Posts by Paul Williams
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Are there other PASers in Sydney? I'd love dearly to use the phrase but fear it'd simply be misunderstood.
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Apropos wikileaks and Assange himself, this story doesn't do any favours to Julia Gillard... but then, she appears to be following John Howard's approach to defending dislikable Australian citizen's rights!
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A minor threadjack to report that Giovanni, in his scarlet and black doctoral robes, cut a dashing figure in the graduates' parade down Lambton Quay just now.
Nice! I'm not remotely cynical about graduations, think they're damn fine events and think anyone who's got the talent and discipline to complete a Doctorate deserves a little celebration.
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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.
And this is why I disagree with I/S. I'm not a recent or close student of US foreign policy but generally agree with the failures identified in this thread. However, that doesn't mean every US Diplomat or diplomatic endeavour is corrupt and any personal engagement necessarily taits you.
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Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
I kinda agree.
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Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to Russell Brown,
The problem here is that it damages real people who have done nothing wrong. It’s so easy to just pile another conspiracy on top of the last one. Ask Ali Ikram how he’s feeling about the Star Times story. Stitched up is the answer.
It does seem like there's collateral damage and that is unfortunate. Ali Ikram has done nothing inherently wrong and for all I know he was entirely up front about his involvement. As you've effectively shown, the content of some of the cables may well have been available publicly anyway. This is what concerns me the most; when is my right to know what governments and corporations are up to at odds with individuals' right to privacy?
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I'm also not automatically concerned by this approach. I understand that soft-power strategies are increasingly common and sponsoring trips or arrangements that build knowledge etc is fine so long as there's transparency.
Here's a great TED talk by the historian and author Joseph Nye, who I understand coined the term, at a recent Oxford TED event.
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There may be reasons, I can't think what they are or how they'll be reasonable or justifiable? A delay to permit a big announcement, sure, but withholding the information this long and from Parliament? Absent a great explanation, you have to wonder what intelligence was shared before there was proper oversight?
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Indeed so that we might then discover what precisely that means?
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Thanks Danyl. The cable on NZ journalists travel to the US is useful information. It’s good to know the soft-power tactics in use. There’s nothing inherently wrong with study tours, I think, but I’d rather know about them than not. I’ll leave the deeper analysis to those with a broadcasting bent… hint