Poll

What is the most disturbing?

That the leaks happened34%34% - 16
Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government2%2% - 1
A global computer hacking effort by China10%10% - 5
Saudis remain the chief financiers of Sunni militants4%4% - 2
Vladimir Putangs relationship with Silvio Berluscon2%2% - 1
US failing to prevent Syria giving arms to Hezbollah0%0% - 0
US sharply warned Germany to not arrest CIA agents17%17% - 8
Obama admin struggling to sort out Pakistani partners0%0% - 0
Yemen cover up American missile strikes6%6% - 3
Qaddafi hooking up with a Ukrainian Blonde nurse21%21% - 10
Total: 46
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6571|132 and Bush

The NYT:   "The Times, after consultations with the State Department, has withheld from articles and removed from documents it is posting online the names of some people who spoke privately to diplomats and might be at risk if they were publicly identified. The Times is also withholding some passages or entire cables whose disclosure could compromise American intelligence efforts. While the White House said it anticipated WikiLeaks would make public “several hundred thousand” cables Sunday night, the organization posted only 220 released and redacted by The Times and several European publications."

Some preliminary details
  • Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”
  • Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
  • A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
  • Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.
  • An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.
  • Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States’ failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send “new” arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.
  • Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”
The cables show that nearly a decade after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States’ relations with the world. They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists, and assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in Lahore, Pakistan, was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American Consulate.They show officials managing relations with a China on the rise and a Russia retreating from democracy. They document years of effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon — and of worry about a possible Israeli strike on Iran with the same goal.Even when they recount events that are already known, the cables offer remarkable details.
11,000 are classified “secret,” 9,000 are labeled “noforn,” shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and noforn.
  • For instance, it has been previously reported that the Yemeni government has sought to cover up the American role in missile strikes against the local branch of Al Qaeda. But a cable’s fly-on-the-wall account of a January meeting between the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the American commander in the Middle East, is breathtaking.
  • “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Mr. Saleh said, according to the cable sent by the American ambassador, prompting Yemen’s deputy prime minister to “joke that he had just ‘lied’ by telling Parliament” that Yemen had carried out the strikes.
  • Mr. Saleh, who at other times resisted American counterterrorism requests, was in a lighthearted mood. The authoritarian ruler of a conservative Muslim country, Mr. Saleh complains of smuggling from nearby Djibouti, but tells General Petraeus that his concerns are drugs and weapons, not whiskey, “provided it’s good whiskey.”
  • Likewise, press reports detailed the unhappiness of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, when he was not permitted to set up his tent in Manhattan or to visit ground zero during a United Nations session last year.


"None of it disturbs me" is also an choice. I ran out of options.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6745|Moscow, Russia
no "other" option?
none of the above disturbs me - nothing earth shattering, fuck, nothing's even new in there. what i'd like to know though is why the fuck nothing's being done to stop this shit.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6571|132 and Bush

Like i said, ran out of choices. I really wanted to include the details as a choice. Simply explaining other will work. .. although it sounds like u would probably fall under the first choice. edit: or maybe u meant everything "we already knew".
Xbone Stormsurgezz
FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6381|'Murka

None of it is shocking.

It shows that 1) sovereign nations do what they want; 2) we tried to get them to do what we wanted; 3) sometimes they complied, sometimes they didn't, depending on whether it was in line with their national interests.

Most of it--that has any relevance, anyway--backs up what we have been saying publicly for years. That is positive. WRT the ME, it can go one of two ways: 1) reinforce our (and other nations') policies there or 2) further destabilize the region (talking primarily about Iran here). Just depends on how regional nations respond.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6571|132 and Bush

The leaks themselves are a bit shocking to me i must say. .. as a lowly citizen I cant ever remember a breach this big.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6123|what

The Yemen cover up of American missile strikes.

But only because now the cat is out of the bag and it was one of the few "cover ups" broken by wikileaks.
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Whats shocking to me is the US threatened an ally - Germany
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6381|'Murka

Dilbert_X wrote:

Whats shocking to me is the US threatened an ally - Germany
You shouldn't be shocked...because that didn't happen. Fuck sakes.

Why am I not shocked that you're shocked by something that didn't happen?
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6745|Moscow, Russia

Kmar wrote:

edit: or maybe u meant everything "we already knew".
no. there's no way to do anything about what "we already new". it's called international politics - no way to change that.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
Yeah none of that is particularly stunning truth be told. Correlates with some reasonably obvious guesses we all made.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

FEOS wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Whats shocking to me is the US threatened an ally - Germany
You shouldn't be shocked...because that didn't happen. Fuck sakes.

Why am I not shocked that you're shocked by something that didn't happen?
Sharply warn, threaten, whats the difference?
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Ultrafunkula
Hector: Ding, ding, ding, ding...
+1,975|6443|6 6 4 oh, I forget

What about the one where the Saudi king asked the US&A to attack Iran?
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6745|Moscow, Russia

Ultrafunkula wrote:

What about the one where the Saudi king asked the US&A to attack Iran?
and what's so ZOMG about that?
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
Shocking
sorry you feel that way
+333|5969|...
Why do people feel it's disturbing that Yemen covers up US strikes as their own?

Honestly, being in their position it is nothing less than logical.

I also think that is one of the worst things they could've possibly leaked, as in, stupid.

Last edited by dayarath (2010-11-30 07:55:08)

inane little opines
Ultrafunkula
Hector: Ding, ding, ding, ding...
+1,975|6443|6 6 4 oh, I forget

Shahter wrote:

Ultrafunkula wrote:

What about the one where the Saudi king asked the US&A to attack Iran?
and what's so ZOMG about that?
Umm... you don't see anything in a straight request to declare war?
FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6381|'Murka

Dilbert_X wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Whats shocking to me is the US threatened an ally - Germany
You shouldn't be shocked...because that didn't happen. Fuck sakes.

Why am I not shocked that you're shocked by something that didn't happen?
Sharply warn, threaten, whats the difference?
Acres
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Macbeth
Banned
+2,444|5555

I was suprised that China made such a fuss over the Uigurs (spell).
globefish23
sophisticated slacker
+334|6293|Graz, Austria
I find it disturbing that we still don't have images of Gaddafi's voluptuous Ukrainian nurse posted.
Mekstizzle
WALKER
+3,611|6591|London, England
What disturbs me the most is they were calling this StateLogs before it was released, now suddenly its Cablegate, and my original topic title is ruined. Twats.
Doctor Strangelove
Real Battlefield Veterinarian.
+1,758|6438
Fuck the "gate" suffix. None of this shit is ever as fucked as what Nixon did. Also, Nixon's shenanigans were much broader than the hotel breakins.
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6571|132 and Bush

Mekstizzle wrote:

What disturbs me the most is they were calling this StateLogs before it was released, now suddenly its Cablegate, and my original topic title is ruined. Twats.
That's because mr.wikileak himself asked us to call it cablegate. I followed suit in fear that he would leak a sex tape of mine if i didn't.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
Poseidon
Fudgepack DeQueef
+3,253|6507|Long Island, New York
Elbowgate was worse than Cablegate. Thanks CNN.
globefish23
sophisticated slacker
+334|6293|Graz, Austria

Kmar wrote:

Mekstizzle wrote:

What disturbs me the most is they were calling this StateLogs before it was released, now suddenly its Cablegate, and my original topic title is ruined. Twats.
in fear that he would leak a sex tape of mine
Did someone blow your whistle in that one?
*Ta-dum-tssh*
Kmar
Truth is my Bitch
+5,695|6571|132 and Bush

I've been known to enjoy a leak from time to time.
Xbone Stormsurgezz
Beduin
Compensation of Reactive Power in the grid
+510|5720|شمال
Qaddafi hooking up with a Ukrainian Blonde nurse!
الشعب يريد اسقاط النظام
...show me the schematic

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