Hard News: The Wellington Cables
406 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 6 7 8 9 10 … 17 Newer→ Last
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
It's really not worth trying to deny what is true and what there is plenty of evidence for.
There is what now?
-
Unlike Neil, who seems to have amazing insight into the events, I am unsure of what is true as I wasn't there. Assange does seem to be a bit unusual but then again this Steve Bell cartoon does seem to sum up some of the reaction / distraction to this whole thing.
-
Simon Grigg, in reply to
there's plenty of links to similar statements.
Neil, that quote above really doesn't come within a zillion kilometres of what you've claimed earlier. I've tried really hard to find these 'plenty of links to similar statements' and haven't been able to. Perhaps you can help?
The statement that 'the Pentagon plans to use dirty tricks to spoil things for [WikiLeaks]' is a fairly obvious one and I'd argue you'd have to have been living under a pile of granite for the past few decades to assume that wouldn't be the case. Whether that means he thinks the women are CIA stooges is another whole thing. I can find no evidence that he's saying that anywhere. Happy to be proved wrong.
We know you think he's a creep. I've yet to meet the guy so I'm not going to make that judgement either way.
-
FWIW, the "CIA sting" theory regarding the sex abuse charges has been floating around since August at least - this blog by "Zennie62" in the SF Chronicle comes out and says it back then. Then there's even more explicit descriptions of possible "CIA ties" on Counterpunch in September.
Also back in August, Assange says quite explictly that he thinks the charges are a "smear campaign". Who it is carrying out the smear campaign is left to the imagination. His lawyers have not said anything explicit about the CIA theory, and certainly haven't been so stupid as to come out and say they believe the CIA is the source of the "smear".
Whether it's the Wikileaks crew doing a bit of their own spin and whispering on the quiet that it's the CIA (which I personally doubt), or it's their champions making the connection up out of whole cloth, I do think it's pretty moot. Wikileaks and Assange are don't appear to be running around saying that the CIA theory is ridiculous - of course, if they privately believed it was, they'd be stupid not to play the game at the moment and lose the publicity from the conspiracy-theorists and the more left-left wing types.
And I'd just like to add a +1 to the comments regarding the slut-shaming these women have experienced in the media in general, including by so-called lefties, and Catlin-the-lawyer can DIAF for claiming Swedish law will prosecute lack of condom use the same way it does rape. *eyeroll*
-
Yes, Bill Rowling, Alan Mac Diarmid, Dame Anne Salmond, Gareth Farr
Sir Jon Trimmer, Dame Marie Clay, Dame Jean Herbison, Anne Meade, Ron Paterson, Jamie Belich, Sir Kenneth Keith, David Baragwanath, Wiremu Kaa, David Cunliffe, Iosefa Enari, Simon O'Neill, Roger Hall, Bill Manhire, Joan Druett and Michael King should all be very ashamed of their Fulbright scholarships.I think public perceptions of the United States in this part of the world have changed a bit since then - and not just because of their national insanity over the war on terror.
What a ridiculous argument. It's proper to scrutinise journalists in this context (ideally by doing some work, finding what what the scheme is, what they did, what they wrote, etc) but the idea that any recipient of an exchange grant or scholarship has the blood of an entire host nation's foreign policy on their hands is insane.
Nice straw man. I'll say it clearer so you can't misquote me:
"Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas"
Seriously, that's all this is. And if these journos don't like it, maybe they should have thought a bit more carefully about who they were snuggling up to.
-
I've started a new job a couple of weeks ago, so haven't followed the 'cablegate' story as I would have a month ago.
I've found all the posts I've read on here this evening bizarre. Nutty claims about journalist sponsorship, bizarre speculation on Assange and two women, arguing about how a possible rape relates to Wikipedia (I don't see that it relates at all). For a bunch of people who seem to think Wikileaks is significant, there's been a lot of playing the man not the ball on both sides.
-
“Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas”
The venn diagram which puts everything "US" completely inside "Evil" annoys the hell out of me. For someone who does good work I/S, you've got blinkers on about some things that really do you no good.
-
Kyle: Well, when the US starts prosecuting its torturers, and those who gave the orders for them to torture, then I'll change my view of them. Until then, I think I'm perfectly entitled to regard them as a torture state, whose government should be treated as an international pariah.
-
Paul Williams, in reply to
I kinda agree.
-
Steve Parks, in reply to
arguing about how a possible rape relates to Wikipedia
Do you mean WikiLeaks, or have I missed something? (I may well have missed something as I haven’t read though this thread very thoroughly.)
-
Sacha, in reply to
there's been a lot of playing the man not the ball
Yep. Another thread screwed. You'd think it was impossible to avoid or something.
-
Lucy Stewart, in reply to
It’s a reference to a conspiracy theory involving Harvard (and Oxford) in Gravity’s Rainbow, where it is intimated that they serve as fronts to shadowy tentacular organisations (read: networks of influence).
I thought that was called "rich people". (But thanks; I wasn't about to tackle a six-hundred-page book in search of whatever Neil was referring to.)
“Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas”
This is so laughably far from the real-world effects of the Fulbright programme - both in terms of participants' views and careers - that I'm going stick with amusement.
-
Simon Grigg, in reply to
it's their champions making the connection up out of whole cloth, I do think it's pretty moot.
Actually I don't think it's moot at all. I completely agree with you Tracy when you say:
I'd just like to add a +1 to the comments regarding the slut-shaming these women have experienced
but one comment five months back when Assange talks of a possible smear campaign does not directly tie the man to the more offensive statements and ugly blog posts of the past month or so. And even less does it tie him to the charges made here that he's claiming the two are CIA stooges or anything close.
In the months since, I guess under advice, he's made almost no statement beyond a repeated claim to innocence. He can't be held to task for the words of others any more, as I explained to a couple of apologetic American friends tonight, than they can be unfairly held to task for their government's words over this.
-
Simon Grigg, in reply to
The venn diagram which puts everything "US" completely inside "Evil" annoys the hell out of me.
I was going to mention GWB's African AIDS program however that was tied to evangelic Christian ideals in practice which caused a great deal of pain, but I do have a problem thinking of one positive that's come from US Foreign Policy in the last 15 or so years (and much of what came before - the Ford / Suharto East Timor talks are just leaking out in Indonesia at the mo' thanks to Wikileaks and it's ugly stuff). It's been a horrorshow with much blood and anguish.
They did build half a road in Sumatra after the tsunami.
To be honest, most Americans I know would likely agree although I know they're unusual in large parts of their homeland.
I'm frankly terrified the US is going to prod a war with China up where I live. It's a common fear, not unfounded I think.
Good tunes, movies, writers and software but....
-
Sacha, in reply to
He can't be held to task for the words of others
To be fair, Assange has to be assumed to have some connection with the utterances of his lawyers, as others pointed out on one or other of these infernal threads. Now, about those cables..
-
Sacha, in reply to
prod a war with China
Doubting that while the red peril holds the purse strings
-
Che Tibby, in reply to
Good tunes, movies, writers and software but....
this is a chord i keep playing. the US sells itself as 'the saviour of the world' (ie WW2, even though the Soviets and the 20mil dead did the heavy lifting), 'the leader of the free world' (i.e. fighting those same Soviets in the Cold War, with millions of "bush-war' deaths in the Third World), and the Defender of Free Rights (i.e. versus China in the 1990s.).
but... it turns out they're largely as evil as any other superpower. they imprison innocents, they torture, their political system works on money (not democracy), and they appear to deal with 'dictators and evil men' as they see fit (thanks Wikileaks).
why do we kow-tow to these guys every time they ask us to? is it just that their dying economy is still useful?
-
but I do have a problem thinking of one positive that’s come from US Foreign Policy in the last 15 or so years (and much of what came before
Which is something that I have sympathy for, though I think actually going and looking I'm sure we could find a bunch of good things that we didn't know about.
The idea that anyone who has a connection with the states which is funded by a independent government programme is in some way supporting their crappy foreign policy is laughable however. Lots of the academics and journalists who accessed these funds will have used their time to push anti-US angles to their work with no repercussion. The vast majority will have just been left alone to do their work which has nothing to do with foreign affairs.
It's a big country and the claim that Fulbright or some other scholarship paying for you to be there means that you've become complicit to torture is a headline looking for some reality.
-
giovanni tiso, in reply to
(But thanks; I wasn't about to tackle a six-hundred-page book in search of whatever Neil was referring to.)
On the other hand, you should because it's extremely awesome. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going flambé myself some bananas.
-
Jessica Valenti makes some clarity around the allegations.
-
Che Tibby, in reply to
I'm going flambé myself some bananas
we're seriously considering building a big conservatory on the front of the house.
-
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
Which is something that I have sympathy for, though I think actually going and looking I’m sure we could find a bunch of good things that we didn’t know about.
Yes, we could. For instance, the US is by freakin' miles the biggest donor to the World Food Program -- $1.5 billion of a $3.5 billion budget this year. It's put more than half a billion into Haiti in the past two years. And a billion this year into the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. Again, no other states approach this level of commitment.
This is not to say there aren't still swathes of US foreign and aid policy that are self-interested and objectionable. But the idea that the US does no good -- or only evil -- in the world is palpably untrue.
-
why do we kow-tow to these guys every time they ask us to? is it just that their dying economy is still useful?
We don't know how to politely say farewell to institutions that have outlived their usefulness en masse. So we must ever so patiently wait while others bid a rabid farewell and make a nasty mess. Leaving the rest of us wondering is there a new cleaning agent on the market that will get that stain out. And how does reverse brain washing work? Once you get used to showing non-judgemental deference, deserved or not, its hard to break the habit.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
I think public perceptions of the United States in this part of the world have changed a bit since then – and not just because of their national insanity over the war on terror.
You know, I believe the Vietnam War was a bit controversial back in the day.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.