The criminality of self-righteous WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange aside, the State Department or other government nincompoops who authored the leaked documents and emails calling Sarkozy a “naked emperor,” etc., deserve to be terminated for extreme doofuss-ness. These days, a school child knows that what you write digitally is forever indelible.
If you have something nasty to say, do it over the water cooler or at a cocktail party, where you can deny you ever said it. Even write it down, if you must, on the back of a business card or scrap of note paper. They can be burned or flushed down the toilet. But for heaven’s sake don’t type it into a computer. There are no shredders for emails and Word docs. Are these people nitwits or do they have the impulse control of a two year old?
Okay, I admit it. Like most of us, I’ve done it myself — hit “reply all,” when I meant “reply,” and spent days cleaning up my mess. But I don’t work for the government. Much as I’d like to think otherwise, if I call Hamid Karzai “paranoid,” it’s of little consequence. If I brand Angela Merkel “Teflon,” it has less than zero affect on our relations with Germany.
Nevertheless, much of what has been released so far is pretty banal stuff. That Kim Jong Il suffers from epilepsy was easily known to anyone who could use Google — and how many have called Ahmadinejad Hitler? (Google that one and you currently get 1,030,000 results.)
Of course, that doesn’t mean it will remain so meaningless. With the number of documents being released, it’s hard to believe anyone knows what’s in them, including the execrable crew at WikiLeaks themselves who are distributing them early to certain “progressive” media organizations, like the New York Times and The Guardian, who are willing to sign agreements with the leakers irrespective of the national security implications, not to mention the possible endangerment to human lives.
If Bush was in power, would CNN defend publishing the leaked documents as the highest form of patriotism?
“If Bush…, would they…?” Probably not, you are correct. Still, we’ve got to stop thinking that way. It’s the classic Tu Quoque (“you too”, appeal to hypocrisy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque) logical fallacy, wherein any claim is countered by claiming the accuser is just as guilty of the offense. I’ve noticed it has become fairly common in the current left v. right conflict for someone to always point out that any current problem is exactly the same as a prior one, with the roles reversed.
There are a few problems with this kind of thinking, the biggest being that it accomplishes nothing, to wit:
“Hey Leftie!, Obama & co. really screwed ‘X’ up!”
“Oh yeah, Neocon? Well, what about when Bush & co. screwed up ‘Y’?”
Since it is unlikely that these two will ever agree that both sides made an error, they will then bicker over which side is most evil/incompetent, or simply over the size of the error. Since they are now both off on an emotional and essentially irrelevant tangent, this kind of argument is also a classic Red Herring fallacy. It’s off topic.
Besides, this specific forum is for followers of PJTV. Anyone who has looked at much of the content here, or the nature of the comments or commentators in the forum, can be reasonably expected to be politically concerned, educated, and engaged, not to mention a likely conservative. Offering the opinion that the Left and the MSM treats Dems differently than the GOP in a place like this is like pointing out an a football forum that it is good to have an decent running game. It is obvious and unnecessary.
Hell, I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised to see that Clinton was making proper an intelligent use of her office as SecState in ordering our diplomats to fulfill one of their primary functions by engaging in ‘humint’ in the first place. The reason diplomatic missions were created in the first place thousand of years ago was to allow nations and people to know more about each other. Most ‘espionage’ is simply reading the papers and paying attention, so as to understand others, especially if we oppose them. Failure to adequately understand the enemy is what led to such much American difficulty in Vietnam, Iraq, Latin America, et al. Has anyone else here seen some of the idiotic comments left on the CNN forums about this story? People are shocked to discover that diplomats are also intelligence assets. They are up in arms over such a betrayal of their diplomatic missions. What else IS their mission? If we on the right are stuck with this pack of Obamites running our country, it is very nice to discover at least one of them has a clue what her job actually is. If the U.S. had to vote Democratic in 2008, it is ever more apparent that we all would have been much better off with Hillary. She’s a left-wing tool, but at least she’s not a fool or anti-America.
Let us consider the publishers who printed all of this dangerous information. Can someone explain to me how the NYT is different from a fence who, though he does not steal property directly, knowingly sells stolen property? That is a crime. Why is it that the NYT cannot be prosecuted for criminal activity? And is this also not a conspiracy? Didn’t the NYT conspire with Wilileaks representatives? Remember the Fitzgerald persecution[not sic] during the Valorie Plame case?
Yes there is freedom of the press, but I have never heard anybody argue that the Constitution protects illegal activity.
I’m not Constitutional scholar, but I recall reading in some textbook that the major result of the Pentagon Papers case [New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)] was the legal right of a journal to publish just about anything, no matter how it got the info. The leaker themselves might be in trouble, but the journal is usually free to do what it wants.
Given the nature of all this, I’m sure articles explaining subsequent cases and legal fine points should be written shortly.
IIRC, the real legal precedent is the that government cannot do “prior restraint”.
Prosecution afterwards is a horse of a different color.
…perhaps the New York Times (also the Washington Post at the time) is using their publishing precedent of the Pentagon Papers as their shield?
Such smug certitude is a disease, no doubt that aping animal Assange is infected.
Fools ? Yes…
But I confess I am curious.
And it could be fun: we know who the hawks are, but we could discover that some public doves say different things when they speak in private…who knows ?
And we could discover that political correctness is…what we know it is, just a myth fostered by the media…
I don’t know what’s worse. We didn’t need a Wikileaks dump to find out that NATO and the US has wasted three years negotiating and end to the Afghan War with a Taliban imposter who escaped to Pakistan. I thought the CIA and NATO could at least do some serious behavioral profiling when no longer constrained by U.S. probable cause and Miranda restrictions. Maybe we need more Valerie Plames out in the field to doing that old style Marta Hari intelligence gathering: an A for a lay.
If this is any guide (H/T HotAir), I wouldn’t look to the CIA for any sterling work in acquiring foreign intell from actual assets, it seems that they’ve just become another collection of paper-shufflers…
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/books/review/Berenson-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateemb5&pagewanted=all
Mind you Wikileaks’ fans and supporters are exactly the same lefties who got all shriekingly hysterical over the ‘leaking’ of Valerie Plame’s very non-secret occupation.
But revealing of hundreds of *genuine* CIA operatives whose lives are authentically in danger? They’re all for it, of course.
I would think it would be pretty easy to game Wikileaks and its stable of anti-American media allies. The government could purposely “leak” all kinds of false information. Maybe it is already doing that.
How and why this data got out is likely more important than what.
Is it me or did all these major leaks began with the Obama administration? Sure, we had leaks before, due to the lefts hatred of Bush/Cheney.
It is definately amateur hour in DC; I guess it explains what they meant with ‘smart diplomacy’!
The data came from State, does that make Hillary look less competent and less of a threat in 2012?
“were provided to The Times by an intermediary on the condition of anonymity”
Translation: The Times is not only an accessory after the fact to multiple felonies, they are also engaged in obstruction of justice.
Myy, they must be sooooo proud of themselves.
In a world in which anonymity is increasing hard to guarantee, businesses like the Times have more to lose than those on whom they report. Any conversation, including those with Times reporters, recorded electronically and preserved on laptops or servers is only a few scripts away from exposure. How secure are the Times servers?
It looks like the NYT along with other liberal media organizations are cooperating with Wikileaks to hamper the US State department and make our diplomats uncomfortable. I’m no lawyer, but doesn’t it logically follow that all these liberal media organizations are then, necessarily, giving aid and comfort to our enemies?
Wikileaks is clearly an enemy of the US. They can only be distributing this information in the hope of doing damage to America and its allies.
Spies in general? Count me skeptical.
Spies always talk a good game, helped by writers like LeCarre and by Hollywood movies. They save the world, steal vital secrets from each other and so on. In real life they can’t tell when they are being scammed by some bearded Afghan guy wearing a turban.
Before the information age, I’m sure that sketchy individuals were valuable intelligence gatherers for ancient Greeks, Persians, Romans, Popes, Feudal Kings and Emperors etc. At the birth of the 20th century Sidney Reilly seemed to be a useful spy. In past wars when information was restricted spies were undoubtedly useful. Today I’m sure that government service Israeli spies are essential to Israel.
But for western ‘big government” countries our spies appear to be a closeted group of civil servants who compete against other foreign groups of closeted civil servants. They give advice and do analysis based on their secret knowledge. Trouble is this seems no more reliable than advice and analysis based on publicly available knowledge.
The bureaucratization (is that a word?) of spies seems an expensive way to get questionable results. Why not put spying back in the hands of treacherous individuals who work for money? The information would still be unreliable but much cheaper. Novelists and movie makers would have more romance in their stories.
Outfits like Wikileaks would have a harder time simply because massive centralized government databases would be replaced by many private, questionable and probably conflicting databases.
Am I being properly skeptical about spies, or just naively and wrongly dismissive?
Come on guys, why aren’t you for transparency ?
Not everyone around the globe like the US self elevated destruction of other people lives, so the more transparent the process the better
I’m sure you have a point, but you haven’t communicated it. What are you saying?
The point appears to be, “America should reveal all their secrets. But the enemies of America, like North Korea, Iran, Cuba, etc, don’t have to reveal their secrets. That way we can destroy America easier.”
We speak English in these here parts. What language are you speaking?
letsmakeobamaresign.blogspot.com
You possess a rather childlike naïveté if that’s what you really believe. There’s plenty wrong with “transparency” when dealing with certain types of information. Should schematics of nuclear warheads be released in the interest of transparency? Descriptions of reaction mechanisms to synthesize nerve gas? What about the big target put on anyone identified in this leaked information? Do you think an Afghan man who was cooperating with Karzai’s government against the Taliban might like to remain anonymous? Do you think his wife and children might like for his head to remain firmly attached to his neck?
I’ll tell you what’s transparent: your facile anti-Americanism couched as noble truth seeking, that’s what.
The point is really that now that the americans know that they can’t play god in secret they will pick their weapons and go to their homes
After all, the world must be made safe for the Taliban and al Qaeda. Allahu Akbar!
“The more transparency, the better”
Meh. All governments, including ours, tries to keep secret far too many things that either don’t need to be, or are even counter-productive if kept secret. The book SENSELESS SECRETS (http://www.amazon.com/Senseless-Secrets-Failures-Intelligence-Washington/dp/155972322X) makes that very point, but I disagree with the premise that it is always better to have more transparency. There are issues and times where disclosure is legitimately NOT in the national interest. We have to at least agree on THAT before we can haggle over what and when information should be released.
Besides, finding out that diplomats engage in espionage is not a ‘what-else-is-new?’ revelation, it what they are SUPPOSED to be doing! One of the reasons why Iran (or any other of a hundred U.S. enemies) is not even more belligerent is because the whole world knows we have the ability to hit them with targeted nukes. Nuclear weapons are a useless weapon if the world doesn’t know you have them. Would we be paying any attention to that wacko in North Korea if we were not worried about their nuclear capacity?
I’m actually looking forward to getting a copy of this lot. I wasn’t that fussed about the last couple of releases – I don’t think they really said anything I didn’t already suspect.
But this one. Wow. This is the sort of opportunity that folks who are genuinely interested in international politics live for. How often do we really get a chance to find out what diplomats actually think and say to one another? Usually we have to wait until partisan players dribble out a few details in their memoirs, and it’s rarely complete (john howard’s george bush’s books being excellent examples of this) But this is the real stuff.
I’ll be downloading the lot, the moment I can find a source. I won’t be holding the contents against anyone, though. I have a pretty good idea about how sausages are made. Just not THESE sausages.
You might check the UK Guardian; their coverage includes an option to download parts or all….
At the moment they’re not including any contents, though. It’s just metadata.
It looks like assange is doing to drip-feed this stuff. The better to remain in the public eye, I guess. I want to just get the lot and trawl. I’m hoping for a torrent
No, it’s not just the metadata. Go to cablegate.wikileaks.org and there you have slice and dice capability including full (in most cases) body texts. However as far as I can determine it’s only a small subset of cables so far.
Yep, but there’s no download option. I want to lie in bed and read these things on my ipad! (is there an app?)
And yes, they seem to be drip-feeding them. Let’s hope they’re all released before one of the many countries that now want assange dead can get their way …
Whistleblowing? No, just jouralistic masturbation by Assange– it just feels good to him and serves no other purpose.
I take it for granted that nothing is secure anymore, but that the US government is unable to keep the lowest level of secrets secret!
It’s beyond me how anyone can betray their own country.
It’s also beyond me how anyone can endanger others’ lives.
North Korea shipping stuff to Iran – is that supposed to be news?
The WikiLeaks has declared itself as an enemy of the United States, let’s treat them as an enemy.
“Lowest level” says a lot. So far, Assange hasn’t produced anything earth-shaking. That could be because State is actually good at keeping the “highest level” stuff secure.
Or maybe…just maybe…the highest-level stuff just isn’t all that interesting. Meaning there isn’t much going on that we don’t already know about. We’re trained (by novels, TV and movies) to believe that the Government is into all sorts of weird, illegal, immoral, “black ops” shit all over the world. What if it’s simply not as spooky as we’d like to believe? What if it’s goofy and incompetent? Wouldn’t surprise me.
I have noticed that guys like Assange never want to leak secrets from countries like Russia and China…oh nooo, they kill people. What we have instead is a snotty little antiAmerican lefty pretending he is speaking truth to power while he jacks with the USA. However, if you are a really bad guy you have nothing to fear from this little weasel. I wonder how all those liberals out there who keep telling us how important it is to have diplomatic dialogue rather than war will react to seeing the diplomats in the cross fire?
I do agree that anyone who sends an email should realize that secrecy is a joke. If they did not before, they certainly do now.
You’re absolutly right.
Putin has made it pretty clear that journalists who cross him wind up in a world of hurt.
Assange wouldn’t be breathing if he decided to leak thousands of Russian documents.
They’d find the leaker instantly and brutally, soon there after the receivers would find leaks in their fluid containment systems. And, it would all happen in a flash.
Come on now! How do you think Wikileaks got this stuff? This is a set-up and will be used by the Powers That Be as an excuse to censor the internet! Assange is a tool of the Billionaire Banker Rothschild Masonic Illuminati Bilderberg Council on Foreign Relation Jew Trilateral Commission Soros and Elvis World Government. Wake up, Sheeple!
Interesting theory. If we had a worthwhile press, it might even be proven.d
The leftist media has adopted the Treasonable Man standard.
They will publish anything as long as it negatively impacts American defense interests.
What I can’t figure out is why they’re doing it to Obama and Clinton, the best friends a foreign lefty ever had. I’ll be curious to see how the MSM presents it.
i agree, sort of
if obama wanted to put the lid on it it would happen in a heartbeat
i’m also of the belief that this is a giant misdirect
a way to use the msm and its inability to control itself to “leak” these otherwise useless and unimportant documents to hide something else
like the 1st class private with access the all this “secure” information— i call shenanigans; if a private in the military leaked anything important he would be shot on site– this is all a sham
North Korea sent 19 medium range BM-25 missiles to Iran. This was communicated in a cable of Feb 24, 2010 but has remained secret until this date. Why was this hidden from the public – that is the most important of this….
Quite often, WRT classified information, it’s not the facts themselves that are classified but the exact details, how we gained them and the conclusions that we draw from them. For instance that NK sent missiles to Iran may be public knowledge, but how did we find out that 19 were sent?
The main problem isn’t Willeaks, but our DOJ.There doesn’t seem to be an serious effort to really punish the people leaking secret information. What would the penalty for 20,000 charges of a security violation? What does it take to be treason in the 21st century? Why is the death penalty not on the table? Just asking
The soldier who is the leak can be tried for treason, Assange can’t, not being an American citizen. The espionage and classified documents release laws (US Code title 18, chapter 37, sections 793 and 798) don’t carry the death penalty.
Prosecutions under those laws are overdue, not just Wikileaks but the NYT on two cases too.
I’m for transparency, myself, and am only sorry that there isn’t an Assange type dumping Russian and Chinese info into the public square (but then, that guy would be dead long ago…). Really. It was a PRIVATE FIRST CLASS who found all these emails. I agree with my fellow western canadian: go back to the privateer type of spy. The CIA is an embarrassment to the USA; and the so called Diplomatic Corps should be thrashed; not because for its gossip, but for its allowing all this gossip onto the internet.
And now they are whining that this results from unifying of bureaucracies post 9/11. And these are the “best and brightest?”
And aren’t you sorry you missed that party in Dagestan???
“Was the administration afraid someone would want to do something about it? Sounds that way to me.”
Yes. Or the administration is afraid of the public demanding that the US do something about it. Or afraid of public wrath at a State Department bureaucracy that is willing to ignore and cover up a terribly real danger.
Why is DHS closing down websites that sell knock-off designer goods and allowing this site to post whatever it wants? Which is the greater danger to US national security? Declare the individuals to be terrorists, declare anyone providing the site to be supporting terrorists and deal with it. The job of diplomats is to negotiate; the job of the military is to protect us. Between them, they should be able to figure out a way to neutralize the threat.
It was the military that betrayed State here, but turnabout is fair play. Too bad its my country caught in the middle, but I admit to a certain sense of satisfaction. It’s not like they cared about the US when Bush was president.
How’s that prediction on Iran’s nuclear intentions looking now? Yeah, that State Department. Somebody should have been shot then, for treason.
The really deadly thing that is being revealed…..is….the incompetence of all concerned. Just about all of the bureaucratic executive departments have become inbred along with most of the large corporations. They go to the same schools, they hire from the same schools, and we end up with doubly certified inbred ninnies trying to run things.
“After all, that the NORKS have been in an alliance with Iran is known to anyone even slightly interested.”
Axis of Evil anyone?
The coverage of this subject seems to alternate between frenzied screeching about how the leaking of these cables has put our brave troops at risk, and pooh-poohing it as being ineffective and revealing nothing of importance. Mr. Simon has managed to do both.
It’s easy to speak truth to power when power just hurrumphs indignantly.
It’s more difficult to be brave when power shoots you.
Most activities of the left, especially over the last 10 years or so, are easily explained as acts of craven cowardice.
Has anybody yet explained the phenomenal security flaw that allowed a low-level non-com to access all of this material? What happened to “need to know”? Does/did every 20-something in military intelligence have access to the entire diplomatic cable file?
Yes, that’s the real problem. The cables themselves appear to be low-grade product, severely embarrassing (as all such is) but no great drama.
But the fact that a Pfc had access to them indicates that the whole system has not just minor flaws, but really bad ones at its foundations. If this stuff was so easy to get to, what about the real thing?
Manning isn’t even a non-commissioned officer; he’s just a Private First Class – enlisted man.
Perhaps this is how a lowly, not-even-an-NCO enlisted man gets hold of classified material. He’s disregarded due to his low rank. Low rank is no indication of level of knowledge, especially when it concerns information security. Today’s kids grow up with computers, so it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine some young kid figuring out how to steal classified material from “secure” systems. The kid had an ingeniously simply plan, which obviously worked.
Perhaps part of the lesson- aside from not creating permanent records of things you don’t want other people to see- is that we should pay closer attention to the people we grant security clearance to. It’s not that hard to get a security clearance- just have a clean criminal record and not be too greatly in debt. Easy enough. Passing those two bars doesn’t mean you’re not a criminal- it just means you haven’t been caught.
This may not be as egregious as the media is making it out to be, and most likely, no one will die as a result of it, but it really ought to alert people in power to the serious flaws in the security apparatus.
this is why i think all of it is a giant sham– a misdirection
Maybe now we’ll have the long over due house cleaning at Foggy Bottom.
Is the government still blaming that one lone Army pfc. for leaking all of these documents? Seems implausible.
I have to disagree with Mr Simon on this one (I guess there’s a first time for everything).
These cables are supposed to be the equivalent of whispers over cocktails, where one can speak freely, knowing that the data will never be put in the wrong hands. There should be some really severe security measures taken – and ones I’m not at liberty to discuss yada yada. They weren’t.
For my sins, I’ve worked on a non-US secure diplomatic communications system. This kind of data flows through all the time. Who’s sleeping with who. Who’s in the pocket of The Mob. Some of which is not actually true, but is the best guess based on the evidence, and often includes an estimate of that guess’s reliability.
It’s supposed to be, you know, secret. Often we don’t want someone to know what we know about them – or don’t want them to know just how clueless we are about them. But how exactly are we to convey this information from the Bazorkian Embassy if we don’t do it electronically? By “diplomatic courier” with a couple of C-5s filled with paper taking off every day, and arriving many hours later?
Special channels may or may not exist, but they are likely to be low bandwidth if they do. Otherwise, you *have* to rely on diplomatic cables or a world-wide intranet. Those are well protected – but that protection is useless if the resultant product after transmission is available to a Pfc for goodness’ sake.
One question: why isn’t Julian Assange in an American prison, or better still, in Guantanamo?
Gee, I wonder if the government should remove its documents from the computer? What fun will the AH who keeps leaking these documents have when all of our medical records are on line. The computer is a wonderful tool but a terrifying foe when used by unscrupulous persons. I suspect we will see plenty of terror when Obama gets his filthy hands on our medical records. Who is it, again, who voted for this vermin? Who is it that lets the secret document cockroach live to see another day? Oh, it is ‘we the people.’
Very frightening.
The leaks themselves appear silly. “Berlusconi likes women and wine”, “Putin controls Medvedev”, “Ahmedinejad is a bad fellow”, “Netanyahu can’t make up his mind”. Tell me something I don’t know.
I am ready to head for the hills because by all appearance the American government has come off the rails. The government can’t control its lines of communication. The Department of Homeland Security is enforcing copyright. What the hell is going on here?!
Welcome to the new age intended consequences of a [transparent] America. Since the ’30′s, [only] Reagan closed the flood dams of security leaking.
The PROBLEM is NOT this WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange! The problem is all the Anti-American operatives who have infiltrated the government…including the State department, the military, the CIA, the Congress, the White House and throughout all the rest of government….not to exclude the media.
For decades the communist-socialist-progressives have infiltrated Americas most secured government apparatus systematically dismantling (or ignoring) most of its security policies and procedures. Government security clearances are now handed out like water to any seeker with or without cause. Nobody, in America’s sensitive government positions, any longer have any respect for classified information of any kinds. The media will publish any classified information with reckless disregard and never blink.
The age and use of digital classified data only makes it easier and more volumous to access and release. With the right clearance and position, one can emass and centralize boatloads of documents to be released with a single stroke of a key. Nobody even supervises and tracks access activity anymore.
The sleeping Traditional American’s have let this once greatest nation nation become a teetering loss! HOW SAD!
“These days, a school child knows that what you write digitally is forever indelible.”
And every U.S. diplomat knows that cables (i.e., telegrams) are official correspondence of record.
I’ve always taught my writers of intelligence reports to tell the facts as they know them, to share their opinions or analysis when it’s clearly identified as such, and let “higher” decide what’s polite or releasable. But reports and telegrams like these are classified for good reasons, some of which are going to be highlighted by the fallout from all this.
Julian Assenge and his minions are just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay so much smarter than everyone else.
@Roger:
Cables are not emails (although they look more and more like them all the time). They are official communications, originally sent as wire and/or radio telegrams.
Do you not understand why U.S. diplomats and others “in the field” must have a channel by which they can inform Washington or other posts, without having to take out classified advertisements in local newspapers?
Why on Earth would you not want them to tell you the unvarnished truth as they see if from the vantage points of their assigned posts? Ever heard of “Garbage In – Garbage Out”? If your own people in the field can’t trust their communication channels to the “head shed,” then what is the point?
Cheers!
But in fairness, there IS a reason for this sort of transparency. The US State Department is, after all, a public institution, receiving public funds, with the (in theory) goal to further the interests of the US (electorate). Somewhere, there has to be some sort of accountability for the group think of dunderheads. Who’s interests are being furthered here. Independent of politics, the State Department for what seems like millenia has furthered not but its own interests. Selected elites from selected elites, the organization has long since being a rational organization in favor of an organic one interested only in maintaining its own existence. A bit of humiliation and public scrutiny will do the body good.
The true “dunderhead” in all of this is Hillary. Just how many times will North Korea, Iran, Syria, the PA, Hamas, and any number of corporate political enemies have to say, “we hate you and Israelis,” before she listens? From what we read, perhaps the answer is asymptotic to reality.
@Daniel: While I’m no great fan of Sec. Clinton, her statement on this issue is on-point and wholly correct.
Why would you want your diplomats, who represent your country abroad and conduct its negotiations and diplomatic relationships overseas, to have to second-guess and parse their reporting back to Washington with weasel-words and political correctness, rather than calling a spade a spade?
It’s not about “transparancy,” it’s about letting everyone read our mail, including about who is telling us what. So who will tell us anything ever again in the future, if their identities will be leaked?
Lastly, your internal image of the Foreign Service needs updating. You’re about fifty years off schedule. The Foreign Service you describe went away after World War II, with the influx of recent veterans. The trust-fund babies with triple-barreled surnames don’t go in for public service nowadays; they tend to go more the Paris Hilton route.
Today’s Foreign Service is gaining veterans of the current conflicts with each entering class of new officers.
Disagree with the last–the screening process is still the same and more focused on ensuring “the best fit” to the mean. This has certainly been the case since post Vietnam and the 1980′s recruitment cohorts are well known.
Nevertheless, accountability of various models and competing views needs periodic external review. Otherwise, we have a foreign policy that continues to lag behind dynamic situations.
@Daniel:
Actually, no.
The selection process for FSO candidates has changed a number of times over the years since a professional Foreign Service was established (around the same time as a non-partisan Civil Service, in the 1920s, IIRC). The most recent changes were just a few years ago and replaced the Foreign Service Written Examination (FSWE), which included actual written-in-longhand essay questions, with the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) which is computer-based.
This exam is the first of several steps, includng the Foreign Service Oral Assessment (FSOA) which is a day-long battery of group and individual exercises, some of which are scenario-based, as well as security and medical clearances.
This is not your grandfather’s, father’s, nor even your older brother’s Foreign Service.
For more information, see here: http://careers.state.gov/officer/index.html
@Daniel – you’re not very bright, are you?
Most observers agree that the content of this material certainly proves that State is indeed pursuing the national interest, despite the fact that it was never intended to become public. Sort of disproves your uninformed presumptions.
To lay all of State’s correspondence bare on the altar of “transparency” would certainly preclude effective negotiation, formation of informed strategies, and laying bare the truth to the policy makers, would it not?
I’m sure there’s a car dealer that would love to see some transparency in your negotiating position when you walk in
Our so called leaders have failed us badly. They tell us about the damage the leaks are doing to US National Security but they have failed to do their job – defend the national security.
What Assange and Wikileaks are doing is not a legal matter — it is a matter of war
Is Obama a coward? The US can and should capture or kill Julian Assange and destroy Wikileaks.
In an interview with the UK’s Channel 4 News when Wikileaks first began its war on the US, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the Taliban were studying and investigating the first treasonous “document dump”, adding “If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them.”
Obama has drones out to kill Taliban and Al Quaida operatives around the world (Pakistan, Somalia, Afganistan, Iraq and Yemen). But he treats Assange as if he were some hippie anti-war protester. Obama has ordered the killing of as US Citizen who is actively assisting the Taliban and Al Queda See the following from Wikipedia):
Anwar al-Awlaki (also spelled Aulaqi; Arabic: أنور العولقي Anwar al-‘Awlaqī; born April 22, 1971 (age 39) in Las Cruces, New Mexico) is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen, and of Yemeni descent.[8] He is an Islamic lecturer, spiritual leader, and former imam who has purportedly inspired Islamic terrorists against the West and, according to U.S. government officials, also become “operational” as a senior talent recruiter, motivator, and participant in planning and training “for al-Qaeda and all of its franchises”.[3][7][9][10][11][12] Stuart Levey, U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism, warned that al-Awlaki “is extraordinarily dangerous, committed to carrying out deadly attacks on Americans and others worldwide”.[6] With a blog, a Facebook page, and many YouTube videos, he has been described as the “bin Laden of the internet.“[13]…
By April 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama approved the targeted killing of al-Awlaki, as officials explained such a step was appropriate for individuals who posed an imminent danger to national security. That step required the consent of the United States National Security Council, and made al-Awlaki the first U.S. citizen ever to be placed on the CIA targeted kill list.[26][27][28][29] In May 2010, Faisal Shahzad, suspected of the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt, told interrogators that he was “inspired by” al-Awlaki, and sources said Shahzad had made contact with al-Awlaki over the internet.[30][31][32] Representative Jane Harman called him “terrorist number one”, and U.S. newspaper Investor’s Business Daily called him “the world’s most dangerous man”.[33][34] In July 2010, the U.S. Treasury Department added him to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.[5] As of that time, he was believed to be in hiding in Yemen.
There is no difference between Al Awlaki and Assange, except that Assange is white, not an Islamist and will likely do more damage and cause more deaths AND unlike Al Awlaki, Assange is not a US citizen. Assange said at the time of his original leaks that he would attack again! He said he was preparing a new round of leaks. What do Obama and the mighty CIA and State Dept do? Nothing – they waited for the next leak and the damage that they knew would ensue. At the time of the first set of leaks the Obama administration and its flacks loudly proclaimed the magnitude of the damage and likely loss of life that would result if Wikileaks dumped again. They knew where Assange was during the months that followed. Obama did NOTHING, and has allowed the latest set of leaks to occur. Shame on the CIA, Shame on Obama.
Assange has done untold damage to the US and its allies and intelligence gathering, putting many allies on the ground in fear for their lives, ruining careers of allies and letting anyone who may have considered helping our effort know that they too could be executed or exposed to immense risk because Obama is too weak to protect them and the confidences they share.
Perhaps there is a soft spot in Obama’s heart for the radical brethren of Asange with whom Obama was so comfortable (Ayers, Dorne, Wright, Farrakahn, and Rashid Khalidi). After all, what is the real difference between them in Obama’s mind?
Or perhaps Obama is too scared — cowed — by the allies of Assange in the Obama base, to do what is right. Either way, Assange is out there doing immense damage to US national security and the lives and security of those who risk all in the fight against Islamists. Obama has the power and authority to go after and capture or kill him and yet hides behind lawyers as if this were a legal 1st amendment case and not a declaration of war on the United States and its allies by Julian Assange.
If targeted killing of al-Awlaki, is appropriate for individuals who posed an imminent danger to national security, as US Officials have explained, then there is no better option for dealing with Assange. Is there any doubt Assange poses a continuing imminent danger to US National Security?
A real leader would not sit and wait fore the next dump of secrets by our enemy.
But, you have to admit, this is great gossip!
and, would someone somewhere explain how one becomes an “imam”? Does one go to some sort of school, or find another more experienced imam to teach one, or does one just put one’s sign out and take on all ‘students’? Really, do men have a graduation ceremony, with cake and cookies and explosives? Aside from explosives, what does one learn anyway? Is there an official listing of imams, so interested people (like the State Dept for example) can look up a fellow’s credentials?
It is time that this sort of thing is made clear to we dhimmis!
I dub thee: “Heather McImam!”
Sincerely,
Consul-At-Arms
(The Sharia Night Court Judge)
You become an Imam by making the pilgrimage to Mecca. Yes, it’s just that easy. It’s not like the Islamists really go in for knowledge or study. Pay your money (expensive,) and make the trip. Voila! You are now an Imam! Diploma factory, Islam-style!
@Marc:
Actually, that’s how you become a Haji, by completing the “Haj” or pilgrimage to Mecca.
Cheers!
If it can be said to have had even the pretense of moral leadership amongst world powers, the US has lost nearly all claim to it at this time in history. Asserting criminality in this context is laughable.
Although I have been out of the intelligence game for a good long while now, I have been wondering just when this sort of thing would occur. We have or use no functioning security practices which would have precluded this from happening. Whatever security measures are thought, if thought at all, to keep classified information from being purloined at all, let alone en masse, are useless for the purpose.
The vast majority of what has been released should never have been kept on file at all. Nothing of a classified nature should ever be kept in files on any computer. Nothing of a classified nature should ever be sent electronically by any means during supposed peacetime.
When no one at any level is doing the job of ensuring security, this is what inevitably will happen.
RULE 1: If you don’t want to see it in the New York Times, DON’T PUT IT IN WRITING.
(Liberals have gotten such an easy pass from their friends in the media establishment for so long, some of them never were forced to learn RULE 1.)
while reading Roger’s essay I found it interesting to ponder: If Wkileaks had not released the information — someone else would have. Because as Roger notes, the problem is in the original handling of the data
another thing we should all ponder: if Wikileaks has this data — who else has had access to it — and for how long ?
normal military intelligence will not tell you when they have broken your codes…
One thing I’m not clear about so far is whether these documents came from someone inside State or from someone who hacked into the State networks from outside. Ultimately, computer security depends on trust and responsibility. If a person already has access to sensitive information and, for whatever reason, decides to compromise that information, there isn’t much you can do to stop him. By the time you catch him – if you catch him at all – the damage has already been done. It’ll be interesting to see whether State can identify the source of these leaks. I’m not getting my hopes up…
im waiting for the courageous mr assange to “wikileak” secure data from the chinese or russians. just waiting…still waiting…
Isn’t anybody a little skeptical or suspicious about this whole thing. Attributing all thes leaks to a low ranking Army PFC? I would thing that he might be able to leak a few military secrets but State Department documents seems a little out of his pay grade. Is he a red herring for some high ranking military officials or State Department diplomats? Treason has been committed and an indepth investigation should be conducted, but I fear that will never happen.
How is it that the Department of Homeland Security can shut down file-sharing sites for copyright infringement, but can not stop the release of millions of classified documents on Wikileaks???
The people who have leaked any of this to WikiLeaks have committed treason against the United States.
If this doesn’t qualify as treason, what does?
And it will not sadden me in the least if we find Julian Assange with a bullet in his temple.
Here’s my prognostication on this subject, that these leeks will demonstrate the essential banality of diplomacy.
Put in jail the whole State department until someone starts singing. Locate Assange and eliminate him and all his relatives to the fourth degree or anyone with that last name to make sure.
Break diplomatic relations with Sweden and send them the bill for their liberation from Nazi Germany, the Marshall Plan money, etc. plus interest and penalties. If not paid in 48 hours take their capital with a surgical nuclear strike.
That is what Julius Caesar had done with any snitch. But those were the times when men bled in the battlefield and not in a basketball court.
Quibble: Sweden was neutral during World War II and so was neither occupied by the Nazis nor liberated by the Allies.
(Just thought you’d want to know.)
Consult-at-arms: Yup, they were as “neutral” as Friedrichstraße when the krauts wanted to travel through their territory, use their trains and ports, etc. to catch the Russians by the rear. The Swedes folded like a cheap suit to avoid becoming Swedish (dead) meatballs.
@Catino:
Yeah, about like Switzerland that way.
Cheers!
Mr Simon,
Am I the only one who agrees with Julian Assange releasing those documents? This is a giant of a Freedom of Information Act release! Assange is punching the American fascists in their Muslim loving two-face for being so hypocritical with their public announcements. These cables reveal what liars the Obama administration are and how perfidious the State Department is under Hillary Clinton. These cables are a valuable historical archive for scholars and freedom loving Americans. I disagree with anyone who is against this release of cables, I appreciate what danger Julian Assange is now in and what he did by exposing the US Administration diplomacy for historians engaged with writing the history of the Obama administration.
One more thing…
In this book, Jones, Ishmael. The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. New York: Encounter Books, 2008, Jones recounts how many CIA and State Department workers have converted to Islam while on the job in the Middle East and thus jeopardized American covert operations. Don’t you wish there was a Julian Assange to out these Muslima Conversos in the US Government by posting their emails and cables for everyone to judge for themselves?
Assange’s giant ego trip is not a giant Freedom Of Information Release.
….”FOIA Banner
The Freedom of Information Act, enacted in 1966, provides that any person has a right, enforceable in court, of access to federal agency records, except to the extent that such records are protected from disclosure by one of nine exemptions or by one of three special law enforcement records exclusions.
How to File a FOIA Request ….”
Who is going to write about the real story.
The real story is NOT what is in the wikileaks documents.
The real story IS about the frightening incompetance of the Obama administration in protecting national secrets.
Of course, if it turns out that the documents actually reveal the truth about the administration, that would be quite a story as well.
It is very much in your immediate personal interest that your nation’s secrets are protected. It is most certainly not just Obama’s and/or his troupe who’ll be nursing more than a stitched lip. The real story is not about the incompetence of the Obama Administration. Part of the real story is how a mere Private in the Army had access to so much that he had “no need to know”.
Part of the real story is about how this meddling, dangerous Assange guy with such smug certitude, who has a psychiatric problem with public consequences, has been allowed in the name of political correctness to go as far as he has…..has gone this far with the grinning collaboration of the Manchester Guardian, New York Times and those others so willing to publish simply for the sake of creating a dangerous stir.
This Assange a hunted man, very justifiably on the run.
Charlie Griffith…THANK YOU FOR NOT ALLOWING YOURSELF TO FALL INTO ALL THE DIVERSIONS BEING FLOATED AROUND!
RE: ["...the real story is how a mere Private in the Army had access to so much that he had “no need to know”."]
I read so many of these kinds of sites soley to get a feel of how [UNINFORMED] American citizens are on any number of issues pertaining to their government. This topic again proves that many people have no understanding that it is the DOD and primarily the Army who is charged with securing the nations classified documents and commique domestically and abroad.
This particular topic is soley about the breach and failure(s) of the military to safeguard classified information from within! All the other chatter is nothing more than diversions!
As a side note! When the government prosecutes people and entities like the NY Times and other media outlets for like security breaches, this Wiki Leak idiot should [then] follow!
Nobody high up in U.S. government has exhibited anger or the slightest annoyance at Julian Assange. If I were Jack Bauer, and I felt Assange was attacking America, I know what I’d do.
First, I’d want to sit down and talk to him. This would be fairly easy. Simply attend one of the symposiums on leaking state secrets that Julian attends and whisk him off for a face to face. If he was uncooperative, arrogant or insolent, I’d talk about publishing information Assange wouldn’t want leaked. I’d inform Assange that his wikiLeaks have deeply angered many people because they’ve endangered U.S. security. I’d ask him how important it is to him that his family retain their anonymity. I’d ask him if any threats at been made on his son, mother, his British lawyer, Mark Stephens or his Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, or their families. I’d ask him if on August 14, 2010, he raped a woman after a hacker symposium in Enkoping, Sweden. I’d ask him if he was aware that her brother was tracking his movements.
I’d ask him if he hated the United States; whether he had been having any contacts with officials of the United States government.
Second, I’d open the door of the van, and let him leave.
The U.S. ambassador to London made an unprecedented personal visit to Downing Street to warn that whistleblower website WikiLeaks is about to publish secret assessments of what Washington really thinks of Britain.
Cameron,who Obama called a lightweight(coming from Obama it’s a bit much)has been told to brace ourselves for the fact that there is no ‘special relationalship’.
Most damaging of all, the memos contain severe criticism of British military operations in Afghanistan from US commanders and the Afghan president. There are particularly scathing comments about the failure to properly secure Sangin, a town synonymous with British military casualties.
One US cable reportedly cites inappropriate behaviour by Prince Andrew which “startled” diplomats, when he spoke his mind on a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.
Events around the release of the Lockerbie bomber are to come which are ‘significant’.
@33 & 34 Consul-At-Arms: What would Retief do?
@pst314:
I expect that Jame Retief would have Julian Assange lassoed-up and ready for a stern-talking-to (or harsher measures) well before now.
I have not read the leaked documents, but listening to Clinton, and how she ran her suck about the international community, rather than America’s national interests on the information, we might read how the CFR controled State Department stabs the U.S., in the back. Therefore, Treason.
Kind of how we see DaOne bad mouth America to the world.
Maybe we can hire the PFC to get the papers Obama is hidnig and settle once and for all whether or not hs is qualified byt the Constitution to govern as our POTUS. Screw the State Department and ther embarassment. Hillary herself is an embarassment
Do you believe everything you read in establishment media?
Have you considered this a possible feint to distract the population from administration activities / plans behind closed doors. What a coup to get gossip the major subject for discussion when this administration faces true extra-national enemies and maniipulators cut from their same cloth,and is viewed with suspicion of its aims and methods among its own citizens.
This “leak” is treated differently in the media from those earlier, e.g. “Deep Throat” which led to the coup d’etat of Watergate. THE eminent success of the “liberals” ploy to undermine / destroy the USA as Constitutional Republic and the first “shot across the bow” in that intention.
NOW there is a movement among citizens, to stand up to the self designated self propagating royal court calling lthemselves “liberals”, to add insult to injury “democrats”, who despise the People. Their clear intention to take royal status from those upstarts the citizens of the USA .
Who have the effrontery with their jeanne d’arc AND troops gathered by Rich Santelli as the Tea Party, to oppose their intention, must be taught the error of their ways. Distract their attention with gossip. Et voila.
The Tea Party of those original Americans who, after great cost threw off the shackles of unaccountable, parasitical royal court governance to establish the IDEA, as reality NOT dream, of common people to be free and protected in Law from obeisance to arbitrary power of “elites”/royals, whether “democrat” or “republican”.
Whoa, you honestly think Watergate and Nixon’s resignation were a coup d’etat!? Congress was engaged in its constitutionally mandated duties in investigating law-breaking within the government, and Nixon’s own hand-picked and congressionally approved vice president, Gerald Ford, took office.
How is that possibly a coup d’etat?
Look again.The removal of a lawfully elected President who was not acceptable to powerful groups in the nation, in the guise of lawful action, might not be literally a coup d’etat, but : What was Nixon’s actual crime ? Little information in the media about the reasons, or what the plumbers might have, or did find, in the Democratic offices break-in. Which was made after Daniel Ellsberg /Jack Andersen publication as the Pentagon Papers during an American “war”.
Much play made of “cover-up” as if this were not SOP for all politicians likely to be caught in embarrassing, possibly criminal, acts, e.g. Monica Lewinsky and Vincent Foster.
Nixon was not impeached but resigned “of his own free will” with powerful persons in Law, Media and Congress having decided his guilt without full trial. Citizens are dependent on information provided by these interested groups. The usual procedures, but amenable to conclusions, as are mine, different from those generally “official”
Much play made in the Media about Nixon’s Oval Office tapes and their embarassing comments. (Wikileaks?) But virtually nothing of the details in the Oval Office tapes of Kennedy and Johnson,instrumental in beginning and escalating the Vietnam incursions, not officially designated by Congress as “war” although administered as such.
It was Johnson, who out of necessity?, instituted a military draft exempting college students (the elite?) who declined to “serve”. One of whom subsequently became President and a power with his wife of the same “Democratic” Party.And is even now a “pillar” of that Party. Interestingly his wife played a minor role behind the scenes in that Watergate investigation.
And finally compare the behaviour of Congress in its constitutionally mandated duties in the impeachment TRIAL of WJ Clinton with Congress’membership in the Impeachment Committee during the 1970s. AND the treatment by establishment media of the Special Prosecutor in Watergate and that during the Clinton impeachment. And the differing penalties for the defendants in those two investigations.
Perhaps it is all kosher. But to me it seems otherwise.
I think you misunderstand: these “cables” were not idle chitchat best left to the watercooler. They are professional diplomats’ take on a given situation or person. Far from gossip, they are meant to be substantive information to help policy makers make decisions.
They were stored on a secure system and could be assumed to remain confidential. The system broke down, but that does not obviate the need for diplomats to be able to give frank, honest advice.
In addition to PFC Manning, his superiors who allowed him to violate so many rules with regard to classified computer systems need to be court martialed as well. The Buckshot Yankee program forbidding thumb drives and writeable CDs in government computer systems was already in effect when Manning stole this data. Someone was not enforcing the rules.
Reading the lefty website comments on this is very entertaining at this point. The general consensus is that Wikileaks is a Mossad / rightwing black flag operation. Hilarious.
You know the story. Iran is a peaceful country who never attacked anyone. Israel is engaged in constant war with…everyone. Hizbolla and Hamas are democratic representatives trying to protect their people from the Zionist threat. There is no such thing as an Iran/Syria/Hezbolla/Hamas axis.
The wikileaks seem to confirm what Israel has been saying publicly and the US has been sweeping under the rug for years. There is only one logical conclusion. The mossad secretly broke into the State Department computers, planted 250,000 documents there and funneled them to their secret lair in Iceland in order to get “the world” to bomb peace loving Iran.
One comment I read yesterday went something like “wikileaks is an Israel black op funded by Soros”. Dont even try and follow the reasoning, you dont want to go there.
Its laughable but there is a positive side for Israel. Its haters have endowed Israel with superhuman, albeit evil, power. That perception translates to real power far more than what Israel could actually achieve on the ground. It is good to make your enemies fearful and paranoid. It is good that Iranian nuclear scientists cannot sleep at night.
From an Italian prospective, I think Julian Assange is the last of your problems.
What about the next month release of internal communications of a large bank (JP Morgan? Goldman-Sachs? Bank of America?).
Do you will praise him next month?
What is the difference from asking to kill Assange or detain him forever for publishing informations and what the Iranians do to the people doing the same to them?
Where is the First Amendment for this?
What Assange did (as we know for now) is to built the infrastructure to publish the leaks; then people interested come to him. Some of his collaborators have left him and started their own leaks host service in competition. Competition is good. Keep people honest.
This is the Internet, today. If the informations are freed, they are free forever. Internet route around censors as it route around damaged nodes.
The design of the security services of the US is politically correct and functionally stupid. If people try to use their intelligence, this can be a good lesson about how to not do things and could be used to design a decent system. If they follow their most basest instincts, this will allow another precedent to censors, reduction of liberty, enlarging the government power.