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INRE: The WikiLeaks Leaks…I’m Just Not *Feeling* It

By: Dave Poff (haystack) (Diary)  |  November 29th, 2010 at 10:54 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I am aware that most will think I am nuts, but I can’t help myself; I do not feel the outrage.

If our national Security has been put at risk because it is now public knowledge that our State Department is comprised of a bunch of scumbags then I guess our National Security was already at risk – telling us what we already knew can’t possibly make anything any worse than it already was.

If our country is looked at with greater international disdain because it is now public knowledge that our President (the leader of the formerly-known-as most powerful nation on earth) is a moron having no business attending a UN session in the cheap seats let alone being allowed to actually open his mouth into a microphone in front of everyone there, then we had already sunk well below the prestige-poverty line the day he was sworn in.

If we’re only now getting mad over the idea that our enemies’ neighbors have been trying to get us to do their dirty work for them because they have no collective testicular fortitude for cleaning up the mess they played a dramatically large role in helping to make in the first place, then how mad can we really even be at this juncture?

If we want a culture in which whistleblowers should not only be made to feel secure in turning the bright light on truth, but encouraged to do so for the greater good of all humanity… then why do we now want to string up and make an example of what should be, by all rights, the poster child of truth and light?

For all the outrage about all the secrets this Assange fellow has brought to light, where is the outrage about what his light has shown to us? This story should be about what he’s told us…not how upset we all are supposed to be about the fact that he did…even though the latter will be his ultimate cause of death (literally OR figuratively, depending on whether Hillary gets to him before Holder does).

Is it because the worst of the scum…that swill which is so foul and so despicable that it can’t be allowed to bubble all the way up to the surface of the festering and oozing swamp filled with what we call politicians and sovereign leaders… is expected to be this nefarious and this disgusting and this repulsive and this repugnant, and therefore must remain immune from having to face their own crimes and iniquities? And not be held accountable for them?

Probably.

Problem is, I don’t give a rat’s patooty. In fact, I’m almost encouraged by the news of all these scumbags and all these morons and all these governmentally-subsidized criminals and miscreants being exposed to the light like the kitchen full of cockroaches they are.

Almost.

My greatest fear is NOT, actually, what these little morsels of information are going to do to our security or our image or the shortening of certain careers (God willing). What worries me most is how much harder the survivors will work to better hide the festering and oozing sores that they are on our national and international complexions.

It worries me a lot.

COMMENTS

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  • JadedByPolitics

    from these leaks is exactly what I had known about this Administration and the kidz working for it, they are immature and not ready for primetime. I guess that whole Messiah thing is slowly melting away from the rose colored eyes of the world.

    • http://www.hickpolitics.com Dave Poff (haystack)

      .

    • texasgalt

      under attack from another guy with a God complex. The country is suffering great harm at the hands of both.

      And yeah, I am feeling it, although considering the events of past few years, outrage fatigue is a threat.

      I’d love to see Assange thrown in with the population at Gitmo. The world would be a better place.

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR2010120204561.html

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    but I’m not outraged either. The only thing that has me curious is the timing, :-)

    As far as I can tell at this point, nothing has been revealed that we didn’t already know, though I suppose it will be a big shock to those who support this administration.

    Side note: image isn’t showing up for me.

  • mriggio

    they were all over the Wiki-docu-dump. After whining about exposing secrets and so forth, they concluded the bottom line was nearly every Middle East country is against a nuclear Iran, demandingly so. And they just let it sit there, without asking the obvious question, what are we doing about it?

    Nobody mentioned the centrifuge-eating software worm, or the killing of the Iranian working to wipe out the worm, in James Bond-like fashion, with a magnetic bomb no less. I guess connecting those dots doesn’t equal CIA, but rather Mossad, so it’s not us doing it. Our Fearless Leader? won’t even come out for regime change and support those poor folks who rioted and were shot for it after Iran’s recent election; not likely we’d pull a cool one like the Stuxnet worm.

    So the unmentioned question remains, what are we doing about it? I’m tired of hearing about ‘world opinion’; they don’t care. Same for ‘sanctions’; they don’t care. Ditto getting Russia to help us, haha! Missus Clinton’s railings against Iranian nukes intimidate not.

    So, if our esteemed panel can drill down to the basic truth of the Wiki-dump, why can’t anybody ask the obvious question? Can it be because we’re essentially doing nothing? Hmmm–better to bemoan the evil Army private and curse the bastage Julian Assange; easier too.

    • The_Gadfly

      Excepting Iran and China, most of the nations in the world care, but believe themselves to be powerless to do anything about it. China and Russia care about it, but they only care because their client state keeps giving us a black eye, which is in perfect alignment with their national strategic objectives. The same thing applies to North Korea except it only involve China.

      The only thing which will dissuade Iran (and North Korea) from pursuing atomic weapons is direct, blunt confrontation led by the United States. Not against Iran or North Korea, but against China and Russia. But that raises a whole raft of other issues. It is a Gordian Knot no one can untangle, and with both of them being members of the nuclear club, no one is willing to reach for the sword and apply the Alexandrian solution.

      So, as you say, the question just sits there waiting to be answered. And the longer we wait, the more likely it becomes that we will like the eventual answer even less than what we fear now.

  • janis

    it is what he’s best at– apologizing. Prezdent Opology has apologized for America’s greatness, and now he gets to apologize for his own administration’s ……paucity of greatness. Although I would bet most anything I own that he himself will apologize for nothing, that that will be left up to his various surrogates to handle.

    Like you, Dave, I am not upset about leaks on this subject, with the exception of anyone’s life that was endangered by the revelations. But I am upset American citizens are daily subjected to the disdain and distrust of their own government while guys like Assange are walking free in this world. A man who has released so many classified documents, endangering programs, allied relationships, informants the world over, and yet it’s US that gets groped, radiated, and questioned for wanting to fly to see Grandma for Thanksgiving.

    Thanks, O. Nothing could be more instructive of where you put your priorities. Too bad the guy who smacked you in the lip couldn’t have put a little more kinetic energy into it and made you have a life-changing experience.

  • Common_Cents

    Is most of the info released about obama’s watch or Bush’s?

    • http://www.hickpolitics.com Dave Poff (haystack)

      nt

  • renny

    That some 22-year-old low-level miscreant with a history of anti-social background was given the keys to the kingdom by his officers in the services is an outrage.

    That these supposedly secret and classified materials were not encrypted and could be downloaded to a zip file or thumb file while the gov’t looked out the windows and whistled is appalling.

    That this soldier was arrested two years ago and has not been court martialed is infuriating.

    That Assange is still walking around untouched or hassled while attacking worldwide diplomacy and peacemaking and the US while engaged in two wars with sometimes dubious allies but a throat-cutting enemy defies imagination.

    During WW I, such a perpetrator would have been shot. During WW II, the perpetrator would have had compulsory psychiatric care. Now, he gets a website and accolades from all quarters.

    Outrageous.

    • http://www.hickpolitics.com Dave Poff (haystack)

      there is a terribly long list of names that are far higher up the list of those deserving to be shot or locked away in a padded room, sans their temporal lobes.

      And there are terribly more critical questions this issue raises than solely those you (justifiably) raise here.

      Let’s get to the bottom of just exactly how it is that we have allowed our representatives and their cohorts…those people to which we are paying huge salaries…to make such a mess of this country and her standing around the world.

      Then, if it’ll make us all feel better, we can shoot Assange at dawn by firing squad in the middle of Times Square.

      Though I doubt there will never be another Assange because there will ALWAYS be more scumbags and morons in positions of power and control so long as this type of system is allowed to go unchecked by discerning eyes with consciences morals and standards of decency.

      • The_Gadfly

        The suspension of earmarks will not in and of itself suffice to correct the fundamental issues. In fact, I’d be willing to bet two paychecks that the suspension of earmarks will have almost no effect at any point in the next four years. However, if they don’t suspend the earmarks it IS a clear sign that despite how loudly we told them exactly what kind of change we want in the last election, they still don’t get it and it is time to take more serious action against them. The same thing applies here. The content of the leaks is pretty much stuff most of us already either knew or suspected (depending on our location in the information gathering food chain). But the rank failure of the government to enforce even rudimentary protocols to protect data that was supposed to be protected is irksome. And while the immediate execution of the traitor(s)/spies involved in this fiasco will not prevent any such future action, it IS the necessary sign that someone in government GETS IT and may be able to take the next step to secure our country.

  • DONTREADONME

    You may have just jeopardized your position. Just because you think something is obvious does not make the disclosure of classified or FOUO information any less serious. Frankly, I am shocked at the level of dismissive attitude I am reading from regulars. I suppose the info leaked during the Bush presidency was ok? Redstate readers should be outraged for at least the fact that an Army private illegally disclosed this information, and the second is that IA and NSS are not secure. There are people in the Gov. Who take responsibility protecting national secrets seriously regardless of the level of incompetency of the political apointments.

    • Read Chesterton

      if holding a clearance is a condition of your employment.

      This is not speculation, it is the letter of the law as far as these things go.

  • renny

    This country should never be exposed, mocked, endangered, or threatened by anyone and surely not a minor-level soldier given access beyond his pay grade and an outre Australian who has appointed himself God.

    • Jim

      A certain phrase from a certain document comes to mind:

      “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

      -Thomas Jefferson

      If the federal government of the United States, a supposed representative of the people of the various States, is taking part in corruption and general scumbaggary across the globe then it should be laid bare at the feet of the people. If what our government does, supposedly in our name, cannot withstand the light of day then how can we trust that it is acting in our best interests and protecting our God-given rights?

      • The_Gadfly

        attack plans for Afghanistan on the front page of the NYT? Because that is what you statements amount to. It has been said that War is the continuation of Diplomacy when normal political means fail. The reverse is also true, Diplomacy is the continuation of War by non-violent means. Both aim at the same objective.

        Part of the reason Dave and others aren’t as upset about the actual contents that have been published, and most countries aren’t reacting adversely to what has been published is that we have become so jaded to corruption that unlike certain past diplomats, we EXPECT that gentleman read each others mail, at least in diplomatic circles. So there is no earth-shattering information here, only the Kabuki theater of various diplomats voicing their outrage.

        We’ve sort of reached the point of the two planets in the Star Trek episode Armageddon Factor: we’ve so normalized the Kabuki Theater that it will only be when we are forced to confront the reality of actual war that rational minds might prevail.

        • Jim

          I would never advocate publishing information that puts soldiers lives in danger. But there is a difference between morality and legality. If a member of the press obtains those plans from some informant, then they CAN publish such plans. Whether they SHOULD publish those plans is an entirely different. If they did so, I would hope every decent person would boycott, shun, spit-on and unsubscribe from such an outfit.

          At the end of the day, the legal onus is on the government to secure it’s secrets. If they fail in that task, as they did in preventing the Iraq War Logs, Afghan War Logs, and Dept of State info from getting out, then that is their problem. While you can make the argument that members of the press should not further disseminate information that comes into their possession, the Constitution protects their right to do so under the first amendment. That is my main concern with this whole issue. A free press should not be swept away because the Pentagon or State Department can’t keep a lid on it’s people and information.

          • The_Gadfly

            to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater for the very good reason that doing so is likely to result in the deaths of people in the theater. Likewise publishing classified diplomatic communiques and classified war intelligence is as, if not more, likely to result in the deaths of people if left unpunished. To my mind doing so with the premeditation that is commensurate with actively seeking and publishing such information is equivalent to murder one, espionage, and/or treason charges depending on the severity of the breach.

            The Constitution is not a suicide pact, therefore neither can any of its components be a suicide pact. When one plans to strike at The King, it is imperative that one be sure it is necessary to strike at him, and equally imperative that the strike is immediately effective. Failure on either count must mean dire consequences on the part of the aggressor or society itself falls.

          • aesthete

            What it is not is a “get out of consequences free” card. If there really *was* a fire, or if you had reason to believe there was a fire, there would be no problem. IOW, it’s not the speech that is the problem, it is the quantifiable damage that the speech causes. It’s sort of like how the Second Amendment doesn’t let you use your M1 Garand to shoot your annoying neighbors: throwing you in jail for that would not be a restriction on your gun use, it is the logical consequence of your violation of someone else’s right to life. Also, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” is a phrase more often than not applied to situations in which following Constitutional norms would not be “suicide”: this is no exception to that grand tradition, and by using the phrase in this instance, you forfeit the high ground when it comes to discussion of progressive abandonment of the Constitution. That said, the Constitution does not apply to foreign nationals, so there would be no problem with prosecuting Assange (though I think that we shouldn’t do it for practical reasons).

          • powertothepeople

            as to Assange’s rights? Not you aesthete, but you made the best argument so I want to piggy back off of you.

            He is not a citizen, so our rights do not extend to him so the constitutional discussion is mute. He is a foreign national who has endangered our troops through his actions. The only right he has is too, in his last split second, to see his brains fly out the front of his head. Nothing more, nothing less.

          • JSobieski

            ergo he has no constitutional rights.

            But the gist of your comment is 100% correct. People will start arguing that tapping phone lines in Iran would violate their 4th amendment rights.

          • aesthete

            that, while the US Government is not required to protect the rights of foreign nationals, it is not permitted to violate them (or allow our citizens to violate them), either. (The classic example given is that the government can and should prosecute a citizen who murders an immigrant.) IMO, that applies only to a limited extent, and only on American soil: war (one of the primary actions delegated to the state) necessitates the violation of rights of non-violent foreign nationals all the time.

            IMO, if Assange were an American citizen, this latest batch of released documents (a bunch of diplomatic gossip, as far as I can tell) would be fully covered under the First Amendment, and the government could not prosecute for any reason (as it would not be a defamation, slander, or any of a number of penalties that we apply to use of speech that harms others). OTOH, his release of documents revealing the names of Afghans who cooperated with us against the Taliban, and his release of documents that revealed the SSNs of some of our servicemembers, would most certainly be grounds for prosecution. As I’ve stated before, I don’t think that it would be pragmatic to “whack” Assange, but there certainly are grounds to do so. We should all agree that Bradley Manning (the PFC who put the classified info into Assange’s hands in the first place) should at the very least spend the rest of his life contemplating his deeds in Hotel Quantico.

          • Read Chesterton

            But they don’t.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
          • Read Chesterton

            now that you mention it, I’ve always thought that the punishment for false rape accuse should equal that for rape itself. Not that a prosecutor would ever bother though.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            you didn’t get vertigo. BTW, one of my aliases is Read DeVine!

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            Foreign agents seeking to undermine America are not a free press.

          • powertothepeople

            he is not a citizen hence he is not protected by our constitution. Why is people like you are so quick to offer constitutional advice to foreign nationals when their actions are hurting our country? How about you learn who the constitution applies to in the first place, then learn where Assange calls home, then come back and rewrite your nonsense!

            And by the way, you can implement all the safety and security procedure you want to, and if someone turns rogue, they can get past the measures. The best security measures in the world still rely on human kind. And things happen. Now how about you take the preachy nonsense and pious crap and go back into the other room and shove them!

          • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

            Seriously . . . do we have to rehash the whole question of “can” versus “should” ?

            If our C-in-C had a pair Assange would have turned up in a ditch with a bullet in the back of his head after his first intel ‘dump.’ The Pentagon would obviously neither confirm nor deny American involvement which would be enough, natch.

          • JSobieski

            I am liable for trade secret misappropriation even though I was not the “first misappropriator”.

            The Constitution has nothing to do with this case. A foreign national in a foreign country has no rights under the US Constitution. Zip. Zero. Nada.

            Next thing you will be suggesting is that Nazi’s should have been read their Miranda rights in WWII.

            I love Hayek and Mises, but neither was as utopian as your comment.

  • Common_Cents

    things will get interesting.

    • MNConservative

      They tried the sex charges thing after the first wikileaks dump too. How much more obvious could trumped up charges be?

      • The_Gadfly

        as the wheels of international justice grind slowly. They have the two women, with the sworn statements. Honeypot or not the gander faces the kettle the same as the goose.

        I for one will not lose any sleep over it.