Wikileaks Founder Advised To Avoid American Gov't 632
eldavojohn writes "Media darling Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been told by his lawyers to avoid the United States on the grounds that the US military would like to ask him a few questions about his source of the Collateral Murder video. Assange claims to be holding yet more video (of a US attack on a village that allegedly killed 140 civilians in May of 2009), as well as a quarter million sensitive cables relating to the current foreign war operations from the US State Department. Assange surfaced for the cameras in Brussels while speaking about the need for the freedom of information. Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?"
Re:Good on him (Score:5, Informative)
But, do you agree with editing exculpatory footage out of videos and then treating the video as the whole story?
Except that you have no evidence of that other than the Pentagon's say-so, and they aren't known for their honesty and forthrightness. Furthermore, the footage you're talking about is not the least exculpatory: it purportedly shows the same gun crew that asked permission to shoot and kill the good samaritans who were aiding the wounded victims of their previous attack, and then shot and killed the good samaritans who were aiding the wounded victims of their previous attack, did not kill another group of completely innocent people previous to shooting and killing the good samaritans who were aiding the wounded victims of their previous attack.
Only in the mind of someone deluded or evil would not killing innocent people prior to killing innocent good samaritans who are aiding the victims of your previous attack count as "exculpatory."
As to the rest: yeah, we'll stop killing them when they stop killing us; and they'll stop killing us when we stop killing them. Sounds like the security-industrial complex is going to be a major profit center for America for decades to come, building all that deadweightloss gear so young American men and women can go off to kill and be killed. Not a bad gig: getting taxpayers to fund the wanton destruction--body and soul--of their own children, all in the name of bigger profits for Lockheed, Haliburton and Blackwaster(Xe).
Re:"quarter million sensitive cables" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Learning more about Wikileaks everyday (Score:3, Informative)
The New Yorker had an interesting piece on Assange & the publishing of the video recently. It discussed how he rented a house in Iceland for the process, the number of people helping make it all happen smoothly, etc. The fact is, doing that kind of stuff costs money. I'm sure he's no saint, but I think it's a good thing to have a site like Wikileaks out there as a check on excessive government secrecy. $200k isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.
Re:"quarter million sensitive cables" (Score:3, Informative)
Um, isn't this [wikileaks.org] one of them?
Re:Dead man walking (Score:3, Informative)
Our US thuggery is fairly predictable. I'm sure the CIA or equivalent has already been given hit orders.
You've seen a few too many movies.
Before attempting to dismiss other's fears as being mere fantasty, do a little research:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/license-kill-intelligence-chief-us-american-terrorist/story?id=9740491 [go.com]
This article demonstrates that not only do 'hit orders' exist, but they are not prohibited from using such orders against citizens who are constitutionally guaranteed to stand trial.
So while parent may have seen too many movies, you, dear friend, have seen too few congressional hearings.
Speaking as a donator... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Whistleblowers' Blues (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good on him (Score:3, Informative)
"How did the US Military bring about Sharia Law?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power#Allegations_of_connection_to_United_States_CIA [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia-United_States_relations#Cold_War_.26_Soviet_Containment [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat [wikipedia.org]
Re:The Whistleblowers' Blues (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good on him (Score:4, Informative)
None of these dictators could have been/can be removed from office without the use of force
Pretty much all of the dictators on your list came to power as the result of war. So your list is kind of...pointless. And one, Ahmadinejad, isn't even close to be a dictator - he's a figurehead for the clerics that hold the actual power.
Re:No sir (Score:5, Informative)
Industrial output means nothing, as our focus is on small numbers of advanced weaponry. We have 20 B-2 bombers. That's it. We'll have 187 F-22 fighters. That's it. Whether it's wise or not, the US is counting on technological superiority, not the sheer numbers of industrial output.
I find it interesting that you bring up planes here, because the numbers directly contradict your claims. Take fighters, for example:
USAF/Navy:
F-16 - 1250
F/A-18 - 750
F-15 - 600
F-22 - 175 (your 187 figure is the planned count)
Total: ~2800
Russian AF/Navy:
Su-27 - 410
Su-24 - 320
MiG-29 - 200
MiG-31 - ~200
Su-33 - 23
Su-30 - 12
Su-35 - 12
Total: ~1200
PLAAF/Navy:
J-7 - 470
J-8 - 180
J-11 - 100
J-10 - 80
Su-30 - 90
Su-27 - 70
Total: ~920
The above three countries top the list of those with biggest air forces. As you can see, not only US is #1 in that list, but it actually has more fighter planes than China and Russia combined.
Furthermore, if you split by technical specs, US leads even more, because e.g. it is the only country to field a 5th gen fighter at all, much less 180 of those (neither Russia nor China could afford this even long-term).
If you look at other things, you'll see similar numbers. Pretty much all other military plane categories - check. Warships - check. When it comes to main battle tanks, China has two times less than US, and Russia has about twice as much, but if you only consider those which are readily operational (maintenance is a huge problem for Russian armed forces), US still has more - and note that practically all of those are various variations of Abrams, while the majority of Russian acounts is ancient stuff like T-64 and T-72.
It's true that US army has fewer men enlisted in it, but that's about the only major number on which it is smaller. In terms of equipment - which is what correlates with industrial output - it is the biggest in the world. And if you look at how US did in wars since WW2, it shows - for the most part, American strategy is to steamroll over the enemy by throwing large numbers of superior tech at him, from tanks to cruise missiles.
Re:Good on him (Score:3, Informative)
Give all the info, and let people actually make some self-judgements rather than expecting us to just swallow the spoon fed self-loathing of the far left.
Like the no-bid oil contracts [nytimes.com] that everyone wanted to keep quiet? I don't argue that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein have done horrible things. I do, however, argue that the United States' reasoning for being in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is not as virtuous as you would like people to believe. The U.S. is there to profit from the war. The fact that occassionally positive side effects will come from it allows for the PR position that you take.
Re:Good on him (Score:4, Informative)
Considering how expensive, brutal and dehumanizing a war is, you'd have to come up with more than simple assertions to convince me, and hopefully most others, that there is absolutely no other workable recourse.
Re:Mod UP! (Score:1, Informative)
As a citizen of Poland, thank you America for 40 years of communism and getting my grandparents sent to Sibera. Sure was fun there for them. That is after the US, to help it's good friend Stalin, renegaded on it's promise to help the Warsaw Uprising with supplies. Having the city razed to the ground and nearly dying in the tunnels sure was fun for my granddad as well. The UK, by the way, did help but it wasn't enough. The Soviets, of course, simply stood by since the Germans were doing them a favor, all those patriots weren't going to be good for their future regime.
Re:The Whistleblowers' Blues (Score:3, Informative)
They don't even need real dirt on a politician. If the word gets out that a politician was sleeping with an intern, even with a blurry photoshoped picture, it can be enough to ruin a career.
Consider the U.S. Representative Gary Condit (R - California) and Chandra Levy. She went missing in 2001, and her remains were found in 2002. Mainly because of the implication that he may have been involved, fed by the media, not investigators, he lost his 2002 re-election bid. He was in congress for 12 years, and was a career politician. He wasn't a suspect. There was no evidence to suggest he was involved. It wasn't until 2009 that a person who significantly matched the evidence was charged.
The man did nothing wrong. Well, other than sleeping with an intern, which is usually ignored unless someone wants to hurt a candidates position (note: promiscuity in politicians has been well known for pretty much the history of politics. I won't say *every* president has had a mistress, but it's well known that many have. Even good ol' George Washington, founding father, 1st president, can't lie about the cherry tree, had Sally Fairfax. It's hard to find documentation of affairs between politicians and their mistresses/concubines/escorts, since they are suppose to be discrete affairs.
It's pretty much assumed that many of our leaders smoked pot, or at least up until the 1900's. States began outlawing it in 1906, and by 1932 it was illegal nationally. 130 years where growing, smoking, and trading had been perfectly legal were done away with. That can be partly (not entirely) thanks to DuPont patenting the process to use wood pulp to make paper in 1932.
So lets look at the worse evils of the world. Extramarital sex, it's been there since the beginning of the US. Drugs, it's been there since the beginning of the US. Rock and roll, well, that's newer, so we won't discuss it.
Bribes and extortion have been around forever. "Lobbyist" by name have been around for an awful long time, generally attributed to the Grant administration (special interest representatives who met with Grant in the lobby of the hotel he stayed in), but was seen in print before that. A good lobbyist may try to win their site through a well spoken argument for their side, or a container (envelope or bag) with sufficient funds to sway the politicians opinion.
It's always possible to get your way, through money, extortion, threats, or violence. Oh, and sometimes voting works too.
The only way to get a honest politician would be to make sure they have everything they could ever want (remove the bribe potential), have no way that extortion could work (absolute control of the media and/or not care what lies come up), and absolute security. Absolute security doesn't extend to just friends and family. If someone threatened to say execute 10,000 people, it would sway a persons opinion to ensure their safety.
Finding enough strong leaders would be a damned near impossible task, especially finding strong leaders who won't be corrupted by the power they have. That's one of the inherent evils of power.