, you start jeopardizing the lives of servicemen and women, civilians, etc., then we've got problems.
You know better than that. It's not the .gov, it's the American PEOPLE put in danger by this crap that gets folks worked up.
.gov is one thing, and on that, I think you know that you and I (and many) agree. But, you start jeopardizing the lives of servicemen and women, civilians, etc., then we've got problems.
Servicemen and women are the government. Civilians paid by the government are the government.
You know better than that. It's not the .gov, it's the American PEOPLE put in danger by this crap that gets folks worked up.
.gov is one thing, and on that, I think you know that you and I (and many) agree. But, you start jeopardizing the lives of servicemen and women, civilians, etc., then we've got problems.
Servicemen and women are the government. Civilians paid by the government are the government.
� � them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities: (2 Peter 2:10)
or those who
� Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them � (Hebrews 13:17)
You know better than that. It's not the .gov, it's the American PEOPLE put in danger by this crap that gets folks worked up.
.gov is one thing, and on that, I think you know that you and I (and many) agree. But, you start jeopardizing the lives of servicemen and women, civilians, etc., then we've got problems.
Servicemen and women are the government. Civilians paid by the government are the government.
Whom did you think the government was?
Most people have never thought of it in that light, Barak. The word "government" stirs up internal pictures and preconceived (planted, actually) notions of some stand-alone volitional entity that is perceived as not only a reality but an authoritative one.
It's all fake. A game of make believe...
The reality is that it's a group of individuals who call themselves (or perhaps don't) government. It's just people. Not only that, it's just individual people. But everyone was trained up to have this spook living inside them that rears its ugly head at the mention of the word.
Abstract perception vs concrete reality.
Governmetn doesn't do things, it never has and never will because it's a fiction. (It's even referred to in legal documentation as a fictional entity) Governments don't do things, people do. Governments aren't responsible and won't stand before God's judgment throne, people are and will.
Those who think the excuse "I was just doing my job" or "I was just following orders" is acceptable are going to be very surprised. And very disappointed -- in themselves. Humility and shame will overwhelm them to the point of sobbing violently. And there will be nothing that can be done about it in the way of relief.
I mean, a society of sheep herded by a preexisting government is fairly easy to take over: you just replace the existing government with your own, and the sheep just go on being sheep. Easy.
But how do you take over a society of small wolf packs with no experience at being sheep? Why would you even want to subject yourself to such an experience?
I guess you are assuming here that the average Iraqi, Afghani or Somali is somehow less constrained by his government (such as it is) than is a member of a modern western industrial state.
In a rEALLY odd case, he is being charged for sexual assault by SWEDEN!!!! Given the Swedes rather expansive viewpoints on sex, he musta REALLY chit his copybook!! 
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