o/t Julian Assange, dirty tricks?

[Keith]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-dept ... 5967241332

I've still not made up my mind what I think about Wikileaks, but I sure don't trust governments.
What one foreign leader thinks of another or that Prince Andrew is a bit of a twat are hardly cutting edge. I would EXPECT foreign and indeed our own dignitaries to file such reports. Hardly earth shattering. But then they also released stuff like this film...

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

...where the US Government were refusing to release the film to Reuters, despite it being their journalists who were shot dead and an application under the US Freedom of Information Act.

Now Julian Assange is facing sexual assault charges in Sweden. This is despite an earlier hearing in Sweden saying there was no case to answer. Now a different court, in a different area of Sweden has issued the warrant. What chances he is extradited to Sweden and then extradited to the USA? Or of course, slips in the snow and bangs his head on release?

I don't generally do conspiracy theories, although I keep an open mind. In this case though...

Oh yeah, and finding Wikileaks is harder than finding information about Tienanmen Square massacre when I was in a Chinese hotel

[shrimpnsave]

I've still not made up my mind what I think about Wikileaks, but I sure don't trust governments.




What i cant get my head around where the hell is all this info coming from ????????????????

Has he hacked into every goverment computer which would be a crime in itself????????

[Keith]

What i cant get my head around where the hell is all this info coming from ????????????????

A Lady Ga Ga fan who is looking at some very serious prison time.

AKA a US soldier who had unrestricted access to a shed load of information. He thought it was wrong that it was being suppressed so he copied files on to a blank disk. He had headphones on and was 'singing along to Lady Gaga' to disguise the fact that he was putting recordable disks in to the machine.

[shrimpnsave]

Now Julian Assange is facing sexual assault charges in Sweden
The easiest way to get a person locked up is to cry rape..........................


USA style.....................

[shrimper]

Someone does something the Chinese/Burmese/North Korean government is embarrassed by, they lock them up - the western world cries 'human rights abomination'.

Someone does something that embarrasses the US government, they try to get him arrested/locked up, call him 'as bad as Bin Laden'.

Discuss the potential double standards in this situation. (Possible marks - 25).

[Keith]

Oh, Mr Shrimper, that is so unfair and far too cynical even for you. We in the free west at least take the time to fabricate sexual assault charges to lock up our terrorist/journalists. See? nothing like those repressive regimes...

If you bear the embarrassment, it is interesting to read Sarah Palin's comments about Assange.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=465212788434

What is worrying is the number of replies that are broadly in support. This woman has gone from being a dumb MILF joke to a potentially serious Presidential candidate. If she gets elected the MILF might come true... well, we'll all be F..... by her anyway!

[George Dawes]

the timing of these allegations are to much of a coincidence for me and you can bet your bottom dollor he's already guilty and certain to do a long stretch in jail


it just makes America more enemy's with how they operate and how not to trust them with affairs

[Plain Peter]

the timing of these allegations are to much of a coincidence for me and you can bet your bottom dollor he's already guilty and certain to do a long stretch in jail

Yep.

it just makes America more enemy's with how they operate and how not to trust them with affairs

Yep.
But was it really a good idea to put the World ar risk? Like you say, we know what the yanks are capable of.

[Keith]

Yep.
But was it really a good idea to put the World at risk? Like you say, we know what the yanks are capable of.

Reading the piece that I mentioned earlier by Assange, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-dept ... 5967241332

Do you think he has put the world at risk? Given that the Pentagon et-al knew what was about to be released before it was, even the individual named operatives could be removed before they were placed at risk. The flip side, shouldn't the military be held to account for gunning down unarmed civilians? Even allowing for the fact that people are making life and death decisions every day and will get it wrong on some occasions, shouldn't there be clear and transparent investigations and outcomes to minimise the chances of it happening again, rather than encouraging a gung-ho attitude, safe in the knowledge that as long as your screw up only kills Arabs, we'll cover up for you? And even more fundamentally, isn't it the right of the press to report upon atrocities? Even its raison d'etre? Abu Ghraib would have continued if it wasn't for the press.

It's 42 years since this photo appeared in the press...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Many US politicians denounced the press for publishing the images and the military still attempted to cover it up. They claimed the press had 'undermined' the soldiers. I wouldn't mind putting a bet on it that somewhere a US politician would have said that it 'put US soldiers at risk' Forty-two years on and still saying the same?

As I say, I'm not 100% behind Wikileaks. I think some of it is simply gratuitous 'look how clever we are' and of little or no value. But there is an incredible amount of information that the public have a right to know about. It's just a shame the military choose cover up rather than dealing with their fatal cock-ups.

[Plain Peter]

What's the only way 3 people can keep a secret?

[Posh]

What i cant get my head around where the hell is all this info coming from ????????????????

A Lady Ga Ga fan who is looking at some very serious prison time.

AKA a US soldier who had unrestricted access to a shed load of information. He thought it was wrong that it was being suppressed so he copied files on to a blank disk. He had headphones on and was 'singing along to Lady Gaga' to disguise the fact that he was putting recordable disks in to the machine.

Three million US citizens had access to all 250,000 diplomatic cables through their work. If it was easy for a young soldier to download you can guarantee that the Chinese, Russians or Israelis or all three have managed to acquire these files, long before Wikileaks ever distributed them.

[Keith]

What's the only way 3 people can keep a secret?

Shoot two of them?
Make sure they were all in the same bed?

Three million US citizens had access to all 250,000 diplomatic cables through their work. If it was easy for a young soldier to download you can guarantee that the Chinese, Russians or Israelis or all three have managed to acquire these files, long before Wikileaks ever distributed them.

I hadn't heard that! So yes, this wasn't that secret. Even our spy services could break in to that pool!

[shrimpnsave]

that guy is innocent of the alleged

and sweden is a nuetral country

[wijit]

There was a situation, years ago, I am very reliably informed, whereby the locations of the top IRA men were known to the Army. The choice was simple; Go and kill them, or let them live. Had they killed them, all the intelligence used to find them was lost, they'd have to start again to find the new top men. There would've been a huge queue to fill those posts by English hating republicans.
Now, Assange, they know what he will release, they're not stupid enough to not know what's been downloaded. Having access does not mean somebody will access it at once. Somebody didn't just look at it, they downloaded it. They know what will be released, they just don't know when. He has been in prison for a few days, but his site hasn't stopped. As long as they know what he's up to, they know he is doing the uploads. Imprison him and they need to look far harder.
I don't care if he's a perv or not, he is dangerous, simply because he's releasing this information regardless of if it is already known. He doesn't care for the consequences to others. He doesn't care how much work will be needed to repair diplomatic relations.

[Keith]

You may have Iraq as your own little Vietnam but for most people in this country there are bigger issues. Letting the Tories (who agreed with the war anyway) in because people are unhappy with Tony Blair is cutting cutting off the nose to spite the face.

I know Marky & durhamshrimp don't think the killing of innocent foreign people is as important as VAT going up to 20% but for those with a wider mind, The War You Don't See is an excellent documentary by John Pilger which looks at the manipulation and complicity of the media in our wars. Interesting to hear Bliar being interviewed by Andrew Marr, ramping up the same rhetoric about Iran and nuclear weapons as the lies he spouted about Iraq's WMD's.

Available until early January...

http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=198443

Coincidentally, they used the same video from 'Collateral Damage' and the same photo from My Lai that I referred to earlier.