This wikileaks guy should be "taken out" of the picture.

[BigBadBrian]

Discuss.

[BigBadBrian]

Besides the owner of wikileaks, this little prick who has been caught in the past should also be executed.

[Seshmeister]

We are very lucky to have him.

The powerful will now be running a huge media campaign to destroy him and the sheep will bay for his blood.

Our media constantly fails to hold to account the people who act in our name. We have very few sources of original information these days that are well enough resourced to investigate and not sullied by undue influence by the powerful. Something like Watergate would probably never be exposed now because the people aren't there to do the work.

Your posts here give the impression that you are quite a blinkered frightened kind of person. You want to be spoon fed what to think by Australian billionaires and prostrate yourself in front of your 'betters'.

I don't.

[BigBadBrian]

We are very lucky to have him.

Sesh, you're posting when you're drunk again!

Anyway, if you think all diplomatic and military communications are fair game to be read by anyone, you are quite naive of what goes on behind the scenes.

I guess its my military training and having had a secret clearance that I take this shit so seriously, and I don't give a damn what Administration these cables are from. This is not a political issue for me, its one of national security.

You need to run back to your liberal sources and come up with a better argument on why leaking all this info is OK.

[Seshmeister]

I think what you fundamentally don't get is that the US military machine aren't really widely seen as the goodies any more.

Until the US government signs up to the international court and enforces her obligations under existing conventions on human rights and torture then it is morally justifiable to leak information, especially instances where she is acting out with it.

The culture of secrecy allowed the illegal invasion of Iraq and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

[Seshmeister]

Wikileaks has only posted some 200 of the 251,287 messages it says it has obtained. However, the entire bundle of cables has been made available to five publications, including the New York Times and the UK's Guardian newspaper.

The leaked cables by US diplomats posted overseas contain blunt appraisals of their host governments, and unflattering pen portraits of world leaders.

US officials are said to have described Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as feckless, vain and ineffective, sharing a close relationship with "alpha dog" Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is said to be thin-skinned and authoritarian, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel is described as risk-averse.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is referred to as "extremely weak" and susceptible to conspiracy theories.

One US diplomat was said to be shocked at the "rude behaviour" of the British queen's second son, Prince Andrew, when abroad.

Meanwhile, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya always travels with a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse, according to one of the cables.

Concerns aired include the security of Pakistani nuclear material that could fall into the wrong hands, allowing militants to make an atomic weapon.The widespread use of computer hacking by China's government is also reported.

Other issues reportedly covered in the cables are:

* Iranian attempts to adapt North Korean rockets for use as long-range missiles
* Corruption in Afghanistan with concerns heightened when a senior official was found to be carrying more than $52m (£33m) in cash on a foreign trip
* Bargaining to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison camp - including Slovenian diplomats being told to take in a freed prisoner to secure a meeting with President Barack Obama
* Germany being warned in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for CIA officers involved in an operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was abducted and held in Afghanistan
* US officials being instructed to spy on the UN leadership by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
* Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime
* Yemen's president talking to General David Petraeus (while he was responsible for US military operations in Central Asia and the Middle East as head of US Central Command) about attacks on Yemeni al-Qaeda bases and saying: "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours"
* Faltering US attempts to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon

Which of these cables do you think we shouldn't be told about?

[Blaze]

- And one cable describes Afghanistan's vice president Ahmed Zia Massoud carrying a mysterious $52 million in cash when he arrived in Saudi Arabia--a travel accessory that raised the attention of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101129/ts_yblog_thelookout/the-u-s-s-most-embarrassing-leaked-insults-of-world-leaders

[Blaze]

- And one cable describes Afghanistan's vice president Ahmed Zia Massoud carrying a mysterious $52 million in cash when he arrived in Saudi Arabia--a travel accessory that raised the attention of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101129/ts_yblog_thelookout/the-u-s-s-most-embarrassing-leaked-insults-of-world-leaders

Do you think that could be something other than "drug money". He wouldn't funnel US Aid money, would he? :shame:

[Nitro Express]

That's moving with 520,000 $100 bills. The US Treasury got rid of the $1000 bill because people could move too much money around in cash and the government wants to track it electronically. I wonder how many suitcases that was but hell, those middle east aristocrats probably don't travel light.

[Nitro Express]

One US diplomat was said to be shocked at the "rude behaviour" of the British queen's second son, Prince Andrew, when abroad.

Meanwhile, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya always travels with a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse, according to one of the cables.

If grandma is the Queen of England, I would imagine that tends to go to ones head. As far as Gaddafi goes, wouldn't we all do the same?

[Blaze]

That's moving with 520,000 $100 bills. The US Treasury got rid of the $1000 bill because people could move too much money around in cash and the government wants to track it electronically. I wonder how many suitcases that was but hell, those middle east aristocrats probably don't travel light.

One way to better understand large numbers is to compare the heights of stacks of varying numbers of dollar bills. The thickness of a single one dollar bills measures .0043 inches or .0000000679 miles.

The height of a stack of 100 one dollar bills measures .43 inches.

The height of a stack of 1,000 one dollar bills measures 4.3 inches.

http://www.ehd.org/science_technology_largenumbers.php

A friend of mine with a scientific scale tells me that $100 bills weigh about one gram each

http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/hoarded.wealth/

[Blaze]

can't be correct...

[Blaze]

not sure if correct

[Nitro Express]

Sesh, you're posting when you're drunk again!

Anyway, if you think all diplomatic and military communications are fair game to be read by anyone, you are quite naive of what goes on behind the scenes.

I guess its my military training and having had a secret clearance that I take this shit so seriously, and I don't give a damn what Administration these cables are from. This is not a political issue for me, its one of national security.

You need to run back to your liberal sources and come up with a better argument on why leaking all this info is OK.

Yeah. The British would have been better off if their top secret info was leaked during World War II because everyone including Hitler had the right to know.

[FORD]

What kind of fucked up world do we live in when those who publish the truth are targeted for execution, and those who smuggle heroin, fund terrorists, and father criminals are awarded with "Presidential Medals of Freedom".