Helplessly Hoping
William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection argues that the latest Wikileak has shoved President Obama into Jimmy Carter territory. The leaks have shown him to be completely impotent, unable to even protect his own secrets or preserve his allies from embarrassment. The hard Left can push him around and take his money in a political dance apache. The Asia Times makes the same observation, but dryly notes that the loss of respect — AKA the failure of political deterrence — can cause much more serious international consequences. Barack Obama’s allies may already be starting to Finlandize themselves, convinced if proof were lacking, that Obama can’t even keep the deal he won’t honor secret. It is the political capstone of a meltdown. Obama’s credibility — and by extension America’s — has been downgraded to junk bond status.
Not only has the fact of the Wikileak publication in the New York Times publicly demonstrated Obama’s weakness, their contents paint the picture of almost pitiful helplessness. The magisterial rhetoric, the grand phrases from the jut-jawed deliveries at teleprompter translate to only one idea: kick the can down the road and please don’t hit me, mister. The leaked documents, if accurate, suggest a North Korea and Iran openly testing the administration; China engaging in cyberwar against the West; American Islamic allies supporting terrorism while demanding protection and even aid. It shows a potential Iranian threat so regionally worrisome that Saudi Arabia exhorted him to “cut off the head of the snake.” It all adds up, according to the Asia Times, to extraordinary danger.
The worst-case scenario for the American administration would be if the violence in the Korean Peninsula escalated and it could not find an appropriate way to save face and de-escalate the confrontation. …
This still outlines only the start of the potential ripple effect. The situation of several other American allies is already so bad that they hardly even need a Korean paradigm to despair. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri, for example, just went hat-in-hand to Tehran and started a diatribe against Israel, in an apparent sign that he is ready to toe the Iranian line if that is what it will take to ensure his survival.
In Iraq, the Western-backed Iyad Allawi was elbowed out of forming a government by his Iran-backed Shi’ite rivals despite winning the popular election earlier this year. In Afghanistan, an already-alienated President Hamid Karzai is looking on as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization effort to prop him up continues. … In Yemen, too, the government is getting desperate against al-Qaeda militants and Iran-backed Houtini rebels, and, according to some reports, is considering playing both sides.
All of these fears would once be dismissed as temporary challenges that would be eventually met by an America that won World War 2 and the Cold War. But what the financial meltdown and the execrable record of the Obama administration broadcast is that Obama’s USA is no longer what it used to be. It has beclowned itself to the point where it is unable to even prevent its secrets from being thrown in its face. The danger, argues the Asia Times, is that this contempt is cumulative; and that North Korea, Iran and China will either successfully challenge or miscalculate. Either way disaster impends.
It would be a sad epitaph for an president who once campaigned on a platform of restoring international America’s prestige. This is how it all ends: not with bang, but with a whimper and lots of potential bangs.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
“The leaks have shown him to be completely impotent, unable to even protect his own secrets or preserve his allies from embarassment.”
That’s the real story of the leaks.
But learning more about the kick the can down the road approach is also interesting. More evidence that Obama’s real intent is to undermine the US as quickly as possible. Making us impotent internationally is a big part of it.
And it’s not just because of his hatred of America either. His kind have bigger ambitions that the little ole US. They won’t be satisfied with anything less that the entire planet. We see the US as a beacon of liberty and the agent that allows the world to work. They see the US as an impediment to their ambitions.
Last June I wrote the following on my blog:
“At this point I am convinced that Mr. Obama’s goal is to ruin the economy of the United States, strip the Nation of an effective military and create a state of economic and social chaos resembling that of the Weimar Republic circa 1930. Mr. Obama has been labeled “brilliant” by friend and foe alike. Why would such a brilliant person do the things that he has been doing unless by design? To what end only he knows, but I don’t think the United States will be the better for it.”
Nothing that has occurred since has caused me to rethink that assessment. But I could be (and hope I am) wrong.
The problem is, if I am wrong, how could I tell?
imho the revelations I’ve seen show the situation to be hopeless but not serious. More information is out on the Suxnet worm.This other story which gets less attention — is probably much more important because it is such a game changer.
Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Ambitions
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/#ixzz16h3NgLXf
Hopeless and changeless. Jimmuh Cahtuh redux.
Turns out the Presidency is above Obama’s pay grade.
Wikileaks is the East Anglia of the Obama Administration.
It is tearing the mask off the Lone Ranger, and revealing Truman Capote. A great storyteller, but the truth and substance behind the story are more than a bit suspect.
Foreign policy has Israel wondering precisely who needs to prop up whom, North Korea smells blood in the water, China is parent to the child, Iran is kicking sand in his face and James Carville is doing a TSA genitalia probe and counting on one finger the findings.
What we have come to find as a country, is that we have elected Frank Abagnale…and he is flying the plane and performing surgery…because we were fooled into believing he had the skills of a commercial pilot and a surgeon.
We found this out at 40,000 feet. And with the patient on the table. He has neither the skills nor the training, but the good news for the patient on the table is, the coming crash would have killed him anyway.
proreason @1 said:
“More evidence that Obama’s real intent is to undermine the US as quickly as possible. Making us impotent internationally is a big part of it.”
You’re assuming that Obama has sufficient competence that he could follow through upon intent. It is my opinion that Obama is so incompetent that even if if it were his intent to undermine the US that he would fail.
In some ways we’re lucky with Obama. The American political system seriously malfunctioned when Obama was elected (blame the MSM for that). A left wing alternative to Obama could have easily been a psychopathic demagogue along the lines of Lenin, Hitler or Mao. Instead, Obama is merely incompetent and will become an unpleasant memory after one term in office. We need to be concerned about who is going to replace Obama (someone from the far-right could be just as dangerous as another demagogue from the far-left).
People who have not had to deal with State Dept classification policies don’t realize that as often as not such routine classification of even relatively mundane topics are done as much to protect the foreign governments involved as it is to mask what the USA is doing and thinking.
Ergo, the Wikileaks baboons have just made a whole new set of enemies. I doubt they intended that, and I’m pretty sure that they did not realize they would slam Obama with the latest leak, either. I think it likely that the Wikileaks staff will be gifted with three rounds each in some dark ally at some point in the future.
As for “not what we used to be” I recall an interview with Col Kaddafy on CBS News 60 Minutes in the late 70′s in which he said that in the past we could “rattle our swords and get people to do things but now your swords have grown rusty.” In April of 1986 Kaddafy was suddenly indisposed for a period, apparantly due to the lack of a single clean pair of pants in his entire country, courtesy of Pres Reagan. And Pres Bush convinced him to give up his WMD programs a few years back.
So: the entire Middle East and Central Asia are turning into one great big Sudetenland.
Again, that writer (who’s name I forget) at American Thinker had it spot-on in 2008 when he referred to Obama as an “effete academic weakling.”
Oh, goody, goody.
Now we know (more or less) what all the elites know.
I can sympathize with the calls to castigate and prosecute the Wikileaks people, but we now all know what our elites know. We should remind ourselves that is the central mission statement of Wikileaks: transparency. Is this all that bad?
Well, yes, if transparency results in compromised military missions and risk to our armed forces. But at the same time, the facade of Obama as a superior intellect and tactical politician has been torn down utterly.
This is a moral dilemma: pure transparency is good in theory, but as our social fabric is constructed from a tissue of lies (who first coined this phrase?), how can a fully transparent information age construct any functional political order at all?
I think Obama and gang have gotten their wish of making the US just another weak bankrupt country. Decline is a choice, and they forced it on us.
What they failed to forsee, or refused to even consider, or just could not comprehend was that their actions would being themselves down and destabilize the world financially and politically.
So much for smart diplomacy and Ivy league credentials. Consequences in the real world are a bitch. It must be shocking for them.
As painful and embarrassing as this may be, the nation must grab this opportunity to vigorously clean house. No good crisis should go to waste.
Found the site for you, Don, I think:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/obama_and_his_next_goal.html
Our beloved country, freedom’s last redoubt, civilization’s only power capable of resisting the advancing tide of barbarism, keep of Castle Earth, is seriously contemplating elevating to the presidency Barack Obama, an effete academic weakling, a messianic soothsayer, perfervid followers in tow, who believes America’s collective soul is broken and that He has been called to mend it, a caricature Euro Statist whose voting record and public utterances reflect passionate belief in all the discredited far leftist critiques of America (and their attendant fixes), a dreamy naïf with a permanently adolescent world view born of lifelong refusal to work in the real world, a thinly disguised leftist revolutionary who for decades eagerly immersed himself in a vile crowd of crypto-Marxists, quislings, racists, domestic terrorists, and antisemites, and who now simply says, calm as you please, he never really shared their views, a twenty-eight carat tyro whose resume of accomplishments would fit neatly on the back of a Visa card, a man whose scary wife (whom the candidate himself seems to fear) dislikes the country that has showered her with great good fortune. Sorry. I know that sentence exceeded its grammatical carrying capacity, if not its potential content.
Barack Obama, measured by his chosen life experiences, closest associations, voting record, and pre-presidential campaign utterances, is, in personality and experience, the least qualified, and, in philosophy and program, most radically left candidate ever offered for the presidency by the Democratic Party. By comparison, George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry seem the very embodiment of presidential readiness and political moderation.
And all this is occurring while the Democrats control both House and Senate by margins that will increase in November and at a time in history when the continued existence of Western Civilization is in serious question.
Well, as Blogfather says: “At this point, I have to say, Jimmy Carter looks like a best-case outcome, slowly fading from possibility.”
I see no problem with killing Assange as part of the GWoT. There is a war on, he is working for the enemy, he is a legitimate target.
I also fail to understand why the US does not knock the Wikileaks servers off the internet. It can’t be that hard to do.
Obama is proving to be such an across the board all encompassing disaster that the sheer magnitude of his incompetence may serve to protect America. If he was a typical lazy crook in office we could be blamed and his conduct would reflect on us. When it reaches this level it is more like a natural event, a hurricane that passes and can only dimly be remembered.
Proreason and ExRat vs. Eggplant: I side with the view that the demolition of US strength and exceptionalism has been on purpose. And so far that plan is succeeding beyond expectations, to our horror and concern.
What is the way back? There appear to be four great choices:
1. Leftist statism
2. Islamic conquest
3. American style democracy and free markets
4. Gang dominated chaos and a new dark ages
Entropy favors choice 4. Passion favors choice 2. Trends favor choice 1 until all the money is gone. What works in favor of choice 3?
BTW: Charles @3 points to Stuxnet. That is indeed a triumph of sorts. But will we continue to have the infrastructure that could produce such a thing 20 years from now?
When the Wiki folks got happy on the DoD, Foggy Bottom laughed behind their hand. Well, now it is their Ox being gored and it hurts. To them. I consider the Department of State America’s public enemy #1, so I’m not crying about any of this.
As far as damage to America, there will be none. Hopefully many diplomats will have their careers destroyed. Having some effete elitist put on the beach for a few years will not harm America. Considering how much harm State has done America over the ages, anything hamstringing state should be seen as a positive. What would be really good is for ALL diplomatic functions to be televised. Including negotiations. Let the citizens see what their tax dollars provide.
Those that think the USA will be harmed haven’t tripped over the kernel diplomacy is built around. Nations have interests, not friends or enemies. Those interests drive the car, not the personalities involved.
The Obomination is having trouble with START because START does not reflect any American interests. Reducing the number of nuclear weapons is a good thing in theory. In the real world there is no evidence that reducing nuclear weapons advances any interest of the USA. It advances the interests of POTUS and the State Department, but those interests are not automatically the interests of America.
12. DW
Found the site for you, Don, I think:
Yes, that’s him, James Edmund Pennington. Thank you!
Jacobson is wrong. There are many things this leak is, but showing up Obama as a weakling isn’t one of them.
Besides, he doesn’t need any help from Wikileaks to demonstrate his limited skills. He does that every day.
While I agree completely that Obama is incompetent as the pResident, I still believe him to be highly competent at his actual job which is that of being a professional actor. Where as Ronald Reagan was an average actor who became a great President, Obama is a pathetic excuse for an American President but a world-class actor. The man was “smart” enough to do what he’s been told and advance to the next level of power while barely getting a scratch.*
That’s been enough to do untold damage to the United States, and like many if not most of you, I fear we’ve only begun to hurt. The veneer is slowly peeling away, sometimes with the unwitting and dubious assistance of elements such as “Wikileaks.”
The obvious question: “Is it too late?”
Off topic, Obama. This is a video that I’ve always thought did a nice job of summing up his ascendancy:
Obama Building a Religion
* (Other than the guy who elbowed him in the face playing basketball. Hell of a guy.)
13. Walter Sobchak @ 13 said:
“I also fail to understand why the US does not knock the Wikileaks servers off the Internet. It can’t be that hard to do.”
Refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks
Apparently Wikileaks has done an effective job of making itself difficult to remove from the net. It’s probably easier to track down the people working for Wikileaks and eliminate them. I suspect the intelligence agencies of several governments are now focused on doing that.
I’d like to know who is paying Wikileaks’ bills. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were getting some George Soros money.
Batman @ 15:
“But will we continue to have the infrastructure that could produce such a thing 20 years from now?” No, because Stuxnet or a variant will destroy it.
See the Sky News video at the bottom of the article:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/11/27/stuxnet-the-second-greatest-story-ever-told/
So, is this the digital age’s version of the Pentagon Papers?
If a bunch of amateurs can get this much classified information,
imagine what professional intelligence agencies can do (and are
doing).
If this encourages the government to reform it’s security
procedures, these leaks might actually be beneficial in the long
term.
So far all that I’ve seen of these leaks is laughable, and not really surprising.
If anything, this just shows the state dept for the bitchy little schoolgirls that they are.
This may hasten some of our putative ‘allies’ flight into the arms of our outright enemies (see Lebanon), but they were already headed that way due to the weakness and incompetence of this administration anyway.
The administration is close to destroying its chosen foreign policy tool: diplomacy. Who’ll believe them now? They don’t mean what they say or say what they mean. They can’t even keep the agreements they are working to renege upon a secret. They’ve debased the coin of political speech almost as much as the coin of the realm.
If President Obama has shown himself to be disappointing, Hillary has not exactly covered herself in glory. But it is the contrast between their previous bluster and the present result which is so ludicrous. Here was the team that was going to restore America’s standing among allies; going to ‘end things where they began in Afghanistan’; begin a new era of engagement in the Middle East; prosecute terrorists in court to show moral superiority; create “a world without nuclear weapons”, dismantle “unproven missile defenses”; make the oceans fall; bring prosperity to America and solve health care. And to do this they had the smartest woman in the world at State; huge majorities in the Senate and House.
And all they have to show for it are a few ripped up tickets, some smudged receipts and a few giveaways from a box of crackerjacks. That and pie in their face.
Now the Republic’s enemies must be asking themselves: where is the bottom to these people’s incompetence? Can they do anything at all? How safe is it to rush ahead? Why don’t we try?
And if they do, what tools will President Obama have left? Diplomacy? Economic incentives or sanctions? Moral authority? Maybe the military. Yes that’s it. But his competence at war is predicted by his incompetence in peace. One would hope he’d have the sense to stay away from truly dangerous tools and that probably means he doesn’t know better.
A political crisis is engulfing the Obama administration. The variance in every risk calculation has gotten very large. The Joker’s Wild, “the game where incompetence is king and lady luck is queen”. 2011, if we get there, will be a very interesting year.
Talnik @ 20 and Charles @ 3 concerning Stuxnet:
For what it’s worth, I think Stuxnet was created by the NSA working in cooperation with the Israelis and the Germans. As far as having an Internet 20 years from now, I suspect that MS-Windows based systems will become unusable on the Internet long before then. The old Internet will continue to be used at a diminished level by clients operating under Unix derivative operating systems, e.g. Linux and OS-X. Google and/or Microsoft will eventually create a new network that will allow access by naive users.
Barack Obama believes he is the smartest guy in every room, even the ones he isn’t in. How does he know this? Because all his life everyone has told him so. And now hope and change means we hope it all gets changed in 2012. In the meantime, he is destroying the country both at home and abroad. The smartest guy in the room? Only when he’s alone.
There be no smarter man than he
He much smarter than you and me
He show the world how smart he be
Obama
A Stalin portrait on his wall
When but a child and very small
He follows now his mommy’s call
Obama
He worked not but with silver tongue
He climbed the ladder rung by rung
And one day saw his banner hung
Obama
The two short years he’s been around
He drove us right into the ground
That was his plan as we have found
Obama
In every room he is the one
He think he greater than the sun
But soon he will be one and done
Obama
Ah yes, but in the meantime, let us appreciate the “nuance”
So what are the likely choices if the administration decides it needs to do something concrete to try to restore some credibility to the “stick” part of “Speak softly …”
Like Wretchard, my fear is over-reach. I was reading the other day about the operations of Belgium and France during Shaba II, where the city of Kolwezi in what is now the DR Congo was attacked, and many westerners slaughtered. Jimmy Carter attempted to use the aftermath of this to show strength (as he had shown weakness before and during), which ended up making him look foolish (I believe he asserted Cuban support of the rebel groups, when in fact the Cubans had advised against the action).
My fear goes like this- Ever watch Red Dwarf? You know the first episode where Lister meets Cat, scaring Cat, and Cat says “Gotta make myself look big”- that’s what I fear Obama will try to do. Stand up and say “Gotta make myself look big!”
So what are the likely choices if the administration decides it needs to do something concrete to try to restore some credibility to the “stick” part of “Speak softly …”
There are really two ways to restore credibility. One is to make some grand gesture by using a stick, which in the hands of a negative master, may result in it being placed ringingly on his own head. The other is to take responsibility and publicly reform one’s behavior.
I like Charlie Rangel because he winks at you in his villainy. He’s lifting your wallet with a smile, but there are no secrets between you. If he sobs at hearing you know he’s pulling your leg. But these guys will look you in the eye and self-righteously pretend to be your immeasurable betters.
There was a time when people would have resigned over these fiascos. They no longer do that. But what is truly remarkable about modern bureaucrats is the thickness of their hides. Holder, Napolitano, Hillary, drone self-righteously on, as if they were the epitomes of sophistication, enlightenment and competence. The sense of personal accountability to society which once manifested itself as “shame” is completely gone. Today shame is when you can’t cheat well enough to stay in office. And even that is missing.
Today’s politicians have about as much shame as vultures picking a corpse.
#20 Eggplant:
If Soros is funding them he can be arrested and thrown in the pokey.
“0bama” has proven that Sarah Palin is more then qualified to be president! this idiot is worse then Jimmy boy and more dangerous… And don’t think them yellow dog Democrat’s have learned their lesson they will vote in anything the (de)progressive/elitist (self loathing anti Americans) choice to run in their party.
No one is surprised by the content of these leaks, least of all our allies and enemies. In that sense, there’s no “damage” that I can see. BUT the bargain, that we all keep these opinions and assessments ‘sub rosa,’ has been grossly violated, which Does damage us.
No one talks to a confirmed tattle-tale, or someone married to such a one. Also, the cover provided to various actors by the former discretion/secrecy is gone, and that really Will create some problems.
The other question I have is, who outed the Stuxnet strike?
Walter, that takes evidence, of which there is none. Unfortunately. Not only is ol’ George a clever and experienced criminal, he also has the bucks to hire the best to cover his tracks. Plus keep them happy enough to not rat him out. The Mafia always goes down because one of them is turned. Soros knows that.
Old age will get Soros, like it gets everyone.
Obama is worse than Carter. He is a snake oil salesman who only seems to sell his product to people who are infirm, unemployed and/or of the lunatic left.
I will say that although NK is poor they should not be under-estimated. The Norks are propped up by the PRC and still have plenty of tunnels, artillery and fortifications. Below is the “Bluffer’s guide to North Korea.” It is a must read.
See Bluffer’s guide:
http://tinyurl.com/252rtlt
The Bluffer’s guide showed up on in two Castle posts.
See Castle Argghhh:
http://tinyurl.com/2cwfcwa
As for Wikileaks and the Stuxnet worm this could be the poison worm that Obama is has swallowed.
Take it a grain of salt but, Debka says Prof. Majid Shahriari and Prof. Feredoun Abbassi-Davani were killed by bullets instead of bombs.
Hence, the Iranian security apparatus could have disposed of the inside people who spread the Stuxnet worm. That also would probably go for any deep moles in NK… Which means only a temporary setback for both nuclear projects – not good.
See Debka pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/2ehu7xd
There is the silver lining behind the cloud. The fact that evidence which is hard to refute about the incompetence and stupidity of the current Ruling Class of America has come to light may make it easier to throw them all down from power, and all their little children who work for the government and non-profits too.
Its much harder to ignore reality when it kicks you in the face with steel-toed boots rather than with fuzzy bunny slippers.
Here are the other links.
http://tinyurl.com/2fyg2xf
Wikileaks say Israel pushed for US to approve Strike
http://tinyurl.com/2wrgv6h
Could stuxnet mess with North Korea uranium plant?
The Hermit King’s (Defenses)
http://tinyurl.com/275g2ns
33 – Beverly “No one is surprised by the content of these leaks, least of all our allies and enemies.”
No not at all. We have been discussing the substance of these leaks for a year or more. There is a lot of unattributable banter combined with common sense out in the ether. But as you allude, what is lost in this network of gossip and uncertain things is the ‘plausible deniability’ that the state department once had. It is like pasting your cards to your forehead in a Texas Holdem game. I’d keep a secret with my neighbor before I shared a secret with this gossip-mill government that rewards this kind of treachery.
Let us not overlook Hillary in all this. It is as much about her DOS as it is about BHO.
beverly @ 33 asked:
“The other question I have is, who outed the Stuxnet strike?”
Refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
Relevant quote:
“The worm was first reported by the security company VirusBlokAda in mid-June 2010, and roots of it have been traced back to June 2009.”
VirusBlokAda is an anti-virus software vendor located in Belarus. IMHO, there’s nothing special about VirusBlokAda. Given that they’re in Belarus, they probably have a close relationship with garden variety “black hat” malware authors, e.g. the sort who sends you spam offering fake Viagra. My guess is that close relationship is what allowed VirusBlokAda to detect Stuxnet before anyone else. Stuxnet was extremely sophisticated and way beyond the capabilities of the typical virus/worm author. It was almost certainly the work of a government intelligence agency. The Wikipedia article claims that Israeli intelligence created Stuxnet. That’s plausible but a more likely scenario is that Israel cooperated in authoring Stuxnet with other government(s), e.g. the NSA and perhaps the Germans. I believe this because the authors of Stuxnet needed a detailed understanding of the PLCs manufactured by Siemens. If the German government approached Siemens, asking them about their PLCs then Siemens would have seen a potential sale and been very cooperative. However if Israel approached Siemens, it’s more likely Siemens would have clammed up and possibly alerted the Iranians.
Who are the leakers? This can’t all be Private Manning, can it?
Hey. I got an idea. Let’s abolish the State Department and replace it with a Facebook Page. In fact, why don’t we just borrow Sarah Palin’s? That way we could instantly regain credibility and stature on the world stage — and we would be starting out with all her friends!
But would she let us use her page? Or would we have to make her President first? That way, it just won’t be a tweet — it’ll be policy.
“Obama reminds me of a chorus line boy with a stiletto in his sole. All flat chest and high kick and beautiful smile and slick moves, until you move in on his turf.” This quote comes from the January 20, 2009 post at this link: http://www.velociworld.com/Velociblog/Oldvelocity/2009_01.html
Scroll down to 1/20/09-”The Gloves Are Apparently Off”-The post is a delicious disection of Obama’s lack of character and lack of class from day one-but too racy to post here.
Soros IS funding wikileaks –Glenn Beck is documenting the connections as we speak.
***
w/45 –is so right –just an hour ago Hillary had a long live statement and Q&A on tv –Foxbiz carried it live — get it, WW3 in the NE Pacific, Europe melting down, FBI busting Wall Street, Hezzbolah beiong connected to Mexican drug gangs, she discussed?
No, no, not a WORD about all that small shit, it was all about how she wasn’t REALLY embarrassed by the personal slurs against foreign diplomats in wikileaks –how she had ‘already been working the phones’ and her counterparts were saying ‘don’t worry about it –you should hear what WE say about YOU’ –then she smiles beamishly, as if it’s all a high school sophomore intrigue.
God help us
I would be very surpised if Wikileaks was all true. The SOP for disinformation is to bury the poison bill in 99% of sugar. The lie will be surrounded by a bodyguard of truth. This is a punch anybody can see coming a mile away.
What is worrisome is that the current crew’s reflexes are so poor that every punch, no matter how misbegotten and awkward is landing right on their button. These people shouldn’t be in the big time ring at all. They are so bad it is embarrassing.
What the Dems have to do is find some way to replace the boxers at the next bell or the whole match will degenerate into a circus.
30) W,
“One is to make some grand gesture by using a stick, which in the hands of a negative master, may result in it being placed ringingly on his own head.”
That’s what I’m concerned about; depending on what the “grand gesture” is (if he takes that route), the transitive property of “negative masters and grand stick gestures” can have the result of the stick being placed ringingly on all our heads.
wretchard @ 45 said:
“I would be very surprised if Wikileaks was all true. The SOP for disinformation is to bury the poison bill in 99% of sugar. The lie will be surrounded by a bodyguard of truth.”
As usual, Wretchard sees the subtle inner-truth. A traitor provided the information to Wikileaks. However it’s possible that the US government was feeding the traitor false information just before he was arrested.
I think this is being badly misread. I think this wikileaks thing is – as this north korea thing is – the result of QE2, which the Chinese regard as an economic attack, which it is. This private got all this stuff? Really – what do you think the Chinese have been collecting with all that cyber-espionage? If their targets are the White House, State Dept., and Pentagon, what if this is simply yet another prong of the counter-attack – or rather, another tactical blow in the attack-attack that QE2 was launched to counter.
And now wet work in Iran comes to the surface? Obama was put on his path to fail, friends. He is way out of his league and he knows it. He was put there to be a guarantee to appeal to the subverted part of this country, to sit atop the US gov’t, and fail with respect to our enemies’ designs. Watch how Europe is being encroached on by Russian energy, its more urgent diplomatic overtures about bilateral currencies and defense agreements and a “Common European Market between Lisbon and Vladivostok.” Think big! We are nuking the Chinese economy with monopoly money, and the Chinese are retaliating.
A Nobody @ 29…
“Smeg-ups of Urkle O’Bumble” byte XXIX
Available from the BBC…
oops. No, wait, They’re Under Sharia Law. No more Red Dwarf.
Soros has been publicly booming China as the the leader of the new world order –just search [ soros china new world order ]
Glenn Beck has just outed the money trail, Soros to wikileaks.
In short, Soros is almost certainly a Kremlin agent.
Now watch the new ‘food safety’ bill in congress –it too is Sorosd –Soros is inside Monsanto, and Monsanto wrote the bill, just as BP wrote the cap n trade ‘american power act’ bill. The new food bill will control food production, and will ultimately enable the gov’t to decide if you get any, or not. Ball’s in play, folks –all of Stalin’s tools, coming out of the house of horrors as we speak.
Dan,
Bingo!
If “Wikileaks” (TM) is a counterfeit “bleed” of “secrets” meant to embarrass America, then it is a scathing simulation of the Leftwing media’s own leaks during America’s (not Bush’s) Operation Iraqi Freedom, and every self-hating, quisling journo in the Western world should be forced to eat a heaped plate of it.
Tie this deft counterfeit with Angela Merkel’s recent public statements about mulitculturalism and Christianity, the outing of Iran’s military nuclear program via its gov’t's admission of key scientists’ assassinations, and the Republican’s recent gains in local government seats and I think you’ll see the outlines of a concerted Western pushback.
I just wish Chirac’d joined us earlier when Bush asked…we could have achieved so much between 2000 and now with France’s help.
Typo. Should be “hopelessly hoping”.
Re my comment about disinformation above (#45). I doubt the administration is using Wikileaks as a conduit for disinformation. There’s at least an even chance Wikileaks is a foreign intelligence operation. It is creating the legend, as it were, and conditioning the press to accept the “truth” of Wikileaks. This is how strategic deception is conducted, how Eisenhower foxed the German high command into thinking he would land elsewhere.
Then, having baited the line, they’ll put in the hook. And the press at least, will go for it without question.
The question for me is, what is worth this effort? It’s a big operation, so the payoff must be correspondingly large. Of course these speculations may all be paranoia. But who’s doing the due diligence on this? Who is connecting the Wikileaks dots? Are they letting Assange run the better to see who he’s connected to? Or is it the Three Stooges again?
I wish I could have confidence that US intel is playing a deep game; that somehow, somewhere the President has got a plan and will turn the tables in the end. This confidence can only be a faint hope at this stage.
Who’s minding the store?
Buddy,
Methinks Soros has hedged every single one of his investments. That’s the only way you can win every time.
(I do it in my investments…gold, stocks, bonds, real estate, paid jobs, family and social relations, etc with reasonable success. Each buy hedges against the other. Two lose but three gain, OR one gains BIG, while four lose kinda.)
I think that that’s the game Soros is playing – he spins multiple tops, and if one stops turning and falls down (read “the Euro”), well, there’re several others left spinning for him to enjoy playing with.
Caprice rules every King and Soros is not immune. His Russian associates must be aware of this.
He handles polities as if they were grains of sand off a wide beach – I wou)
Im-a-B missin’ the edit button!
-Steve
S/55, Janetless Napolitano has your edit button. She’ll give it back if you behave.
i’m guessing QE2 broke the dam. possibly china/russia have two plans: the nice, slower one, where the idiots take over USA and EU bankrupts itself into military impotence and energy dependency on Russia (i.e. convergence), and a 21st century version of guerrilla global war carried out without direct strikes quite yet.
consider that USA is stretched badly. korea adds serious pressure; iran adds serious pressure. the US economy is one strategic crisis away, or so, from MeltDown II. the EU is wobbling, almost waiting. the US electorate has shown that it does not like Obama’s crap; those who wish for another 6 years of US retreat and accomodation cannot possibly believe he will win a second term. notice russian conspiracy theories about an anti-obama plot. why would they seriously believe in an anti-obama plot, unless they were inspired to fear it because his continued tenure as commander in chief is one of the lynch pins in the strategy?
but the US Fed knows very well what it’s doing with QE2. China’s inflation is massive, despite reports. 12% food price increase this year with 20+% of economy/GDP related to food. And China knows the Fed knows. Probably they believed, not unreasonably, that now would be the time to see whether the USA “accepts” its “peaceful decline,” proportionate with China’s “peaceful” or “harmonious rise.” clearly it doesn’t accept it.
therefore, China and Russia must act. CNN just reported that Wikileaks’ next revelation will be emails from the executive level of a major american bank showing how horrible they are. did the gay private get that via sirpnet too? no.
And what were recent Russo-German discussions about common Russo-EU defense strategy, or Russia/China agreement to carry out bilateral trade in ruble/yuan FX – and why would we seriously agree to allow Russia – Russia! – into our missile defense strategy, as a concession to keep them supposedly helping us on Iran? Why does Iran – which can’t do anything right – even Have a nuclear program, or “Iranian” S-300s? And on and on and on….
S-510 is the bill, the Food Safety Modernization Act, a cloture vote expected tonight or tomorrow. We’re late to the party on this, I’m afraid. But Soros has 1.2 mm shares of Monsanto, and a guy inside Monsanto who authored the bill, and Harry Reid pushing the cloture ahead as hard as he can.
The bill is your Commodity Futures Modernization Act all over again, but on food, not credit default swaps.
When you read what it does, your jaw will drop. Better call your senators to-night –unless we want to have to repeal it in January 2013 –if there IS a Jan 2013 –feh, gaahhh
***
ic/52; –no typo –just apt for doomed nonsense –
Here’s a good summation – as usual, to understand strange and conspiratorial things, just read what the Russians say, and then where they say “USA” or “Zionist-Imperialists” or “U.S. secret service” or whatever, just read “the Kremlin,” “communists” and “KGB.” It really is that easy.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/1129/WikiLeaks-Russians-smell-anti-Obama-conspiracy
Are the US and her allies the targets of Wiki Leaks?
or is it the other way around.
I accept that there is the third and very likely possibility of deliberate disinformation, as Wretchard points out, well wrapped in tasty, but ultimately low grade truth – much like feeding the cat its worm pill mashed up in tuna.
On the face of it, wikileaks should be an ideal site for principled people who find wrong doing so endemic that there is no obvious way to blow the whistle locally.
That should be enough alone for any ardently bureaucratic mind to want rid of it, and to want a tighter grip on the net in general.
This current leak provides a constitutional basis for the US authorities to grab hold of the internet and squeeze it hard – National Defence.
Of course the fourth possibility (and Wretchard, you are well, well ahead of me in spotting it) is a plain eff-up.
The reason that the wikileaks cat is munching tuna may well have nothing at all to do with slipping it either worm pills or poison pills, it’s just that some fool left the tuna where the thieving cat could get it.
Wretchard wrote: “What the Dems have to do is find some way to replace the boxers at the next bell or the whole match will degenerate into a circus.”
Too late, too late! That ship has sailed.
Look at Pelosi – they, as a party, have made the conscious choice to ride their Titanic world view and ideology all the way to the bottom. And they’re busy chopping holes in the bottoms of all the lifeboats to make sure no one else gets off, either.
Any Belmontes wanna look into their crystal ball and tell us what the world might look like one year from now?
This latest Wikileak brings to mind the opening of the Soviet archives after the fall of that Evil Empire.
The Archives revealed that what the USSR’s worst detractors thought of that demolished behemoth were true: It WAS an Evil Empire, and it did have a lot of cultured westerners working for it as spies. It also vindicated Joe McCarthy’s underlying case, though maybe not his methods. It was all very sobering and enlightening to this ex liberal Democrat.
All the bad things about Communism were true, it was revealed.
Now we get something similar with these leaks. The hard-nosed realists on foreign policy issues are being shown to be correct in their assumptions, and the world’s elite has been shown to be a collection of cowardly, dithering frauds.
“Confusion” as a stage of ”grey terror” –or, more hits w/ alt spelling, “gray terror” –
–what could be more confusing than ‘is wikileaks the international left attacking USA for Obama’s benefit (see Keith ‘national defence’), or is it –the other way around?
The only sure thing is that PFC Bradley Manning, now in the brig at Quantico, is probably talking to the DOJ…hmmm, er, ah.
Of course, thru his lawyer, who is also the lawyer –pro bono dontcha know –for Soros’ “Open Society Institute”.
unable to even protect his own secrets
The point is once the secrets have been stolen, the perp should be vaporized. Instead we get Eric Blowfish Holder threatening to whap somebody on the wrist with a ruler, if they can find the right person whoever that might be (omg) and get advance clearance from the JAG office, the Belgian Waffle Company, and the New York Times that whapping is within the Geneva Conventions.
I presume we could fry every server in Iceland with the proper secret Cisco code issued from an NSA blackberry, if POTUS permitted. And Assange could wake up every morning minus one more toe, and have no hint what happened to it. But, Obambus must be echoing what Nixon said about something rather different: that would be wrong.
Josh, maybe months of warning just wasn’t enough.
Buddy,
Janet knows I’m naughty. Not surprised she swiped my edit knob.
‘Cuz Lord know what Janet knows…
Dan’s got the “there’s more here than everyone’s noticing” theme, and ditto’s my main point. This Wikileaks ™ thang’s got a lot of sharp edges. In general, anyone playing with it’s likely to get cut. I hope PJM’s wearing leather gloves when they do.
I don’t want to encourage copycats but, Assange’s act delivers the ultimate magicians’ “prestige.” By sole virtue of his giving his act he is awarded a sort of “Plame-ian” diplomatic immunity. Being a public bad-boy makes him untouchable: take him out with a predator drone and he’ll be a beloved martyr for the cause, but take hm seriously and we ought to just roll up the republic, give up our guns and go home to our farms. Which is just where the globe’s Mugabes’d like us.
The food thing is worrying, Buddy, and I’m active in stimulating local agriculture in Arizona for this reason. As Americans become more and more reliant on imported, packaged foods, we risk delinking our stomachs from “nation,” “soil,” and “terra,” and we begin to link them instead to a sort of UN-brokered redistributive scheme thru-which food magically appears in foil-wrapped canisters on a shining jet airplane. A global cargo cult of dietitians angling for a new Oil-for-Food program, exactly when “Global Warming” falls on its face: who’d a thunk?
We’re looking at a stark choice in the near future: Will we settle for distant umbilica delivering food of questionable quality from who knows where to our plates…or locally grow’d chickens, peas and carrots on our plates? This ain’t a Republican or Democrat(ic) thing. With the GWOT raging all around us, any monkey with a grain of common sense knows the right answer.
months of warning
I’m not sure the actual contents of any of the leaks is worth a penny it’s the principles involved. So waiting until the event doesn’t bother me much, a quick kill and not much gets out anyway.
Bottom line: Fatlip beclowns himself yet again.
I don’t believe the damage to the US is permanent as long as the next POTUS quickly demonstrates different behaviors.
This looks kind of interesting, from the Market Ticker:
Wikileaks: It Could Take Down a Bank Or Two
Buddy, Soros is not a Kremlin agent. Think Georgia and Ukraine. It would have been a kabuki of biblical proportions if your contention were true.
Nope. He is his own agent. He may be connected with like minded people (actually he is), but boyz in Kremlin are opponents. Not much by ideological differences, rather by their idea what their turf is. Think Crisps and Bloods. Same shit, just different tribe colors.
That he funds whatever mischief is conceivable, that is true. Why would he sit on his billions? Better to put it to some use. He can buy a lot of puppets.
BTW, opinion… Obozo’s incompetence has been know by power that be–it’s a feature, not a bug. It is just being put to a good use, as they see it. The plausible deniability potential of it–even Machiavelli would have been impressed.
1,2,7,15
Deliberate destruction or incompetant bumbling? Two key points.
As far as I know, there has never been a successful socialist society. Some European countries may be the most successful socialist endeavors of all time, but Europe is hitting the wall as we speak. How much evidence is required? Obama and his controllers surely know this. Of course, the politburos always do quite well, don’t they.
Second, with even a cursory review of history, it’s hard to miss the skyrocketing of wealth and freedom that was triggered by the American Revolution. Obama and his masters also know that. Of course, greedy Americans and like-minded capitalists everywhere are hard to control, aren’t they.
The Obama / Soros criminals know full well what works for the world and what doesn’t. But they aren’t interested in what’s good for humanity, they are interested in what’s good for themselves.
There is no doubt the all-out attack on Americ and freedom is deliberate.
62/rwr
It’s gonna be round with white fluffy clouds.
My apologies, gentlemen. I cannot get excited about Mr. Assange’s urge to publish. The only thing we have learned for sure is that this would never have happened under the old military rule of “No Homosexuals”.
What is interesting is how the (as predicted) feckless behavior and even more feckless response by Obama & his Buddies is being assessed by so many players around the globe. North Korea and Iran, of course. But also China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela. To say nothing of the deep enemies in Western Europe. Lots of people with their own agendas, all wondering — Do we stand back and let those crazy Yanks just collapse? Or is it time to give them a push, before someone else claims the credit?
Interesting times!
I was wondering. If Hillary wants to save her hide, she had better find a way to resign and find the nearest lifeboat. This ship is going down and fast.
OK, but what if he just disappeared one day… … … and no one ever took “credit” for it?
Laws are on the books which have many means. If the Wikileaks data is truly classified, then nothing stops the US government from confiscating every potential medium that has an electron-chain or ink-chain to these documents. Nothing stops the US government from arresting every person it can find who was involved in mishandling classified data. Such persons are potentially liable for penalties ranging from fines, to imprisonment, to execution.
The New York Times has published highlights from 220 supposedly classified documents, and it’s promising to run a series of highlights from 250,000 more. If it has published anything classified, then its printing presses have become classified. So have its sales kiosks on every street and store. Every computer involved in the production of the print copy has become classified, from the editors’ desk down to the printer’s console. As have every monitor, keyboard, mouse, cd/rom drive, usb device, or any concievable peripheral connected to any machine housing classified data of the United States. This includes every webserver that housed any classified data and any and all hardware attached to those machines, monitoring those machines, or providing a gateway to those machines.
Every person involved in the production and the decisions regarding the compromise of classified material is punishable, from copy boy to editor, is subject to penalties ranging from tremendous fines to execution.
Any American president who wants to can test this. Shoot ‘em all and let God, or the ridiculous Supreme Court sort it out if that’s what it takes.
US military leaks -> US State Dept leaks -> ??? Los Alamos leaks? Industrial or financial leaks that threaten national security? US Presidents do retain the power to make their opponents bleed.
Bush backed down from forcing the issue routinely against the beltway’s “Shadow Warriors”. His calculation was that the risk was too high.
They’ve raised the stakes on Obama now. Will respond with a tenth of the force available to him? Eyes are watching.
My bet is, he doesn’t do much. America’s enemies, to my horror, probably are making that same bet.
twoby/70; –you may be right –but you have to admit two things, that as Machiavellian as it would appear, a Soros could enter a ‘color’ revolution and simply push it too far, and activate the bear borderer’s autoimmune system. Under Soros’ (at least partial) guidance Ukraine is back in orbit, and Georgia –after Soros egged on a fierce stance toward Putin, is now a double-amputee rump state convalescing in the burn ward –and shot thru with terrified and shaky citizens –likely on their way back into orbit ‘finlandized’, like Ukraine.
The other thing is that his stagey NGO show of anti-kremlinism, unless the fix is in, would’ve presumably long-since put him where the 20 KIA journalists (19 cases still ‘open’) –notably Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya –are today.
But i do realize that’s pretty sketchy circumstantial reasoning –but then most trials that convict do so on circumstantial evidence –plus this is a blog, thank goodness not a grand jury –and Putin & Soros neither one would have so many paranoids watching them if they weren’t so busy creating so many paranoids –
***
72. Walt
62/rwr
It’s gonna be round with white fluffy clouds.
…and intermittent reign showers
i agree with 2×4, i don’t think soros is an agent of anyone either. i can’t really appreciate the soros-is-satan theme, although probably just because i don’t pay attention.
the thing is, is, afghanistan is not winnable because pakistan will not do anything about it, and if pakistan really is truly “obsessed with India,” beyond all apparent possible sense, then pakistan is also obsessed with chinese alliance, which has been an intimate part of pakistan’s basic alliance structure since at least 1950. why else would ISI really be helping/sponsoring/whatevering al qaeda, haqqani, and the whole smorgasbord? to prevent afghanistan from becoming pro-indian? is that a reasonable strategy? are the pashto going to be better overlords and guarantors of pakistan’s western flank in light of afghanistan’s atomized little hatreds? how could the pashto ever be turned to help india against their “pashto brothers” over the line in pashto pakistan? what is all this nonsense?
obviously the target is USA. the sponsor is China. their sponsor – since the Chinese really aren’t very creative – is the Kremlin. tie the USA down in Bullshitistan and Arabia; launch mass active measures campaigns, a la Vietnam, to discredit and isolate the Right. that’s not conspiracy theory, that’s part of the f—-ing cultural Script since about 1965 in the minds of about 150 million Americans, who believe they merely think that way because they are kinder and wiser and better. then help knock down the american economy, which dozens of people could see was having a massive real estate problem – don’t believe the “he was the only one who called the housing crisis” b.s. i read these shrieking idiots for a living once upon a time.
anyway look. do you think Mao and Deng just decided – MAO – that the USA was where it’s at because those stupid post-Stalinist Soviets were too conservative and not revolutionary enough? right – the obvious choice is to ally yourself in good faith to the United States of Anglo-Saxon America….
and who do you think is turning Mexico into a sudden narcostate? UC santa barbara undergraduates and their pot allowances?
“one generation of americans teaches another generation of americans that they are living at the peace time. False. the united states is in a state of undeclared total war against the enemies of this system.”
My other question is why isn’t this Manning fellow, the supposed leaker, facing a hangman’s noose? Were the Rosenbergs the last time we executed convicted traitors? Anybody know? If this doesn’t qualify as treason against our country then I don’t know what does.
Kin,
Apathy in the face of a conundrum is natural. Particularly when the conundrum is framed thusly: a mad hatter yells out “state secrets” from on top a soapbox in the town Commons-whatcha gonna do about it!?
I’m with ya…giving this crier our attention begins to dent our own credibility after awhile.
But others aren’t as distant from it, nor so insulated. Tonight, I think Pinch Sulzberger’s ulcer, quiet for the past eight years of “Bushlied,” has begun to bleed again. And Eason Jordon has doubled-up his nightly tonic of absinthe “just in case” il ne
peut pas compter les moutons. And Dan Rather is lying awake staring at the ceiling fan go ’round-and-round-and-round-and-round-and…
God! Maybe it’s just tonight’s Crema pinot noir talking, but I’m thinking this wikileaks ™ thang might just help our team.
St. Paul said in the latter days ,there would be perilous times . One of the reasons he pegged was that there would be traitors like Julian A**hole. I’d like to imagine what George Patton would do to a pasty faced treasonous weasel like this.
To answer #62, I’m no seer, but I plan to hold on tight to my dear wife and children and friends and church and keep some food on hand and the powder dry.
80. steveaz
God! Maybe it’s just tonight’s Crema pinot noir talking, but I’m thinking this wikileaks ™ thang might just help our team.
That’s a good point. It can’t help but make more people cynical about the ruling class elites.
Revealing military secrets is one thing, but this latest dump seems to embarrass the State Department more than anyone, and I’m not terribly upset by that. The State Department has long been a rat’s nest of Communist and Arab sympathizers, as well as cynical opportunists who seem to run their own foreign policy regardless of who’s in the White House.
After reading the Wiki-leaks concerning China and NoKo one can only see both China and NoKo are playing us like a well tuned instrument, they know no American Administration has the balls to move militarily unless it is a absolute major casualty event so they jerk us along, one gives out hope of a collapse and the other uses threats to get pay offs while the stupid American leaders keep waiting for the “supposed” self-implosion… Yup, them chicoms got our number and they play us better then the Russians every did… One thing this wiki-leaks is doing is giving great feedback confirmation to the puppet masters. I really think we are in for a very dark cold night…
s/80; but I’m thinking this wikileaks thang might just help our team –ouch, there’s that migraine again –is our team against the American gov’t? Then, aren’t we on the same side as Kim Jong Il? No of course not –our team is on the same side as the USS George Washington and fleet. So, Obama is on the same side as Kim Jong Il?
***
‘nuther funny thang; the Sino/Russo currency deal –starts –well amps –a trend against the viability of the Dollar. But wait –arent the Chinese our fellow Dollar-protectors? Remember? They got so many of ‘em they wouldn’t do anything that would hurt the Dollar?
83. CharlesWhite
But exposing all that to the American people is not necessarily a bad thing, is it?
It’s also giving feedback confirmation to American voters.
Timing is everything. Note that this did not occur before the recent election, yet apparently Assange has had this data since well before it. When did he actually leak the data to his selected media outlets and how long did they sit on it? Who is playing whom?
“Now the Republic’s enemies must be asking themselves: where is the bottom to these people’s incompetence? Can they do anything at all? How safe is it to rush ahead? Why don’t we try?”
It’s as if this administration has simply forgotten the centuries old concept of encoding diplomatic messages.
Surely at some time, some adult somewhere must have suggested software encryption for time-sensitive low sensitivity stuff, hardware-based encryption for time-urgent sensitive stuff, and the pouch for the rest
Even assuming that Clinton and her associates at State reject encryption – perhaps because, as Secretary Hull once famously put it “Gentlemen don’t read each others mail” – it seems to me that had the concept of preventive action against terrorism which had informed our policy under Bush been operative, this attack would likely have been mitigated or avoided entirely. At the very least, we would not be seen today as so completely helpless.
cfbleachers:
Now THAT is classic and just so true. And that is so stolen.
As someone said above, this wikileaks thing has many sharp edges. It is hard to tell who is going to get cut just the same as it is hard to tell if Obumbler is dangerous or just daft.
Whether Julian A hole is a direct agent of Soros, or China or Russia I just don’t know. But I do know the hard core leftist’s natural inclination is to monkeywrench and create chaos whenever possible, and then exploit the chaos. They just can’t help themselves. Old habits die hard. And chaos is what Soros, China and Russia all thrive on. Now is this chaos created by Obama to seize control of the internet a la Keith, – a chilling thought indeed. My first guess is that Buraq just isn’t that smart- but his masters maybe.
Buddy @ 84 “‘nuther funny thang; the Sino/Russo currency deal –starts –well amps –a trend against the viability of the Dollar. But wait –arent the Chinese our fellow Dollar-protectors? Remember? They got so many of ‘em they wouldn’t do anything that would hurt the Dollar?”
Tremendous point. Kinda shows the true aim of the Chinese, don’t it? A really paranoid thought would be that the Obama/Bernacke/Geithner traitor troika under orders from their masters have set the American economy up for a fatal Sino/Russo kill shot.
er/86, lessee, how many things can blow up in a week? Off top of head, in no order,
Norks shell Yeonpyeong Isle
USS George Washington leads fleet into harm’s way and is there now
Sino-Russo currency/energy/economic/security pact
Ireland goes belly up with Pigs to pay soon
rioters in Italy, France, England, the Hun arises (green eyeshades, no stahlhelm, whew!) in the heart of Europe
FBI/SEC begins systematic raiding of financial house and hedge funds under limitless (?) broadening of insider trading gray area
TSA scandal should’ve crescendo’d over Thanksgiving
DHS starts shutting domains without court order
Dems as much as state that year to end with no congressional action on expiring tax cuts, estate tax (if you got dough or a small biz, die before Dec 31!)
wikileaks makes mockery of USA diplomacy (granted, the Empire Superparty’s Dem/Pub wings get bloodied, not the Tea Party!)
Stuxnet sleuth assassinated in Iran
What’d i miss, and…what’s next?
The thing that seems suspicious about this release is the timing. Right now, the lame-duck Congress is trying to ram through a mass of unpopular legislation. What better way to distract public attention from what Congress is doing than revealing a big, juicy pile of diplomatic cables. Every news story about this “leak” is another news story not about what Congress is doing, which is far more dangerous to the United States than any revelation in these “leaks.”
I think we’re being played.
Unsk/89, precisely my worry, what i was trying to get at in #90. DJA was off nearly 200 at one point today, a lot of it over the bottomless well FBI/SEC has uncovered. Seeing as how they’re executing on info they’ve presumably had a long time, why start it up in the week of all the other stuff? Is Satan stage-managing the post Thanksgiving ‘make the Christmas Spirit’ week? Or someone? Really makes one nervous about the Yellow Sea.
A pitiful helpless giant.
Look, this is bad. This is so embarassing. This is diplomats caught on tape being everything but diplomatic. This is so low rent.
There’s no way in hell the White House planned this or wished this. This is a horrorshow.
Bury the geopolitick mad scientist angle where this is some kind of deep game afoot. That isn’t happening, in fact it’s not possible.
This is a straight up, unadulterated, unleavened fiasco for the United States Foreign Service, everyone in it, and reverberating up to the twin heads of US Foreign Policy: the SecState and the POTUS.
Obama ought to be schooled to shelve his travelogue, hang tight, and concentrate on puting Humpty Dumpty back together again. One day at a time, here, at home, making an effort to understand the needs of American business and seeking to advance our economy.
Stop the madness and the tomfoolery with various damn “reset buttons”, it’s over on that front. Bury the idiocy of the regal and high cost undisciplined jaunts, all baked in failure, that God knows who sent you on, Obama.
Get to work, asshole. Here at home. You’ve left yourself no other option. Don’t touch anything once you pass the door, either. Asshole.
ot and attention Charles:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19779-green-machine-bugs-and-sparks-turn-salty-water-fresh.html
take brackish water, add sewage, bacteria, and a light voltage (from generated hydrogen), get 80% desalinated water almost free.
sounds good, but I wonder a bit at the rate.
88. RagnarD
Speaking of Wikileaks and sharp edges catching the unwary, there is another angle to this sorry mess that bothers me. There has been a lot of good discussion and speculation about the diplomatic/international ramifications of this debacle, but there could also be some nasty domestic consequences.
Whether through abject incompetence or malevolent complicity, most here agree that Obama and his administration are unlikely to respond positively or effectively to these cascading crises. However, in the spirit of “never let a crisis go to waste”, and the building pressure to appear to be “doing something” it might seen by Obama and Co. as an opportunity to use it against their domestic enemies.
Perhaps they might use it as an excuse to rachet up their ongoing assaults on the domestic front against the freedoms and access to information by American citizens, e.g seizing or shutting down websites and seizing the servers of “subversive” organizations/individuals (aka groups which oppose their political and cultural agendas). All in the name of national security, of course.
From another perspective, it is natural and common for thugs and punks, even those in charge of governments, when confronted by challenges from external enemies against whom they are incompetent, ineffectual or powerless, to attempt to demonstrate their power by using it against those over whom they can control.
So when foreign opponents are making fools of you, just tax, sue, surveil, regulate, prosecute and financially subjugate your own citizens…
53) W
“I wish I could have confidence that US intel is playing a deep game”
Unfortunately, I don’t think there will be a “Midway water distillation out of commission” message this time.
Josh,
Interesting article. Penn state has been doing a lot of work
on using sewage to create electricity. This is an interesting
variation.
Wikileaks cables reveal China ‘ready to abandon North Korea’
Leaked dispatches show Beijing is frustrated with military actions of ‘spoiled child’ and increasingly favours reunified Korea
………….
Interesting article. But my guess is that the PLA has the final say and they won’t let anything happen to the Norks.
81 Trangbang68,
I much prefer calling him A**flange, as some one, I believe, on this wonderful site referred to him after the first wikileaks “dump”. Keep up your good postings.
Ned
Twenty Years After the Fall of Communism
(Nyquist’s latest –wish the NYT was printing his columns –not to mention PJM’s Algonquin Round Table’s columns –might level the playing field a bit)
***
Why is it that Wikileaks has been able to publish all kinds of classified State Dept. documents, but Obama’s Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard Law transcripts still remain confidential? Maybe we should have a university registrar’s office consult with the US government to assure that secrets remain secret? I’m just wondering, that’s all
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/110597/
I think Julian Assange simply relishes his rape of American secrets. I don’t think he has any more of an agenda than that.
Sure, he may claim he is fighting for human rights. But then, when a college freshman going on a panty raid proclaims his altruism, it is just blather.
One really sick aspect about Julian Assange’s viciousness toward the USA is that he will effectively turn US government agencies into a more secretive and paranoid bunch of control freaks than has ever existed in previous eras. Just as revolutions and attempted revolutions tend to spawn a government apparatus designed to discourage revolutions, I think Wikileaks data raids will lead to more secrecy in the future, not less.
Julian Assange is a cyber-bully, and a classically feminine cyber-bully at that. Such a bully relishes “outing” other people and publishing embarrassing secrets. He likes to hurt people. He enjoys it. Hurting other people is his idea of fun.
The funny thing is about Julian Assange is that he may have less to fear from the United States than from other aggrieved parties. Any self-respecting Arab tyrant undermined by Wikileaks would likely send out assassins to kill Julian Assange in the most public manner imaginable. Any Afghan who finds a way to kill Julian Assange would probably become a national hero! Even China has a vested interest in killing Julian Assange as an object lesson to anybody who would even think about leaking Chinese documents.
Julian Assange is creating powerful enemies. Not all of them are American. Some of the enemies Julian Assange is creating are every bit as cruel as his is.
something else for the Week of the Hair Raising:
Taiwan, a Kuomintang official shot in the head mounting a podium to make a campaign speech.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/violent-incident-mars-status-quo-affirming-taiwan-election/
Wretchard @ 24
this administration has never understood diplomacy, any more than they understand the proper use and purpose of military strength.
Obama’s and all nthe rest have always made it clear that they view diplomacy as an alternative to military strength or power-based realpolitick. They do not and will not ever grasp that it’s all on a continuum— Clausewitz’s aphorism the war is politics by other means really means that war is diplomacy by other emans—a strong military and the generally recognized will to use it is an essential underpinning to great power diplomacy… and with good diplomacy supported by military strength and will, the odds of having to actually use that military are reduced.
This crowd is not intelligent or educated enough to get this. To them, indeed, to most liberals of my acquaintance (and I live in Hyde Park, Chicago, and know a few!!), their understanding of such issues is at the level of Mommy telling them when they were 6, “Fighting never solved anything.” They heard and internailized such sentiments in a way that Mommy never intended… she just thought she was keeping her 6-year old out of senseless fights. But thes idiots take it literally and apply it universally, as if it is infinitely scalable.
I am NOT exaggerating.
–not to whip a tired mule, but Glenn Beck tonite put a dozen names up on his magno-board, all deeply involved with both Soros and the wikileaks saga. The people around Manning, enabling, protecting, supporting, defending, ARE Obama’s left wing!
If Soros is Obama’s ally, and we know he is, and is also wikileaks’ ally, and i urge you to search on Glenn Beck’s show of today and see if you can find the first half of today’s show, then we can assume that somehow, Obama’s admin wants these wikileak dumps.
Cloward-Piven going for baroque, as it were.
The answer to the riddle of the sphinx was ‘man’ –but the real riddle was “man” –the answer was the question, the question was the riddle, the riddle was the answer.
Yes, Open Society Institute has issued a public statement, saying that it takes no position on wikileaks. Well, inoculation for those who require it is easy enough.
Anyhoo, i’m not trying to sell anything –just saying that you should look at the first half of today’s GB show –and then do your speculatin’ from the evidence.
Shirley there’s something here that’s doable on yer ‘puter.
Not necessarily, Buddy. It might be better to say that Soros and Obama use one another – Progressives at that level are never really allies, more like adversaries temporarily working together against someone else.
Plus, things like this have a habit of running out of control. Soros may have started something that ran farther or in a different direction than he intended and he’s having trouble reasserting control. That’s one of the drawbacks to thuggish empires – typically you’re hiring from the shallow end of the gene pool and any more-capable-than-average folks you hire are probably suffering from some mental problem or other. Your minions are either loyal dolts or mentally unstable. Plus the Left is a revivalist religion in form and plenty of the converted eventually find the High Priests insufficiently pious. Or is that Prius these days?
Ultimately, this is a disaster for Obama because it lowers his standing even farther with the one set of people who can chuck him out on his ear – the American swing voters. Well, okay, the two sets of people who can chuck him out – the voters and the military, if he somehow decides not to listen to the voters.
Maybe Soros is happy about that, maybe he’s pounding his desk and shouting at some flunky to “fix this!” Dunno. But the pace of things sure seems to be accelerating.
Consider this a redundant comment that was edited out of existance.
However I will add a riddle for us to ponder: Jimmy Carter’s time as President left the liberals so ashamed of who they are that to this day they flinch from the name of liberal. What will happen both to the Left’s reputatation and the Left’s self-image and morale before this administration is voted out of office in 2012? 2008 gave the libs everything they thought they wanted and now it is all turning sour in their hands. Like a Greek tragedy without any subtlety. The effective death of a major political party can also be a source of peril for us since I’ve seen very little to persuade me that the Libertarians are necessarily ready for the prime time and they are the only third party I can think of who might be able to fill the vacuum that would be left by the implosion of the Democrats. ^_^;
Eggplant is right. Obama is *not* trying to ruin America anymore than Daley was trying to ruin Chicago. Why should he? He regards it as his personal milk cow for money and patronage. To think otherwise is to assume that Chicago Democrats have the ability to think beyond lunch and that is a very *bad* assumption. His trouble is that he is trying to run America as though it were Chicago with the rest of the world being nothing more than the surrounding Cook Counry suburbs and he is being taught the hard way that both America and the world are a little bit bigger than that.
Having wrote that, I will now give us a few words of cheer by remembering something Machiavell wrote in the Discourses of Livy: A weak ruler who follows a weak ruler is doomed, he opined, but a weak ruler who follows a strong ruler will survive and the state will survive that weak ruler provided that the next one is strong. RWE’s words about Khadaffi reminded me of that and that we have been there before. Think of is as the game of musical chairs. When the music of the current weak ruler stops whoever among our enemies is still causing trouble will be the one out of position and in trouble. This is something gur enemies would be wise to keep in mind and I think the smarter ones might do just that. ^_~
good points, JMH –plausible. 1+1=2 but there’s a bunch of 1′s out there
TB/107; i’ve got an idea –let’s drive the Dems to the center a bit, if we can, and let the far left be that third party. Then we could crash their convention and just beat the living shit out of ‘em
um, metaphorically of course winkedy wink
If I had to guess I would say that the source of the leaks was someone in the NSA. The information was not encrypted? Sure…I can believe that for about 3 milliseconds. And the encryption for all that data can be broken by a script kiddy on his home computer in any semblance of real time? Get real.
Is it merely a coincidence that this revelation corresponds with the recent election that gave the US House of Representatives to the Republicans? Maybe. But it seems to me that this will provide a lot of ammunition to run a lot of snakes out of Foggy Bottom and the government in general.
That’s a good thing.
The revelations may be damaging in the short term, but in the long race its probably for the best. And even if there is disinformation in the content the 99% sugar can still taste sweet.
109. buddy larsen & 106. JMH
1+1=2 but there’s a bunch of 1’s out there
Don’t forget the Zero. We could also view these possibilities as some of the unintended consequences (metaphorically speaking) of electing to “divide by Zero” (aka Teh One). For all the responsible parties, hindsight may one day show that factoring in that operation proved to be a force multiplier for chaos.
What many people don’t seem to realize is the extent of the power of the US House of Representatives to impeach. It extends to all civil officers of government for crimes committed in office, including “high crimes and misdemeanors.” And impeachment does not mean conviction; it is up to the Senate to do that. But impeaching any government official just requires a bare majority in the House.
But in the present political context, does that matter? If the House started impeaching various and sundry of the entrenched scum who currently hold high offices it truly wouldn’t matter if the Senate convicts them or not. The charges would be aired in public, and if the Democrat dominated Senate wishes to cover for them that too will be done in public with possible terminal damage to political careers.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
111. Tcobb
The source of the leaks is a homosexual Army private;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning
What he seems to have done is install a back door into sensitive US data bases. So the Wikileaks people can go in and get what they want, when they want. Until that backdoor is found and removed, there will be more. I have no doubt that NSA is burning the midnight OIL looking for the back door. Given the size of the problem ( almost every system the USA has) the only way to be sure is to trash and burn EVERY US government computer.
Manning needs to be leaned against a wall and shot. I doubt that the fag lobby will allow that to happen, but one can hope. Meanwhile, with DADT a fond memory, we can expect more oddity from the mentally ill members of our military.
Tcobb, that is why the issue of the Obominations birth certificate is critical. Congress has the power to force the State of Hawaii to allow access to the Birth Certificate. Once that alleged BC is examined by forensic documents examiners for validity, then we will know. If the O isn’t a natural born US citizen ( a different thing then a US citizen) he will be both impeached AND convicted. ANY Senator that doesn’t vote to convict can be charged with treason and impeached in turn. Given impeachment or Biden ( a good bumper sticker?) I suspect getting 67 votes to convict won’t be that difficult.
That brings a host of other possibilities in play. How legitimate is ANY legislation signed by an illegal President? Will the Supreme Court Justices selected by the Obomination have to go thru again? Will they make it? Will Biden even nominate them? Lots of fun things here.
I suspect that what will happen is the Republicans will cut a deal. It’s better to have the O on a short leash as POTUS then Biden with blood in his eye and a pack of howling moonbats at his back.
Regardless, it sets up the 2012 cycle as one where the blood is hip deep.
114. stoicheion:
Marc Thiessen agrees with you, but Manning has only been charged with mishandling documents so far!
A firing squad would seriously chill future dreamers, but that World of Crime and Punishment was long ago, and very far away from today’s PC “Thought.”
China is busily figuring out sources and methods as we sleep.
Obama administration is weak in the face of WikiLeaks
By Marc A. Thiessen
With this latest release, Assange may now have illegally disclosed more classified information than anyone in American history. He is in likely violation of the Espionage Act and arguably is providing material support for terrorism. But unlike leakers who came before him, Assange has done more than release information; he has created a virtual system for the ongoing collection and dissemination of America’s secrets. The very existence of WikiLeaks is a threat to national security. Unless something is done, WikiLeaks will only grow more brazen – and our unwillingness to stop it will embolden others to reveal classified information using the unlawful medium Assange has built.
WikiLeaks’ first disclosures caught the Obama administration by surprise. But how does the administration explain its inaction in the face of WikiLeaks’ two subsequent, and increasingly dangerous, releases? In both cases, it had fair warning: Assange announced what kinds of documents he possessed, and he made clear his intention to release them.
The Obama administration has the ability to bring Assange to justice and to put WikiLeaks out of business. The new U.S. Cyber Command could shut down WilkiLeaks’ servers and prevent them from releasing more classified information on President Obama’s orders. But, as The Post reported this month, the Obama administration has been paralyzed by infighting over how, and when, it might use these new offensive capabilities in cyberspace. One objection: “The State Department is concerned about diplomatic backlash” from any offensive actions in cyberspace, The Post reported. Well, now the State Department can deal with the “diplomatic backlash” that comes from standing by helplessly, while WikiLeaks releases hundreds of thousands of its most sensitive diplomatic cables.
Because of its failure to act, responsibility for the damage done by these most recent disclosures now rests with the Obama administration. Perhaps this latest release crosses a line that will finally spur the administration to action. After all, the previous disclosures harmed only our war efforts. But this latest disclosure is a blow to a cause Democrats really care about – our diplomatic efforts. Maybe now, finally, the gloves will come off. Or is posting mournful tweets about the damage done to our national security the best this administration can do?
buddy larsen @ 105: Cloward-Piven going for baroque?
Oh dear. It’s the Revolution. Well, that would explain pretty much all of it. I’ve never been persuaded that we’re looking at incompetence, no matter how many intelligent people claim that we are. Obama may not be the “sharpest knife in the drawer”, but he’s the one in putative charge, the one they’ve got, and there are multiple ways to sack Rome. Opportunity comes a-knockin’ on lots of doors, and these wizards are extraordinary opportunists. I don’t know where Julian Assange figures into it, but it may not matter. They want to bring the West down, and unless something extraordinary happens, they are going to succeed. Just stop and consider the numbers of irons they have in the fire. If only half of them get hot enough, we are well and truly cooked.
The problem with the Republicans and their erstwhile election victories is that now, as ever, they have no idea what kind of fight they are in.
So a homosexual lets people in through the backdoor–too ironic.
More seriously, how is it possible the file system just lets people download so many files en masse? I know Wretchard wrote a post a while back saying any smart database manager will install defenses against unintended access–such as returning a request that selects the entire database’s customer list with social security and credit card numbers. If the volume exceeds anything a normal person would be expected to access it should trigger an alarm. Are there ways to fool the database? Or were these just files on a server? Even then there can be logs of what was accessed when that trigger alarms. Otherwise it sounds like some really inept security.
Towering #108:
I think that rather than thinking he is going to destroy the USA, Obama is possessed by the same kind of arrogance about the country’s strengths that has driven most of the Anti-War Left for 50 years now.
They see the USA as so immense and so powerful that you can’t really screw it up. And given that fact why should they have to put up with some war so far away that sounds horrible and that may even personally inconvenience them? Why should they not get everything that they want and always have things their way? Why should brown not be called blue and blue called pink? After all it’s still all going to work Okay, isn’t it?
It is a natural extension of the spoiled child attitude of “What do you mean we don’t have money to buy me that new toy? Just write a check if you don’t have the cash in your wallet.”
They don’t understand how the world really works and they think that Design Margin in infinite, because it seems that it has always been so. And if you believe that, then the endless series of temper tantrums they have been engaging in makes perfect sense
And as for Wikileaks, I think that Obama is so angry about it because he did not know all that stuff, either.
wcwc – what’s been reported is that all this guy had to do was walk into his job with a rewritable flash drive, and all files were open to him. As you said “any SMART database manager”…
What this shows is that our entire government, from top to bottom, is on autopilot. No one at a high level is even bothering to think about the most fundamental management concepts, much less security. The guy who runs my neighborhood 7-11 has a far better understanding of “Security” than ANYONE in the top 3 layers of this government! This is absolute, sheer incompetence, and it is so all encompassing that there’s no point in trying to fire one person for allowing it – the incompetent manager will only appoint an incompetent replacement, because they both answer to an incompetent superior who answers to a supremely incompetent Commander in Chief.
This is what an Idiocracy looks like in Real Time.
All this guy did was walk in with a “Lady Gaga” labeled flash drive each day and walk out with gigabytes of data, that was totally unsecured. And he did it for 8 months, and nobody suspected a thing until he started to release it publicly.
This is beyond pathetic – this is almost beyond outrage. It makes me wonder whether this nation can even survive the 2 years it will take to depose the clown in chief.
With over 600,000 people cleared to read this stuff and have access to it on a daily basis in our government ,just what the hell do you expect?
So what was the Nancy-boy’s motivation? Was it pure nihilism fueled by hatred of the nation that wouldn’t give him a campaign ribbon for the Bathhouses of San Francisco campaign? Was he trying to pull the house down on top of his mommy and John Wayne’s grave and the families of all the mean warriors who laughed at his sorry self in basic training when he had a hard time meeting the girls’ PT test standards? Oh I forgot, don’t ask, but do tell…
I expect China to work a deal with S. Korea. The basics will be China gets the power generating Chosin Dam system ( a major strategic interest for China) and no more US troops in Korea. Korea gets a few million starving Dwarves and the US gets to drop a hot potato full of rouge nukes. Japan gets hosed but at least they don’t have to lose a war this time.
Russia should care but I don’t think it’s anywhere close to the top of their list.
Gorelick Walls are being rebuilt as we write.
—
“Is the Obama administration going to do anything – anything at all – to stop these serial disclosures of our nation’s most closely guarded secrets? Just this past week, the federal government took decisive action to shut down more than 70 Web sites that were disseminating pirated music and movies. Hollywood is safe, but WikiLeaks is free to disseminate classified documents without consequence. ”
Thiessen
Habu #121:
Back in the mid-80′s, following a spate of spy revelations, the DoD bureaucracy came up with a great idea for handling the problem: Do an X% across the board removal of clearances. It was classic DC thinking.
When they went to our commander with that requirement he replied that meant an X% reduction in personnel. We did classified launches. It was so easy for anyone to worked there to figure out what was going on, even without being told, and they were so likely to overhear something classified that a lack of a clearance meant giving uncleared people access to classified, period.
Of course, there are people who have clearances but did not have a need to know, but rather than try to control access the idiots in DC decided to just treat a certain percentage of everyone as if they had no need to know any classified. This is like deciding a certain percentage of the population do not need to on a gun based on murder statistics.
Rather, this case indicates very clearly that homosexuality is a mental disease that is evidence of a reason to not trust someone. Never mind whether they can be blackmailed or not, the fact is an incredibly high percentage of serial killers and pedophiles are homosexuals. You would not let someone into the military who thought that fire hydrants were alligators, even if that delusion was of no immediate impact in his job.
125. RWE
I was aware of that but a great point to bring up. The following exacerbated the situation.
Thousands of folks in the guvment had their records annotated, “Cancelled for Cause” rather than “Administratively downgraded” like they should have been. Some idiot sent out the order to cancel the clearances using that phraseology and thousands of totally useful , trustworthy people got a black eye and never received TS/Codeword again. It ruined them.
Let’s face it, Aristotle had it pegged when within his sixfold classification of governments he placed democracy (yes we have a Republic) as the best of the worst and worst of the best.
Wagging the world?!
I found it interesting to hear that China sees N. Korea as a spoiled child. That’s something the world wants to hear. That the Middle East as a whole sees Iran as a looming larger problem. That’s what we want to hear as well.
There is a Julian Assange was interview on TED. In watching it, he stated that WIKIleaks was overwhelmed with leaked information. It was at that point that I knew that WIKIleaks was going to post misinformation. There is little doubt in my mind that the US is using WIKIleaks and not the other way around. The current administration has very little to do with it. It’s the people in the shadows that are directing things now.
The WIKIleaks credibility should be questioned and not be treated as real news. Why hasn’t the credibility been questioned by anyone? If they think it’s credible then prove it and not with a wink and a smile.
So far I haven’t been shocked by anything. If anything WIKIleaks has turned the lights on and the cockroaches you knew were there were revealed.
Sound and fury…
…with occasional glimpses of bottled sunshine…
Habu #126:
I was not aware of the Cancelled for Cause situation. But that’s what you get when expect pure admin types to handle things.
But it is not democracy, per se. It is the excessive, extreme, egalitarianism that pervades the US military. Everyone knows that not everyone is good at every thing. But the US military continues to act as though the only job is to carry a musket, stand in neat line, and take orders like “Load, Aim Fire!” or else give orders to the guys standing with the muskets.
In the 60’s McNamera’s Project 100,000 planned to induct 100K people EACH YEAR into the US military who could not pass the basic entrance requirements. This was based on the high level civilian belief that “Load, Aim, Fire” did not take much in the way of brains.
Egalitarianism may be a perfectly acceptable National Mythology, but when you are rushed into the operating room after an accident, are launching a space mission, or have to handle both engines quitting on your airliner right after takeoff, you don’t want a Project 100,000 type of guy in charge. In fact, you don’t even want one of them present.
But we have a Project 100,000 guy running the country.
Habu @ 121: Whatever happened to “need to know”? The fact that someone was cleared for a particular level of classified information, didn’t use to mean that they could go browsing thru the whole database. Wha Happen? Did all this fall apart when we went from printed documents to electronic data?
Once upon a time, there was a classified documents custodian in each unit, down to the company level. (Not like there was much at the company level that was very glamorous.) I think the State Department used to have equivalent “need to know” regulations, such as limited access by country and by category, as well as by level of secrecy?
So, it sounds to me as if someone who was supposed to protect this information and limit access to it dropped the ball. Who was in charge of the database that Manning leaked?
We knew Obama would be very weak on foreign policy – why is any of this a surprise now?
rwe @ 125: You would not let someone into the military who thought that fire hydrants were alligators, even if that delusion was of no immediate impact in his job.
I dunno, rwe, we let them into Congress for sure, and arguably into the Oval Office. Plus, I happen to have a peer-reviewed article here with seventeen references arguing that either fire hydrants sometimes are alligators, or that pretending they are is associated with better reaction times in battle situations, and recommending that further studies be performed regarding crocodiles.
The thing is, we’re going to have homosexuals in uniform, not to mention the state department and DoD as civs, and unbalanced people of all sorts of sexual proclivities and mental states. Us techies and other elitists have to stand back and remember that, major social organizations have to recruit from mankind, as Joe Friday once said. Of course the first screwup in this story was whoever made it possible for some private in a tent in the middle of wherever to stick his thumb drive in the slot and click a couple of keys and download all sorts of stuff … if this is still from that source at all, perhaps I’m confusing my leaks. So many security and system design rules were not followed, to allow such a thing to happen, it utterly boggles the mind.
Plus, when it happens (as it will, no matter how you restrict the capability to three guys with simultaneous keys or whatever), you must “clean it up” much much much much etc more expeditiously than Obambus and Hildabeast have.
I’m not convinced by suggestions that his homosexuality was a contributary factor.
The Brits used to have a ban on homosexuals in diplomatic and security settings, but that was more related to covering the inadequacies of their recruitment policy (“His tutor at Cambridge said he was a good sort…”) and lack of vetting.
They weren’t going to admit to shepherding openly communist recruits into MI6, soley on the basis of what Cambridge College they’d attended, or what frats they had been members of when they were there. Far easier to blame it on them being puffs.
On a related note (bitchy gay men)
Thanks to whoever posted the link to “Keynes the man” on mises.org
“Rather, this case indicates very clearly that homosexuality is a mental disease that is evidence of a reason to not trust someone.”
Agreed.
Wow! What a coincidence – Yahoo greeted me this morning with this headline:
Pentagon Dismisses Risk of Openly Gay Troops
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101130/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_gays_in_military
“The question for me is, what is worth this effort? It’s a big operation, so the payoff must be correspondingly large. Of course these speculations may all be paranoia.”
Well, you know what they say; Just because you are paranoid does mean that everyone is not out to get you.
I don’t claim to possess any brilliant strategic insight or any special knowledge, especially compared to the lot here, but this bears examining.
There seems to be an almost deliberate effort to destroy or at least hobble the American and western economies, albeit helped amply by the politicians in charge of those countries. Glenn Beck is convinced that Soros’ aim is to do just that, particularly aiming to undermine the US. Don’t know how much Beck is right, but certainly one can ask what Soros is up to, both based on past history and current activities. He certainly has a legion of people who would love to see this happen, here and abroad.
Now we have another man spearheading an attempt to completely undermine the US in diplomatic/international circles.
Can’t trust the US Dollar and it ability to pay debts; can’t trust it’s discretion and security.
Further, the bumbling on the world stage seems to be orchestrated to make all our allies wonder what our sense of commitment is to them when the #&$^ hits the fan. If our timidity does not fail them, then our incompetence might.
Can’t trust us to actually DO something when needed.
So, let’s assume for a second that in some part, this is “all part of the plan.” It’s actually, in a way, not that hard to plan, as the trend lines for how quickly we were heading into the financial shoals was probably being tracked for quite a long time, now.
Who’s plan? Who benefits, ultimately? And who has the were-withal?
China? Russia? And Allegiance between those, with some Islamic help on the side?
Or could it be bigger than that?
Could Anti-Americanism, maybe mixed with anti-westernism, actually be the nexus for some sort of united movement?
Not that there are needed smoky back-rooms to lay out grand plans, but instead cell-like operations where each component operates independently, and with a different focus, but all working toward the same goal; a post-Pax Americana world.
Now THAT’S paranoia! But, is it wrong?
A ‘Julian Assange’ was interested in computer crime legality as far back at 1996. This item was found by searching the esteemed newsgroup ‘comp.risks’ for his name.
“Legal Aspects of Computer Crime mailing list
Martin Minow
Mon, 4 Mar 1996 09:40:37 -0800
In a posting to the Cypherpunks mailing list, Julian Assange
(proff@suburbia.net) announced a mailing list to discuss legal
aspects of computer crime. Based on my reading of the announcement,
it appears to have a UK (or at least English Common Law) focus,
though I suspect that it is not limited to UK-specific issues.
The announcement concludes:
This list has been created in an attempt to mitigate the lack of
tangible resources people involved with computer crime have at their
disposal. It is hoped that by bringing together knowledgeable legal
professionals together with para-legal personnel and informed lay
persons that information and resources relevant to the difficult
task of analyzing, presenting in court, formulating departmental or
company policy or otherwise dealing with computer crime law and
computer crimes may be shared and intelligent discussion and law
reform stimulated.
To subscribe, send mail to:
lacc-request@suburbia.net
with the body of:
subscribe lacc
Back issues are available from:
ftp://suburbia.net/pub/mailinglists/lacc
I haven’t looked further but, judging from the well thought-out
announcement (unfortunately too long for a complete posting to Risks),
it should be of interest to many Risks readers.”
I’m with Josh on this one, guys: The homosexual angle is a loser.
Here’s why: the US constitution awards every citizen the right to form militias. I’m not an expert on it, but it appears that all citizens get this right, not just hetero- male and female citizens. That throws a wrench in the works so long as the USM remains an all-volunteer force.
Also, say the leaker was a female recruit, would the thread bemoan the participation of “bitchy women” in our armed forces? Barring an appearance by Whiskey in this thread, I doubt it. And so, the “bitchy Homos” criticism falls apart…
A last cautionary note on this topic…recently a friend told me the story of how he learned he was being investigated by his OIC for homosexual acts while serving in Germany during the late eighties. He learned it from his OIC himself while they were “stemming the rose” in his Munich barracks.
Boys will be boys…girls will be girls…and humans will be humans. We are sexy monkeys, there is no way around it. But, when faced with unambiguous threats to their country and communities, all will fight with ferocity in tandem with the rest of our military to repel the threat.
Gay, straight, female or male – so long as they’re shooting in the right direction, they’re welcome so far as I’m concerned. If the outcome of Assange’s leaks is a concerted dog-pile on serving recruits in comments at intellectual havens like Wretchard’s site, then you can count me out of this discussion.
Fer now…(stomps off stage).
-S
i haven’t noticed anyone in this administration use the word treason in association with these leaks. not a word that any of them would be comfortable using I suspect
“I’m with Josh on this one, guys: The homosexual angle is a loser.”
Well, the Obamanoids have decided that the Muslim angle is a loser when it comes to explaining why a certain Army doctor murdered his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.
Facts are facts. Facts don’t give a tinker’s damn about Political Correctness.
Very few military personnel leak classified information. Very few military personnel are homosexuals. So what would Political Correctness predict about the probability of a homosexual army guy being a leaker?
Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate, , (mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities).
Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.
Well, it’s certainly not apparent. In fact, it has not been apparent that the Volkswagen could have held this many Democrats and that they would keep on piling out of it onto the international stage.
We don’t have a budget yet. We don’t have a clue what taxes will be. North Korea and Iran are playing footsie, John Kerry wants Israel to give up the seat of its Knesset, Supreme Court and housing of its Prime Minister and President.
No, it’s not apparent, Joe. And, Buddy…you may be right. Soros may actually BE the President,…he may be frustrated that all his puppets are tethered by such loose strings.
It should be fairly obvious that a connected crew are calling the shots and pulling the strings. I doubt that the “poor, picked upon gay boy” that just wanted to wear a beret, could have stolen all of these documents and burnt them to “Gaga” labeled CDs. He is simply convenient cover for the treasonous others.
Why can’t this just be Soros et. al. doing what they need to to replace Obie now that he’s obviously no longer an asset? Seems to me Wretchard made the point a year or two back: that’s how they do it in banana republics.
141. cfbleachers said…
“We don’t have a budget yet. We don’t have a clue what taxes will be.”
Cantor, Boehner, and Obama spoke after their meeting today to voice their reactions to said meeting.
Cantor and Boehner spoke without notes.
Obama read from his faithful Teleprompter.
Question:
How did Mr. Teleprompter know all of Obama’s reactions to the meeting before Mr. Obama emerged from the meeting?
Is the Teleprompter Telepathic?
I’d say the gay angle is significant insofar as, since USAF is still a don’t ask don’t tell institution, homo could be easily blackmailable. His reported conversations with his buddy could be a requirement. What intel officer with knowledge of cyber capability would write his friend about this stuff?
Also: reports now that Russia has moved tactical-nuke-capable short range (Iskander?) missiles up to their Western borders:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704584804575645212272670200.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_World
From the article – question: how is “an oligarchy run by the security services” (Gates) substantively different than the USSR?
“Sen. Christopher Bond (R., Mo.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, refused to comment directly on the tactical nuclear warhead issue, but he said the Russians cannot be trusted to make good on their arms-control promises. “We know from published reports of the State Department that the Russians have cheated on all their other treaties, Start, chemical weapons, [biological weapons], Open Skies,” he said.
U.S. officials say Mr. Obama’s revised approach to missile defense, and warming personal ties with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, have fostered cooperation in key areas, from isolating Iran to opening new routes to transport gear to Afghanistan.
But mistrust runs deep, U.S. diplomatic cables released by the organization WikiLeaks over the weekend showed. A February cable quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates telling a French official that Russia was an “oligarchy run by the security services,” despite Mr. Medvedev’s “more pragmatic vision.” A Gates spokesman declined to comment.”
Alexis @ 102: “Julian Assange is creating powerful enemies. Not all of them are American. Some of the enemies Julian Assange is creating are every bit as cruel as his is.”
The Elites as a whole may draw considerable self-satisfaction from their own capacity for cruetly as a means to control, useful “winning” their respective “games”. What they feel to realize is that many of the people that they are playing their games with are true masters of the art of cruelty, men of cold, calculating foresight, discreet goals, and ruthless action. This holds true of the man with the “three bullets” in a dark alley or the likes of Kim Jong-il. Even more so for the likes of Vladimir Putin, Jiang Zemin, and George Soros.
However it all works out, the price for the collective, blind arrogance of the Assanges and political leaders of the West is going to be a real bitch.
Steveaz: If you don’t see the obvious problems demonstrated by your little harmless anecdote about “stemming the rose”, then there’s not much reason in pointing out things like opsec and anti fraternization standards, or how those concepts were proven correct over time out to you. You’ve twisted evidence in your own mind to support a pet belief system while that very evidence demonstrates why gays in the military do not work. Stroking the hurt feelings of a minute segment of our population to platitudes such as “other countries do it” or “it’s their right to serve to” are simply another form of political correctness.
Pushing GAY! into the face of hundreds of millions that find the entire concept disgusting and contemtable will not work. You might look to Yugoslavia, circa ’92, to see what happens after years of mixing oil and water. Or not, but in either case keep gays away from me.
seems to me a closeted gay would be a security risk because he can be threatened with exposure—but if he’s openly gay, what’s the security issue?
Same for anyone else with something they want to keep secret.
this is completely different than the whole gays in the military thing, which has a host of other aspects.
Iranian Anti-Stuxnet Progammer Assassinated
The world owes its gratitude to the yet unnamed intelligence service that continues to dog the Iranians. Under the current administration our American intelligence umbrella is weakened and ineffectual. We have a President more interested in hobbling our Israeli allies while providing foreign aid to the Palestinians than in providing our nation with security. Thank God that forces of good and common sense remain active in the pursuit of global security.
ht – Starling
Marty #149:
Non-closeted gays are a problem because inevitably there will be those who think of themselves as “Gay” rather than it being simply another an aspect of their personality, like preferring chocolate to vanilla ice cream or not liking asparagus or Slim Whitman.
The worst thing imaginable will be Gay Activists in the military, and that is inevitable because only Gay Activists will wish to openly admit it. When the issue was first raised almost 20 years ago Gay Activists were calling for not only homosexuals being allowed to serve but also a certain percentage of military academy slots to be reserved for gay applicants. And that’s just the first step. Promotions and all the other aspects come tumbling down that very slippery slope.
One reason that HIV spread as quickly as it did, and continued to do so long after it was known about, was that it became an accepted aspect of being gay. Some thought they could not really be gay without having HIV, or at least ignoring that it existed. Any gay person in the military will be pressured to believe that if you don’t hate the military you can’t be really gay; it’s part of the culture.
#139. steeple
Treason? Many on the Left consider treason to be the highest form of patriotism. You just can’t say that when peasants are around. They’re too stupid to understand, and they might just hurt you. Stupid peasants.
“The worst thing imaginable will be Gay Activists in the military”
Heterosexual Activists would be a bummer also, which is why they are not tolerated.
Never has made sense to me that straight guys would be shunned if they went around advertising their sex lives, partners, and practices, but somehow the same outspoken behavior is to be encouraged in schools, the military, and etc., as long as gay sex is the topic.
G,L,B,T; any more of a security risk than straight?
Please put your evidence on the table one way or the other.
I know of decent individuals and absolute sociopaths in each of those categories, Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, trans-sexual and what I assume to be straight – you never can be sure though.
Yes, I do believe (based on several people I’ve had the misfortune to know) that there is no bitchness to match that of some camp gay men,
but,
I do not see why sexual orientation should be a valid factor in security clearance.
Is a there a difference in propensity to pillow talk between gay and straight couples?
is a gay man easier for a Matta Hari to pick up than a straight one would be?
The “mental illness” angle is bankrupt, US and Soviet psychiatric bodies each held that sympathy for the other’s system was evidence of mental illness, and the cure usually involved electric shocks.
Playing with one’s self was at one time considered to be the cause of “schizophrenia” and dementia precox – both of which were fatal in the early part of the 20th century, suggesting that present day “schizophrenia” is an entirely different condition and dementia precox has totally disappeared. Oh, yes, circumcision was considered to protect males against both conditions – Snake oil in it’s purest form!
(General Ref, Bentall: “Madness Explained”)
Evidence on the table please.
–gay angle, looking at say for example Barney Frank, is it not obvious that he is consumed with anger, and is it not probable that the anger issues from –for whatever reason real or felt –his being ‘the other’? So, unless and until every strongly felt psychological borderland can begone, humasn nature is going to b e the reality it is –IOW, anger can come frome inside the person in question, and the outside has no control –kinda dicey in the military mission, anyone would have to admit, while at the same admitting that this is not the ideal human relations condition at all.
–the Ikander tac-nuke missiles –remember, Russia has a 10 to 1 advantage over NATO –thousands to hundreds –of these things, battlefield on up. Why? Because in the LAST treaty, they said these weapons were not strategic, and therefore beyond the purview of the ‘S’ in ‘START’. We said, “Duh, otay!”
Oh, gosh, we forgot, win a battle with ‘tactics’, battles won are ‘strategic’. Limbering them up? That doesn’t affect strategy? That isn’t strategy?
Oops –but hey, we got that ole chamberlain scrap to wave at the NYT reporters, didn’t we?
Speaking of which, the rest of that Kerry story, he now calls for Israel to abandon thje Golan Heights –and remember the water, not just the OP –AND east Jerusalem. What a guy!
BTW, the S-510 passed –can still be stopped maybe, in reconciliation –if it can be delayed to the next Congress –as the entire vote should have been, except the Dems are criminals. Anyhoo, if you plant a tomato, under the bill, the FDA has a piece of yer ass. Not to late to call your congressperson.
“but,
I do not see why sexual orientation should be a valid factor in security clearance.”
It isn’t, NOW.
Plenty of gays serve and have clearances.
One of our son’s previous bosses was gay with a top security clearance.
Since it was not discussed, it was not a problem.
The problems would result from allowing and encouraging such discussions.
RWE:
The reason you aren’t seeing the well adjusted gays and lesbians is because they are just ordinary members of society. Unless someone told you, or you knew the subtle keys to watch and listen for, you would never know they weren’t straight, trans-sexuals are easier to spot, the Adams apple or the wide hips give them away, otherwise the same applies, except they aren’t very common.
A trip around the night life in any big town will show up all sorts of unsavoury “scenes” for hetro-sexuals too.
I’d rather not listen to anyone boasting about how many partners they may, or may not have had, but, trust me, I’ve heard lots of sordid boasting from straight males. Fortunately females tend to deny such things when a male is present, but some of them do boast about it too.
131. erc rodson
I wish I knew what happened but I left the CIA in the early 80′s after watching Carter and Turner destroy the place. I took my cue from all the old OSS men who said Carter abd Turner were full of shit and would destroy our intelligence HUMINT…well they did. The OSS guys retired ASAP.
But “need to know” was firmly in place when I joined in 1970 and I had TS/Codeword and I still only knew my small part in it. Sounds like today you can just do what you want.
An old friend recently told me that none of the computers at Langley have ports for these small flashdrives and when I was there each typewriter was modified by Tech Services to garble the electronic impulses from each keystroke …what they do now??? might as well ask the grocery clerk as me cause I have no clue.
Marty @ 149: "seems to me a closeted gay [i.e. homosexual] would be a security risk because he can be threatened with exposure"
There have been no reports that the little soldier boy assiduously collected thousands of classified documents and (treasonously) leaked them because he was being threatened with exposure. He apparently did it of his own free will.
There is a long Cold War record of homosexuals betraying the West. Why that should be, I have no clue. But it makes sense to start with observed facts.
And yes, I have known a number of homosexuals who were perfect gentlemen and completely trustworthy. I have also known some Russians who did not drink. But it would be as foolish to assume that all Russians are tee-totalers as to assume that all homosexuals can be trusted with state secrets.
–one way to look at the gays/military issue is thru Abraham Maslow’s so-called ‘hierarchy of needs’
http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp
scroll down to the ‘pyramid’ and note that ‘safety’ is the foundation below the upper ‘social needs’, ‘esteem needs’, and ‘self-actualization’.
This pyramid is (it seems to me) totally empirical, as in, one can scoff at the academic structures built up around the pyramid, but the pyramid itself is intuitively ‘right’ –children could create it anew, properly briefed, across time and space.
What i’m getting at is, if people on the issue at hand seem to be ‘talking past each other’ –that’s evidence of different apprehensions as to which level of the pyramid the topic is ‘within’.
For example, insofar as the military, one might be discussing the ‘esteem’ level with another discussing the ‘safety’ level. They will ‘talk past’ each other.
Anyhoo, there’s my solution-less comment from the HQ of Captain Obvious –
For those asking if maybe this Wikileaks thing is actually good for guys on the conservative, pro-American side of things:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027799.php
Mebbe. The truth is on our side, after all.
Of course, if that continues to prove out, Assange will probably cut of his own head in frustration. Unless … nah.
Keith said “the mental illness argument is bankrupt” This is only so because the American Psychiatric Association bowed down to political correctness. Homosexuality as aberrant dysfunctional behavior has more empirical evidence than the gay gene theory. I believe the homosexual rights movement is Jacobin in nature, interested in tearing down the status quo; sort of Abbie Hoffman’s “Revolution for the Hell of it” or maybe a revolution spawned in hell. It sure has no place in the military.
Keith have you ever served in the combat arms in war? I find it hard to imagine what effect openly gay troops would have at a fire base in a hot zone. This is not even considering what will come of conflicted soldiers with access to sensitive data.
Josh @ 161:
“For those asking if maybe this Wikileaks thing is actually good for guys on the conservative, pro-American side of things … Mebbe. The truth is on our side, after all.”
I say this with prejudice but there is no “maybe”. We’re the “good guys” and the truth IS on our side. Unfortunately the illegal disclosure of classified information goes beyond conservative/rational-versus-socialist/moonbat. A modern state needs to be able to keep secrets. No one in their right mind is going to be candid with American diplomats if they believe their private remarks will be published in the Guardian and New York Times. Same argument holds for American counter insurgency relationships. Wikileaks was an attack against American national security. The people behind Wikileaks and funding it are enemies and need to be dealt with appropriately.
Also, the Powerline comment that “the Pentagon Papers substantially vindicated the American left” was in error. The Vietnam War was mainly a liberal Democrat activity, i.e. LBJ was a liberal Democrat. Daniel Ellsberg should have received life imprisonment for leaking the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg’s misconduct along with the New York Times established the dangerous precedent that leaking classified information was a viable political tactic with little legal risk.
#158. Habu
Yeah–I really don’t buy into the notion that there was or is some universal “back door” that would allow somebody the key to retrieving anything in all of the databases of the US government. Our bureaucrats are stupid as a general rule, but they are not that f*cking stupid.
I am reminded of what happened during the Reagan administration. Bait was placed for the spies. The Soviets stole software designed for managing (I forget if it was for oil or natural gas) pipelines. It was a trap. Using it blew up the pipelines in Siberia in a flare that US astronauts could see from orbit.
When I see something like the massive WikiLeaks I tend to be very skeptical. Sometimes, in the contest between the spider and the fly, the fly deludes itself into thinking its the spider and the spider is the fly. But always in the contest, the true spider always wins.
Keith #157:
That is why the correct policy really is and should be “Don’t know, don’t care.”
A person who openly flaunts his homosexuality is indicating that is his main priority in life. And that kind of focus – on anything, even heterosexuality – is incompatible with serving in the military.
And as Trangbang points out, destruction of “normal” society is at least as much a feature of the homosexual subculture as the Jihadist tendency is within Islam, probably much more so.
#165. RWE
Its all about priorities. How do you classify yourself? For people who are serving in the military first and foremost should be the label of “American.” If any other label such as “black”, “gay”, “Muslim” or whatever comes first they should be dropped kicked out of the military post haste.
Assange says Hillary should resign.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2033771,00.html
“I don’t think it would make much of a difference either way,” Assange said. “But she should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that.”
–
dis guy is a barrel of laffs, deserves a last beer before he takes a hellfire up his assange.
trangbang68 #162
No, I have never been in the military.
I have been in situations of sharing close living accommodation including tents for up to a month at a stretch with people whom I know are gay and have worked with them in confined and physically dangerous situations where I needed to rely on them for my own and group safety.
I have never had a problem with anyone who was capable of handling those situations.
I have had problems with egotists, selfish and emotionally disturbed individuals of both sexes and all orientations. They are people who you wouldn’t even want to work 9 to 5 day with.
My personal position is that it comes down to the individual. some people are capable, reliable, easy to work along with, others you’d really prefer never to meet them, and there are all variations in between.
There does tend to be a parting of the ways between libertarians (I’m one) who tend to be instinctively against blanket discrimination against gays, and conservatives, who often tend to be more suspicious of gays as a “group”, though even in that, I know some gay conservatives.
The libertarian take tends to freak the lefties out though. They seem to be programmed to assume that as you believe “X” therefore you just have to believe A, b, C and D as well…
re the “disease”, the lefties of the Frankfurt School of sociology would argue that individualist or conservative view points are due to an “authoritarian brain” which is incapable of conceiving the beauties of socialism, this allows the lefties to tell their followers to ignore us as we poor, deformed things are incapable of understanding…
The deffinition of a mental illness is something written into a manual, and was subject to whim when it was being written in as well as when it was being taken out
Absent “genetics”, “disease” is not the only possible or even most probable cause, even assuming that there is a single cause. Oestrogen supplements to women pregnant with female babies have been shown to reduce the incidence of the child growing up to be lesbians and there are theories about high levels of stress hormones during pregnancy, or drops in testosterone levels due to stress in the mother correlating with male children growing up to become homosexual, there also appears to be some correlation with mixed sex twins, triplets etc, and certainly in some animals, mixed sex multiple births can frequently result in one sex being sterile, e.g. “free-martin” females in cattle, but then correlation does not equal causation.
regardless of cause, homosexuality exists, and I’d rather form my opinions of people on an individual basis, than as a blanket classification of group characteristics, or have either role dictated; The Ancient Spartans institutionalized homosexuality for all.
I guess that was the first twisted totalitarian society we have good records of.
Not to paint with too broad a brush, but I get the impression that many homosexuals harbor a lot of anger towards society. That may be a factor why some have betrayed their country.
Many people exhibit anti-Christian attitudes, but people who have an outspoken seething hatred of Christianity are almost always homosexuals. Of course I’m not saying that all, or even most, homosexuals are anti-Christian.
IMO, the problem with gays in the service isn’t with those who soldier well.
Those who are disruptive or ineffective are going to be a problem. They’ll be in a protected class. As, for example, the first two women graduating from F14 school did so with failing grades. One later blew an approach and got killed and the other was grounded for unsafe flying. Other such stories are legion, but only unofficial because officials in a postion to make the case can’t.
Hasan was an appalling underperformer and officer but his peers and superiors passed him along for fear of being accused of islamophobia.
Screw up as a gay and you can claim homophobia is the reason behind the discipline. Which means there will be a separate and unfair set of standards. Disruptive to good order and discipline.
“This is how it all ends: not with bang, but with a whimper and lots of potential bangs.”
Actually, we’ve got at least two more years of this nonsense. Here’s one active duty guy wishing they would leave well enough alone on the DADT issue. More sensitivity training in one lifetime. This just sucks.
When I saw that the mass of the WikiLeaks seemed to cut both ways, and embarrassed our recalcitrant allies and false friends as much as it did the US, I confess I wondered for a minute whether this the whole WikiLeaks matter wasn’t an uber-deep game being skilfully played against multiple parties simultaneously. But then I reflected that the last time the US had a president with the vision, moral surety and intellectual courage to authorize such an operation was when Ronald Reagan was in office; and the last time we had personnel with the talent, expertise and contacts to enable such an op was when Bill Casey was the head of CIA.
And that’s a million years from today.
Hi. I definitely enjoyed reading your current writing!. Top quality information. I would have to suggest you to write blogposts coach outlet stores online even more frequently. I subscribed to your RSS feed. Continue the great work
2 more cents on the gays-in-the-military issue: What if we simply changed DADT to KYHTY, or “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.”
Because it’s unwanted touching that’s the pertinent behavioral taboo anyway, not being “teh Gay.” So, it seems a simple policy that fortifies the troops’ individual claims to their personal space would generate the interpersonal respect required to maintain a coherent corps while it “outs” the folks, straight, gay or whatever, who simply can not control themselves.
KYHTY? Yes it’s another tired acronym, but I think it’ll be a game-changer if we can make the switch from Clinton’s DADT disaster. This is because, with KYHTY, we can detour around all those tawdry divisive labels and categories so preferred by our social engineers in the progressive parties.
NavyDoc 171: agree, it’s the prospect of the CYA sensitivity training and endless compliance loops that would be most depressing, both because it sucks up one’s own time and because it forces one to engage in such a corrupt charade. Steveaz !74: I would vote for the KYHTY principle. I’m not military but it does seem to me that the issue is that regardless of orientation the job requires a certain professional standard of attention and competence. Since the military can mean being on the job 24/7 (combat, at sea, etc) that means no hanky-panky, period. I would be as quick to cashier those heterosexuals who were caught frigging in the rigging, as any homosexuals. So KYHTY makes sense.
Keith, Not a troglodyte here. I interact with homosexuals (not in the way I interact with my sweet wife, mind you)I just don’t think open feyness is conducive to good military morale and function. The gay agenda is utterly in your face ,demanding its place at the table. Give Obama another Supreme Court pick to go along with the Lesbian and the radical woman of color and all bets are off.
Trangbang68 @176: agree that the “open feyness” could be an issue. Why IS it that so many gays have to get so campy, make it “all about them”? Is it just that they’ve had to hide it, or think they did, or want us all to think they did? It’s cheap and ultimately very limiting to them as well as a major PITA (pain in the A..) for everyone else. It is NOT consistent with good order, any more than any other form of narcissism and emotional subliteracy would be.
When I saw that the mass of the WikiLeaks seemed to cut both ways, and embarrassed our reluctant allies and duplicitous friends as much as, or more than, it did the US, I confess I wondered for a minute whether the whole WikiLeaks matter wasn’t an ultra deep game masterfully played against multiple parties simultaneously.
But then I reflected that the last time the US had a president with the cojones big enough and a vision broad enough to authorize such an undertaking was when Ronald Reagan was in office; and the last time we had personnel with the expertise and contacts to successfully run this kind of demanding op was when William Casey was the head of CIA. And both are long gone memories in our government.
Instead we have a nation run by an incompetent and impotent poseur, who is at the same time personally arrogant yet who believes our foreign policy should be based on the premise that we owe every nation in the the world an apology. Yes, there’s no way in hell WikiLeaks is a product of current US spycraft. More’s the pity.
What more do we know about the missle that was launched off the California coast?
RWE at 151
The issue you describe is not “gay” per se, but a mindset or orientation that could attach to race, class, religion, ethnicity, alma mater, home town, Chevy vs. Ford, almost anything that becomes central to their self-definition.
I would hope that our government would use psychological evaluations to screen out people who exhibit or are prone to such mental corruptions. Hope, but not sure I expect it.
m/180; the point is, identifying disrupters is easy, it’s that some certain protected groups have an offsite army of lawfare commandos armed and ready and just waiting for a signal.
“Lawfare” sounds so harmless –a name for something good (due process) perhaps a little overdone. But what it is is akin to Alexander the Great’s tactic of hitting the enemy at his strongpoint –in the case of lawfare, the enemy strongpoint is the rights enumerated in the founding documents, and the attack is to Cloward-Piven the system until absurdity breaks it toward chaos or authoritarianism –either way, “We told you those freedom-loving Americans were a bunch of liars and hypocrites!”
179. Jim
What more do we know about the missle that was launched off the California coast?
That it was an airplane. UPS Flight 902, to be precise.
http://contrailscience.com/los-angeles-missile-contrail-explained-in-pictures/
Problem with the people that are in power (and I don’t mean figureheads) is that they all have the tendency to see themselves as grand master chess players. They plan and execute their moves, and see the board with 64 fields. They are though, almost invariably, surprised how things do turn out. If there is one thing certain, it is the law of unintended consequences. The Assflange Leaks are a reminder of how that law is persistent.
It is almost certain that Soros funds Assflange. The timing and intent of this particular aspect may be debatable, but it’s a mess. I would say that it went sidewise, from the intended target. But since people like Soros thrive on chaos, he’d sure find a silver lining in it. Hitlery’s goose is cooked. Obozo’s is cooked as the 2012 is concerned. I wouldn’t be surprised if some locked out info on him starts popping up soon. He is done as an useful tool. Soros still wins, he has an army of puppets that mitigate the LOUC. The stage is set for a nasty coming up during the next year. Sept 19/2008 on steroids.
Soros at times mulled over the idea of China being the next world policeman. Pax-Siniana, as it were. But… but Soros also thinks there is too many Chinamen (and Hindus and other folks that just “devour the planet”).
Say that you’d have this “I am a some kind of God” complex as Soros has (I could provide certifiable refs if I had time). What would you do?
Buddy, the Soros-Monsanto connection proves that he does put eggs in multiple baskets. What would one do without food? 80% of people in NA are just-in-timers that think meat comes from a superstore (youngons).
And the codex alimentarius (under a very different name, it’s almost funny how the game is played if it was not really a serious biz in this case). What’s next?
I am glad you following up on the the biogen/nutri trails. Nice to have more than one spot-flashlight.
dan/145, 146; wanted to point to this article, Russian Cheating –a Nyquist from last July, very short, everyone should read it, imho.
((It begins))
The Obama administration now says that Russian cheating on a new strategic arms agreement does not matter. America would still have plenty of nuclear weapons, and the Russians would never launch an attack. Let the Russians cheat if they like. There is nothing to gain by cheating. What will the Russians do with such an advantage? Will they attack? The administration says this will never happen because nuclear war is unwinnable. Nobody would wage such a war. If the American side is able to fire back at the Russians with a dozen missiles, the world will end, Columbus will fall off. There won’t be a future for anyone. So let the Russians cheat.
This, of course, is the logic of people who do not understand nuclear weapons — which can be used to neutralize an opponent’s weapons. And once you have eliminated all the nuclear weapons of your opponent, you can force him to surrender. For how could a country without nuclear weapons resist a country that has nuclear weapons? This is fairly close, indeed, to the way in which World War II ended, with one side possessing nuclear weapons and the other side forced into capitulation.
Despite the environmental side effects, nuclear weapons cannot destroy all life on earth. Nuclear weapons have already been used and the world did not come to an end. Hundreds of nuclear weapons have been detonated around the world in tests. There is no end of the world, and Columbus has not fallen off. Studies on the effects of radiation have shown, again and again, that thousands of bombs might be detonated without killing everyone. Furthermore, the governments of Russia and China would not be building nuclear bombs today if these bombs signified the destruction of all life on earth. No country has, as its goal, the elimination of the human race. Their goal appears, rather, to be the elimination of a certain portion of humanity.
((read the rest at the link))
***
twoby/184; thanks for the kind words. Yes Soros is Monsanto’s second largest shareholder, buying in as the prospects for S-510 rose. Monsanto is a young organization, incorporating only in the bellwether year 9for this leftist onslaught) 2000. See some links and comments at Maggies, my ‘other’ comment site:
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/15965-Tuesday-morning-links.html
…and i’m very grateful for your contributions, too, on quality and on the experience of your having sprouted up behind the Iron curtain.
twoby, here’s the main force behind the bill. Member of the Democratic Socialists of America ( link ) and Congresswoman from Connecticut (thanks, Connecticut!). But note the familiar, familiar playbook –amp up a tragic but (alas) everyday event (or just stage your own if none are available) into a fear-driven public people’s crisis, then find a victim’s face to fill the TV screen (the image doing as images do, bypassing the intellect and zooming straight, as if the real thing, into the limbic ‘fight/flight’ brain), and –pass your national socialist enabling act, calling it something else of course. PS, and do NOT talk about Monsanto and ‘seeds’, or FDA regulators raiding your property to “examine your tomato” (read: “terrorize your wife & kids” or “put you under the police state bootheel”).
Maybe Soros’ experience in 90s Ukraine, “helping liberty begin” (note where Ukraine, after all Soros’ ‘help’, is now (as the Beatles sang it, “…back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR, boy, you don’t know how lucky you are, boy!”
…anyhoo, it is certainly reasonable to assume that while deconstructing –i mean, learning about –Ukraine, Soros would’ve learned very much about food, including how it could be used to (in only 17 months, and strictly legally, the killing laws being passed in August 1932 and January 1933) dispatch 10 million people, eliminating that 25% of a population guaranteed to put the other 75% under complete and apparently all but permanent control.
While and soon after this was happening, our elites, our NYT columnists winning Pulitzers reporting what the father of modern journalism Walter Lippmann meant when he rhapsodized (along with Joseph Kennedy and the Rockefellers) about Euro Fascism, “I Have Seen the Future and It Works!”
***
But, dagnabbit, that dadgum 2nd Amendment! What a stroke of Bad Luck THAT thing is!
In re DADT: The political arm of the gay community demands a legal definition of ‘equivalence,’ a definition not acceptable to much of the hetero community. You can see this policy evoked in the gay marriage debate. They won’t settle for any form of ‘just is’ label-free solution, which means the friction will continue indefinitely. Of course, a ‘just is’ approach would not have any special legal rights attached to it either.
Human sexuality is a continuum with a hetero-skewed bell curve. Continuums are tricky.
As for the mental illness part, PMS was recently considered for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The annual Berkeley Gay and Lesbian parade doesn’t help their cause.
Hi Buddy,
With that food bill, It might be better if it does pass.
I’ll try to explain my thinking,
Mike Vanderboegh (Bill Clinton denounced him, so he must be doing something right!)has recently been pointing out that the BATFE appears to classify shotguns with a pistol grip as NFA “Destructive Devices” regardless of either barrel length or overall length.
He has pointed this out to both the Brady campaign and the NRA, both of whom are looking at what appears to be a dropped nuke and are quietly edging away from it in the hope that it won’t go off in their faces.
Vanderboegh is having a lot of fun applying Alinsky’s advice to radicals to “make them live by their own rules”,
can you imagine the uproar from all of the Elmer Fudds who suddenly find themselves having to register and pay $200 tax for their wabbit guns? (but 2a exists to pwotect MY wight to hunt wabbits!!!) and can you imagine the uproar from the lefty activists when they find out that the BATFE isn’t collecting the taxes it was set up to collect and the Brady campaign is complicitly silent?
They’ve christened the chaos, “the night of the living Fudds”
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/11/night-of-living-fudds-help-spread-word.html
Back to food
There are already guns drawn raids on raw food cooperatives, but there just aren’t enough jack booted thugs to enforce restrictions on growing food throughout the US. If the ATF, NRA, and Brady campaign don’t want to wake a few thousand Fudds from their slumbering complacency, I want to see the entire FED try with every vegetable plot and grow bag in the country.
Pass the popcorn please.
I’d better add that Mike Vanderboegh is a self confessed, recovered Trot. He took Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”, it’s an even more effective treatment than penecillin for that nasty little French pox called collectivism.
I’m not military but it does seem to me that the issue is that regardless of orientation the job requires a certain professional standard of attention and competence.
And let us not forget the vocabulary enhancements the Navy teaches for no extra charge.
Keith, take it one leeetle step further –you’ve pointed out that whatever makes everyone a criminal is impossible to enforce –but it’s not impossible to enforce politically, selectively, whimsically, arbitrarily, as a bill of attainder (agencies are under ‘administrative law’, remember, which has its own courts inside the agency –don’t like it? Call your congressman and see if he’ll pass some legislation for ya), or just because a passing Kingsman doesn’t like the cut of your jib, or wants your land, or your gal, or your old mule, or maybe just for a joke, or an errant blog post, or somesuch.
“Let’s just go kick in his door, we’ll figure out the violations once we’re inside and have a look around”
A person who openly flaunts his homosexuality is indicating that is his main priority in life. And that kind of focus – on anything, even heterosexuality – is incompatible with serving in the military.
Uh. I’m not sure which fantasy military you studied – but it does not conform to the one I was in. Lots of guys flaunted their sex lives in my Navy. Some of them couldn’t help it. i.e. crab patrol after a liberty.
The leaks were probably approved by Obama under the delusion the cables would make Hillary look bad and to force her resignation. Given that Obama himself will not be impeached or resigned, and that someone will answer for this, Hillary will resign in disgrace, and Obama’s greatest Democrat opponent will be neutered. Which was the point, of course: partisan victory at all costs to the nation.
Buddy,
You got a mention here:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2010/11/man-for-all-seasons-reprise.html
Back to homosexuality;
“Keep Your Hands to Yourself” is excellent advice for all.
I think it is important to separate individuals who “happen to be”, from collectivist identity groups.
How many women primarily identify with the radical femminists, how many people would look out a racially based political group to join?
A leftist would probably condemn what I’ve just written as colour blind racism, sexism and the typical thinking of a WASP, but I have zero intention of climbing into any pigeon holes of their making. I’m me, and I don’t want to be either included or excluded for some shitty little feel good affirmative action quota (is the Commi in chief an example of affirmative action in action?).
I’d better identify my dog in this fight, I was best man at a friend’s same sex wedding, and my wife (who is female, and was born that way
) was there too.
To look at people who might have a motive, one name jumps to the top of my list. Russia. Pay-back for exposing their deep-cover, deep throat spy ring last summer and making their FSB the world’s laughing stock. Pure speculation on my part but the Russians do have a sense of humor.
Tcobb #166:
Yep, that’s my point.
Simon #192:
I did not study it. I was on active duty for 25 years. And while it exists, it is a problem always but can become excessive. Needless to say, there are far more people tossed out of the military due to normal sex than due to gay sex. Unfortunately, it is a problem we won’t get rid of until we develop the T-888.
Keith #195:
Far too many people – and every one who advocates it – seem to think that letting gay people in the military is about official condemnation of the gay lifestyle. It is not, any more than not letting blind people fly fighter planes is about condemnation of the blind lifestyle.
MS/194; ouch, is about all i can say. 2005, throes of BDS, i would’ve defended a popcorn fart if it came out of the admin. i shudder to regard my Jacob Marley and hear his clanking, unforgiving, chains –
***
ac/196; –and Climategate, out of Russia –hard to explain, if assumed to’ve been ordered from on high, except to show up the idiot west –and to stop any fools from trying to encolden Siberia –
It’s not bigotry to feel uncomfortable when forced to live in very close quarters with someone who is by nature sexually attracted to you, even if they don’t make an issue of it.
Manning was a useful idiot for Assange out of a sense of grievance. I rest my case.
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2010/20101130010410.aspx
re S-510, monsato, soros, and obamacare
I predict that under obamacare the gov is going to be pushing everyone to eat certain whole wheat, high fiber, low fat, no cholesterol foods. Conveniently made by monsato and approved by the FDA and AMA. If you don’t follow the diet the doctor recommends, they can deny coverage.
Nevermind that high carb low fat causes obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.
If they can force us to buy insurance from certain approved (politically connected), providers they can force us to buy our food from approved (politically connected) providers.
There, Wretchard, fixed it for you.
Helplessly Hoping DOPEY
Or, is it by design?
“These people shouldn’t be in the big time ring at all. They are so bad it is embarrassing.
What the Dems have to do is find some way to replace the boxers at the next bell or the whole match will degenerate into a circus.”
A hearty, ‘Hear, hear’.
The trend from the first 110 days on is clear, the O will do nothing but campaign and recuperate and will blame a recalictrant congress throughout. The 112th Senate, for its part, will be the least remarkable in memory.
Inotherwords, a blueprint for anti-incumbent fervor. Dear Leader’s “strong disapproval” numbers may plateau for weeks here and there but these voters are lost. Running against Ron Paul and a loyalist GOP COO-type he can hardly hope for above 41 or 42%.
In 2010 the Democrats avoided the ‘enthusiam gap’ swing in turnout. A repeat is the best case scenario with Roadkill heading the ticket.
Time for an exit strategy?
164. Tcobb & #158. Habu
Yeah–I really don’t buy into the notion that there was or is some universal “back door” that would allow somebody the key to retrieving anything in all of the databases of the US government. Our bureaucrats are stupid as a general rule, but they are not that f*cking stupid.
Certainly not ALL the databases, but that doesn’t preclude at least a level of vulnerability in certain systems. You mentioned the Russian pipeline sabotage as an example of our cyber-sabotage capabilities against our enemies – there would seem to be at least a reasonable possibility of our own traitors/moles using these capabilities against us. For example, from the same era you cite, we had the PROMIS software/INSLAW affair. (Never proven, of course
)
In the years which have since passed who knows what advances and extensions of capabilities have been developed in that area, and since our government (allegedly) stole it from its creators, who can say it hasn’t been stolen from us (or outright sold or gifted a la Bernie Schwartz/Loral Industries/China)?
I’m not saying that a backdoor penetration of the cyber-kind played a part in this debacle, but I don’t think we can automatically rule out the possibility, especially based on a premise that our bureaurocrats “are not that f*cking stupid”. They don’t have to be stupid at all, just being not as smart as our adversaries can suffice.
k/189; i believe that sidebar at the link –is about the most entertaining thing i’ve seen in oh six months mebbe.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/11/night-of-living-fudds-help-spread-word.html
esp liked:
On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .
Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi’s theories of “passive resistance” would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. — Mike Vanderboegh.
and
In the future . . .
When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” — Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at “Snowflakes in Hell”
and
“Smash the bloody mirror.”
If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. — Mike Vanderboegh
and
From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.
“I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable.”
(on that last one, i’d say, “better than” instread of “as good as” )
Everybody be waxin’ along on the PFC’s pooferderism and not a word about his growing up in the socialist rathole of Wales. I did AcDu immediate post-VN for 6 years. We knew who was gay and where the gay bars were and everybody got along. KYHTY was unofficial policy. Then along comes the Klintoons…. Folks back b4 the Klintoons all understood that the military isn’t a device for lifestyle promotion, but for national defense.
Has anyone seen cost estimates for implementing additional lifestyle friendly accommodations, reviews, and promotions?
—
Lady Gaga tells senators: End DADT
Lady Gaga, an artist and performer who has long championed the repeal of the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, has made a YouTube video in which she calls the policy a form of “repression that is killing our youth.”
“We hope to end this law because it reinforces discrimination and it’s setting a bad example,” she said.
Speaking directly to U.S. senators, Gaga said, “You said you would debate and address this law when the Pentagon returns with a strategy and, tomorrow morning, you will have it, so will you keep your word? Please keep your word.”
Gaga says that action on the issue during the lame-duck session of Congress is key to its success. “The Senate needs to get this bill passed this year to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ Otherwise it could take years for it to happen.”
Consider this my epitaph to what has been an excruciating thread…
A good friend showed up on my doorstep last night with a frozen meatloaf and a movie. The movie was “The Producers,” a brilliant offensive from the renowned Mel Brooks.
A musical, the film is about two film producers who hope to defraud their venture-capital sources (old ladies) by producing a colosal flop on purpose. The play’s success hinges on three players: a gay actor with the Chutzpah to play Hitler, an accountant played by Ferris Bueller (sic) who grudgingly adopts the con-man’s lifestyle, and a Swedish blond, Lula – played by Uma Thurman, who adds spice, innocence and eroticism to the lot. Will Ferrel’s role needs a mention: America’s favorite fop takes high marks for added inanity and ridiculousness.
It’s a play written for a traumatized post WWII world not so different from our own, full of fictions, personalities and intrigue.
And I defy any of Wretchard’s fine commenters to point out how Assange’s Wikileaks ™ show wanders from Brooks’ script. One cannot find a better comparison for what we’ve witnessed this past weekend.
Notice to the NYT/MSNBC/Dems: in Brooks’ “The Producers,” the “closing show” sign never gets lit. The curtain hasn’t dropped on Wikileaks ™, yet. Stay tuned for more shocking Mel Brooks humor to come.
I, for one, can’t wait.
-Steve
Is this really the worst security breach in the history of the US?
I’d beg to differ.
Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and John Walker did a lot more damage to American security than Assange could possibly fantasize.
The damage in these leaks have mainly been to the Obama administration’s ego and to its public image, with secondary — and almost certainly temporary — damage to diplomacy in the long run.
Ed Morrissey
Wikileaks being hosted on Amazon’s servers…
As for the report linked this morning in Headlines about Wikileaks being hosted on Amazon’s servers, rest easy: You won’t have to do your Christmas shopping elsewhere after all. They were summarily booted this afternoon after congressional staff politely inquired with Amazon as to how this arrangement came to be.
According to the AP, server space can be rented from the company on a “self-serve basis,” suggesting that Amazon might not have realized until today just who their new client was. I find that hard to believe given the amount of traffic that must have been flooding in, but then I also find it hard to believe that Amazon wouldn’t have dumped them instantly had they known lest a U.S. boycott cripple their Christmas sales season. (Media reports about the Amazon/Wikileaks were available as early as Monday afternoon.)
In any case, Wikileaks has responded with a scathing indictment of Amazon’s lack of respect for the First Amendment, which, according to Wikileaks, apparently somehow constitutionally requires private businesses to host organizations that might be criminally liable under the Espionage Act.
Good work, Julian.
In related news, Assange’s mommy would very much like it if you would leave her son alone.
Is it China rather than Manning that has leaked the apparently easily obtainable info?
That might make sense considering they are commies and we have sent them the money they need to need to begin to confront the US militarily, and what was with that missle launch off California?
QE2, I’d suspect
Bradley Manning: Poster Boy For ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
Ann Coulter
What constitutes being “openly” gay now? Bringing a spice rack to basic training? Attending morning drills decked out as a Cher impersonator? Following Anderson Cooper on Twitter?
Also, U.S. military, have you seen a picture of Bradley Manning? The photo I’ve seen is only from the waist up, but you get the feeling that he’s wearing butt-less chaps underneath. He looks like a guy in a soldier costume at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade.
With any luck, Bradley’s court-martial will be gayer than a Liza Minelli wedding. It could be the first court-martial in U.S. history to feature ice sculptures and a “Wizard of Oz”-themed gazebo. “Are you going to Bradley’s court-martial? I hear Patti LaBelle is going to sing!”
Maybe there’s a reason gays have traditionally been kept out of the intelligence services, apart from the fact that closeted gay men are easy to blackmail. Gays have always been suspicious of that rationale and perhaps they’re right.
The most damaging spies in British history were the Cambridge Five, also called “the “Magnificent Five”: Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean and John Cairncross. They were highly placed members of British intelligence, all secretly working for the KGB.
The only one who wasn’t gay was Philby. Burgess and Blunt were flamboyantly gay. Indeed, the Russians set Burgess up with a boyfriend as soon as he defected to the Soviet Union.
The Magnificent Five’s American compatriot Michael Straight was — ironically — bisexual, as was Whittaker Chambers, at least during the period that he was a spy. And of course, there’s David Brock.
So many Soviet spies were gay that, according to intelligence reporter Phillip Knightley, the Comintern was referred to as “the Homintern.” (I would have called it the “Gay G.B.”)