Julian Assange To Write For Swedish Tabloid

An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has signed on as a columnist for Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet. Why such a move? Maybe there's something more to be found in Swedish law when you are employed by a newspaper." Here's an account in English, including a translation of the interview that forms part of the linked Aftenbladet article.

Comments

How has he made his living

[line-bundle]

Perhaps he just needs to earn a living like the rest of us?

Re:How has he made his living

[Scrameustache]

Of course! Securing employment as a Swedish tabloid columnist: That was his plan all along!
It's so obvious, now...

Re:How has he made his living

[Ethanol-fueled]

It's much more insidious than that.

He's already been compromised. CIA operatives intercepted him in his hotel room, doped him up with rohypnol and scopolamine, and hypnotized him into destroying the credibility of himself and Wikileaks.

Now Wikileaks will fade into obscurity forever...st least until they unearth the whereabouts of batboy.

Re:How has he made his living

[PopeRatzo]

Do you think he flies coach?

I'll absolutely bet he flies coach. But that's not the story, is it? The story is that we're supposed to want to kill the messenger for showing what lots of us would prefer stays hidden in the shadows.

We're not supposed to know about all the greasy things our government does in the name of "national security" and we're supposed to like it that way. Any challenge to this tacit agreement between citizen and government is met with extreme prejudice, because what kind of society would we be if we actually had to account for our collective actions?

I don't think the fact that Assange is still alive should give us any indication of his personal security. There are lots of ways to neutralize a threat to the power structure. We have lots of examples of how actual assassination is no longer necessary to remove a threat. Have you noticed how much news space has been taken up demonstrating that Assange may in fact may not be a perfect human being? I don't think those stories are materializing out of nowhere. Very few news stories do any more. So the main focus becomes Assange and his human foibles instead of the massive fuck-up in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

I hope dozens of wikileaks copycats spring up around the world. This responsibility should not be in the hands of any one person. I think this is a more worthy use for the Internet than just more commerce. In a decade, things like wikileaks won't be possible, especially without a world-wide movement toward net neutrality. Some people prefer not knowing about war crimes, and I guess I can understand that, unless you happen to be one of the victims.

Re:How has he made his living

[clarkkent09]

And what exactly did he tell us about "all the greasy things our government does" and what "massive fuck up" and "war crimes" are you talking about? Care to cite any examples? I am genuinely curious because there is no way I can read all the published documents, most of which is completely routine stuff, but I figured out someone would pick the juiciest bits for us. And yet, I haven't seen anything that justifies such a drastic step as publishing classified information and quite clearly putting lives of our Afghan allies and our own soldiers a risk.

Re:How has he made his living

[digitig]

Or maybe he's jealous of how much sex Mikael Blomkvist gets.

Re:How has he made his living

[FatLittleMonkey]

And what exactly did he tell us about what [...] "war crimes" are you talking about? Care to cite any examples?
And yet, I haven't seen anything that justifies [...] quite clearly putting lives of our Afghan allies and our own soldiers a risk.

(Pardon the elisions, I wanted to contrast those two statements. I don't think I've altered your intended meaning.)

Do you see the contradiction? You have accepted without evidence the claims that the leak "quite clearly" puts soldiers at risk, but you won't accept claims that the reports detail unlawful civilian killings, instead demanding proof.

Shouldn't you extend the same skepticism to the government's claims?

That said, I think Wikileaks screwed up the release by dumping it all at once. Since the US Gov was primed for it (after the arrest of PFC Manning) they were ready to counter-attack by making the issue about the leak itself, not the contents of the leak.

It would have been better doled out in smaller event-specific lumps. (Such as the Polish mortar attack on a village. Or the US Marine panic killing of civilians.) And better to have first privately, then publicly, approached other governments (UK, other NATO, Afghan, etc) to request help with hiding names of Afghani informants. They'd probably refuse, but you'd have media reports of the attempts before anything was released.

Re:How has he made his living

[LaminatorX]

Let's not focus on the wrong question. Which is the greater risk to lives, both those in our services and those of innocent civilians, and to the health and standing of our republic: that posed by information released in these files or that posed by the state of the war being mis-represented to the body politic?

If some informants die or similar because wikileaks didn't scrub the data well enough, that is a tragedy. However, the magnitude of that loss is much less than that implicit in hiding the poor execution of an ongoing war effort.

Which is the more applicable truism in this case, "Loose ips sink ships." or "Democracy dies behind closed doors."? Comparing the lack of sudden tactical reversals and the upsurge in authoritarian posturing since this development, it seems to me that the latter is more apropos.

Re:How has he made his living

[FatLittleMonkey]

(It's a bit late in the thread, but if there's anyone with mod-points left wandering around, please reverse the -1 Flamebait mods to Clarkkent09's two messages. It's obvious he's expressing a genuine belief, not trying to provoke a mindless flamewar. Suppressing a poster you disagree with isn't a fair use of mod-points. Hell, we're even sort of almost vaguely on topic.)

I think it is "quite clear" that publishing the names of Afghans who, in Taliban's view, collaborate with the enemy puts their lives [...] at risk without any further evidence needed.

Accepted.

Same for publishing operational details, even coordinates of ground bases etc. Basically any information that helps the enemy be even a little bit more effective in fighting us obviously also puts lives at risk.

No. You have to work out the net effect. Unnecessary civilian deaths drive potential allies (and neutrals) towards the enemy. That puts a hell of a lot more lives at risk than two year old patrol routes. Or long established bases.

(The reports shows such effects. Apparently the US Marine shooting I mentioned was followed by civilian rioting and had local authorities begging the US to stop patrols in that area because they feared mixing angry-shouty relatives and panicky Marines. Such events provide aid and comfort to the enemy and should be treated as such. Failure to do so is to harm the US and its allies. Any commander that covers up a civilian killing should be publicly executed.)

Btw, accidentally shooting some civilians is not a war crime. You have to show intent.

Wilful disregard is enough. (Not that anyone ever enforces that one.)

My point, however, stands. You've placed unquestioning faith in unsupported claims that the reports will get soldiers killed at some hypothetical time in the future, but won't accept claims that the reports contain records of unlawful civilian killings, unless someone details it for you. (And be honest, would you even accept it then?)

A Swedish tabloid?

[countertrolling]

Excellent! He'll find Jimmy Hoffa for sure... and expose those alien cats that try to steal my breath while I'm asleep.

Re:A Swedish tabloid?

[Sir_Lewk]

Dammit, I wish we had Sex-Storms here in the states.

Re:A Swedish tabloid?

[Ihmhi]

Meteorologists are currently predicting a warm front in my pants. Yeah, baby!

Re:A Swedish tabloid?

[KahabutDieDrake]

I find your lack of original conversation disturbing.

Well...

[CSFFlame]

Is he looking for support from the laws that protect journalists?

Re:Well...

[dingen]

Or maybe the Swedish tabloid just figured he was a guy who would write interesting stuff for the readers, asked him if he was available for such a position and mister Assange agreed to write them some columns.

Re:Well...

[Z00L00K]

Provocative messages will sell more, and Wikileaks is provoking. Especially the US.

And Aftonbladet is a left wing tabloid press paper which means that they also like to annoy right wing people. And the US is from the European perspective (in most cases) a right-wing country.

Porn, provocation and popular politics sells! As soon as Wikileaks falls into obscurity he will have to look for some other source of income since the press won't be interested in his opinion anymore.

But there are several laws in Sweden that can protect him and his sources. If he can claim to be a journalist and publish stuff it's even illegal for the authorities to search for his sources. Doesn't matter what he do publish, it's illegal enough to have been problematic in the past for the career of policemen and politicians.

If a journalist on the other hand do publish something that's incorrect or exceeding the limits of journalistic morale the offended person can be filing a complaint at Pressens Opinionsnämnd, which can decide if the article was exceeding the moral limits and require the newspaper to post a "correction" later. To be into writing an illegal article - that requires something REALLY offensive, which I doubt that what Wikileaks has posted can be considered as.

Tabloid?

[bsDaemon]

Does the term 'tabloid' have the connotation of 'Weekly World News' in the rest of the world as it does in the United States, or does the term still have to do with the tabloid format as opposed to broadsheet when doing pre-press layout? Just curious as to what sort of reputation this paper has.

Re:Tabloid?

[hpa]

Aftonbladet used to be a serious newspaper, but these days they're definitely a tabloid in every sense of the world, although not yet as far down the morass as the U.S. ones.

Re:Tabloid?

[CRCulver]

The major tabloids in the Nordic countries are to the "serious newspapers" what the New York Post is to the New York Times: less detailed articles, more "infotainment", a tendency to pounce on any small news item about crime or the private lives of politicians and declare it the collapse of society.

Re:Tabloid?

[Hadlock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftonbladet

Tabloid has different connotations in Europe. Tabloid is more of a printing size than a rating of journalistic value. It looks like the publication he'll be writing for is on par with the New York Post or one of the many English tabloids like The Sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid

Re:Tabloid?

[Anonymous Coward]

The newspaper has some serious journalism, but also entertainment non-news of various B or C-rate celebrities and such. Their specialty in all cases seems to be how to phrase the headlines as misleadingly as possible (and pause videos in the most compromising and misleading frames possible for use as pictures) to attract people to read the articles which are usually much less interesting than the headlines would have one think. They also enjoy making up new double words (like 'nude shock', 'sex attack' or 'death cheese'.) All in all, their reputation is probably not as good as Dagens Nyheter or Svenska Dagbladet, but it could

Re:Tabloid?

[CRCulver]

Native speaker of US English here. I've only heard "tabloid" used to refer to things like the National Enquirer and Weekly World News, i.e. publications that don't even pretend to be thoughtful journalism.

Re:Tabloid?

[Frosty Piss]

Their specialty in all cases seems to be how to phrase the headlines as misleadingly as possible (and pause videos in the most compromising and misleading frames possible for use as pictures) to attract people to read the articles which are usually much less interesting than the headlines would have one think...

So, baically like Slashdot?

Swedish Law

[cappp]

I'm not a Swedish law expert, and if someone has a better grasp they should correct me, but it would seem that there's a clear legal advantage to being a journalist. The Freedom of the Press Act includes the following in Chapter 1, Article 1:

All persons shall likewise be free, unless otherwise provided in this Act, to communicate information and intelligence on any subject whatsoever, for the purpose of publication in print, to an author or other person who may be deemed to be the originator of material contained in such printed matter, the editor or special editorial office, if any, of the printed matter, or an enterprise which professionally purveys news or other information to periodical publications.
All persons shall furthermore have the right, unless otherwise provided in this Act, to procure information and intelligence on any subject whatsoever, for the purpose of publication in print, or in order to communicate information under the preceding paragraph.

What I found more interesting was the stuff buried down in Chapter 7 where it's noted that

Art. 4. With due regard to the purpose of freedom of the press for all under Chapter 1, the following acts shall be deemed to be offences against the freedom of the press if committed by means of printed matter and if they are punishable under law:

4. unauthorised trafficking in secret information, whereby a person, with-out due authority but with no intent to assist a foreign power, conveys, consigns or discloses information concerning any circumstance of a secret nature, the disclosure of which to a foreign power could cause detriment to the defence of the Realm or the national supply of goods in the event of war or exceptional conditions resulting from war, or otherwise to the security of the Realm, regardless of whether the information is correct; any attempt or preparation aimed at such unauthorised trafficking in secret information;

That would seem to suggest that if Swedish defence is undermined by WikiLeaks then there are grounds for prosecution. As far as I know Sweden doesn't have forces in Iraq but they do have people in Afghanistan.

Re:Swedish Law

[copponex]

You'd have to make an argument that the Afghan state presents a clear and present danger to Sweden. Just imagine - a mostly tribal society, who scarcely make $500 per year per person, massing a military force and successfully overpowering the Swedish defense forces. After marching through either through Russia, or attacking via air corridors through Europe, or getting permission from Iran or Pakistan to build a naval base, and then building a navy to be stationed there.

The only people credulous enough for that argument are American voters.

Re:Swedish Law

[cappp]

I have no idea about the standard for danger under Swedish law but that section is written really broadly. All you have to show is "detriment to the defence of the Realm or the national supply of goods...or otherwise to the security of the Realm." Hopefully a Swedish legal expert can jump in there but depending on how high a bar the courts set, it would appear that it wouldn't be all that difficult really.

Re:Swedish Law

[LordLucless]

Ahh, but you're using the actual definition of defence. I would be unsurprised if endangering troops in Afghanistan was considered a detriment to the defence of the realm, in that, if the soldiers were killed in Afghanistan the "defence force" as a whole would be weakened.

Re:Swedish Law

[copponex]

Yeah. All of those middle class Saudi Arabians committed a horrific crime. I'm really glad we forced the Saudi government to help us bring the remaining criminals to justice, and root out and prosecute all of their enablers. Oh wait: we didn't punish Saudi Arabia at all, or even get them to sign an extradition treaty. And where did all of the money come from?

Financing of the Plot
To plan and conduct their attack, the 9/11 plotters spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000, the vast majority of which was provided by al Qaeda. Although the origin of the funds remains unknown, extensive investigation has revealed quite a bit about the financial transactions that supported the 9/11 plot. The hijackers and their financial facilitators used the anonymity provided by the huge international and domestic financial system to move and store their money through a series of unremarkable transactions. The existing mechanisms to prevent abuse of the financial system did not fail. They were never designed to detect or disrupt transactions of the type that financed 9/11

Oh man. We totally nailed that one. It's a good thing Al Qaeda are so dumb, or they'd keep finding friendly states with zero infrastructure, and using them to launch attacks so we get stuck in intractable war after intractable war, eventually bleeding our treasury dry.

We'd never be dumb enough to fall for it, though. Right?

Re:Swedish Law

[aliquis]

That's complete bullshit.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=Sweden

Defense Budget: $7,000,000,000 [2008]

Fit for Military Service: 3,336,983 [2008]
Active Military Personnel: 34,000 [2008]
Active Military Reserve: 262,000 [2008]
Active Paramilitary Units: 38,650 [2008]

Total Land-Based Weapons: 540
Total Aircraft: 744 [2003]
Helicopters: 150 [2003]
Total Navy Ships: 77

Good luck with that.

Sure we've lowered military budget and defenses since the end of the Soviet union but it would still be a bitch for them to actually take over anything.

The current government also added 20,000 more police men/women.

I would agree upon that we should use the police and/or military to end all military organizations asap instead of only accusing individuals and let the organizations roam on. But if we did it's not like they would have plenty to push back with.

Re:Swedish Law

[copponex]

The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today. Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added. But it would have to be a state that would never "come under pressure from the United States", he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

Here's the current wanted page for OBL. I guess we still don't have any evidence for 9/11:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

Here's a note to anyone unfamiliar with how the law works: in order to prosecute a criminal and have them extradited from a foreign country, you have to present evidence to the ruling government. If you can't produce evidence, they are under no legal obligation to allow you to extradite anyone.

I guess the next time Cuba or Venezuela tries to extradite terrorists who've blown up Cuban airliners who are living in Miami, you won't mind if they drop some ordinance around Palm Beach until we capitulate.

Re:Swedish Law

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure what your point is. Or is it possible that even after you posted part of your link, you either didn't read it or do not comprehend what is actually says. Perhaps I can explain it to you. Let me know if you get lost.

The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan,

First, this fails to address anything I said because it's after the decision had already been made to remove the Taliban from power for protecting Al Qeada and Osama Bin Laden. Second, the decision to remove the Taliban from power was made before this statement was made and it was made because Taliban refused to go after either OBL or AQ. The Taliban also prevented us from going in after them. Third, we didn't just want Osama, we wanted the entire organization called Al Qeada which Osama was the leader of. Handing us the leader and allowing the terrorist organization to remain simply isn't acceptable. Fourth, they didn't want to turn Osama over to the US, they would only turn him over to a disinterested third party country and that isn't acceptable. Finally, there is no reason to believe the statement had any merit behind it as it was a ploy to avoid being dethroned from the seat of government, an ultimatum already presented to them with the Taliban clearly choosing to protect Osama and Al Qeada.

Your second link is a non-issue too. More and more evidence of Bin Laden's involvement in 9/11 comes in all the time. There is already a solid indictment against him so there is no need to mess with another and possibly give up sources of information until he is in custody. Furthermore, it's pointless to even bring that up as it's not just Bin Laden that we were after.

I guess the next time Cuba or Venezuela tries to extradite terrorists who've blown up Cuban airliners who are living in Miami, you won't mind if they drop some ordinance around Palm Beach until we capitulate.

Perhaps you should go back to third grade reading and work on your comprehension skills a bit. Everyone involved was captured and trialed except for Posada who escaped after being acquitted in a military tribunal. Posada ended up gaining asylum because of the threat of torture if he was extradited which is consistent with international law (read treaties that the US, Venezuela and Cuba are part of). There is no parallel there because neither Bin Laden or Al Qeada faced such a threat if prosecuted in the US in 2001.

And yes, I do happen to mind if Cuba or Venezuela drops ordinance in Miami. If you somehow see a parallel between that and 9/11, then you are more fucked then I thought. If they do, I fully expect war just like what happened in Afghanistan and I fully expect Cuba or Venezuela to lose. I also expect that should this ever happen, that the US government go all out and instead of redeveloping the territory and giving it back, that we keep it and rape the resources in the lands.

Re:Swedish Law

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Wikileaks has applied for a newspaper-registration in Sweden. That mean that Wikileak will get additional protection and treatment like any newspaper here in sweden.

Why Sweden you ask ? Well Wikileak are partly hosted in Sweden and one Swedish political party - the Pirate party has said they are willing to give Wikileaks internet access.

The Pirate Party is probably the only political party in the world with their own AS number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet) thus they are one of the networks that are connected to other networks that all together form the Internet.

Re:Swedish Law

[HungryHobo]

"There is no parallel there because neither Bin Laden or Al Qeada faced such a threat if prosecuted in the US in 2001."

of course, they wouldn't torture them on US soil, they'd have sent them over to gitmo or some other facility first.

If you don't remember the UK stopped sending prisioners to the us a while back because

"Given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture " - Foreign Affairs Select Committee

Remember a while back when the US government decided that it's not torture, it's freedom tickling as long as it's the US doing it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7515517.stm

Lets make the situation clearer for you- say American terrorists killed a lot of people in another country.

Random scenario, lets say some crazy chirstian sect who think the muslims are taking over the world blew up the Royal Méridien Hotel and killed a few thousand people.
Lets say the people who carried out the bombing were mostly mexicans with a few canadians in the mix but no americans took part.

So the UAE demands the united states turn over the leader and members of one of the crazy terrorist chirstian organisations, probably the ones responsible but not certain.

The UAE offer no evidence, they offer no proof at all that people they're demanding are responsible.

At this point what should the US do?

1:Just hand over US citizens with no proof that they've committed any crime?(Would this even be constitutional?)
2:Demand proof that they're actually responsible rather than just hand over US citizens on the good word of an unfriendly forgien government?
3:Tell the UAE to fuck off.

Now lets say the UAE had a much stronger military than the US.

Now lets say the US has demanded proof, would the correct course of action for the UAE now be to

1: Give proof?
2: Bomb the shit out of some US cities to show that they really mean buisness?
 

ALIEN DEATHSHOCK REINDEER INVASION

[AffidavitDonda]

Alien deathshock reindeers storming Stockholm. All the secret files now on Wikileaks!

works good enough...

Re:This Guy

[MichaelSmith]

Assange didn't release the information. His source did, and could have posted it raw on the internet.

Tor Worm

[Anonymous Coward]

To support the Iranian people in 2008, I ran a Toir relay. I eventually ran one to help with WikiLeaks. I used my neighbors Internet connection over WiFi (which I helped pay for). - he didn't care. But, ICE ended up raiding his house looking for kiddy porn. Of course, they didn't find any and I have since learned that this is a hazard with running these relays. Though, the warrant mysteriously disappeared and there is no record of the raid, so this makes me think that the FBI/ICE is raiding Tor Relay operators under the guise of anti-child porn, imaging their drives and then dropping the case.

So, how do you fight back against something like this? I have created an autoinstalling version of Tor that is automatically set to operate in Relay mode (/w uPNP enabled). I just place this autoinstaller in a dozen locations on the web and change the payload url of an existing worm out with this. Imagine how overwhelmed the thugs in ICE would be if 10,000 Tor Relays popped up overnight.

Re:Tor Worm

[Pedrito]

Link or it didn't happen.

Re:Tor Worm

[Americano]

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids places looking for child pornography now? I would've thought that'd be a matter for the FBI, since they have primary jurisdiction over child pornography investigations & enforcement.

Sorry, but this story sounds pretty sketchy.

Re:This Guy

[siddesu]

You sound angry, but your anger is directed at the wrong people.

Instead of asking for the extradition of Assange, you should be asking for the court martial for the officers (high and low) who are in charge of IT security of the US army.

You should be asking for hefty refunds from the companies (undoubtedly laced with a lot of former brass) that were paid money to supply the hardware and software for the said information processing. Maybe they should cover part of the costs for helping your informants.

Those "heroes" are the people who are responsible for the data leakage and for the danger to everyone who is assisting them in Afghanistan.

Re:This Guy

[Kev Vance]

You can't *start* a thread by Godwinning it! That's what Hitler would have done!

Proper translation into Swedish-

[Overzeetop]

"Essunge-a elreedy vurks veet zee Noo Yurk Teemes, zee Gooerdeeun, und Der Speeegel. Boot he's nut yet vurked es a culoomneest fur uny poobleeceshun. Sterteeng noo thet veell chunge-a. Essunge-a met Efftunbledet's ideetur in cheeeff Jun Heleen yesterdey. Bork bork bork! 'It's nu cueencidence-a thet I'm gueeng tu be-a vreeting fur a Svedeesh peper. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Zee Svedeesh poobleecist cooltoore-a und Svedeesh lev hefe-a sooppurted us frum zee begeenning', seeed Essunge-a."

(-chef, that is. What? You knew somebody had to do it!)

Re:Proper translation into Swedish-

[BrentH]

This reads nor sounds remotely like a Dutch person speaking English. This sounds like the typical (north) European accent as heard exclusively on American TV ;)

the perfect Swedish publication for Assange...

[Tumbleweed]

The perfect Swedish publication for Assange would be Millennium! :)

Re:This Guy

[hnangelo]

And it's SWEDEN, not Switzerland.

Re:Relevance???

[qbzzt]

I'm sure the CIA is also much more interested in the people who provide the content for Wikileaks. Unfortunately, that's harder to find and publish.

Re:This Guy

[BJ_Covert_Action]

We could dub this tactic Blitzkrieging a thread. =)

Re:Sold Out

[Darkness404]

Bullshit. The only person he put at risk are the warmongers running this country. If I invest in a company I have a right to know the financial details of the company, but yet when I'm forced to "invest" in a war suddenly they can obscure all the details?

A democracy becomes nothing more than a mob if information is not released, if the government wouldn't release it, I applaud Julian Assange for having the balls to post it so the world can make a rational decision on whether it is worth it to continue the war.

So why won't google translate translate the websit

[Snaller]

I think that's a more interesting question.

Re:This Guy

[Darkness404]

Democracy can only work if people have access to -all- the information available to make an informed decision. Tainted information be it from media bias or government secrecy undermines it. How do you know what the Taliban does? We are fed propaganda every day. No, I'm not saying that the Taliban are nice people, that we should support them (though we did) or that the conventional view is wrong, but think about where you get your information from and you will find that you really could have been fed pure lies. Without information, how do you make that decision?

It is important to end imperialistic wars because it -always- bites us in the ass later on. These ever so evil Taliban fighters? Oh wait we supported them against the "evil" USSR. Saddam Hussein? Oh wait we helped him too...

If you think the US supports human rights you are sadly mistaken, imperialistic wars like the wars in the middle east and Vietnam have -always- ended up in a net loss for human rights and a net loss for the world.

Re:Sold Out

[Darkness404]

Yes, because killing civilians and continuing imperialistic wars has really made the world a better place! Look back 30 years, how the hell do you think the Taliban got into power? Oh wait, back then Russia was the "bad guy" and fundamentalist Islam was the "good guy" so we ended up supplying them with guns, bombs, etc. How do you think Hussein got into power? Oh wait we helped him get into power... How do you think that all these dictators running most of South America got into power?

The sooner we end the wars the better it is for the US and the rest of the world.

Re:This Guy

[Darkness404]

Why don't we be angry at "our" government for forcing us into this war despite popular opinion and history against it (want to know why Saddam and radical Islam control the middle east? Look back to the 80s when we were actively funding them).

Re:Sold Out

[Darkness404]

But carry on. Keep obsessing and feeding the vain egotistical schmuck. Keep giving him the power to dictate and jerk you around like a dog on a leash. Put him on a pedestal as an authority and praise his name like he's some new messiah. When you find out you've been wasting your time and people get hurt you might learn.

Yes, because we all know that imperialistic wars historically have always been great, right? Oh wait... they haven't. Explain to me how by using facts and reason I'm being led like a dog on the leash.

FACT The US helped arm and fund Islamic radicals in the 80s.

FACT The US is wasting tons upon tons of money in these imperialistic wars

FACT The US has killed many civilians in this imperialistic war

Explain to me how using facts and reason is making me be a sheep? Lets see here the argument in favour of the war and the "troops" goes as follows:

We were attacked by Islamic terrorists on 9/11 THEREFORE we must invade 2 countries, kill lots of civilians, cause mass chaos and waste money and if you don't support this you are "Un-American" because terrorists are bad.

Now granted, 30 years ago the argument was:

The Communists have an atomic bomb!!! THEREFORE we must invade countless countries, support various Islamic organizations and right wing dictators and waste money if you don't support this you are "Un-American" because COMMUNISM IS EVIL JUST PURE EVIL

These documents only echo history, imperialistic wars waste taxpayer money, kill innocents, support murders and decline standards of living.

I'm not worried

[blhack]

Keep in mind that Christopher Hitchens, who I think is absolutely brilliant, is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, a pop culture magazine.

Re:This Guy

[Darkness404]

We have a republican form of government that in essence boils down to a democracy. Ask people why they voted a certain way and the vast majority of people voted because of a few "key" issues, issues like abortion, global warming, stem cell research, wars, taxes, etc. So yes, we do have a democracy when it comes to wars, think of how many people voted for Bush the second term rather than any other candidate simply because they supported the war or some other single issue.

The vast majority of races for congress, governor, president, etc. have come down to basic democracy on a few issues.

Re:This Guy

[Darkness404]

...Only because we were lied to and were impulsive. If people thought we would still be actively fighting a war in Afghanistan in 2010, I can guarantee you that it wouldn't have much support. If people actually remembered their history and realized that we keep funding the people who we fight a generation later, and this was widely proclaimed through the media, there wouldn't be much support. But alas, the American people was essentially told that the fighting would be over in a few weeks and the mainstream media was too sensationalized to actually look at history so "we" got stuck with the war.

Re:Relevance???

[qbzzt]

A more interesting question is whether any documents on wikiLeaks are already fakes donated by agents of one government or another.

Re:This Guy

[vux984]

Do you actually comprehend what sort of people the Taliban are, and what they do to people who, for example, teach their daughters to read?

They are certainly no worse than serial killers in America. When was the last time police justified killing innocent American's in order to reach a serial killer by saying "Do you actually comprehend what sort of person he is. What he does to people? Sure I got a bunch of innocent children killed... but you don't understand... he was really bad."

You've never heard the police say that because it goes against everything we stand for. It ridiculous on its face. Yet if those innocent people aren't American's its somehow different? Who's moral compass is broken?

Oh wait... we're at "war" with them, right. And that makes it right how?

Are we at war with them because they are bad people who treat there daughters poorly and violate what we feel are their essential human rights? Of course not, we were even happy to SUPPORT them and PROVIDE THEM WEAPONS AND MONEY when they were serving our political interests... they weren't "nicer" back then, and they haven't really changed at all.

There is plenty of brutality in the world... Darfur springs to mind. Are we doing much about the genocide there? Hmm... nope. Genocide is bad too, right? I'd say it's even worse than medieval thinking about the education of women and outdated policies on beard length. Only a complete idiot would seriously argue that we are in afghanistan because the taliban are 'bad people'. The world is full of bad people. Yet we are in afghanistan while we write 'stern letters' to groups who are much worse.

If we were in Afghanistan to make it a better place, you might have leg to stand on. But we're not, and we're not going to make the world safer as a whole by invading other countries. Even if you WIN more innocent people have died due to the invasion than you would ever have saved by invading.

So far 15,000 to 30,000 *innocent civilians* have died in Afghanistan as a result of the war we are waging in Afghanistan. According to multiple sources we are actually killing more civilians than the Taliban are.

Good thing we are there making things better. Although I'm not sure exactly how killing innocent people more effectively than the 'bad people' makes us the 'good people'. Maybe we should stop.

Re:This Guy

[_Sprocket_]

Democracy can only work if people have access to -all- the information available to make an informed decision.

Really? All or nothing, huh? Then how do you work out the need for secrecy and intelligence which, in turn, has proven to be a major part of any nation's security

I can agree that we need good information. We need to be wary of propoganda. We need proof to back up claims. And we need oversight of all aspects of government. But that is hardly access to all information available.

It is important to end imperialistic wars because it -always- bites us in the ass later on. These ever so evil Taliban fighters? Oh wait we supported them against the "evil" USSR. Saddam Hussein? Oh wait we helped him too...

If you think the US supports human rights you are sadly mistaken, imperialistic wars like the wars in the middle east and Vietnam have -always- ended up in a net loss for human rights and a net loss for the world.

Ahhh. You're one of these people who believe that the US operates in a vacuum; that there are no other players on the world stage. You believe that the US elects to get involved just out of a mean spirit. And if the US would only bury it's head, nothing bad would ever happen in the world. Just like in the 1930s.

Re:Sold Out

[Darkness404]

WWII wasn't just because the entire European front (and a lot of the pacific front) could have been avoided if we hadn't been imperialistic to begin with. If we hadn't screwed up the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler wouldn't have come to power because of the fact that Germany's economy wouldn't have been in shambles and people wouldn't be looking to nationalism to solve their problems.

Did you know Communism was evil? I'm an atheist, I don't have the same "right" or "wrong" moral view you might think I have. But under any definition the Soviet's were fucking evil. Stalin = GWB? You're fucking insane if you go that route. The Taliban did blow up the Towers. The US should have gone in there. Iraq is more muddled, but at the same time Saddam never should have been allowed to stay in power. You know, France loved financing his regime, but whatever. Imperialism is bad. Tell that to the Moors when they tried to conquer Europe. If the world was all hippy's I'd love to stop military spending. But you know, until that happens I'd rather the US be the power then say Iran. I know I know. 6 of 1 half a dozen of another. Just two sides the same coin. Be glad there are people that make sure you have internet access if though you shit on them.

Yes, the Soviets did do evil things, so did the US, so did the UK, so did Germany, etc. All governments are corrupt by definition. If you look at the reasons why the Taliban had the resources to blow up the towers is because we funded it yes, our tax dollars went to support the very people who we are fighting.

Theres nothing wrong with defending a country from foreign attacks, but defend it, don't go out looking for a fight. When we go out looking for a fight, we end up paying for the bullets that they use to shoot at us with. I'm not a "hippie" I'm not a pacifist, I do however know history and history isn't on the side of those who wage imperialistic wars, especially the US. Get out of the middle east and the rest of the world, cut military and domestic spending by a lot, decrease taxes and watch the economy grow leaps and bounds.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading this, I am stricken by how many people refer the the US as a democracy. IT'S NOT A DEMOCRACY!!! Never has been, never will. Our founding fathers made sure of that.

It's a Constitutional Republic.

Now back to your local news.....

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Vintermann]

Republic means only rule by a law (a written constitution) as opposed to a king. China is a perfectly good republic. The US is also, in common usage of the term, and unlike China, a representative democracy. Now aren't you happy you're not just a republic, but a democratic republic?

This whole "it's not a democracy" BS was just started by idiots who think republican vs. democrat is some sort of dichtonomy because the US parties are named that - and they feel that the one named "republicans" is the only legitimate one.

Re:This Guy

[siddesu]

Come on, if you are a minor clerk in a local office of a large international bank, there's no way in hell you'll end up with all the sales and PR communications of the bank over a 5 or 6 year period. NO WAY AT ALL.

So, how is it possible that a lowly bolt (or nut) in the mighty US army machine did just that? Only one way - criminal negligence on the part of his superiors, and those who work for them.

I am sure that the of the people who are responsible for this are the same people who are leveraging all their Pentagon power to shift the blame from the sick sheep to the healthy one.

They, and not Assagne are at fault and should be blamed for eventual harm done, because keeping those data safe is squarely THEIR responsibility, not Wikileaks'. Wikileaks' responsibility, whatever their agenda is, is leaking data.

Too bad the lot of you people who pay for those jerks are ready to bend over and swallow whatever BS they dump your way, when, instead, you should be thinking something along the lines of "OMG HOW MANY LOWLY SOLDIERS HAVE GOTTEN RICH BY SELLING THIS SHIT TO PEOPLE WHO DONT LEAK IT"

Alas, patriotism kills reason.

Wow, easy on the kool-aid

[SmallFurryCreature]

We saw the video. It showed very clearly how the US deals with unarmed civilians. Only a total fool would deny it.

The truth, it hurts doesn't it?

gosh, go undercover with the US army. You mean emigrate to the US, enlist, be assigned to afghanistan, film? Oh you mean go with some US troops who know they got a reporter with them and capture them on video behaving as if there was a reporter present?

Just how big a fool are you?

Re:I hate this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, a nobody on the internets with a login handle "Saint" wants other people arrested for feeling self-important. My ironymeter just assploded.

What you can look forward to

[SuperKendall]

Every month, he provides the name, address and exact GPS coordinates of someone in the witness protection program!

Re:This Guy

[geekboybt]

Except Manning wasn't a lowly clerk. He is/was an intelligence analyst, as in, one who is assigned and allowed to read all of the intelligence and analyze it. To correct your bank analogy, you'd have an auditor, not a "minor clerk."

Re:Or they could board a plane

[copponex]

Bit silly to say Afghanistan isn't a threat when it has been unable to stop its citizens from starting wars.

Here's a list of the 9/11 hijackers. Not a single one of them is an Afghan citizen. No Iraqis on the list, either. The vast majority were from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. As of today, nearly 9 years after 9/11, we still do not have an extradition treaty with either nation. Even if we had discovered evidence to charge someone with, we could not extradite them to face charges for their crimes.

Re:This Guy

[Eskarel]

Well, I personally always thought that if we'd tread a little more softly instead of trying to find someone to go to war with about 9/11 we might have avoided the whole thing, though I understood how we got into the war once we'd gotten to that point.

Why we did our usual proxy fighting using the so called "Northern Alliance" who were really a bunch of opium growing warlords who weren't really all that much better than the Taliban they were replacing I don't really know. I would have thought that the whole Osama/Sadaam thing would have taught us that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

I'm even more surprised that anyone is shocked that after supporting the expansion of a bunch of warlords and then installing a corrupt puppet(who we lost the strings for) didn't result in economic and governmental stability. Or for that matter why we keep insisting that we want people to have democracy and then trying over and over again until we get democratic results we like.

Man at least someone is paying attention

[Chitlenz]

Am I the only one who looks around these days and wonders where the hell we went wrong? Look around you folks, because we the geeks are the last remaining american product this side of hollywood. The guy in the white house is too cool to solve pretty much anything, and the last guy was about the dumbest, most self-interested shill in history. At least this Assange guy is trying to preserve some semblance of the truth, so people of the future can learn from it (not that knowing the truth has really helped much before). I think the guy deserves protection, and good for him if he back-doors his way into it. He is serving the public whether they like it or not, which is ballsy and will probably end badly, but hey more power to him.

I find it fascinating that we are losing Afghanistan to the most primitive people on earth, and at the same time ONE GUY is able to stymie the entire Intelligence community by telling the truth about it. So with these facts before us, what exactly is worth 700$Billion per year that we spend on defense? Oh and lest we forget, even with google maps we haven't found Bin Laden's cave either. I think we as a country are wasting our time, and letting our best resource (young people) learn lessons in war and imperialism that we should have learned from Vietnam years ago. 10 years... my god.

Re:Man at least someone is paying attention

[Somewhat Delirious]

I agree completely. One of the most worrying things about the US government and a lot of the American citizens supporting it is that they don't seem to be able to learn from history. Just look how many of the wars they have been involved in have been succesful with regard to their objectives, look how many of the internal conflicts and power struggles they have gotten involved in have come back to bite them in the ass. Yet they keep doing the exact same thing time and time again.

What I also found interesting was Assange's remark: "Journalists have to be more on their guard about what's said about us." There may be even more that I have missed but at least to of the articles that have been going around in the media last week (mostly uncritically reproduced from the news wires without any comments or attempt to verify them) are obvious us spin.

1. The letter from Human Rights organisations criticizing Wikileaks for allegedly realeasing the names of hundreds of Afghan informants. This story was spun to have had Amnesty International as one of it's signees. A later statement from an AI spokeswoman made clear that this was not the case. She said that AI had not taken an official position on the Wikileaks Afghan war release and that all that had happened was that one low ranking member had been involved in private Email communication with Wikileaks about that matter. The true signees of the letter are not independent NGO's they are all either funded by the US government, the Afghan government or have very close ties to the US government.

2. The letter from "Reporters sans frontières" giving the same criticism (and in a very contradictory and muddled way at that: arguing that you shouldn't release secret military information because it might lead to a crack down on the freedom of the press is nonsensical at best if you are an organisation that's supposed to have freedom of the press as it's primary goal. What are you going to release then? Anything that the involved powers that be have no objections to?) is completely untrustworthy.

First of all this organisation has been linked to the CIA and even been accused of being a CIA front. One of it's directors has admitted that a large part of the organisations funding comes either from the US government or from organisations with very close ties to that government. Lucie Morillon, RWB's Washington representative, confirmed in an interview on 29 April 2005 that the organization has a contract with US State Department's Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere Otto Reich who was involved in Whitehouse propaganda under Reagan and a former board member of Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which was formerly known as the School for the Americas, and described in 2004 by the LA Weekly as a “torture-teaching institution”. According to Amnesty International, the School in the past has produced training manuals which advocated torture, blackmail, beatings and executions. One of Their founders has openly condoned torture in the French press. Of course a name like "Reporters sans frontières" sounds very idealistic and independent (who would imagine that an originally French press freedom organisation would be in bed with some of the more shady parts of the US government. Unless you checked of course, and most of this info can be found on Wikipedia) but that's just a superficial appearance and designed to be.

Re:Man at least someone is paying attention

[AlterEager]

I find it fascinating that we are losing Afghanistan to the most primitive people on earth

Well, there's your problem, right there. If you go around dismissing people as "primitive" without bothering to spend even a minute finding about these so called "primitive" people then don't be supprised when they kick your ass.

Re:Sold Out

[_Sprocket_]

Look back 30 years, how the hell do you think the Taliban got into power? Oh wait, back then Russia was the "bad guy" and fundamentalist Islam was the "good guy" so we ended up supplying them with guns, bombs, etc.

The Taliban as they are now didn't exist 30 years ago. The US supported various mujahideen factions. In the power vacuum left by Soviet withdrawl, those factions fought each other. Pakistan wanted both influence in the region and to stop hijacking of their trucking routes in to the country so they put heavy support behind a small student group that, in turn, fought various mujahideen who causing problems. That's how the Taliban got in to power.

The notion that the US is behind the Taliban is, at best, a very loose interpretation. Certainly, US influence was felt in the region and armaments were probably left over from the fight with the Soviets. But ironically, if the US was truely involved in an imperialistic war, there would have been no opportunity for the Taliban. As it is, the US lost interest in Afghanistan as soon as the Soviets left and left it to fall in to chaos.

How do you think Hussein got into power? Oh wait we helped him get into power...

Saddam got in to power by being a major political leader in a group that overthrew the former government via a coup. He then consolidated his power over several years before managing to take the leadership reins from the ailing leader at the time. He further cemented his position by having a number of members in his political party denounced as traitors and executed.

Saddam managed to get Soviet support early on. However, Iraq later cracked down on Iraqi communists and Iraq began to favor the West. The French were major supporters and consequently the vast majority of Iraq's military armament comes from Soviet and French sources.

The US certainly supported Saddam's Iraq. It was a modernized, secular government in a region that lacked many similar examples. It countered Iranian influence in the region. And, to some extent, supporting Iraq helped counter Soviet influence as well. However, the notion that the US put Saddam in to power is absurd.

The sooner we end the wars the better it is for the US and the rest of the world.

I completely agree. But it would seem the world is not that kind of place and won't be any time soon.

Canard?

[copponex]

Talk about canards. Using fancy sounding words cannot change history.

Say what you will about the merits of the Iraq expedition, it was at least in the consideration stage in the Clinton administration and would have happened with or without 9/11.

According to some people, Iraq presented no threat to the US. Doesn't sound like preparations for invasion to me. Maybe you're confusing that policy with the policy presented by Project for a New American Century. They begged Clinton to invade Iraq, but he ignored them. Probably because, as this guy Dick Cheney once said, the US could quickly find itself in a quagmire if it invaded.

9/11 was not presented as one of the major factors in the decision by anyone worthy of attention.

SHENANIGANS.

Not only did Cheney and Bush repeatedly make the connection, they had to specifically recant their opinion years later. They made the accusation so many times, and through so many propaganda arms, that by the time the war came around, 70% of Americans believed there was a link.

I'm sure in the bizarro fantasy land where the (R) means infallible, you'll just pretend that none of that happened. Which is alright, if you're not interested in reality.

Now, go home and get your shine box.

Junk newspaper

[turbotroll]

Aftonbladet, often nicknamed "Aftonhoran" ("The Evening Whore") is a miserable tabloid of nearly non-existent intellectual value. A typical issue looks more like a prop from the movie "Idiocracy" than a real newspaper from a civilized country.

Even a quick glance at its website clearly reveals its true values (or lack thereof), even to those who aren't native Swedish speakers.

Re:This Guy

[siddesu]

"but currently, he is the only one not being punished for his part."

I was not aware that the superior officers of Mr. Bradley Mannings were arrested and facing court martial or other disciplinary action. Can you provide a link?

"There is simply no reason why Assange should go unprosecuted."

Under the laws of which country could that happen, and what would be his crime?

Re:This Guy

[ozmanjusri]

Except Manning wasn't a lowly clerk. He is/was an intelligence analyst, as in, one who is assigned and allowed to read all of the intelligence and analyze it.

So PFCs (which I understood to be Private, First Class) are high-ranking people in the US military, are they?

Re:This Guy

[siddesu]

Well, it is written in the first paragraph - his job was to support his _immediate_ command.

Anything that doesn't support his immediate command is quite obviously outside of the scope his duties.

Re:This Guy

[siddesu]

"Actually I'm glad this material got out"

I think you should be. Wikileaks has done your country a service by showing your military's IT security is quite bad, and the understanding of the issues by senior brass is on the level of every other PHB out there.

Given this leak, it seems quite likely that other intelligence services are able to access information from similar security failures on all levels of your command, and it is certain that they would not be so kind as to inform you of the fact that you're leaking.

So you should thank Assange for getting a free indication that so much is available from the lowest ranks, and ask the top brass WTF are they doing with your money.

Re:Or they could board a plane

[Anonymous Coward]

As of today, nearly 9 years after 9/11, we still do not have an extradition treaty with either nation. Even if we had discovered evidence to charge someone with, we could not extradite them to face charges for their crimes.

Are you sure you really want an extradition treaty with them? Put another way, if a US citizen travels to Saudi Arabia, violates local laws there and then returns home, do you really want the FBI to come in and arrest him and put him on a plane to Saudi Arabia so he can be tried there?

Or do you mean that it should only be *us* being able to have *them* extradited?

Re:This Guy

[vux984]

No, we didn't support the Taliban outside of humanitarian aid and a few million dollar to get them to stop producing drugs. It's not like we ever endorsed them or anything which is what it appears that you are attempting to make out.

Just an excerpt...

"From 1994 to 1997 the United States was well-disposed toward the Taliban. In October 1994 US Ambassador to Pakistan John C. Monjo, accompanied by Pakistan's interior minister, visited Taliban-controlled Kandahar without informing the official Afghan government, led at the time by Burhanuddin Rabbani. In September, 1996 American Undersecretary of State for Southern Asia Robin Rafel called the Taliban conquest of Kabul a "positive step." To be sure, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright condemned the Taliban's policy toward women in November 1997, but no sanctions were threatened. Washington obviously accepted a power that appeared to guarantee stability by taking up the tradition of a state founded on Pashtun tribes. The embassy of the anti-Taliban government in Washington was closed in 1998." ...

"The pressure that the Americans brought to bear on the Taliban after 1998 was obviously intended not to topple the regime, but to have it break with bin Laden. The sanctions against the Taliban that the Americans proposed in the United Nations Security Council in December 2000 had one objective alone: bin Laden's expulsion. They made no mention whatever of the Taliban's policies. The implicit deal on offer was a trade of bin Laden's extradition or simple departure from the country in exchange for acquiescence in the Taliban's policies in Afghanistan and the tacit promise of international recognition to satisfy the Taliban and their Pakistani backers."

http://www.ip-global.org/archiv/volumes/2002/spring2002/early-american-support-for-the-taliban.html

That all sounds like an 'endorsement' to me.

Re:Relevance???

[GameboyRMH]

Good point. I was just thinking the other day that, say, the US government could release "leaked" "Iranian" papers on their "nuclear weapons plans" to WikiLeaks. The leak would be more credible coming from a third party than if the US government said they obtained them. Iran would deny that the papers are real...just as they would if the papers WERE real. And this could help justify the US going to war with Iran.

But luckily that won't happen as the US is chin-deep in two other wars at the moment. But a technologically capable group of nutjobs ("fuck up their shit" anarchists/right-wing militia) could do the same thing just to stir up some shit.

Israel, on the other hand, probably has the available resources...