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Not to mention a certain President pushing for war against Iran; and also where this royal family's investments are going (ie. Mouthpiece for propaganda, Fox news and various projects in neighbouring Iraq). Essentially, the pro-laissez faire "conservatives" are constantly trying to force war and sanctions against any country that they can't get their exploitative conglomerates installed in. First of all, the governments of the world need to get rid of their neo-noble influences, and work for the people rather than just convincing people that they are working for them; ie. Bailing out the banks with 700 billion tax dollars will help the people who have no money invested in them, declaring war on Iraq will protect you and your way of life from the elusive and dangerous WMDs! etc...SineSwiper wrote:I'm sure the UN will be in flames this Monday morning over the spying orders from Washington. Spying... on diplomats... that have diplomatic immunity. That's even more fucked up than the CIA spying on John Lennon.
Not to mention Saudi Arabia's pressuring to start a war in Iran. People will be wondering just how much influence the Middle East has over the US's foreign policies.
I know he's not dead, he's disappeared for a good damned reason. Half of the developed countries, especially America, want him wiped off the face of the Earth right now and are trying to do everything in their power to make it so. I'm amazed the website hasn't been taken down by cyber-attacks of "unknown origins" yet, it must be well protectedSineSwiper wrote:He's not dead, just in a state of paranoia right now. There's some trumped up charges of rape going around and Sweden is trying to get some sort of international arrest. Normally, rape cases don't work that way (such as a certain movie director), but with all of the shit going on with the site, things might get pushed through, anyway.
I take it you didn't let the actual content of the documents get in the way of your opinions.Julius Seeker wrote:Not to mention a certain President pushing for war against Iran;
From the NYT article, Around the World, Distress Over Iran, page 2.Previously, the crown prince had relayed the Emirates’ fear that “it was only a matter of time before Israel or the U.S. would strike Iranian nuclear facility targets.” That could provoke an outcome that the Emirates’ leadership considered “catastrophic”: Iranian missile strikes on American military installations in nearby countries like the Emirates.
Now, with Iran boasting in the spring of 2006 that it had successfully accomplished low-level uranium enrichment, the crown prince began to argue less equivocally, cables show. He stressed “that he wasn’t suggesting that the first option was ‘bombing’ Iran,” but also warned, “They have to be dealt with before they do something tragic.”
The Saudis, too, increased the pressure. In an April 2008 meeting with Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the incoming Central Command chief, the Saudi ambassador to Washington recalled the king’s “frequent exhortations to the U.S. to attack Iran,” and the foreign minister said that while he preferred economic pressure, the “use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out.”
Yet if the Persian Gulf allies were frustrated by American inaction, American officials were equally frustrated by the Arabs’ unwillingness to speak out against Iran. “We need our friends to say that they stand with the Americans,” General Abizaid told Emirates officials, according to one cable.
By the time Mr. Bush left office in January 2009, Iran had installed 8,000 centrifuges (though only half were running) and was enriching uranium at a rate that, with further processing, would let it produce a bomb’s worth of fuel a year. With that progress came increased Israeli pressure.
After the Israeli defense minister issued his ultimatum in May 2009, the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, followed up in November.
“There is still time for diplomacy, but we should not forget that Iran’s centrifuges are working day and night,” he told a delegation led by Representative Ike Skelton, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
That, in turn, led Arab leaders to press even more forcefully for the United States to act — before Israel did. Crown Prince bin Zayed, predicting in July 2009 that an Israeli attack could come by year’s end, suggested the danger of appeasing Iran. “Ahmadinejad is Hitler,” he declared.
Seemingly taken aback, a State Department official replied, “We do not anticipate military confrontation with Iran before the end of 2009.”
So it was that the United States had put together a largely silent front of Arab states whose positions on sanctions and a potential attack looked much like Israel’s.
From http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/tran ... iptid=4728First of all, I would say unlike the Pentagon Papers, one of the things that is important, I think, in all of these releases, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq or the releases this week, is the lack of any significant difference between what the U.S. government says publicly and what these things show privately, whereas the Pentagon Papers showed that many in the government were not only lying to the American people, they were lying to themselves.
But let me – let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: “How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel.”
When we went to real congressional oversight of intelligence in the mid-’70s, there was a broad view that no other foreign intelligence service would ever share information with us again if we were going to share it all with the Congress. Those fears all proved unfounded.
Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think – I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.
Many governments – some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.
...And I wouldn't say it should since it doesn't contradict my opinion, nor is my post a response to the content of the documents. Rather they're focussed on the general antagonizing of nations, by the traditional conservative US economic leaders, who do not allow them to economically exploit their countries; and the aggressive US foreign policy towards those same nations, demonstrated since 1853 (and even earlier by the Brits)Kupek wrote:I take it you didn't let the actual content of the documents get in the way of your opinions.Julius Seeker wrote:Not to mention a certain President pushing for war against Iran;
Has that EVER been a factor in even the slightest way?Kupek wrote:I take it you didn't let the actual content of the documents get in the way of your opinions.Julius Seeker wrote:Not to mention a certain President pushing for war against Iran;
For what? An unproven rape case from some chick that changed her mind the day after?Eric wrote:Interpol puts WikiLeaks founder on most-wanted list
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/11 ... tml?hpt=T1
Quite honestly, if I were writing up a cross-governmental, conspiracy-theory type script, I could not in my wildest imagination even conceive of something so ridiculously asinine as to be the basis of being placed on an international wanted list. Nearly every college/university man in the world could be brought up on such charges, it's ridiculous. It would be as bad as allowing slavery to exist in those states who just haven't bothered to take it off their law books. It's freakin' ridiculous.Tessian wrote:Reading the most recent articles-- it's an obscure swedish law against "surprise sex". I'm not making this up. Apparently he lied about using a condom and the girl got angry he wouldn't take a STD test later and reported it. Carries a fine, definitely below the statute for an Interpol posting which requires it be for something that has a penalty of at least a year in prison.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2 ... ainst.html