Why the US Govt Should Be Happy About Wikileaks

angry tapir writes "WikiLeaks' leaking of classified information should be considered a blessing for the US government, and other governments should take heed of the lessons when it comes to information sharing, according to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) research associate, Professor Mike Nelson, who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science adviser and served as the White House director for technology policy on IT, and was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."

Comments

If You Are Right

[TexVex]

If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we should disclose where our nuclear subs are because we have nothing to hide. Oh wait. Some things are secret for a real good reason.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, if everyone knows where your nuclear subs are, then Somali pirates might hijack them.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if you knew you couldn't hide where your nuclear subs are, you would be more cooperative with other countries because then you'd know you need to avoid placing yourself in a situation where you need those nuclear subs.

Naaaaaaahhhh that's just silly of me. Clearly the USA took the best course of action when they invaded Iraq. Clearly they always take the best course of action, particularly when it involves military action or threats.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we should disclose where our nuclear subs are because we have nothing to hide.

Well yes, unless you want to hide where your nuclear subs are. In which case you have something to hide and you shouldn't disclose where they are. You know it makes sense.

Re:If You Are Right

[bughunter]

If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.

Hmm, let's see how accurate that statement is by using a little political gedankenexperiment.

• Wife: "Does this dress make me look fat?"

  Husband: "I'm sorry... that information is classified."
  Wife: "If you are right, then you have nothing to hide."
  Husband: "OK, since you put it that way, that dress reveals exactly how overweight you are."

Do you think the outcome of this scenario will make the Husband happy that he was open and honest?

Re:If You Are Right

[rally2xs]

Would almost be worth it to see a Saddam-supplied anthrax attack that took out about a million people on the east coast. No, he didn't have it, but could have, hated our guts, and probably would have made a deal with terrorists to do exactly that. Everyone has 20-20 hindsight, and can easily criticize what really was the safest course of action.

Re:If You Are Right

[FrankHS]

It isn't the nuclear subs or troop positions that need to be revealed. It is all the other stuff that our government and the corporations hides from us to keep us from seeing how we, the people, are being ripped off by them.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Any person who believes that "the safest course of action is starting a war" confuses what is easy with what is safe, and will hopefully, in time, come to admit to himself, that his own words are the words of an idiot.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

we have minority report right here! lets kill him for the crimes he didn't do

Re:If You Are Right

[somersault]

If his wife is that stupid that she wants people to lie to her rather than just eating better, he shouldn't have married her..

Re:If You Are Right

[C0R1D4N]

You can easily replace Saddam in your statement with a dozen different world leaders. How many wars should we start?

Re:If You Are Right

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Just so you know, downing a submarine is easy, but only if you know where it is. Their whole defense system is based, almost purely, on the enemy not knowing their location. It's so fucking easy that you're actually right, somali pirates might actually succeed in downing one of them.

Re:If You Are Right

[metacell]

Nobody has leaked the positions of nuclear subs to the public, though. The leaks mostly pertain to things like incompetence, shady back-door dealings and civilian casualties. Many of the leaked documents contain strategic information too, but so far, the strategic importance seems to have been very minor. That damage has mostly consisted of embarrassment for the military and the politicians.

Re:If You Are Right

[metacell]

If invading Iraq was the safest course of action, why did the Bush government have to mislead Congress with outrageous claims about an army of unmanned drones ready to strike against America?

From Wikipedia:

In October 2002, a few days before the US Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that the Iraqi government had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones that could be launched from ships off the US' Atlantic coast to attack US eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the United States. In fact, Iraq had no offensive UAV fleet or any capability of putting UAVs on ships.[90] Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of less than a handful of outdated Czech training drones.[91] At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community whether the CIA's conclusions about Iraq's UAV fleet were accurate. The US Air Force agency denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.[92]

It's not just in hindsight the government's course of action looks insane; even back then, a lot of people pointed out how they systematically picked and chose intelligence reports to support their pre-determined conclusion.

Re:If You Are Right

[digitig]

Maybe if you knew you couldn't hide where your nuclear subs were but everybody else could hide where theirs were then you'd have to "cooperate" in the sense of letting them screw you over every which way they like.

Re:If You Are Right

[digitig]

If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.

Hmm, let's see how accurate that statement is by using a little political gedankenexperiment.

• Wife: "Does this dress make me look fat?"

  Husband: "I'm sorry... that information is classified." Wife: "If you are right, then you have nothing to hide." Husband: "OK, since you put it that way, that dress reveals exactly how overweight you are."

The husband can safely and honestly answer "no" to "Does this dress make me look fat." He might not choose to add "It's not the dress, it's all those burgers and fries."

Re:If You Are Right

[AlecC]

In a negotiation, it seems perfectly reasonable to hide your ultimate fallback position. If there is space between your ultimate fallback and the other guys ultimate fallback (i.e. the negotiations have a chance of succeeding), you want to capture as much of that space as possible. Revealing your stopping point allows the other guy to claim all the space by demanding that.

Re:If You Are Right

[rally2xs]

You attack the one that was shooting at our airplanes every day, had attacked a neighbor in the recent past that required our action to avert that leader's cornering the world market in oil, is a certifiable thug, is quite likely insane, etc.

Re:If You Are Right

[GospelHead821]

Speaking idealistically, if your ultimate fallback position in all negotiations represents the boundaries with which you would be content, then does it really matter whether somebody else has gobbled up all of the grey area? I appreciate that some aspects of human nature drive us to acquire more than we really need. On the other hand, that drive is responsible for a lot of conflict and can't really be considered a trustworthy guideline for long-term peace. If we want to promote stable, consensual peace, then I think we need to rethink our strategy.

Re:If You Are Right

[ConaxConax]

You attack the one that was shooting at our airplanes every day

You mean shooting the airplanes we were using to bomb him continuously whenever we felt like it, before the second Iraq War? What an ass! He should just take that bombing!

Re:If You Are Right

[ConaxConax]

Don't get me wrong by the way, Saddam was an awful leader and we are much better off without him, but trying to attack military planes which are bombing his country was kind of his job as a country leader.

Re:If You Are Right

[Capt James McCarthy]

If you are right, then you have nothing to hide.

It has little to do with hiding information because of being 'right.' It has to do with hiding the information from those who would use it to harm others or the interests of said country. To keep in line with your thought process, why do so many companies keep their IR&D facilities on such tight lock down? They are protecting their own interests. And if you think that not hiding all information will make you safer, I think there is a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy.

Re:If You Are Right

[AmiMoJo]

I am appalled that anyone was dumb enough to believe that claim. Most of the Iraqi navy was destroyed during the first Gulf War and back in 2002 they couldn't even send a single ship to fight the invading forces. Their navy was a joke, practically non-existent.

And yet somehow they were going to get their ultra high-tech stealth boats past satellite radar systems and underwater listening stations to launch these drones within range of the US mainland. What exactly was their plan afterwards to deal with the barrage of cruise missiles and that would be headed their way, or get their outdated military hardware into position to invade the US afterwards? Saddam was evil, not insane.

Re:If You Are Right

[mcvos]

It works well enough for me.

Re:If You Are Right

[Gryle]

While I understand the joke, the husband is being honest, but not open, which is what people seem to want out of the government these days.

Re:If You Are Right

[SilentStaid]

If his wife is that stupid that she wants people to lie to her rather than just eating better, he shouldn't have married her..

Since I can see that you're clearly still single, would you mind if I live vicariously through you?

Re:If You Are Right

[ToadMan8]

You only control your own decisions and motivations, not others'. So, unless you want to be taken advantage of, attempting to get the biggest savings and make the biggest profits is the best we can do. Furtively wishing that contract negotiation looks like the market scene opening Disney's Beauty and the Beast is not realistic.

Note that I am describing people negotiating on price. I do not suggest that people lie, cover up flaws, collude, or participate in other similar immoral activities to achieve this maximization.

Re:If You Are Right

[Ironhandx]

Really? I think people would settle just for the honesty at this point. Currently they aren't getting either one of those things.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia cite = FAIL!

Re:If You Are Right

[sycodon]

Not only is he clearly single, his prospects of staying that way for the rest of his natural life are extremely high.

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

The bombing was a direct result of him not honoring the agreement made after the first war. If they were not attacked for this it would set a precendence that anyone can ignore these types of agreements without penalty.

Re:If You Are Right

[somersault]

I'm happy with that prospect at the moment :P I have only had one girlfriend so far who was actually that histrionic about her weight though. I tend to go for the types who actually look after themselves, and are at least semi-rational. Admittedly that type of woman is pretty rare.

Re:If You Are Right

[SilentStaid]

I would like to second my proposal to live vicariously through you.

Seriously though - the one time in my life I did know a girl that obsessive about it, she seemed to be the only one who wouldn't do anything about it. Damn kids.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

If his wife is that stupid that she wants people to lie to her rather than just eating better, he shouldn't have married her..

Know many females?

Re:If You Are Right

[somersault]

Define "know".

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the second war against Iraq was wrong for many different reasons but that war and the first war could have been prevented if the international community would have condemned the invasion of Kuwait without reservation. It took the UN and international community 30 days to even offer a unified critical statement. Leaders like Sadaam only need a slim hope that not everyone is against them to continue their conduct. All it takes is one country wavering on condemnation to give an aggressor hope. The Kuwait invasion was a perfect case of one country invading another without provocation. A clear cut situation like this should not have required 30 minutes let alone 30 days to condemn.

Re:If You Are Right

[that IT girl]

Exactly. Argh. 99% of women give the rest of us a bad name!

Re:If You Are Right

[somersault]

My thoughts exactly, sane female. Do you happen to be available for a procreation simulation anytime soon?

Re:If You Are Right

[CrimsonAvenger]

Nobody has leaked the positions of nuclear subs to the public, though.

True enough.

However (there's always a however)..

Way back during Desert Storm, the US military allowed reporters to embed with various military units.

On the first night of the ground war, there was a reporter reporting on international TV (CNN), with camera footage, that the tank battalion he was with had moved up from their start line to the edge of a berm in Kuwait.

The reporter even went so far as to say (on international TV, remember) that the Iraqis weren't aware that the unit had moved up, since the Iraqis were still shelling the units start position.

Needless to say, the Iraqis didn't stay ignorant of that particular unit's position for very long, what with the camera footage showing the position of the tanks, and the reporter reporting the fall of shot relative to their position (in the Army, the guy who does that is called a Forward Observer - so this CNN reporter was effectively acting as a forward observer for Iraqi artillery)....

So, yes, every once in a while, secrets are made public that put people's lives on the line.

Re:If You Are Right

[that IT girl]

Haha, "procreation simulation"--I love it.

Sadly, as a sane female, I will have to politely decline the prospect. I'd be crazy if I took up every offer from internet strangers ;)

Re:If You Are Right

[dpilot]

> And if you think that not hiding all information will make you safer,
> I think there is a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy.

I take exception to the "all" in that sentence. I certainly believe that some information should be hidden, as someone else mentioned, the location of my submarines, the nuclear launch codes, etc. But there's also other information that makes us safer by helping others understand our intent, and that information MUST be open. To coin a new term, the "bear analogy". I think we all know, "Never get between Mother Bear and her cubs." It's in all of our best interests to know that little fact, and it's in all of our best interests to know where both Mother Bear and her cubs are, so we don't accidentally get in between them. The same can apply to nations.

These days, we seem to be secret by default, and choose to make some information public. I would assert that it's better to be public by default, and choose to keep some information secret. One way this makes us safer is by self-policing. In a public by default situation, you'll be more careful about your conduct, knowing that conduct can be known and you will be held responsible for it. In a secret by default situation, you may be not be so careful, figuring that nobody will ever know. Then consider the whole torture, secret rendition, prison abuse, etc mess.

When you throw a big cloak of secrecy over operations from the top, more secrets get kept that those at the top know, and some of those secrets will very likely be embarrassing and perhaps even counter to the desired policies.

Re:If You Are Right

[GospelHead821]

Okay, we can consider price as the example. If I'm willing to pay as $3 for a loaf of bread and the seller is willing to accept as little as $2.50 for it, then there's 50 cents of grey area in there for us to negotiate over. If I were being REALLY idealistic, I'd say that we both reveal that information and then agree on $2.75 as the final price because we want to be fair to one another. Alternately, I offer $2.50 at first; the seller requests $3.00 at first, and we negotiate toward $2.75.

I am, however, willing to pay $3 for the bread. I don't think it's being "taken advantage of" if I offer $3 and end up paying it. So what if the guy selling the bread makes 50 cents that he didn't really expect to make? So what if I could have had a share of that 50 cents? If I have set my boundaries such that paying $3 for a loaf of bread allows me to be content with my purchase, then I have no reason for complaint. In my opinion, this is a fundamental flaw in what I consider to be the typical free market. People allow their utility, wellbeing, happiness, etc. to be predicated on their ability to capture that grey area.

Put another way, I don't think it's reasonable to choose to be happy because I saved a quarter on a loaf of bread and merely indifferent about getting a loaf of bread at my threshold price. I think it's more reasonable to choose to be happy about enjoying my bread that I paid a fair price for rather than fretting over how much less I could have paid for that bread.

Re:If You Are Right

[somersault]

Damnit, I got the protocol all mixed up. Handshake first, procreation second..

Re:If You Are Right

[that IT girl]

Exactly! With perhaps conversation and beer somewhere in between. You're getting it!

Re:If You Are Right

[nabsltd]

Just so you know, downing a submarine is easy, but only if you know where it is. Their whole defense system is based, almost purely, on the enemy not knowing their location.

In general, the only people that know the exact location of any US submarine are the people on board. They stay out of contact for long periods of time, and so only their general position is known. And, because of their speed, even when they do report their exact position, it's not long before that's a 50mi diameter area, with excellent sonar only good for about 30-40 miles on even a quickly moving US sub.

It's so fucking easy that you're actually right, somali pirates might actually succeed in downing one of them.

With the general position and many millions of dollars of sonar gear, along with torpedoes that cost more than $2M each, yes, Somali pirates could sink a US submarine. Although depth charges are cheap, without a precise location, they are pretty much useless. Also, there are many submarines in the US fleet that can dive deep enough that a cheap depth charge will crush under the water pressure before it can reach the submarine.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

I have solved this puzzle. Always say "Yes". Then go on to describe in the worst terms how bad. Exaggerate, make it clear you will always say she looks fat. This will convince her you are not a reliable source of information and she will stop asking.

Re:If You Are Right

[metacell]

You know you can provide your own citation to prove the Wikipedia citation wrong... or could, if the Wikipedia section wasn't fact-checked and backed up by citations itself.

Re:If You Are Right

[Anonymous Coward]

>The husband can safely and honestly answer "no" to "Does this dress make me look fat."
>He might not choose to add "It's not the dress, it's all those burgers and fries."

The Jesuits call this type of response "equivocation". It was used to protect the priest from secular authorities without committing the sin of lying, thereby saving their bodies without endangering their souls. Obviously, even if they thought they were right, Catholic priests were in great danger of being attacked by Protestants, so they had to hide their true thoughts.

Thus, the OP's claim that "If you are right, then you have nothing to hide" is evidence of his or her inexperience, at best.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

these days?

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

He is rooting for an anthrax attack to prove his point, so no, he won't be coming around to join the humans anytime soon. most personality disorders are not 'fixable'.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

what a good boy, you ate all your propaganda, now you can have a cookie.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

"A clear cut situation like this should not have required 30 minutes let alone 30 days to condemn"

bwahahahaha. Your clarity is the clarity of the child. The other countries all knew it was a setup, a flimsy pretext for taking down Iraq, and they of course wanted no part of it until the price was right.

Re:If You Are Right

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Why would you need torpedoes to down a submarine ? One underwater grenade closer than 1 meter to the hull will definitely do the job. It may not be enough to kill everyone on board, but it will certainly force the sub to surface.

Re:If You Are Right

[digitig]

I think you'll find that "equivocation" is using different meanings of one word or phrase. I suspect you are thinking of "reservations", the holding back of key information, that allowed them to come much closer to what we would think of as lying than what the husband is doing. Using reservations the husband could answer "No, the dress doesn't make you look fat" whilst "reserving" "As long as it's so dark nobody can see you."

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

So you don't agree that Iraq repeatably violated the terms of the cease fire agreement that ended the first Iraq war? If you can't accept a simple fact that doesn't support your world view then it is you who needs a timeout.

Re:If You Are Right

[RockDoctor]

When do the bombs start landing on Bush?

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

It is specious to focus on that particular parry in a vacuum...unless you are trying to maintain a worldview that the dismantling of Iraq was Just, Legal and Humane...(rather than a cold-blooded strategic move to reshape the Middle East in terms more favorable to certain needs of the Empire and their most cherished friends.) Which btw, will go down in history as one of the great crimes of all time and the beginning of the end of that Empire.

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

My comment simply stated that Iraq violated the terms of the cease fire agreed upon at the end if the 1st war. You can't just ignore this fact and pretend it didn't occur just because you disagree with the second war. According to the terms of the cease fire military actions would be continued if the terms were violated. When these types of agreements are not enforced you have countries who will invade others, get their asses kicked, and right before total defeat they will surrender and agree to cease fire terms so they can have time to re-group and re-arm and pick up where they left off at a later date.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

and the continuing bombing runs into Iraq, not part of the context? If the terms of the agreement were that Iraq would agree to massive starvation and ongoing destruction in perpetuity, then such an agreement is null and void. You are telling a one-sided story of a conquest of a country, there was nothing legal, moral or just at any point, Iraq was setup like a bowling pin.

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

By massive bombing runs I assume you are talking about the US and allied airforces taking out the anti-air capabilities that Iraq continued to try and bring online which violated the terms of the cease fire agreement. Or are you talking about enforcement of the no-fly zone so Sadaam could not finish off gassing the Kurds up north? This was also included in the terms of the cease fire and the Iraqi government kept testing the boundaries. Any massive starvation you can lay soley at the feet of the Iraqi government. There were billions of dollars worth of food and supplies delivered to that country by not only governments but private groups but the distribution was up to the government. Iraq was not setup unless you are talking about how the feckless international community lets tyrannical leaders operate any way they chose with no fear of consequences or reprisals. Iraq invaded Kuwait because they were convinced no one would lift a finger to do anything about it after the conquest was finished. The dreaded UN resolutions don't seem to be a very effective means of changing anyones behavior but at least it looks like someone is doing something. I think the second war was unecessary and foolish but no one asked my opinion at the time so I couldn't talk them out of it. However the first war was a different story and the worst thing about that war was the allies not finishing the job which would have made a second war uneccessary in the first place.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

Yeah, I've heard the propaganda since day one, it sounds so much like the US was just doing the right thing until you discover the rest of the story. I thought you were going to leave out the "gassing his own people" canard, good show! have two cookies.

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

I never claimed the US was doing the right thing. I listed a series of events and the consequences of those events as they related to the terms of the cease fire agreement from the first Iraq war. The fact is the Iraqi government did use chemical weapons against their Kurdish citizens. The evidence is undeniable and has been documented by human rights group . Personally I could give a shit whether they did or not but for people like you who cannot for one instance accept any fact that upsets your preconcieved notion of the truth I regard you with nothing but contempt.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

wait a minute, you cannot give a shit if human beings are gassed, but you're in a lather over some random voice on the internets pointing out that you are reciting chapter and verse from the US State Dept story of Iraq...i call bullshit! i say that you care about those fucking millions of souls we destroyed for no fucking good reason and you're pissed at me for the dissonance i've caused you.
you're welcome.

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

The points I mentioned about Iraq violating the terms of the cease fire agreement were recognized by every country involved with the first Iraq war. Every country in the UN acknowledge these violations when debating the second war but there were countries who still did not want to enforce the terms of the agreement for various reasons. Both France and Germany had economic reasons to avoid another conflict and did not want to disrupt those ties. There was ample proof available to all that Iraq was re-building their air defense and tracking stations, plying hide and seek with weapons inspectors, and using air power (helicopters) to attack civilians in the north so Sadaam could put down dissenters and re-claim his power over the state. "wait a minute, you cannot give a shit if human beings are gassed" But I thought the gassing of civilians was just lies and propaganda to build a case for war? Are you now saying it did happen? You can't have it both ways. I included my statement about not caring just to see how you would respond and you didn't let me down.

Re:If You Are Right

[bstender]

"But I thought the gassing of civilians was just lies and propaganda to build a case for war? "
You thought wrong, as you've done throughout this exchange bc you're too anxious to attack the messenger rather than consider the actual points being made. In this case the propaganda factor in the refrain of "Saddam gassing his own people" is deceptive in that they weren't "his people", they were Kurds within colonially drawn boundaries amidst a war, enemies of Iraq to this day. and further, the gas was supplied by the _USA_ for exactly that usage.
Gassing people is very horrible indeed, but coming from the mouths of US officials, responsible for millions of innocents caught up in the US slaughter machine, it is clearly _propaganda_.

Re:If You Are Right

[cavreader]

Ok this will be my last response. You dismissed my points throughout the exchange as government propaganda which they were clearly not. I made no great claims other than Iraq violated many of the cease fire terms from the first war. I did not say these violations justified the second war I just stated were undisputed facts and recognized as such in the UN deliberations leading up to the second war. The Kurds were most definitely Iraqi citizens by any legal standard and therefore they were Sadaam's people. If you want to go around and base your arguments on colonial border changes we could re-write the entire history of world conflict since every border on the planet has been drawn in the blood of conflict with some boarders changing hands more than a few times. The US did not supply the gas used against the Kurds. The US exported a small amount of common multi-use chemical compounds that could be used for a variety of agricultural, medical, and industrial applications. The accusation that the US supplied the weaponized gas is without merit. It was only stated that some of those chemical compounds COULD have been used but there was no proof for this accusation. It would be like blaming every cell phone manufacturer for supplying IED triggers to terrorist groups. The US government does some very questionable things but exporting chemical or biological weapons is not one of them. The US was also accused of supplying Iraq with weapons when they were at war with Iran but the US was only the source for 2% of the total amount of weapons supplied to Iraq. France, Germany, North Korea, and Russia supplied the bulk of the weapons for that conflict. And if you want to see real slaughter just look around the world right now. The US is slowly stepping down in the efforts to get involved in any more conflicts. They have taking a back seat in the Libya conflict and have refused to even consider getting militarily involved in Syria. The troops are leaving Iraq and Afghanistan in the very near future and after that happens you will really start seeing some real slaughter. The so called Arab spring will end up as just another cluster fuck that will end up creating more problems than they started with in the region. There is just so much hate embedded in the Arab and Muslim cultures that perpetuate the continued animosity and violence we see occurring every day. They fight amongst themselves more than they fight against outsiders. The only common goal they have is their unrelenting hate of Israel and the US. Once the US is removed from the equation they can really start pounding on one another. Tribal and religious based social structures are not a viable means of governing millions of people living in the area. I also have a bad feeling that some of those countries like Syria and Egypt along with the non-state terrorist groups are going to step over the line with Israel and ignite a full tilt war that Israel will use to take care of the Palestinian issue once and for all. I see no alternative at this point. Those wanting Israel to scarifice their state are wasting their time. The only way that conflict will end without wholesale destruction is for the Arab hate towards Israel to lessen and that is also never going to happen so that leaves violence as the only solution.

Mike Nelson?

[antifoidulus]

Like I am going to take advice from a dude who spent years trapped on a satellite while being forced to watch bad movies.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought he was underwater?

Re:Mike Nelson?

[Anonymous Coward]

It saddens me that I can't mod you even higher.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought he was underwater?

Only when he was on some kind of a sea hunt.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[ShakaUVM]

Lol, as soon as I read "Professor Mike Nelson, who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science advise" all the credibility the article had vanished.

An Inconvenient Truth had so many anti-scientific mistakes with it (the Drowning Polar Bear Myth, the Global-warming-caused-Katrina Myth, and so forth), that even RealClimate.org's apologetic review of the movie had to admit them (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/).

There's all sorts of good sources of information about AGW out there, but Al Gore is not one of them.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[elrous0]

Besides, if you want good advice, everyone knows you go to Joel Hodgson. He was the one who figured out how to escape.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you ever read HHGttG? That's the type of person I would only take advice from.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[Anonymous Coward]

An Inconvenient Truth had so many anti-scientific mistakes with it (the Drowning Polar Bear Myth, the Global-warming-caused-Katrina Myth, and so forth), that even RealClimate.org's apologetic review of the movie had to admit them

Mis-characterize much?

In your link, RealClimate.org did not mention the Polar Bear issue at all, but here is what they had to say about Gore's treatment of Katrina:

"As one might expect, he [Gore] uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesnâ(TM)t highlight the connection any more than is appropriate"

Here is a better link from RealClimate.org that does address the polar bear issue, as well as Katrina:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/convenient-untruths/

# Hurricane Katrina and global warming Katrina is used in the film as a legitimate illustration of the destructive power of hurricanes, our inability to cope with natural disaster, and the kind of thing that could well get worse in a warmer world. Nowhere does Gore state that Katrina was caused by global warming. We discussed this attribution issue back in 2005, and what we said then still holds. Individual hurricanes cannot be attributed to global warming, but the statistics of hurricanes, in particular the maximum intensities attained by storms, may indeed be.

# Impact of sea ice retreat on Polar bears As we presaged in August, summer Arctic sea ice shattered all records this year for the minimum extent. This was partially related to wind patterns favorable to ice export in the spring, but the long term trends are almost certainly related to the ongoing and dramatic warming in the Arctic. Polar bears do indeed depend on the sea ice to hunt for seals in the spring and summer, and so a disappearance of this ice is likely to impact them severely. The specific anecdote referred to in the movie came from observations of anomalous drownings of bears in 2004 and so was accurate. However, studying the regional populations of polar bears is not easy and assessing their prospects is tough. In the best observed populations such as in western Hudson Bay (Stirling and Parkinson, 2006), female polar bear weight is going down as the sea ice retreats over the last 25 years, and the FWS is considering an endangered species listing. However, it should be stated that in most of the discussions about polar bears, they are used as a representative species. Arctic ecosystems are changing on many different levels, but it is unsurprising that charismatic mega-fauna get more press than bivalves. In the end, it may be the smaller and less photogenic elements that have the biggest impact.

Here is the summary from that link:

Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not "errors" at all (with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point). But behind each of these issues lies some fascinating, and in some cases worrying, scientific findings and we can only applaud the prospect that more classroom discussions of these subjects may occur because of this court case.

Conclusion: In sharp contrast to your wild statement, actual climate scientists found no significant errors in Gore's movie.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[Zed Pobre]

Right. The scientists at RealClimate hated the film's science, as noted by the following quotes:

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research.

They were especially critical of its handling of Katrina:

As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn’t highlight the connection any more than is appropriate

After documenting all the errors they could think of, they then went on to emphasize just how fatal those mistakes were, and exhorted people not to watch or put any faith in the movie:

The small errors don’t detract from Gore’s main point [...] In short: this film is worth seeing.

I think I'll take their word for it; they are, after all, the people doing real climate science.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[ShakaUVM]

Right, I could have gone more in depth with their other pages on it. For example, RC.org says, as you say, "Nowhere does Gore state that Katrina was caused by global warming" - this is an outright lie. Not only did he make Katrina the poster child for global warming (literally), but in the movie there's a clip of him flying over the devastated city of New Orleans while Al Gore mutters, "I warned 'em! I warned 'em!"

The RC.org apology for Al Gore was actually quite sickening for a group dedicated to spreading truth about global warming, pooh-poohing the outright fabrication of the polar bear photograph used in the movie (the Polar Bears on the iceberg - remember?), which was taken right off shore in Alaska. The polar bears in question jumped off the iceberg and swam back to shore.

>>Conclusion: In sharp contrast to your wild statement, actual climate scientists found no significant errors in Gore's movie.

Which is why I called their review an apology for the movie. They weren't being honest. And even still they grudgingly found a number of errors in the movie, which they then tried to conveniently sweep under the rug.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[ShakaUVM]

>>I think I'll take their word for it; they are, after all, the people doing real climate science.

Which is why I called their review an apology for the movie. As pro-AGW people, they are inclined to ignore the errors, or minimize them. For example, even though RC.org itself says you can't blame Katrina on AGW (as you can read in the link I posted), they also make the baldfaced lie that Al Gore doesn't blame Katrina on AGW in the movie, even though the movie has a clip of him flying over the devastation, saying "I warned 'em! I warned 'em!"

My point was that even RC.org noticed errors in the movie, even if they'd rather have their teeth pulled out than say anything truly bad about AIC.

Re:Mike Nelson?

[uninformedLuddite]

Conclusion: In sharp contrast to your wild statement, actual climate scientists found no significant errors in Gore's movie.

The multi-century lag that demonstrates CO2 increases after temperature goes up is very insignificant.

Yeah, so bad

[afidel]

Yeah, be embarrassed is so much worse than having ~4,000 of your citizens killed and entering a trillion dollars worth of wars. Remember that one of the primary findings by the 9/11 commission was that a primary cause of us not catching the cell was lack of information sharing.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that one of the primary findings by the 9/11 commission was that a primary cause of us not catching the cell was lack of information sharing.

What did you expect an official commission to say? That privacy and freedom are more precious than safety and that the terrorists win if we turn into a police state because of their actions?

Duh. I tell you what else they won't say. They won't say that maybe we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't keep meddling in the Middle East's affairs, often brutally. Nah, there is no connection between repeatedly provoking them and finally getting attacked by them. Clearly information sharing now that they already want to attack us, yeah that's the real issue.

Government lies to you. It lies to you routinely, naturally, and without remorse. Why you fucks can't bring yourselves to accept it is the only mystery.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron. (Not to say your point is wrong, just that you have severe deficiencies in reading comprehension and/or basic thinking.)

GP wasn't suggesting the government should snoop more or whatever -- he was saying greater transparency (y'know, the sort they inadvertently got from wikileaks) would help.

At first glance, it's entirely orthogonal to your point -- you can stop inciting terrorists by not meddling in others' affairs, or you can improve efficacy in stopping extant terrorists by sharing all the data you have with other agencies and the public, or you can do both. (Or neither, which is obviously the best strategy, else we wouldn't be doing it. /sarcasm)

On closer inspection, it's pretty obvious that greater transparency would have exposed (more of) the meddling we've done, and the real reasons (not the cover "democracy" or "freedom" reasons we always field for the public), and maybe people would get pissed off and stop the government from meddling?

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

"What did you expect an official commission to say? That privacy and freedom are more precious than safety and that the terrorists win if we turn into a police state because of their actions?

Duh. I tell you what else they won't say. They won't say that maybe we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't keep meddling in the Middle East's affairs, often brutally. Nah, there is no connection between repeatedly provoking them and finally getting attacked by them. Clearly information sharing now that they already want to attack us, yeah that's the real issue.

Government lies to you. It lies to you routinely, naturally, and without remorse. Why you fucks can't bring yourselves to accept it is the only mystery."

I agree with what you wrote 100%.

I will add : how much longer are the majority of Americans going to allow US policy toward Israel to continue before they have had ENOUGH ?

it is time for the US to cut ties with those fucking Jews, and let them live or die on their own, without support from the US.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[cavreader]

What people call meddling I call normal international interaction. Every country in the middle east has bargained with Western governments by leveraging their oil reserves and playing countries against one another to gain favor. This behavior has been ongoing since before WW1. In return for good deals the western countries had to support the leaders of the country. During the cold war all the little countries in world played the US and Russia against one another to gain concessions. The US or any other western country might have "meddled" but it has always been the citizens and leaders of the country who allowed and participated in the meddling who bare the responsibility for their problems. It's become an all to common practice today for all the little failed states to blame all their troubles on someone else thus alleviating their own culpability in screwing up their own country.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also worth recalling that the "meddling" that Osama bin Laden was concerned about was Operation Desert Shield. Not Storm, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, but Shield when the U.S., at the Saudi government's request, led a multinational coalition of forces to defend Arabia. He was upset that non-Muslims and non-Arabs were allowed to set foot in the land of the two cities, even if they were 1,000 km away from Mecca. To call this a justification for terrorism, you would have to assume that OBL is the proper authority over Arabia and the House of Saud is not.

OBL was also upset that there were still Jews living in Judea, Indians in India, and Christians in Spain. Not everything is the Americans' fault.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[wvmarle]

The lack of information sharing may very well have been a factor - though there surely at the time were plenty of ways for such agencies to share information. Why they didn't, or didn't do so successfully, that's a whole different matter. When you have the solution to the puzzle it's always much easier to put the pieces together. When you don't have that solution - some pieces may appear to be unrelated, while they belong to the same puzzle. On top of that, effective information sharing between thousands of people doing different things is not easy. How to you know what is interesting to share? And who to share it with? This meta-information is a serious problem. Especially when you do not know what you're actually looking for.

Secondly, - slipping into conspiracy theory mode - how do we know that the public report of the commission is really the complete report? Were there parts kept under wraps, that could have embarrassed certain people in powerful positions? That there was more to blame for the attacks?

Like another poster said already that the continuous meddling of the US in the Middle East may be a major factor. Of course the question is to be asked: why would someone plan such an act in the first place? Why were they so unhappy with the US that they got to such great lengths? That someone could find and organise twenty people that were willing to kill themselves - not in the spur of the moment but with possibly years of preparations?

There is so much more wrong than just "lack of sharing of information", which allowed Al Qaeda to succeed in their plans. The mere existence of Al Qaeda and related groups. The success that group had in recruiting people for their cause. The success they had in raising sufficient money for it. The unfettered determination of their followers, who for years managed to not leak enough information to have them busted.

These deeper questions, that's what we need answers for most badly. Of course it's great to know how a single incident took place, but that's not enough. We have to know how to prevent it from ever happening again - preferably not on how to catch would-be terrorists, but preventing them to become would-be terrorists to begin with. As has been stated here many times before: when someone with a bomb built into his underwear or in his shoes arrives at the airport intending to board a plane with the purpose of setting off that bomb in the air, then something is terribly wrong already. Even if he's caught by airport security during their routine screening.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ask me, the real mystery is why you thought this response was relevant to the post you quoted or the line you chose from it.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Mantrid42]

They won't say that maybe we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't keep meddling in the Middle East's affairs, often brutally.

"People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."

Re:Yeah, so bad

[dargaud]

Government lies to you. It lies to you routinely, naturally, and without remorse. Why you fucks can't bring yourselves to accept it is the only mystery.

Maybe because we shouldn't ?!?

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Secondly, - slipping into conspiracy theory mode - how do we know that the public report of the commission is really the complete report? Were there parts kept under wraps, that could have embarrassed certain people in powerful positions? That there was more to blame for the attacks?

Because it wasn't in Wikileaks.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[somersault]

If they let Israel be wiped out, it would cause many fundamental Christians to become disillusioned, because the Israelites are still "God's special people" in some people's eyes (like those of my grandfather for example).

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The mere existence of Al Qaeda and related groups.

The US knew all about that because the CIA trained Al Qaeda to fight against the USSR in Afghanistan. The relevant answer here is "If you play with fire, you might get burnt", or "Live by the sword, die by the sword".

The success they had in raising sufficient money for it.

Osama bin Laden was extremely rich. His family are big in oil and construction. No mystery at all.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[INT_QRK]

You touch on a logical flaw in the whole information sharing debate. The flaw is that information and data ubiquitously available throughout a system facilitates an information advantage. This is nonsense. "Intelligence failures" are far more often the result of misinterpretation or insufficient understanding than lack of information. One almost always finds in hindsight that the information was there all the time. Anyone who has actually tried to manage a complex operation will tell you that it's more important to ensure that *only* the right information, at the right level of complexity, is shared *when needed* with the right actors, because operators, analysts, decision makers, time, and options are resources in perpetually short supply and who individually and in aggregate have limited coping "bandwidth" relative to the available data. Too much information too widely disseminated becomes background noise very quickly.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

You know its people like afidel, a play on words Mr. Castro or should I say Mr. Hitler, who disgust me with there "facts" but don't actually do any research to understand what there stating. We lost ~4,000 people and a trillion dollars worth of wars is fact, in theory but I didn't confirm it, what I did confirm however is this.

WW II cost us 1,027,000 estimated, yes thats over 1MILLION american citizen's over the course of the war. That is 6.67% of the population at the time at a cost of, in today's monies, 1.5 Trillion dollars.

While no one wants a war or the lose of life that comes with it I think I would prefer not having to live in a nazi training camp, or even not being born since I'm "not part of the perfect race".

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. Accessed on {insert today's date}.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[RanceJustice]

The report itself basically alternated between paper-thin rhetoric and stuff that if anyone else said them, they'd be called out as a "9/11 Truther". Keep this in mind. The report actually says "The official explanation is incorrect or incomplete. There MUST be more going on behind the scenes that we'd like to investigate. We have stuff that just doesn't add up". Why wasn't there any continuance of investigation into the most devastating attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor? Well, because the 9/11 commission ran out of money. I don't remember the exact figures, but the 9/11 Commission was given something like 11 million dollars to do their work. By comparison, Ken Starr's inquisition over Bill Clinton's blowjob had like 800 Million at its disposal. Doesn't something seem off? The commission were trotted out, told they did a good job and disbanded when the most preliminary of reports was filed.

It very, very clear that there are elements behind the government, likely the corporate handlers behind the scenes, who make their entire living based on obfuscating the truth, providing misinformation, and bending the views and actions of others to their will. They have no interest in "information sharing and transparency", its poison to their backroom deals. However, many of them have grown confident knowing that nomatter what they do, much of the country is working too hard, too tired, too entertained, or too ignorant to ever pose a threat to them. Wikileaks confirmed what the "crazy liberal pinko commies" have been saying for years is right: these wars are farces predicated on greed. Yet, they continue. It doesn't matter who we vote in, because with a few exceptions (Kucinich comes to mind), everyone is controlled by the same corporate plutocracy; which uses its wiles to misdirect hatred and frustration onto "Government". Be it Tea Party, NeoCon, or Libertarian, every time they see someone shouting "Down with the Statists! Less government control!" They laugh - They've managed to fool people into thinking that government is by nature, evil - thus calling to give private moneyed interest even MORE power and less regulation. Its genius really. There are examples all over the world where "Government", even much stronger government, works well - France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark etc.. come to mind. Sure, nowhere is perfect but they look at us as barbarians for letting private industry and finance have such control over our nation.

I'll say it very plainly - American elected representatives do not work for "The People", they work for the people who elect them and pay them - corporations. Until we completely reform campaigning from the ground up to be financially neutral, there isn't going to be a change. Until we make it selfishly in the interest of those in public office to serve the public instead of moneyed special interest, there isn't going to be a change. I'm seriously thinking that we may very well need an "Arab Spring" style revolution, as its clear these guys aren't going to vote to change the status quo. We need a new nation with an absolute central government that serves the good of the people and cannot be tempted by the money of private interests, in fact putting a boot squarely on the neck of capitalism to ensure that it only exists in such a way that serves the good of the whole, regulating the fuck out of greed which will take a mile if you give an inch. Until people are ready however, all we can do is contribute and do our parts - if you're technically inclined, mirror leaked documents etc.... bring as much information into the open as possible. And wait....

Re:Yeah, so bad

[afidel]

The US knew all about that because the CIA trained Al Qaeda to fight against the USSR in Afghanistan. The relevant answer here is "If you play with fire, you might get burnt", or "Live by the sword, die by the sword".

False, the CIA trained the Mujahideen, some of whom joined Al Qaeda decades later, but just as many have fought against Al Qaeda.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[Kagura]

No plane hit W7C. Yet it got demolished the same day. Loosely quoted: "It got pulled". Yeah, along with numerous evidence material against the rich and powerful.

People are easily misled by the wrong people, especially those who think themselves smart.

Hahaha. Is this irony?

Re:Yeah, so bad

[sixsixtysix]

it's funny how the people that will take his word when admitting 9/11 oversight (more like gave the go ahead), but not his reasoning behind it: the saudi thing & america's continued support of israel. then again, most people don't see it for what it was, purely retaliatory.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[bstender]

OBL specifically denied involvement in 9/11, more than once. You're thinking of the fake OBL video that had him claiming involvement.
and furthermore, 9/11 was never investigated in any meaningful way and the sham investigation hasnt even been released, so you can pretty much assume that every fact about 9/11 they have decided to tell you is pure bullshit, like every other thing they tell you. Pray for more wikileaks if you'd like to know the facts about what the corrupt douches are doing with your tax money.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[bstender]

"how do we know that the public report of the commission is really the complete report? Were there parts kept under wraps, that could have embarrassed certain people in powerful positions? That there was more to blame for the attacks?"

seriously? the commission was a joke by any basic standards of investigation, AND major parts of the crippled investigation won't be released. Embarassment? it's not so much the embarrassment as it is the capital crimes and treasonous conspiracy that will never be opened to the public. Most of the premises of your post refer to stories about terrorists both prior and post 9/11, with zero basis in anything provable and much to cast doubt on it (like referring to "Al Qaeda" as an organized group). Basically the entire jihadi terrorist fable is a story to sell the wars and military/security expenditures and has done nothing more than make fabulous money for some, help Israel's expansionist agenda, create enemies in every strata of society worldwide...and very likely is the beginning of the end of the USA as the dominant world power.

Re:Yeah, so bad

[dcw3]

Parent post is underrated. The amount of information often far exceeds our ability to properly deal with it.

Too bad about Obama

[identity0]

"was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."

Too bad the Obama administration hasn't done anything to increase openness - in fact, they've done just the opposite.

If only this guy had actually been appointed to a position of power - or maybe this kind of opinion is why he wasn't.

Re:Too bad about Obama

[Capsaicin]

If only this guy had actually been appointed to a position of power ...

... then he too may have changed his tune.

Re:Too bad about Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

citation?

Re:Too bad about Obama

[elrous0]

I cite every action the Obama administration has taken on national security. Good enough?

Re:Too bad about Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because something is a secret doesn't make it wrong or bad. There is this little thing called, appropriately enough, "national security".

Although there were obviously some missteps by the government, national security is still national security and the fact still remains Assange broke the law and a very serious one at that. I hope he is executed when he's found guilty.

Let those who think Assange was right doing what he did, call for the government to open all our secrets so the world will know who is spying on whom and what the next great weapons and aircraft are. Yeah, right. Friggin idiots.

Re:Too bad about Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Your inability to separate reasonable secrets and unreasonable secrets, or inability to tell that people are only asking for the latter to be revealed, makes you the idiot.

More to the point

[Sparx139]

The US Government should be relieved that Wikileaks 'cablegate' portrayed them in a relatively positive light, meaning that the backlash will be minimal from a domestic standpoint.

95 per cent of those leaked memos were incredibly well written and well reasoned, with one paragraph that might be sensitive

And the other 5% are the ones that cause a scandal. And while they may help garner domestic support (which is unlikely, because the media only covers that 5%), diplomacy could get a lot trickier when you have to explain your conversations with others.

Before I get modded into oblivion for this, all I'm not passing judgement on Wikileaks in either direction. Leaking can be argued as being necessary depending on the situation, but saying that the US government should be happy about it is just ridiculous.

Re:More to the point

[AHuxley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout and the people who crafted the incredibly well written and well reasoned paragraphs are very happy.

Re:More to the point

[Chuck Chunder]

diplomacy could get a lot trickier when you have to explain your conversations with others.

Perhaps. OTOH it might actually be easier in the long run if you deal with people openly and honestly. Too often when people start talking about Wikileaks effect on diplomacy people (though not specifically the person whose post I'm replying to) end up making diplomacy sound like some sort of game played be old men who get a kick out of pulling levers and trying mould the world to their will rather than the art of arriving at genuine understanding and agreement. No doubt there are often short term gains to such an approach but I can't help but think it is harmful in the long run.

Re:More to the point

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Government should be relieved that Wikileaks 'cablegate' portrayed them in a relatively positive light, meaning that the backlash will be minimal from a domestic standpoint.

95 per cent of those leaked memos were incredibly well written and well reasoned, with one paragraph that might be sensitive

And the other 5% are the ones that cause a scandal. And while they may help garner domestic support (which is unlikely, because the media only covers that 5%), diplomacy could get a lot trickier when you have to explain your conversations with others.

More like 95% being written to be witty, ignoring facts if those make it harder. All the diplomatic cable leaks that I've read so far has tried to be clever to a point where they are factually incorrect. All of them incredibly juvenile.

There is a difference between clever satire, making fun at things, and stupid satire, making fun of things you make up. Having humour is fine, but if you are an information gatherer for a country's intelligence service, you shouldn't just report things you find amusing or can make up jokes about.

The diplomatic cable leaks is the modern equivalent of minstrel shows. Fun for the ignorant people that they are meant to enjoy, but the people they portray just wonder what the fuck is wrong with the US people and how thay can be so ignorant and biased. Useful information is objective and reasonably verified, not made up on the spot or unverified information collected purely on sensational and humorous value. Most of the diplomatic cables feels like they been written by Beavis and Butthead, it is scary to imagine that they could have been the basis of US foreign policy.

And one thing is clear from the diplomatic cable leaks, the US government is way more in the hands of commercial interests than 99% of the other governments in the world. Foreign policy of a country should not be about selling shitty products made by way to powerful, domestic companies to other countries at gunpoint. Many wikileaks show what many foreign companies competing with US companies on some markets have claimed for centuries, that US products, on those markets, is almost entirely sold by threats of military actions from the US government and not by fair competition.

Re:More to the point

[Anonymous Coward]

And the babel-fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation...

Re:More to the point

[Sycraft-fu]

Ya, what bothers me more than anything else about the leaks is how much of it is stuff that is of no public benefit but that some of it is things that hurts diplomacy.

A working diplomatic process is a really important thing in the world if we want any kind of peace and stability. That is the reason for things like diplomatic immunity. Countries recognize that it is so important to have unhindered diplomacy.

Well another side of that is that diplomats and their staff and advisers need to be free to talk among themselves candidly. They need to speak freely outside of the negotiations so that the negotiations can be productive.

This kind of thing hurts that, and so really isn't useful.

In my mind, if you are going to leak something it needs to meet two tests:

1) It needs to be in the public's interest to have it leaked, they need to have some need to know. If it isn't relevant to the public then there is no cause to leak it. Now please note that means needs to know, not "Would find amusing in the tabloid sense." Some way the public was harmed or deceived or whatever.

2) The need to know needs to outweigh the harm the leak will cause. Just because the public may have a need to know, doesn't mean it is worth leaking if there is extreme harm. For example suppose you uncovered a small fraud, a few million against the public. However to leak the necessary information to prove it, you'd have to leak detailed nuclear secrets. Well then you shouldn't because the harm vastly outweighs the need to know.

To me, it seems much (perhaps all, I've look at little of it) of the Wikileaks material fails one or both these tests. It was leaked for the glee of leaking something secret, not with any real consideration of "Is this something that the public needs to know?" Frankly, I couldn't care less what the department of state thinks about Russian leadership, but they may care and thus the leak is harmful. We the public gain nothing and it can hurt diplomacy, so it shouldn't have been leaked.

Re:More to the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, come on! No leak was a major surprise for anyone (especially governments in question), leaks just confirmed what was already suspected (what "everybody" "knew"), to I-have-been-telling-that-since-always satisfaction of "conspiracy theorists" worldwide and to delight of modern historians. Diplomacy, the way you imagine it, is just talking nice to each other, or pretending that you turned a blind eye sometimes to avoid unwanted conflict. All sides involved are very aware of that. It is mostly game of open cards for players involved, but out of sight for the public.

Re:More to the point

[Anonymous Coward]

And the babel-fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation...

And the Babel tower was progressing well until...

God came down to see what they did and said: "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do." So God said, "Come, let us go down and confound their speech." And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth."

Re:More to the point

[HungryHobo]

Unfortunately the line between important shady stuff which the pubic should know and what would hurt them to know is very blurry.
You're also not only talking about one country.

For example: meetings with politicians in other states where they give US intelligence staff regular updates may be dull and uninteresting to US citizens.
Recently some cables hit the news: they were about politicians in my country meeting with US embassy staff and quite clearly show them saying one thing in private while at the same time they were outright lying to their voters.
and this wasn't military stuff.

Senior members of some of our political parties were giving better information to the US than to the people they were supposed to represent.

"the harm the leak will cause" is subjective.

if you're from the US you might not want the world to see this as the backlash might make it harder for american politicians. If you're not american then you might be interested in your own representatives putting american interests ahead of your own.

Re:More to the point

[metacell]

The government should be happy about leaks which expose corruption and lawbreaking - it means the leaker is basically doing the job the police would have done if they could. And for free!

Re:More to the point

[couchslug]

Open and honest behavior is only valued in specific cultures and is considered highly arrogant and insulting in others.

The world is a bad place full of vicious people, so as there are no good guys one must deal with governments and people as they are, not as we would have them.

Re:More to the point

[jandrese]

I think the point is that politics often forces people to act against their self interest on the diplomatic stage, just because doing the right thing would get them kicked out of office (and the right thing overturned). This is the case with a lot of middle eastern regimes that secretly want to help the US kick the insurgents out of their country, but can't because the insurgents are way more politically popular than the US.

Also, like it or not, a lot of diplomacy is playing the game. The other guy lies to you, you know it but you pretend to go along because it serves some interest of yours. Then these leaks come out and he really can't pretend that he's fooling you anymore. Most of these situations will work themselves out over time though.

Re:More to the point

[T.E.D.]

Actually, no. Most of the ones that caused "scandals" did so because they told uncomfortable truths. Like that our Packastani "allies" were actually in cahoots with the terrorists, or that Israel wasn't even trying for peace.

My personal favorite was the one that revealed that the US was actually not all that close to, or fond of, Tunisian strongman Ben-Ali, and that his government was a laughable cesspool of corruption. He'd held onto power in part by convincing his people that he unreservedly had the US's support.

When the embarrassing truth came out for all to see, he proved unable to stop the next periodic riots. He's gone now.

Re:More to the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd mod you up if I weren't an accountless lurker.

Re:More to the point

[dcw3]

diplomacy could get a lot trickier when you have to explain your conversations with others.

Perhaps. OTOH it might actually be easier in the long run if you deal with people openly and honestly.
Too often when people start talking about Wikileaks effect on diplomacy people (though not specifically the person whose post I'm replying to) end up making diplomacy sound like some sort of game played be old men who get a kick out of pulling levers and trying mould the world to their will rather than the art of arriving at genuine understanding and agreement.

No doubt there are often short term gains to such an approach but I can't help but think it is harmful in the long run.

While in a utopian world, this would all be wonderful, the idea that being open and honest in all diplomatic negotiations is simplistic and naive. I'm not trying to insult you with that comment, only stating a fact. Pick up any good book on negotiations, and you'll learn very quickly that it's very much like playing poker. If not, you'll always get taken advantage of.

It depends on the objective.

[steelfood]

He's right if the U.S. government's objective is to promote freedom and democracy. The cables certainly show the rampant corruption in the world, the injustices everywhere, and that the United States government recognizes and responds to them.

However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region, and will do everything to maintain that regardless of what it takes to achieve that stability. There's a reason one of the most repressive governments in the world is considered a close ally, while a democratically-elected president is constantly being vilified.

The leaked cables has actually caused the opposite effect. And because of the instability of the middle east region, oil and thus gas prices are higher than they otherwise should be. High gas prices are detrimental to an economy trying to dig itself out of a recessionary hole. Which the egg-on-his-face notwithstanding, is why Obama is generally against such whistleblowing.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region, and will do everything to maintain that regardless of what it takes to achieve that stability.

As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

To clarify:
'Stability' does not mean 'peace' or 'happiness of the local people' or whatever else in the context of the post above.
'Stability' means things are calm and thus, easy for politicians and governments to deal with. The local population could be forced into working like slaves for their nation's leaders, women could be raped daily, kids taken from their parents to be brainwashed into becoming soldiers, as long as the people don't rebel against their government it's considered 'stable'.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Livius]

Obama is interested in *short-term* stability.

Actual democracy would be the key to long-term stability.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

However, Obama is actually more interested in stability in the region

As has every president since at least WW II. Can't have Pax Americana if the barbarians are running amok, can we?

And because of the instability of the middle east region, oil and thus gas prices are higher than they otherwise should be. High gas prices are detrimental to an economy trying to dig itself out of a recessionary hole. Which the egg-on-his-face notwithstanding, is why Obama is generally against such whistleblowing.

No, he's against it because he's a politician - and they absolutely fucking hate it when peasants like Assange get all fucking uppity.

Gas prices? The economy? Fuck me. For the cost of one of our wargasms in the Middle East, our government could subsidize gas to 1980's levels without adding anything more to the national debt.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Sarten-X]

Oh, yes... let's turn all government functions directly over to the people, such as those currently running amok at 4chan. The point of TFA is that the leaked cables show that international policymaking is hard, and the US government should be "looking on the bright side" and pointing out the tough situations the diplomats work in on a daily basis. Do you really think that high-school dropout down the street will be better at diplomacy than the appointed diplomat we have now?

Short-term stability makes a much more conducive environment to work out long-term stability. I'd imagine that almost every oppressive dictator out there really thinks they're doing what's best for their people. If they can be convinced that peace and acceptance are best, that's what they'll do. It's just much harder to convince anyone of such an idea while their neighbor is arming for war. Once everyone in the area is on friendly terms, then you can talk reasonably about maintaining peace long-term. Of course, there hasn't been short-term stability in the Middle East for the past thousand years, so I don't expect it anytime soon.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[cheeks5965]

There's a reason one of the most repressive governments in the world is considered a close ally, while a democratically-elected president is constantly being vilified.

who are these people?

Re:It depends on the objective.

[siglercm]

I note sadly that your idealistic view blatantly ignores a moral and political conundrum. Stated simply:

What do the US and her allies do when a couple of these newly minted democracies follow the path of Iran? Do we do nothing, save applauding them from the sidelines for their democratically free and fair election of a hard-line government which immediately threatens us and our allies in the region with extinction? Do we decry their militaristic threats while filing protests, motions for censure and import/export embargoes at the UN? Do we secretly begin planning a mid- to long-range military option to neutralize their stated threat to our country and her citizens, as best we can?

I hope it's clear that sometimes "actual democracy" can lead to nearly insoluble problems. Democracy is the "only" way, but it's not the panacea which you believe it is.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that like it's a bad thing. Bad for US industry, energy supplies, etc., is bad for our unemployment rate, CPI, etc.

That doesn't mean that corporate greed should run the show, but Chomsky is so cynical about stuff like this he stumbles onto the truth like a blind squirrel finding a nut in a grove of trees that it can't see.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Sir_Sri]

Let us not forget that democracy gives the people the ability to choose things contrary to what other people choose. It is much easier (and cheaper) to sway a politician than to sway the masses. Germany and france didn't come around to their current borders until about 1956/57 when the french gave up on taking over the Saar. That is, after 900 years of stabbing, shooting and occupying each other, the recent total occupation of cosmopolitan france, and all of a (a newly defined) germany, the killing of millions of people - they were still squabbling over who gets to keep what for themselves for a decade.

People, as a whole, can, and will choose what benefits them, even if it as at the expense of someone else. If we give people democracy a hell of a lot of them aren't going to go the nelson mandella truth and reconciliation route, they are going to demand territories which cannot be given voluntarily. And who do you side with? How do you even define what is a legitimate democratic outcome or not, is a majority of people in the middle east a legitimate democratic outcome, or does it need to be done country by country? If the world votes against the US existing and decides to carve it up and redistrict it back to mexico, spain the UK and various native inhabitants, is that democracy we want to support?

Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a /. post.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[SuricouRaven]

What makes democracy so stable? One charismatic leader comes along and gets elected, and you've got World War Two to deal with.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Check your facts: the Middle East is (as of a year ago, not sure how the Arab Spring affects the numbers) the most stable region of the world measured by frequency of war, civil unrest, and revolutions/regime change (sorry, I don't have a citation, my source is a lecture from a professor teaching politics of the Middle East). It's ridiculously stable. Part of this is that it is ruled by a bunch of very effective dictatorships. With the Arab Spring there may finally be hope for that to change.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[CodeBuster]

As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".

Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. The United States offers a host of pretty compelling benefits, not among the least of which is the protection of our vast military, to our allies and friends. It's only natural that we should ask for certain things in return for these benefits. That's the way the world works after all.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the Noam-Chomsky-quoting-AC has the radical idea that the people in those foreign countries should be allowed to make up their own minds and have their own government that does what is good for *them*, not necessarily good for the USA.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yes...
The problem for the average Saudi is that the protection goes to his king and the thousands of royal family members. Mohammed-sixpack can pay the price in the form of a brutal and corrupt regime and has little hope of improving his own situation.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll remember to call in the Marines next time I get mugged on Berlin's streets.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States offers a host of pretty compelling benefits, not among the least of which is the protection of our vast military, to our allies and friends. It's only natural that we should ask for certain things in return for these benefits.

sounds feudal...

i agree with the prid-pro-quo approach but i wouldn't exactly say protection by the US military is one of the key benefits. at times, more "from the US military" if anything. after all it's not like any recent US (c)overt wars actually started with the US jumping in to stick up for an ally in dire straights or? somehow it felt a lot more like the nasty end of a Carrot/Stick deal.

i think that in eyes of many developing countries a bigger reason to submit to Western conditions and pressure say for joining the WTO for example (which i guess Chomsky sees as embodying demands of US corporations) is the hope that by adopting the same system as the West one day these countries will have their own powerful corporations too. i bet that's what Deng Xiao Ping was thinking.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[m50d]

Democracy means he has to burn down parliament first, which puts a bit more of a barrier to entry in place.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure you've got the correct idiom there, CB. No one is paying the piper, the piper in this case is playing whatever tune he wants. What you are describing is more like a protection racket.

Will you feel that this system is so natural and just when China is the piper, I wonder?

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

And brainwashed you are...
Iran is only threat to Gulf monarchies, who are proping up certain narrow version of islam and treating local shiite population as second-class citizens. Working democracy (as opposed to strict majority rule) in those countries should fix that problem.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

As Noam Chomsky points out, in US foreignpolicyspeak "stability" means "obedience to US corporate demands".

Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. The United States offers a host of pretty compelling benefits, not among the least of which is the protection racket of our vast military, to our allies and friends. It's only natural that we should ask for certain things in return for these benefits. That's the way the world works after all.

There, corrected it for you.

"Prosperous little democracy you have there going. It would be such a shame if something happened to it."

Re:It depends on the objective.

[XManticore]

This is the hypocrisy that the world hates the US for.

Your government plays the democracy tune when they wish a people to overthrow a tyranny that doesn't suit their agenda. And when a peaceful, fair election such as the one in Palestine happens, and somebody who you don't like gets elected, the West get their panties in a twist and starts their pathetic economic bullying.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[metacell]

I'm guessing the repressive government is Saudi Arabia. Don't know who the democratically-elected president is.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[siglercm]

"Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems...." In conjunction with what other systems? How are they formed? How do they operate? How can they prevent a people or a nation from going down "a path to a very dark place?" I see many deep and deeply principled assertions here, but with nothing of substance to support them, only wishes and dreams :(

This is precisely why "[m]any forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (If not familiar, be sure to look up this quotation.) The Founding Fathers of the U.S. well understood this more than two centuries ago.

"People, as a whole, can, and will choose what benefits them, even if it as at the expense of someone else." Difficult choices usually come at the expense of someone, either self or others. That's why they're difficult. An altruistic choice is generally a noble and a moral one, but such altruism can't be enforced unless one denies a person his or her freedom to choose their own self-interest.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[siglercm]

[Two axioms: A moral absolute and the value of life.]

I maintain clearly that there is an absolute good and moral right (as in right and wrong). The hard part is living up to this absolute good and moral right. All governments face this incredible difficulty from time to time, it seems to me.

But to call for the extermination of a nation or a people (a la Iran in present times) is wrong. It is evil. A democratically elected government whose stated aim, from their initiation, is to kill or destroy others is a danger to life and should be vigorously opposed, preferably from within.

An important note: I didn't and don't intend my statements to address Palestine. There are well-known governments in history, even democratically elected ones, that have had official policies of extermination, of genocide. They were morally wrong and monstrously evil. This is true today and will be true at all times in the future.

This point is not one of U.S. hypocrisy or self-interest. It is one of good versus evil.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Julian Assange, champion of truth, peace, and the everyman. Pure altruism, no motivated self-interest in Assange the peasant. I was especially interested when he recently gave all his worldly goods to the poor before jetting off somewhere after raping another woman. Oh, how pure he is!

Oh, wait, that's right. He jetted off to a jail cell. Ha-ha!

Re:It depends on the objective.

[GameboyRMH]

Damn right. GP has an imperialist attitude towards other countries.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Gonzoman]

The United States offers a host of pretty compelling benefits, not among the least of which is the protection of our vast military, to our allies and friends.

It seems that what we need is protection from is the vast US military.

(Mafia Boss) Nice country you have there. It would be a shame if it got invaded.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[elrous0]

In all fairness, we expect obedience to our political demands as well.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[jackbird]

Oh, come on. Constitutions, representative government rather than direct referenda on day-to-day issues, an apolitical judiciary and civil service, an apolitical military, supernational organizations like NATO and the UN, international law, worldwide treaties on issues of global import, and international human rights tribunals all serve to prevent the darkest excesses of democracy. In themselves they are all anti-democratic, but they make possible an environment in which democracies can thrive.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to talk about Iran, it's even less about good versus evil.

Present Iran got this way because the US/UK were the ones responsible for orchestrating the coup that created Iran's previous regime, and the driving reason for US/UK to stage that coup is oil (surprise surprise).

This isn't about good versus evil. It's about one group of people wants something and it hurts another group people (intentional or not, doesn't really matter), and the other group doesn't like it, and it escalated to the point of violence and wanting to kill

Re:It depends on the objective.

[dkleinsc]

Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a /. post.

The short version appears to be: Sir_Sri believes the majority of people at large are too stupid to be trusted to manage the government, but there's the possibility of some enlightened despots who are less stupid than the masses. That's been the excuse of every not-so-enlightened despot in history.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[maxume]

Plenty of people make the mistake of thinking that democracy itself is virtuous (hopefully it is obvious that the situation that does not require the force of government is superior to any situation that does).

It just happens to be a system that has the least impact on virtuous things like liberty and self-determination.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[cheeks5965]

Mahmoud Ahmadinnerjacket? the OP must have his head far up his rear to say that Mahmoud is a good guy villified by the west.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what the hell you are talking about. You are referencing people who have at every turn usurped the process of democracy to some political means, not democracy. You have a very narrow vision, but you comment as if you know some things.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

or that he was democratically elected, for that matter.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[olau]

That sounds mostly like nonsense coming from someone who don't know his history. The truth is that most people are relatively reasonable if you make sure they cannot make rash decisions. That's why democracy works pretty well, much better than previous and contemporary competing systems. It's not infallible, and of course, people need to have access to accurate information. But overall it does work.

As you say, democracy needs to be checked against the masses trampling over some people. But democracies realize that by asserting inviolable rights. There's a baseline protected by the police and the justice system.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[olau]

If you're talking about Hitler, that's not really what happened. He got some power, then abused that massively to suppress the democratic institutions, which by the way were relatively young in Germany at that point (the Weimar Republic was established in 1918). Those institutions were also under pressure from other groups, including conservatives. Keep in mind that Germany had enormous problems in the aftermath of the first World War and the conditions that were imposed upon the country.

I was looking for some references; you can find a good account in the Wikipedia article on Adolf Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler).

Re:It depends on the objective.

[jafac]

And because of the instability of the middle east region, oil and thus gas prices are higher than they otherwise should be. High gas prices are detrimental to an economy trying to dig itself out of a recessionary hole.

Given the nature of the OPEC cartel, and commodity speculation that does nothing productive for anyone's economy, this is really not an argument for or against "keeping political negotiations secret" - repressing people through violence and dictatorship. To keep oil prices down for us? Because high oil prices are inconvenient? That actually goes AGAINST Free Market theory. . . (why should the government intervene to keep one industry's feedstock prices low? Shouldn't that industry have to compete with others on a level playing field?)

The bottling up of these ugly negotiations and horse-trading, is what has perpetuated hatreds and conflicts in the region (and around the world) for what has been an incredibly violent and bloody century. All because high oil prices are inconvenient? I say: low oil prices are inconvenient. Because they prevent a good competitor from coming out of the laboratory, being developed and arising in the market. And low oil prices are very inconvenient to the millions who have died, starved, been blown into bloody bits of hamburger meat in our wars, and given the (petroleum-driven) Haber-Bosch process - the HUNDREDS of millions who were born who probably would not have otherwise been born; - - - and born into poverty, ignorance, religious intolerance, tribal warfare, colonial subjugation, disease and starvation. All due to the artificial manipulation of this commodity's dominant market position. Because we like to keep embarrassing secrets secret.

Obviously, the long-held goal of the US, and many world powers, has been stability, and maintenance of imperial power, and control of existing resources. And that is why the leaks have been dangerous for them. They are bringing about revolution and democracy to a world that can not possibly support itself with so many free opinions.

I can't project what will happen to world oil prices next.
Will prices go down, once the die-off begins, because fewer humans will demand less energy?
Or will prices go up, as extraction, transport, and refinery infrastructure is destroyed in the ensuing conflict over what remains?

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes democracy so stable? One charismatic leader comes along and gets elected, and you've got World War Two to deal with.

Well yes, but because Germany had an authoritarian socialist nationalist government (albeit by democratic means partially) that wanted to disempower and in cases kill the Jews whereas the rest of the world (certainly US and Britain) was run by a nominally 'democratic' capitalist international supragovernment that was the Jews and wanted to disempower the people and killed plenty of them. (Apart from Stalin who had a Jewish wife)

Mossad's motto was 'wage wars by deception'. The US is a hypnotised by MASS propaganda to enter wars for 'humanitarian intervention' and dissolve its western european stock or be Israel's tearleader.

Wake up /.

The media LIES and big. Try these non homogenised infostreams:

www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.iraq-war.ru/
http://www.thedailybell.com/

Do your bit to avoid false flags and thus WWIII being foisted on us all

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'd imagine that almost every oppressive dictator out there really thinks they're doing what's best for their people"

Are you seriously that fucked up and retarded?

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like every tyrant I've ever heard.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[SuricouRaven]

He still has to get some power democratically though, before he could use it to destroy the very system that put him in power. If you want a more recent example, how about Hamas? Democratically elected, yet it openly advocates genocide and is classified as a terrorist organisation by quite a number of governments. The only reason they havn't pulled a Hitler is that they don't have the military strength.

Democracy can bring stability only it's filled with so many checks, limitations and safeguards that it's just about impossible for anyone, no matter how popular, to actually come to full power. Look at the US, for example - the most powerful individual is the president, but what can he do? He can't pass a law. He can declare war, but he won't be keeping it up long without congressional approval. He can't stay in office more than eight years no matter what, so there isn't enough time to built such a base of power he can't be impeached, or to completly pack the appointed offices with croneys. So it is possible for a democractic system to bring stability - if it's properly engineered, and if the people actually want stability. The former depends upon who writes the constitution, and the latter isn't always the case.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[ekgringo]

I'm guessing the GP is referring to Hamas in Palestine.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Sir_Sri]

Laws, courts, constitutions, monarchs, upper houses of lords are all balances of power against democracy, as are tyrants. I tend to prefer the british system of about 20 years ago - a balance of power between the masses of people and the people who have money, with some geographic representation (how seats are aportioned) and reserve powers in a monarch when the democratic bodies cannot organize themselves out of a brown paper bag. A system that has evolved over the last 400 years or so (since end of the english civil war) has had it's ups and downs of course, but I think they got close to that sweet spot of balancing all of the relevant interests, the people, the rich, the courts the monarchy etc.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Sir_Sri]

ones tolerance for how much of a balance against the pure will of the people is certainly a very big topic. What should be in a constitution, what should be decided by courts, what should be in a referendum vs what should be up to representatives only and so on.

I wasn't trying to write a treatise in short form. Most people are not relatively reasonable. With the possible exception of Sweden, Norway, and swizterland pretty much every notably sized democracy has a series of black stains of choices made by the people at the expense of others. (I would separate swiss collaboration with the nazi's as not an option particularly presented to the people). In the extreme the people chose to put Nazi's, communists and the like in power. But on a more mundane, day to day basis the people of democratic europe chose to carve up other peoples territory for themselves, the US, well, that's pretty obvious all the horrible stuff they've gotten up to along with the europeans.

It's not like systems of government are binary choices between democracy and 'other'. There is a whole spectrum of choices in how to allocate the powers of government. As I said, democracy belongs as a part of effective government, but people are easily swayed to equally crazy and great things, the point of building good systems is to prevent the bad and facilitate the good. To use the US as an example, if the US has democratically chosen representatives who would prefer the government default than to borrow more money (before the next budget) poses enormous problem for the people who made a democratic, but ultimately bad choice. It may be that they chose poorly because the system has left them ill informed, but nonetheless, they have chosen. Of course that system can feed on its own incompetence. If the government starts running out of money it then has to choose which bills to pay, and which to not pay, further exacerbating the problem as debts accumulate and interest rates go up on the money it *can* borrow and then you're more in debt.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[Sir_Sri]

As I say in reply to someone else below.

Constitutions, laws, courts, upper houses of hereditary unelected rich, monarchs, are all decidedly undemocratic systems and serve as effective counter weights to the will of the masses, even multiple tiers of democracy pose profoundly deep questions about what democracy *is*. As I said, does world democracy take precedence over amercian democracy? Does american democracy take precedence over alaskan democracy and so on.

Ok you want substance of how to do it? Power should be balance both geographically, and between classes of people (rich and poor). A unelected, hereditary house of lords - chosen to give the rich a direct hand in government, so they aren't buying it , with an elected, by evenly distributed democratic districts for the commons. Written constitutions only work in the long run when they say nothing of substance, so we can forget about those, otherwise they just bind people to antiquated ideas. If the two houses cannot agree, or manage to actually pass necessary laws (like a budget) power should be reserved in a hereditary sovereign, who is prepared, from birth, for the possibility of balancing the interests of competing factions (including their own). There should be a single federal entity, and some local government. The more tiers of government there are, the more likely you are to have unnecessary infighting and squabbling over who should do what. Let us call this big, bicameral legislature 'parliament' - it, and more to the point, it's laws when signed by the sovereign are supreme, and the law exists to enforce the law. All of this can change as technology eliminates the need for any part of government, or adds a need for new parts.

Ultimately all government relies on the nobility of the people who run it. Recognizing, accepting, and building a system which fosters that is the only way to make a functioning society. That's why supporting dictators in other countries is not always a bad thing. If festering under the surface is Al Qaeda or the Nazi party you have a problem. If 'the people' would love to just nuke pakistan, regardless of consequences (whether you're an indian or an american) that needs to be prevented. You're hoping that the nutcases will go the way of much of south america, and eventually come to their senses, without the shooting part that was required in germany and Japan. The US has, festering under its surface a lot of very dangerous, ignorant nutters, and they aren't getting any less ignorant or less crazy under Obama. Of course they exist here in canada too, just not quite as many of them, but in india their equivalents are an actual, overt political force, as, on occasion, they have been in France.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[jawahar]

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar Wilde

Re:It depends on the objective.

[CodeBuster]

Will you feel that this system is so natural and just when China is the piper, I wonder?

I merely suggested that these sorts of arrangements are representative of the sorts that have existed, at one time or another, throughout recorded human history. After all, Realpolitik concerns itself with the possible and the practical, not the idealistic or the practically impossible. Is it just? No. Is the world a fair place? No. In my experience, winners play the hands they are dealt while losers stand around and whine about the fairness of the game after everyone else has moved on.

Re:It depends on the objective.

[CrkHead]

"...our allies and friends. It's only natural that we should ask for certain things in return for these benefits."

You realize a "Friend with benefits" is someone you're fucking, right?

They're not simple to dismiss.

[RyanFenton]

Leaks are almost inevitable in a relatively free society - as long as the information is in a usable state, and it is used by people, it pretty much will be leaked eventually if people care to leak it.

As far as distributors of sunshine (breaks in secrecy, disinfecting stagnant air) go, Wikileaks is rather benign - they exercise considerable restraint and editorial control considering their size and content they process.

The problem isn't their arguable responsibility though, it is the relative difficulty in getting rational people to dismiss their evidence, the difficulty in painting them as a poisoned source of valid information. Certainly it is tried - all the logical fallacies that exist are thrown against them at a fairly constant rate, but they are still viewed as a valid source of important information.

Since they don't delve purely in talking point - just releasing information from sources known as valid, their points are fairly solid - whatever you think of their practices.

Ask Newt Gingrich - claiming a problem exists because you were quoted accurately and directly doesn't get you very far.

Ryan Fenton

Re:They're not simple to dismiss.

[TubeSteak]

Ask Newt Gingrich - claiming a problem exists because you were quoted accurately and directly doesn't get you very far.

I think you understimate the ability for partisans to accept doublethink and cognitive dissonance when it suits their purposes.

Re:They're not simple to dismiss.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Newt Gingrich - claiming a problem exists because you were quoted accurately and directly doesn't get you very far.

I think you understimate the ability for partisans to accept doublethink and cognitive dissonance when it suits their purposes.

Paul Revere!

My ss# is 555-55-5555

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we should be happy when our personal banking info gets leaked for the same reasons

Re:TL;DR

[Sarten-X]

That's not what TFA implies at all.

Re:My ss# is 555-55-5555

[cheeks5965]

what do you have to hide?

Diplomacy and the White Lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, if your wife ask you if she looks fat in that particular outfit, do you answer her "open and honestly"?

Re:Diplomacy and the White Lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

A good point, Americans are particularly fat. Better not be honest with us.

Re:Diplomacy and the White Lie.

[metacell]

Hmmm, if your wife ask you if she looks fat in that particular outfit, do you answer her "open and honestly"?

I answer politely and honestly. She can see through when I'm lying, since she has no illusions about herself, and only by being honest can I make her believe me when I give her compliments.

Wikileaks is a CIA front.

[jrhawk42]

That's just my crazy conspiracy. If you look at a lot of the information provided by wikileaks it doesn't make the US look bad, but countries in which the US can't openly attack look bad. Also if you look at the stance the US government has taken on wikileaks it's been more barking than biting. Had they leaked any information the US didn't want leaked there would of been many more people in trouble with the US besides Bradley Manning, and Julian Assange. Back in reality I don't really have much evidence to Wikileaks being a CIA front, or at least none I feel like presenting. It's really more of a hunch more than anything else, but my hunches tend to be really good, and I tend not to come up w/ something as crazy as this unless I'm pretty close to being right.

Re:Wikileaks is a CIA front.

[reasterling]

If you look at a lot of the information provided by wikileaks it doesn't make the US look bad

The US is not all that bad. Sure we have our problems (who doesn't), but even in poverty I am able to live resonably well. The kings of old did not have it as good as I do. There may be lots that I can complain about (I wont - it does no good), but their is a reason that illegal imigration is a problem here. That is we have a very high standard of living even for most people who are considered poor.

I do not understand why people expect the US to be bad or evil.

Re:Wikileaks is a CIA front.

[metacell]

I don't think people expect the USA to be a bad place to live in. Here in Europe, the USA is often called "the motor of the western economy". It's well-known that it's a rich industrialised nation, comparable to Germany, France and northern Europe. It's well-known that millions of Mexican immigrants live illegally in the USA for economic reasons. Most political and economic trends start in the USA and spread over to Europe after a few years. It's well-known that most of the inventions that have changed modern life during the last few decades have originated in, or been commercialised through, the USA. Most films and tv shows shown here are imported from the USA. A lot of Europeans visit the USA to work for a US firm, for conferences, or for vacations.

The most important reason for the USA:s impopularity is probably its foreign policy: It's the most interventionist nation in the world, with a "my way or the highway" attitude towards other nations.

Re:Wikileaks is a CIA front.

[elrous0]

Wikileaks is a CIA front

No, you're thinking of OpenLeaks, the site founded by the CIA's favorite plant at Wikileaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg.

Re:Yeah, so

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think you deserve to be told the truth? That's a huge assumption in itself.

Uh-huh

[cultiv8]

Yeah, the US govt is as happy as pigs in pig shit over wikileaks

Re:My ss# is 555-55-5555

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we should be happy when our personal banking info gets leaked for the same reasons

You guess right, if and only if your personal banking info is a necessary for the maintenance of transparent and democratic govt. and its supervision by the people.

In the real world, OTOH, personal and state privacy are inversely proportional.

What does Private Mean?????

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was an assumption that All private conversations would be made public. The All those conversations would be what the talker assumed the listener wanted to hear. Making them all not worth having or recording.

Did the leaks benift the U.S. maybe. Will Other diplomats speak openly with U.S.in the future? maybe not. A short term gain and a long term loss.

Re:What does Private Mean?????

[SuricouRaven]

If there was an assumption that all private conversations would be made public, diplomacy would take the form of hushed conversations in a broom cupboard with no written account being made. Politicians would play diplomacy like actors, putting on a show for the people, while the real work was done informally and secretively.

Arab Brothers?

[larsl]

Iranians are not Arabs.

Re:Arab Brothers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. "Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) research associate, Professor Mike Nelson" proves himself clueless about Mideast culture, take the rest of what he says with a grain of salt with respect to diplomacy and disclosure.

Re:Arab Brothers?

[Anonymous Coward]

whatever.. they stereotype and generalize western culture, so we can do the same.

Re:Arab Brothers?

[Sun]

Yes. He probably meant "Muslim". It's a common mistake.

To be fair, his exact words are not contradictory to knowing all of that:

... because he thought he was well-loved by his Arab brothers.

The statement is that his brothers (in Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia) are Arab (which they are), not that he, himself, is. I'm for giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Shachar

Re:Arab Brothers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iranians are not Arabs.

Hey, bro... if I'd have a step-brother of Caucasian race, would this make me a white man?

Re:Arab Brothers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. He probably meant "Muslim". It's a common mistake.

To be fair, his exact words are not contradictory to knowing all of that:

... because he thought he was well-loved by his Arab brothers.

The statement is that his brothers (in Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia) are Arab (which they are), not that he, himself, is. I'm for giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Shachar

You mean that all Americans and British people are Christians?
Yeah right.
It's called the Middle East and people from the Middle East are called Middle Easterners

Re:Arab Brothers?

[inviolet]

Iranians are not Arabs.

Iran's native population is indeed Persian, but the current ruling party and its enforcers is mostly Arab. Arabs have a tight grip on Islam on account of its history, and when the Persians fell for the religion, it gave the Arabs ideological power over them. From ideological power eventually comes political and then physical power.

This is one of the motivators for the recent uprising: Persians who are fed up with their mostly-Arab government and its Arab goon squads.

Re:Arab Brothers?

[T.E.D.]

You are misreading this. He (Ahmadinejad) is using "Arab brothers" in almost exactly the same paternalistic way an oldest child might use "little brothers." This is a term he has used in the past.

Re:Arab Brothers?

[PitaBred]

Arabs, Persians... they're all the same because they have the same skin color, right? I mean, Germans and the French may as well be the same, too... they're both the same skin color and from a geographically close area...

Re:Arab Brothers?

[mr100percent]

Nope. Flat wrong on all counts. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and the Iranian Parliament were all born in Iran.
Arabs are only 15% of all Muslims; Pakistanis, Indians, and Indonesians don't really listen that much to what Arabs say since they have their own Muslim scholars. Heck, there are 2x as many Muslims in China than Saudi Arabia, and they don't follow Saudi's interpretation of Islam.

Re:Arab Brothers?

[Anonymous Coward]

and 'americans' are not americans, but occupants of the north american continent, but we decided to call them 'americans' because we saw what they did to the folks natives and we are simply to cowardly to call them by names.
It also simplifys geography for my children, since calling it the land of United States of Murderers would raise some hard answered questions...

Obviously not

[dbIII]

It fails the obviousness test:

Does it actually manage to do something in a reasonable timescale without completely stuffing it up?
Yes?
Well in that case the CIA are not running it.

Remember that the only reason Homeland Security exists is because the CIA was unable to be a centre to co-ordinate all of those other intelligence agencies - you know, the job the CIA was set up to do in the first place.

Re:Obviously not

[catmistake]

Remember that the only reason Homeland Security exists is because the CIA was unable to be a centre to co-ordinate all of those other intelligence agencies - you know, the job the CIA was set up to do in the first place.

CIA didn't cause the DHS... it was NSA.

Must see Nova - The Spy Factory:
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7

Re:Obviously not

[Anonymous Coward]

It fails the obviousness test:

Does it actually manage to do something in a reasonable timescale without completely stuffing it up?
Yes?

Yes! "Arab spring" - change of rogue regimes in Libya, Syria, Yemen underway, as well as favorable stabilization of dissenting Egypt and Tunisia that could otherwise produce more "Irans".

Re:Yeah, so

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic principles of democracy? If it's a totalitarian state, then he has no right to be told the truth, but if that's the case, they ought to stop pretending.

Hey, my captcha is "unionize" -- when did the slashdot AI become a syndicalist?

o_O

[VortexCortex]

Did you read the 2nd page? The one where it says:

"If there is a corrupt official taking million dollar bribes from the Russians, maybe that should be public knowledge rather than hidden in a WikiLeaks cable?" he said.

...

"When I was at the White House, I would have loved to have the kind of information that was leaked. I had top secret clearance and I still couldn't get access to those kinds of memos without a lot of trouble."

...

The professor encouraged CEDA members and chief executive officers to follow the example of WikiLeaks, bypassing the public relations departments and being more open with their staff and customers.

Could you explain how these captions do not support my statement?

(::sigh:: You know... I try to be helpful, but what's the point if I get modded "troll" by other TL;DRers?)

Re:Yeah, so

[metacell]

What makes you think you deserve to be told the truth? That's a huge assumption in itself.

Because the government works for me, and is paid for by my money?

Re:Yeah, so

[metacell]

What makes you think you deserve to be told the truth? That's a huge assumption in itself.

Because the government works for me, and is paid for by my money.

Re:Yeah, so

[Anonymous Coward]

You can say that again.

lol @ CSC

[DDLKermit007]

This is coming from someone at CSC? A company that eats up corporations IT in outsourcing operations then way understaffs the companies need for IT? These guys are pretty disorganized when it comes to delivering on a solution in my experience like just about every other outsourcing group. Whole thing smells of FUD so data-breaches due to not keeping on their toes can be just written off in the future.

Why should we believe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should we believe someone who champions the Phallacy of man made global warming?

Maybe because Chomsky is a linguistics professor

[voss]

I find it amazing how Chomsky can be considered a public policy expert on anything with no training in public policy an economics expert with no training in economics and a philosopher with not much background in philosophy. The supply of oil to an advanced country can be a matter of life and death in a cold winter
so yes stability isnt just about corporations. Whats even more funny is his awful writing style, it makes pseudo-intellectual rubes think how brilliant he must be that they cant understand him.

see chomskybot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomskybot

maybe act like responsible adults for a change?

[Thud457]

We were quite satisfied to let Iraq attack their neighbors, hell, we helped them with poison gas (well, OK, the critical precursors needed to make poison gas ), just as long as they were attacking the right neighbor.

Re:My ss# is 555-55-5555

[maxume]

Obviously, the magic numbers that U.S. banks use to 'secure' accounts and transactions.

Piss on Al Gore and his little buddys

[Anonymous Coward]

No official has been punished. So what's the point anymore? The US doesn't have a constitution, it has a Patriot Act. The officials run around doing foreign agenda, and screwing the actual US citizen. All the laws officials have passed in the past decade don't apply to them, only to the US Citizen. Officials still do insider trading, but for the US citizen it's illegal. Why does Martha Stewart go to jail and all these officials who still inside trade walk free? How come joe schmoo can get in trouble for an oil spill in the driveway, but when the entire southern coast of the US has oil dumped on it, and core exit dumped on top of that, a year later and it's not even a fucking news story? Fuck al gore and his UN, IPCC weather modification deniers.

Whether he's right or wrong, he's right

[__u63]

Whether Mike Nelson is right or wrong in some principled sense (I haven't read the article), the fact of the matter is that the US government came out looking pretty good after the release of the Wikileaks documents, no doubt contrary to the wishes of Wikileaks itself. People all over the world consult those documents and draw conclusions from them about their own rulers, suggesting that they feel the documents are a credible-enough source of information for using in that vein. The New York Times has remarked that the cables are well-written and in some cases fairly insightful. The US government no doubt see an interest in discouraging such disclosures in the future, but I wouldn't be surprised if there has been a collective sigh of relief now that the worst of it has come to light.

On the matter of principle, I'm personally an advocate for a free press and for full disclosure. But it seems to me that Wikileaks was motivated to disclose documents that put civilians in jeopardy of retribution by armed thugs, not with some grand principle in mind, but out of mere spite. As much as we like holding (often unaccountable) governments accountable, let's also defend the idea of responsible journalism.

Re:Maybe because Chomsky is a linguistics professo

[gambino21]

I don't think he's ever claimed to be an "economics expert". He writes/speaks his opinions about various topics just as anyone should have the right to do, even if they are not a so called "expert". I noticed that you didn't actually attack any of his positions, you just say he doesn't have the correct training so we shouldn't listen to him. And you criticize his writing style by linking to Chomskybot? You do realize that chomskybot is a computer program and not the actual writing of Noam Chomsky. I could just as easily say Charles Dickens is a terrible writer because when I randomly assemble phrases from his writing, the sentences don't have any meaning.

Senator Al Gore's science adviser

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!!!!!!

anytime...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I hear Al Gore in a story my brain shuts off and I start imitating words using the Al Gore inflection such as "Lock-Box" and "Polar Bears"

Re:Yeah, so

[dcw3]

Because the government works for me...

No matter how many times you say it, it will never be true. Can someone moderate the parent as delusional?

Personal science adviser?

[slapout]

"four years as Senator Al Gore's science adviser"

Al Gore had a personal science adviser when he was a Senator?

Re:My ss# is 555-55-5555

[cheeks5965]

do you even know what a ssn is? i can't believe you put yours on /.

Re:My ss# is 555-55-5555

[maxume]

Wait, which one of us is confused here?

The whole RFC

[DrYak]

I think somersault was referring to the *whole* simulation procedure.
Including all the step described in the corresponding RFCs.

Including the annexes about gathering in a dark place where non-infringing copyrighted media is streamed on a big screen, hearing live recreating (with real instruments) of popular MP3s that both participant like, geographic displacement along a large body of water when the relative sky-position of the nearest star is low, ...

I'll keep worr'in...

[MJMullinII]

if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek!