Article

2010-12-07 International-UN-NGOs

Assange: Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths

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Posted by tipper 2010-12-07 11:06|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 I know I am not in the majority but I agree with Mr. Assange. Any number of publications or websites would have published this files, in fact the NYT published a bunch as well. Anybody who wants can find an outlet for classified material. We need to plug the leak at the source. First off we need to (after a speedy courts martial) execute one PFC Manning. This will have a dramatic and immediate affect on any wannabe/copycat leaker. Second we need to follow the OPSEC/COMMSEC rules for dealing with classified material. No more jump drives or CD burners. These two measures will greatly reduce the chance of this happening in the near future.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2010-12-07 12:03|| 2010-12-07 12:03|| Front Page Top

#2 Fair enough. Can I shoot him after the Swedes convict him?

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2010-12-07 12:29|| 2010-12-07 12:29|| Front Page Top

#3 Ima hoping he comes across some very, very bad Lutfisk.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 13:13|| 2010-12-07 13:13|| Front Page Top

#4 There's such a thing as good Lutfisk, Besoeker? ;)

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2010-12-07 14:40|| 2010-12-07 14:40|| Front Page Top

#5 I'm no Swede, but I believe it's what one might refer to as, like haggis, an... acquired taste.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 14:43|| 2010-12-07 14:43|| Front Page Top

#6 Nope, sorry, Mr. Assange reaps what he sowed.

Yes, Cyber Sarge is correct about fixing leaks at the source. Private Manning needs to spend the rest of his life in a SuperMax, and the rules need to be tightened (again).

But what Mr. Assange has done qualifies as espionage against the United States. He's an unfriendly foreign national who received American state secrets and distributed them in an effort to harm our country. It may not be 'illegal', but it is espionage.

Once upon a time, oh back in the Cold War for example, we knew how to handle people who committed espionage against us. The ~~Soviets~~ Russians knew as well. The Chinese are still pretty good at it.

Mr. Assange needs to pay for what he did.

Back in the Cold War our own newspapers would not have printed classified information. The NYT got away with it with the Pentagon Papers because it was an attack on Nixon and that was always okay. That opened the floodgates; those floodgates need to be closed. We might promulgate a new set of rules as to what will happen to news outlets that print classified information in the future.

Posted by Steve White 2010-12-07 14:58|| 2010-12-07 14:58|| Front Page Top

#7 Don't shoot him for a being a messenger. Shoot him for being a child molester who is responsible for the deaths of 200+ people whose cover he destroyed.

Posted by Frozen Al 2010-12-07 15:50|| 2010-12-07 15:50|| Front Page Top

#8 The reason Wikileaks is the only one attacked and not the Old Media is because Governments (UK, Australia, US) are now SO GOOD at manipulating and controlling the feed of information to old media that they pose no threat.

Wikileaks however is now an uncontrollable source of information - and it feeds to Old Media.

So if you kill WIkileaks, Old Media will go back to being the chained up dog. it still can bark (giving appearance of independence) but it's on a tight chain. It can't report what it does not know.

I totally support Julian Assange. I think it is disgraceful how our Governments are conducting themselves.

Perveting the judicial process
Interfering with the media

these things are a greater threat to your society than some Islamofascist living in a cave in Afghanistan.

Dismantling our norms and freedoms which took centuries to build is NOT on.

Posted by anon1 2010-12-07 18:29|| 2010-12-07 18:29|| Front Page Top

#9 Wikileaks however is now an uncontrollable source of information - and it feeds to Old Media. Anon1

I hope you will forgive me if I decide to get my "informmation" from sources other than accused rapists, extortionists, pedifiles, or con men.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 18:40|| 2010-12-07 18:40|| Front Page Top

#10 Besoeker, if the "accused rapist" (and go read the facts in the Reuters article about that trumped up charge) tells you the truth and your other source is uninformed - that leaves you precisely where?

Posted by anon1 2010-12-07 18:59|| 2010-12-07 18:59|| Front Page Top

#11 that leaves you precisely where?
Posted by anon1

Not in a London prison without bail thank you.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 19:01|| 2010-12-07 19:01|| Front Page Top

#12 anon1, I just posted something entitled...WikiLeaks, a very interesting Canadian Free Press perspective. Have a look at it will you?

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 19:04|| 2010-12-07 19:04|| Front Page Top

#13 hey Besoeker, I just tried but the link is broken: server down or busy.

Posted by anon1 2010-12-07 19:08|| 2010-12-07 19:08|| Front Page Top

#14 It's had 17 hits to include the one I just successfully made.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 19:10|| 2010-12-07 19:10|| Front Page Top

#15 Assange needs to die like King Ludwig of Bavaria - drown in 18 inches of water (with a bullet-hole behind his left ear that 'did nothing to hasten his death'). His remains should be used for chum the next time the Swedes go fishing.

Manning needs to be welded into a 6'x6'x6' steel box that has two 2" x 12" slits cut in the side, and a 3" circular hole in the floor. The box can be moved back and forth from Fort Erwin to Fort Riley to Fort Lewis to Fort Huachuka as needed as an example of what happens when you're stupid. Feed him nothing but peanut butter sandwiches and stale beer - REALLY stale beer. Make sure he never gets to spend a night inside a building ever again - just his little steel box.

Posted by Old Patriot 2010-12-07 19:25|| 2010-12-07 19:25|| Front Page Top

#16 OP... you down in the cellar pulling maintenance on that collection of medieval weapons and interrogation devices again?

Posted by Besoeker 2010-12-07 19:29|| 2010-12-07 19:29|| Front Page Top

#17 Claim:
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
Reality:
When I try to question him about the morality of what he's done, if he worries about unleashing something that he can't control, that no one can control, he tells me the story of the Kenyan 2007 elections when a WikiLeak document "swung the election".

The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange. It's a chilling statistic, but then he states: "On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased."

It's the kind of moral conundrum that would unnerve most people, that made some wonder last week what the potential ramifications of the latest leak might be, but it is a subject on which Assange himself is absolutely clear: "You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good

Posted by tipper 2010-12-07 23:26|| 2010-12-07 23:26|| Front Page Top

00:05 Mikey Hunt
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