The Real Impact Of WikiLeaks

[PJABBER]

In the above article James Rubin claims there is yet no fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures that relate to the Middle East peace process.

He is wrong.

Exposed by WikiLeaks

By DAVID HOROVITZ
Jerusalem Post
12/1/2010

Obama, we now know, had the diplomatic cables to prove that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was no obstacle to wide Arab backing for the toughest possible measures against Iran. After the first meeting between newish President Barack Obama and new Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May of 2009, I wrote in these pages about the “acutely uncomfortable clash of divergent outlooks” so readily evident at their media conference.

I noted that while the Netanyahu camp had “rushed to talk up a purported meeting of minds over Iran,” it was plain that there was a gulf between the two men on the issue. Specially, I wrote, it had been Netanyahu’s hope that he would persuade Obama of the imperative to halt the Iranian nuclear drive “as a precondition for encouraging Arab moderation and thus enabling progress with the Palestinians, and on this he failed.”

Instead, I pointed out, “Obama insistently placed tackling the Palestinian issue – which has defeated even the most generous and flexible Israeli governments – on the road to fixing Iran.”

While Israel had argued internationally that stopping Iran would enable headway with the Palestinians, and other foreign heads of state, senior ministers and diplomats had politely suggested it was best to try to chivvy both processes along simultaneously, Obama, I observed, “has gone all the way over to the other side, and done so in public.”

I was referring to the president’s assertion, publicly contradicting Netanyahu, that, “If there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians – between the Palestinians and the Israelis – then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.”

In that column and many others since, I have often come back to Obama’s unconvincing assertion that Netanyahu, and much of Israel besides, has the Iran- Palestinian equation wrong. I often noted how illogical it seemed for Obama to argue that there was a good prospect of dramatic progress on the Palestinian front even while Iran, and by extension, Palestinian extremists, were in the ascendant, and how much more room for optimism there would be on the Palestinian front if Iran had been faced down, its nuclear march halted, and relative moderates throughout the region emboldened and empowered.

To my mind, the president’s thinking defied common sense. Now we know, however, that it also defied the concrete information he was receiving from his own diplomats.

THE OBAMA administration, it is now clear for all to see, was not pressing a reluctant Netanyahu to make settlement-freeze and other concessions to the Palestinians in part because it truly believed this would be helpful in generating wider support for tackling Iran.

Not at all. The United States, we now know courtesy of WikiLeaks, was being repeatedly urged by a succession of Arab leaders to smash an Iranian nuclear program they feared would destabilize the entire region and put their regimes at risk. Their priority was, and is, battering Ahmadinejad, not bolstering Abbas.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in 2008, had not urged the US to chivvy those recalcitrant Israelis toward concessions to the Palestinians as a pre-condition for grudging Saudi support for a firmer US-led position against Iran. Anything but. Never mind the Palestinians, the king simply implored Washington to “cut off the head of the [Iranian] snake.”

Likewise, with minor variations in the course of the following year, the rulers of Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.

We are now starting to hear, courtesy of WikiLeaks, what Jordan and Egypt had to say on the matter too.

Obama, that is, was not the prisoner of a misconception, convinced in absolute good faith that if he could deliver Israeli concessions at the negotiating table he might stand a greater chance of getting the Arabs on board for the battle with the mullahs. No, he had the diplomatic cables to prove that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was no obstacle to wide Arab backing, indeed wide Arab entreaties, for the toughest possible measures against Iran, emphatically including military action.

Either the president, it can be concluded, was so attached to his misconception that he refused to let the concrete information he had on Arab leaders’ thinking get in the way – sticking to his view of the region in defiance of the facts.

Or, more plausibly, he had internalized full well that he didn’t actually need the cover of a substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace process to generate Arab support for tackling Iran’s nuclear program, but chose to pressure Israel just the same, as a tactic, because he felt Israel was not being sufficiently forthcoming on the Palestinian front.

Neither explanation sits well, to put it mildly.

TELL NETANYAHU – who at the time of their first meeting had yet to endorse the two-state solution, and who is extremely unlikely to repeat the peace offer that Ehud Olmert had spurned by Abbas – that you feel he should be doing more? That’s fair enough.

What’s not fair enough is to indicate to the Israeli prime minister, when it’s patently untrue, that he ought to put aside some of his skepticism and take risks for peace because otherwise Israel might impede the US’s capacity to thwart the genocidal enemy, Iran.

In that May 2009 column, I noted that “If building international, and more specifically regional pressure on Iran is perceived to be contingent on dramatic progress toward resolving our vexed conflict with the Palestinians, the outlook may be bleak indeed. To judge by the fate of Israel’s peace overtures since the early 1990s, the Iranians, one can only fear, would be up to their eyes in enriched uranium before there’s a breakthrough here.”

So now here we are 18 months later. The peace process is deadlocked and Iran is indeed a good deal closer to the bomb. And the Obama administration has been pressing Israel for a second settlement freeze, even though Abbas wasted the last one, even though Netanyahu has demonstrably sought to encourage reconciliation by improving the economic climate on the West Bank, and even though Israel’s uncertainty about its Palestinian partner is magnified every time Fatah derides the legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state or the PA endorses “research” denying Jewish sovereign history here.

Until WikiLeaks, the US was presumably still reminding Israel of its view that the “linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process… runs the other way.”

That the route to thwarting Teheran runs via Jerusalem. That, whatever Israel’s misgivings, it should consider giving ground on the Palestinian front in part because of the demands of the wider struggle against Iran.

What’s the president going to tell Israel now?

 

[werepossum]

Interesting articles and commentary, PJ, thanks.

 

[PJABBER]

Interesting articles and commentary, PJ, thanks.

My pleasure, I am trying to keep this a serious review of the fallout.

We now have a reaction, and a warning, from our friend Vlad Putin developing. As the Wikileaks cables related to Russia were particularly scathing (though spot on) we can expect a reset in U.S.-Russia relations; maybe not a return to the Cold War, but a much harder line all the same.

 

[Darwin333]

the "revelations" in the latest leaks are pretty mild, and while some US diplomats might experience a bit of embarrassment, it will no doubt blow over.

the only thing that really shocked me was Hillary ordering diplomats to spy on UN leaders, even to the point of gathering dna samples.... that is kinda crazy.

Yes it was, it is the next bout of leaks about the banksters that has their panties in a wad.

 

[littlebird]

Iran declared this wikileaks as "conspiracy", and China has blocked the domestic access to the wikileaks site. Apparently the leak serves the US government quite well.

 

[Kommander_Kink]

So pjabber hates when his government limits smoking in public but likes when his government hides things from him. got it.

Bwahaha a typical masochist sheep? Fascists governments love those.

 

[irishScott]

The there was anything Russia wanted to actually hide, I imagine the Spetznaz or GRU would have taken out wikileaks a long time ago. China would probably like to but may not have the international capability.

Otherwise, no one has the guts. Therefore I doubt there's anything truly life threatening in this. In fact, there's so much I wonder if even wikileaks knows exactly what they're releasing. It's like Obamacare. A shitload of politcal-speak with a bunch of people claiming to know what it all means when they've only read about 2% of the thing.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

I'd like to see a wikileaks dump of all the data the government has gathered on US citizens.

I wonder if those in here who believe the current dump is such a great thing would feel the same way if their own personal information was made available to the public? I doubt it because those who seem to squeak the loudest about government intervention into their personal lives seem to be the same ones that feel the government should be completely open and transparent about all of their secrets. There's a certain inherent dichotomy and hypocrisy in that attitude.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

I don't doubt that Assange may very well be completely honest about his motives and publishing everything he has according to whatever procedures he believes are appropriate. If this was in fact a planned operation (which I'm not sure of, but merely suspect), I think it's more likely that he is a stooge releasing data that has been fed to him rather than an agent knowingly engaged in an operation.

Most of what he published was known (including civilians being targetted in Afghanistan and Irak and such, as well as the US not being happy with Pakistan having nukes), but was being denied or at least not talked about. The fact is that it's now out in the open and that the different parties now have to deal with their own issues too, not just blaming others for theirs.

One of the things he published is proof that the US stationed nukes in many European countries. It's been known for 30-40 years at least that they did so, and where the nukes are. There have been protests against them regularly in the past, but politicians always denied it. The cold war ended 20 years ago, yet they still keep the nukes there. Now at least that can be discussed in public whether we still need nukes in so many places, requiring lots of protection at each site or risk terrorists getting access to nukes in one or more of those places.

 

[llee]

I think the largest most tangible impact arising from this issue is the lack of trust foreign entities will have dealing with the United States. If a large global superpower can't keep track of its own internal communication, why should foreign powers trust them with more critical information?

 

[flexy]

leonlee, you absolutely have a point. But to cite someone else, if they cannot even keep their own secrets - rest assured that our enemies would have that information already.

On another note....i dont think that diplomatic cables are of such great significance for the three letter institutions around the globe.

 

[Zhaoan]

Is it just me or does Julian Assange look like a villain from a Die Hard movie? Just sayin..

 

[sportage]

Im more concerned and watching closely how they are trying to discredit this Wikileaks guy, how the press is playing a huge role, and wondering who the media is taking orders from. Sooooo... is this how it works?
The bad guys in washington/CIA start a "function" to destroy one of their enemies (so called), and the press/media takes their place in line with marching orders in hand?

This is the worst of our country, playing out right before our very eyes.
No shame. None!
Sorry kids... this just shows we are all "OWNED".

So let me get this again.. some evil crap by our own government was exposed, will be exposed, might be further exposed, and they want us to feel sorry?
And wish, as they do, that the leaks could be stopped before we find out more evil doings by our own government. And this clamp down on the truth getting out is somehow suppose to be to our benefit?
Holly shit!!!

So no doubt the CIA did kill JFK, AIDS was a man made virus used against our own citizens, and 9/11 was some covert CIA government ran operation.
Well.. would anyone really be THAT surprised?

 

[between]

..

 

[nonlnear]

some of the material in the leaks is so sad... like the German guy of arab descent, who was arrested by the CIA because he had the same name as a terrorist, and taken to some middle east torture jail, where he was raped and tortured for 3 months until the CIA goons worked out they had kidnapped the wrong guy. He's then dumped in a third world country with no money and passport. No apology, nothing. And then the USA government places pressure on Germany to NOT issue arrest warrants for the ass hat CIA agents who did this. Behavior like that is deeply immoral, and the USA government should be ashamed of its behavior. Also, the world has a right to know about shit like this.

Why do you hate democracy and open government?

 

[gingermeggs]

The German publication Spiegel has posted a very interesting cross referencing interactive graphic atlas detailing the embassy locations whose dispatches were stolen, a timeline and a volume indication.

The second part of the graphic shows the various Department of State principals and countries involved and summarizes the disclosures for each.

The U.S. Embassy Dispatches

I can see your problem, ure getting stuck when ure ears and chin hit ure own sphinkter, just try a little bit harder and soon you'll have got ure own head out of ure ass!
How does feel to be apart of a sham governance?
ure like shure!

 

[BeauJangles]

some of the material in the leaks is so sad... like the German guy of arab descent, who was arrested by the CIA because he had the same name as a terrorist, and taken to some middle east torture jail, where he was raped and tortured for 3 months until the CIA goons worked out they had kidnapped the wrong guy. He's then dumped in a third world country with no money and passport. No apology, nothing. And then the USA government places pressure on Germany to NOT issue arrest warrants for the ass hat CIA agents who did this. Behavior like that is deeply immoral, and the USA government should be ashamed of its behavior. Also, the world has a right to know about shit like this.

The world did know about that long before wikileaks "broke" the news. If you recall, Germany was really really pissed off about it and issued arrest warrants for the 18 CIA agents involved.

As for wikileaks itself, Mr. Assange is nothing more than a megalomaniac who is using sensitive data to boost his own notoriety. He is playing god and is clearly enjoying it. He controls what information gets released and how and has essentially turned this info into a weapon he can use against enemies or countries he simply doesn't like.

He has no more of a right to this information than anybody else does.

As for PJabber's overall point, I tend to agree. Most of this information isn't particularly damaging, nor is it surprising. I do not believe that it has had the impact that he hoped it would have. The silver lining is that all this classified information was released and it contained very little of value. Hopefully it has been a kick in the ass to both the military and state department to get them to update their security protocols, expand the SCI concept, and introduce some algorithmic-based monitoring of sensitive data.

 

[Craig234]

The world did know about that long before wikileaks "broke" the news. If you recall, Germany was really really pissed off about it and issued arrest warrants for the 18 CIA agents involved.

As for wikileaks itself, Mr. Assange is nothing more than a megalomaniac who is using sensitive data to boost his own notoriety. He is playing god and is clearly enjoying it. He controls what information gets released and how and has essentially turned this info into a weapon he can use against enemies or countries he simply doesn't like.

He has no more of a right to this information than anybody else does.

You're nothing but an ignoramus who posts nonsense about people you don't understand at all. You demand not to know what authorities do.

This isn't aimed at hurting the people, but informing them with information filtered not to include dangerous information - but inform people what is going on.

You have zero information, only your making things up and stating them as fact, about his being a 'megalomaniac', about his 'enjoying' something.

Did Ellsberg release the Pentagon papers facing 115 years in jail 'enjoying' it too?

It isn't the same leak - Ellsberg was much more exposing the government lying while the current leaks show it more telling the truth - but the aim is to inform.

You wouldn't know someone who is trying to help citizens, informing them which is the basis of democracy, if they slapped you.

His actions look a lot more altruistic and public-spirited, with his taking on big risk and problems to serve others for no gain for himself, to me, right or wrong.

You merely recklessly post made-up, baseless personal attacks, which is the moral equivalent of lying.

Proving you are a megalomaniac who enjoys the attention you can get attacking people wildly, according to your 'standards', right?

 

[PJABBER]

If Climategate were not enough to put a nail in the legitimacy of anthropogenic global warming (or cooling, I forget which way it is being spun today, only that it will be spun another way tomorrow,) it is interesting to see how this issue really winds up being only about the money.

"Show me the money!", not "The sky is falling!", is the rallying cry of the huge money redistribution scheme that this Administration has been playing with taxpayers' money.

WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord

Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord

- WikiLeaks cables: Cancún climate talks doomed to fail, says EU president
- Cancún climate change summit: Week one in pictures

• Damian Carrington
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 December 2010 21.30 GMT
  Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.
  
  The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial "Copenhagen accord", the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.
  
  Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.
  
  Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As well as countries' negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental "treaty circumvention" and deals between nations.
  
  But intelligence gathering was not just one way. On 19 June 2009, the state department sent a cable detailing a "spear phishing" attack on the office of the US climate change envoy, Todd Stern, while talks with China on emissions took place in Beijing.
  
  Five people received emails, personalised to look as though they came from the National Journal. An attached file contained malicious code that would give complete control of the recipient's computer to a hacker. While the attack was unsuccessful, the department's cyber threat analysis division noted: "It is probable intrusion attempts such as this will persist."
  
  The Beijing talks failed to lead to a global deal at Copenhagen. But the US, the world's biggest historical polluter and long isolated as a climate pariah, had something to cling to. The Copenhagen accord, hammered out in the dying hours but not adopted into the UN process, offered to solve many of the US's problems.
  
  The accord turns the UN's top-down, unanimous approach upside down, with each nation choosing palatable targets for greenhouse gas cuts. It presents a far easier way to bind in China and other rapidly growing countries than the UN process. But the accord cannot guarantee the global greenhouse gas cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming.
  
  Furthermore, it threatens to circumvent the UN's negotiations on extending the Kyoto protocol, in which rich nations have binding obligations. Those objections have led many countries – particularly the poorest and most vulnerable – to vehemently oppose the accord.
  
  Getting as many countries as possible to associate themselves with the accord strongly served US interests, by boosting the likelihood it would be officially adopted. A diplomatic offensive was launched. Diplomatic cables flew thick and fast between the end of Copenhagen in December 2009 and late February 2010, when the leaked cables end.
  
  Some countries needed little persuading. The accord promised $30bn (£19bn) in aid for the poorest nations hit by global warming they had not caused. Within two weeks of Copenhagen, the Maldives foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, wrote to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressing eagerness to back it.
  
  By 23 February 2010, the Maldives' ambassador-designate to the US, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, told the US deputy climate change envoy, Jonathan Pershing, his country wanted "tangible assistance", saying other nations would then realise "the advantages to be gained by compliance" with the accord.
  
  A diplomatic dance ensued. "Ghafoor referred to several projects costing approximately $50m (£30m). Pershing encouraged him to provide concrete examples and costs in order to increase the likelihood of bilateral assistance."
  
  The Maldives were unusual among developing countries in embracing the accord so wholeheartedly, but other small island nations were secretly seen as vulnerable to financial pressure.
  
  Any linking of the billions of dollars of aid to political support is extremely controversial – nations most threatened by climate change see the aid as a right, not a reward, and such a link as heretical. But on 11 February, Pershing met the EU climate action commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, in Brussels, where she told him, according to a cable, "the Aosis [Alliance of Small Island States] countries 'could be our best allies' given their need for financing".
  
  The pair were concerned at how the $30bn was to be raised and Hedegaard raised another toxic subject – whether the US aid would be all cash. She asked if the US would need to do any "creative accounting", noting some countries such as Japan and the UK wanted loan guarantees, not grants alone, included, a tactic she opposed. Pershing said "donors have to balance the political need to provide real financing with the practical constraints of tight budgets", reported the cable.
  
  Along with finance, another treacherous issue in the global climate negotiations, currently continuing in Cancún, Mexico, is trust that countries will keep their word. Hedegaard asks why the US did not agree with China and India on what she saw as acceptable measures to police future emissions cuts. "The question is whether they will honour that language," the cable quotes Pershing as saying.
  
  Trust is in short supply on both sides of the developed-developing nation divide. On 2 February 2009, a cable from Addis Ababa reports a meeting between the US undersecretary of state Maria Otero and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, who leads the African Union's climate change negotiations.
  
  The confidential cable records a blunt US threat to Zenawi: sign the accord or discussion ends now. Zenawi responds that Ethiopia will support the accord, but has a concern of his own: that a personal assurance from Barack Obama on delivering the promised aid finance is not being honoured.
  
  US determination to seek allies against its most powerful adversaries – the rising economic giants of Brazil, South Africa, India, China (Basic) – is set out in another cable from Brussels on 17 February reporting a meeting between the deputy national security adviser, Michael Froman, Hedegaard and other EU officials.
  
  Froman said the EU needed to learn from Basic's skill at impeding US and EU initiatives and playing them off against each in order "to better handle third country obstructionism and avoid future train wrecks on climate".
  
  Hedegaard is keen to reassure Froman of EU support, revealing a difference between public and private statements. "She hoped the US noted the EU was muting its criticism of the US, to be constructive," the cable said. Hedegaard and Froman discuss the need to "neutralise, co-opt or marginalise unhelpful countries including Venezuela and Bolivia", before Hedegaard again links financial aid to support for the accord, noting "the irony that the EU is a big donor to these countries". Later, in April, the US cut aid to Bolivia and Ecuador, citing opposition to the accord.
  
  Any irony is clearly lost on the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, according to a 9 February cable from La Paz. The Danish ambassador to Bolivia, Morten Elkjaer, tells a US diplomat that, at the Copenhagen summit, "Danish prime minister Rasmussen spent an unpleasant 30 minutes with Morales, during which Morales thanked him for [$30m a year in] bilateral aid, but refused to engage on climate change issues."
  
  After the Copenhagen summit, further linking of finance and aid with political support appears. Dutch officials, initially rejecting US overtures to back the accord, make a startling statement on 25 January. According to a cable, the Dutch climate negotiator Sanne Kaasjager "has drafted messages for embassies in capitals receiving Dutch development assistance to solicit support [for the accord]. This is an unprecedented move for the Dutch government, which traditionally recoils at any suggestion to use aid money as political leverage." Later, however, Kaasjager rows back a little, saying: "The Netherlands would find it difficult to make association with the accord a condition to receive climate financing."
  
  Perhaps the most audacious appeal for funds revealed in the cables is from Saudi Arabia, the world's second biggest oil producer and one of the 25 richest countries in the world. A secret cable sent on 12 February records a meeting between US embassy officials and lead climate change negotiator Mohammad al-Sabban. "The kingdom will need time to diversify its economy away from petroleum, [Sabban] said, noting a US commitment to help Saudi Arabia with its economic diversification efforts would 'take the pressure off climate change negotiations'."
  
  The Saudis did not like the accord, but were worried they had missed a trick. The assistant petroleum minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told US officials that he had told his minister Ali al-Naimi that Saudi Arabia had "missed a real opportunity to submit 'something clever', like India or China, that was not legally binding but indicated some goodwill towards the process without compromising key economic interests".
  
  The cables obtained by WikiLeaks finish at the end of February 2010. Today, 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord. Another 26 say they intend to associate. That total, of 140, is at the upper end of a 100-150 country target revealed by Pershing in his meeting with Hedegaard on 11 February.
  
  The 140 nations represent almost 75% of the 193 countries that are parties to the UN climate change convention and, accord supporters like to point out, are responsible for well over 80% of current global greenhouse gas emissions.
  
  At the mid-point of the major UN climate change negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, there have already been flare-ups over how funding for climate adaptation is delivered. The biggest shock has been Japan's announcement that it will not support an extension of the existing Kyoto climate treaty. That gives a huge boost to the accord. US diplomatic wheeling and dealing may, it seems, be bearing fruit.

 

[PJABBER]

In the continuing series of WikiLeaks releases, we now have a cable that can easily serve as a global terrorist targeting list.

While some of the identified critical sites do have high levels of security for obvious reasons, others, including medical and infrastructure locations, have little.

It will now be incumbent on the various national security services to respond to this release by tightening the physical security of identified sites as they immediately become locations of interest to a wide range of terrorist, revolutionary and criminal groups.

To understand the risk, consider that Al-Qaeda is not the only terrorist group in operation. Consider Al-Ummah, Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Caucasus Emirate and other groups to now also have a target list vetted by local U.S. diplomats as vital to the security interests of the United States and of the host nations.

WikiLeaks, which can now be considered the world's most dangerous neo-anarchist group, is offering all radical groups the strategic intelligence they need to strike where it will hurt the most.

List of facilities 'vital to US security' leaked

By Jonathan Marcus
BBC Diplomatic Correspondent

The cable asked missions to list all sites whose lose would damage the US

A long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security has been released by Wikileaks.

The US State Department in February 2009 asked all US missions abroad to list all installations whose loss could critically affect US national security.

The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.

Several UK sites are listed, including cable locations, satellite sites and BAE Systems plants.

This is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation.

The definition of US national security revealed by the cable is broad and all embracing.

In addition to obvious pieces of strategic infrastructure like communications hubs, gas pipelines and so on, it contains, amongst other things, a cobalt mine in Congo, an anti-snake venom factory in Australia and an insulin plant in Denmark.

The US missions were asked to list all installations whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security or national security of the United States.

In Britain, for example, the list ranges from Cornwall to Scotland, including key satellite communications sites and the places where trans-Atlantic cables make landfall.

"What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets”

A number of BAE Systems plants involved in joint weapons programmes with the Americans are listed, along with a marine engineering firm in Edinburgh which is said to be "critical" for nuclear powered submarines.

'Targets for terror'

The geographical range of the document is extraordinary.

If the US sees itself as waging a "global war on terror" then this represents a global directory of the key installations and facilities - many of them medical or industrial - that are seen as being of vital importance to Washington.

No wonder then that the Times newspaper in London has published the story under the headline "Wikileaks lists 'targets for terror' against the US".

Some locations are given unique billing. The Nadym gas pipeline junction in western Siberia, for example, is described as "the most critical gas facility in the world".

It is a crucial transit point for Russian gas heading for western Europe.

In some cases, specific pharmaceutical plants or those making blood products are highlighted for their crucial importance to the global supply chain.

Of course the critical question is that raised by the Times newspaper's headline: Is this really a listing of potential targets that might be of use to a terrorist?

The cable contains a simple listing. In many cases towns are noted as the location but not actual street addresses.

That, of course, is not going to hinder anyone with access to the internet.

There are also no details of security measures at any of the listed sites.

What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets, especially given that the US authorities classify them as being so important.

It is not perhaps a major security breach, but many governments may see it as an unhelpful development.

It inevitably prompts the question as to exactly what positive benefit Wikileaks was intending in releasing this document.

Former UK Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind condemned the move.

"This is further evidence that they have been generally irresponsible, bordering on criminal," Mr Rifkind said.

"This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing."

 

[SP33Demon]

It's disturbing that the United States cannot control their own military from volunteering this info. Wikileaks is just the messenger, it didn't force these whistleblowers to give the website that sensitive information. Maybe if the military could control the distribution of their information as well as their own personnel they wouldn't have to face embarrassing headlines. Such as the embarrassing iraqi civilian/reporter slaughter video on www.collateralmurder.com. Hell all they had to do was tell the truth about what happened and not try to cover it up and dumbasses like the army kid who uploaded these docs wouldn't have whistleblown and given assange's website the credibility it needed.

 

[Nebor]

(2:14:21 pm) Manning: listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltratrating [sic] possibly the largest data spillage in american history
(2:15:03 pm) Manning: pretty simple, and unglamorous
(2:17:56 pm) Manning: weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis… a perfect storm

Too bad they're not going to hang him. What a tool. You're real cool guy. I bet Chelsea Clinton would let you fuck her. What a disgrace. :thumbsdown:

 

[PJABBER]

It's disturbing that the United States cannot control their own military from volunteering this info. Wikileaks is just the messenger, it didn't force these whistleblowers to give the website that sensitive information. Maybe if the military could control the distribution of their information as well as their own personnel they wouldn't have to face embarrassing headlines. Such as the embarrassing iraqi civilian/reporter slaughter video on www.collateralmurder.com. Hell all they had to do was tell the truth about what happened and not try to cover it up and dumbasses like the army kid who uploaded these docs wouldn't have whistleblown and given assange's website the credibility it needed.

If you would do a little more reading you will find that the Private First Class Bradley Manning, a dual U.S. and British citizen, was the one who is the source of all of the Wikileaks data dumps related to the U.S. Army and the U.S. State Department. He is as far from being a whistleblower as can be conceived.

Before being arrested, Manning had been demoted from Specialist to Private First Class for assaulting an officer and was scheduled to be discharged early by the Army for "maladjustment."

In retaliation he downloaded a Secret (No Foreign Distribution) database and, while considering offering it up to a hostile foreign power(s), ultimately decided to offer it up to the neo-anarchist WikiLeaks.

Manning was also apparently quite despondent about being dumped by his drag queen boyfriend.

It seems that young Brad’s gaiety blossomed early and visibly and his fellow students taunted him about it during his years growing up with his mother in her native southwest Wales, taunting which complemented the bullying he received in his Crescent, Oklahoma years with his father when he was harassed “for being a geek.” The latter just may have been related to his refusal to recite ”under God” in the “Pledge of Allegiance,” or maybe not.

As this thread is an attempt to identify important consequences resulting from the Wikileaks, we might consider the effect that Manning specifically being gay might engender.

I like Ann Coulter's summary of spy history...

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."

Does the fact that Manning is gay and is responsible for one of the most extensive and dangerous releases of American and allied nation secrets mean that any chance for homosexuals to be granted security clearances and thus sensitive government employment, in the military or not, now completely beyond consideration?
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[Craig234]

If you would do a little more reading you will find that the Private First Class Bradley Manning, a dual U.S. and British citizen, was the one who is the source of all of the Wikileaks data dumps related to the U.S. Army and the U.S. State Department. He is as far from being a whistleblower as can be conceived.

Before being arrested, Manning had been demoted from Specialist to Private First Class for assaulting an officer and was scheduled to be discharged early by the Army for "maladjustment."

In retaliation he downloaded a Secret (No Foreign Distribution) database and, while considering offering it up to a hostile foreign power(s), ultimately decided to offer it up to the neo-anarchist WikiLeaks.

Manning was also apparently quite despondent about being dumped by his drag queen boyfriend.

As this thread is an attempt to identify important consequences resulting from the Wikileaks, we might consider the effect that Manning specifically being gay might engender.

I like Ann Coulter's summary of spy history...

Does the fact that Manning is gay and is responsible for one of the most extensive and dangerous releases of American and allied nation secrets mean that any chance for homosexuals to be granted security clearances and thus sensitive government employment, in the military or not, now completely beyond consideration?
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As much as if he were straight it would prove that no straight people can get clearance.

Your bigotry is strongly exposed in your post. But let's answer your question.

What leaves the nation more vulnerable to blackmail:

Don't ask don't tell, where every gay member of the forces is subject to someone threatening to expose them as gay, ending their military involvement?

Or ending gay discrimination so there's nothing about their being gay to blackmail with?