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Icelandic MP Claims US Vendetta Against WikiLeaks
Stirling Newberry writes "Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir details more of the evidence for what she calls a 'judicial vendetta' against WikiLeaks and its volunteers, including attempts to gain access to her Twitter account. Her efforts to block the National Defense Authorization Act were discussed here previously. The story was taken up last year by Glenn Greenwald and Wired. As a result, the International Parliamentarian Union adopted a resolution on her case. What's new? She asserts that there is a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks and related organizations, and is calling on Sweden to provide assurances that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange not be re-extradited to the U.S. She says, 'There is no doubt that the U.S. wants to get even with WikiLeaks.'"
they only feed the fire by going after him
the "damage" assange did is done, and there's no way you can hide what has been revealed
just forget about him. move on
because all the efforts the USA goes through just feeds the myth and makes the man a hero, deservedly or not
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
duh.
Forget Wikileaks. Let's invade Iceland.
The US is like the modern day Roman Empire. Eventually, the rest of the world will get tired of being bullied by the US and stand up.
There is no secret grand jury investigation! I dare you to find the documentation! Besides, there's no place on the Internet where anyone could publish such a damning LEAK! No news site, message board, not even any sort of WIKI.
What have they given us... Oh yes.. Anna Nicole Smith was working for the CIA!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Sure, most of the documents weren't important and some that were should probably have stayed secret... but that means they would've had to cherry pick which documents to publish. If they'd have cherry picked, people would have said "You obviously have some agenda, as you cherry pick documents that present [entity we like] in a bad light".
Also, by publishing everything they allow people to analyze not only what there was but also what wasn't there.
Also, there is no way that they would've been able to know what documents were important and what not. In some countries the press cross-checked the leaked stuff with their politicians' negotiations and foreign trips, saw if their politicians' public statements matched the data found in documents, etc... but there is no way that Assange or even some major newspaper would've been able to do that all alone.
So... yeah. I am not in the "everything government/officials do should be public" camp as I think officials should be able to do their work and have honest exchanges between each other without the press being able to take quotes out of context to produce artificial scandals... but I don't think that saying "Only x% of the published documents were important" is that good argument.
I'm pretty aware for an American, but this is the first time I've heard of the IPU. How much less relevant, then, than the UN?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
News organizations do the exact same thing -- find sources and publish their stories -- and you don't see the US gov going after the Guardian or the NYTimes. (They're some of the news outlets that did the actual publishing. Wikileaks worked through them precisely because they were trying NOT to endanger people on the ground.) The US can't go after news outlets. There's this little thing called the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech.
But by de facto torture of Manning and by making an example of Assange (they hope, if they can get their hands on him) they figure they can "discourage" repeat embarrassments.
Because that's all they are: embarrassed. I didn't see anything come out we didn't already know. All Wikileaks did was provide hard evidence of the obvious.
Strange choice of spelling of Björk. It's not even a transliteration designed to get the pronunciation right; that'd be something like "Byerk". And if you wanted to have English cursing written in Icelandic, the correct way to write it would be "fökk". A word that's used not so rarely by Icelanders ;)
Rock Us, Dukakis.
To be fair, it's pretty clear that Assange has a vendetta against the US, as well. He takes the view that the US is a big bully and has made statements about being on a mission to stop "two wars" (i.e. the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan). It's pretty clear that he was intending to use the documents to drive the US into retreat using the leaked documents as a weapon. (No word on why he thinks the Taliban would make great rulers over Afghanistan.)
But if so, how much of this 'proof' was surprising, really, to anyone including Americans. In a cynical age, even if 4th tier diplomats seem to corroborate a conspiracy theory, is it really that credible in a world of infinite possibilities?
the essence of martyrdom is that the martyr suffer. there is no such thing as a martyr who hasn't suffered for a cause. everyone sees them suffer, and this inspires them to suffer for the cause as well. previously ambivalent sympathisers now become active participants
that's the psychology in play here
so if you don't want to inspire martyrdom, you don't create martyrs, you don't torture them or make them suffer
you let them get off unharmed, and they fade away, uninspirational and unimportant
the process you are describing doesn't seem to understand how martyrdom works. you are describing how simple fear of brutality works. but martyrdom transcends fear of repercussions. you are sacrificing in the name of a cause
i'm not saying what is going to happen with assange, but if he inspires martyrdom, it means people will be more willing to pass info to wikileaks, participate in it, and otherwise support it, because they seem him as a continuing victim and feel his cause is worthy of their own sacrifice as well. so the USA should just ignore him and forget him, if they had any understanding of the psychology in play here. it's not like prosecuting him will return anything, all the damage has been done
martyrdom is the inversion of the self-protection mechanism. it is about sacrificing yourself in order to protect something else: a cause. your words seem fixated on self-protection as the dominant instinct in play, when in fact martyrdom is about the exact opposite instinct in play: the subversion of the self to something seen as a greater cause, something more worthy than protecting the self
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You mean like Jenny McCarthy in the west on vaccines and autism? Nah, it's just those crazy mooslims that have weird ideas. But unlike McCarthy, those people in that part of the world, and not just the old men in the hills, now have a perfectly good reason to distrust vaccination programs. Because one was used as a CIA front - you know, the same organization that spent 6 years torturing people under Bush and 3 years blowing up weddings and funerals with Predator Drones under Obama.
While we're far from "nothing but ice and all" up here, I've never seen a tennis court here. Oh, I'm sure they exist (I'm not a "gym" person), but just saying, it's far from a ubiquitous sport. Now, handball...
Rock Us, Dukakis.
A rightwing and a nutcase rightwing (and a growing lunatic fringe out of their heads rightwing).
This is incorrect. The US has a fundamentally different system of government based on totally different principles than European nations.
This is comparing apples to oranges.
Other governments generally start from the position that the government allows people certain amounts of freedom. The US starts from the position that people are naturally free, and we agree as a majority to consent to allow the government certain limited powers which can be altered or abolished as the people see fit.
It's the whole turning-away in the US from this basic principle of who grants who power and the understanding of why the difference from other systems means so much for human freedom that has been a major factor in what has caused increasing amounts of societal, economic, and foreign-relations problems for the US over the last 80 years or so.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I think it stems in a large part from the thinking behind the Monroe Doctrine and especially the Roosevelt Corollary. It's in essence a veiled colonial attitude, even though the Monroe Doctrine started out as the opposite.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
It's the Progressives in both political parties, the ones who believe in ever-more government size, scope,and power, and in case you thought otherwise, that increased size and power of government isn't and was never meant to be wielded strictly domestically, but globally as well.
This appeal to the middle ground is plain crap. The Republicans have deliberately taken up an extreme position, to make the middle-ground their original position, in the interest of -- power. The proof is that when Democrats advance previously Republican policies, they are now "socialist" and "big-government".
There have been hawks who are Democrats, but seriously, not in the same ball-park as the neocons, with their PNAC.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Other governments generally start from the position that the government allows people certain amounts of freedom.
Keep drinking the kool-aid there.
/true/ liberal democracies, do not live and die by the decree of our almighty sovereign lords.
We, in
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Or get to the part where Madam MP Jonsdottir was advised by the Icelandic State Dept to not take a planned trip to the US, apparently for fear that the US would arrest her?
And that they were asking for all info from her, esp. her support of Assange and Manning? And that they wanted *everything*, including credit card numbers and bank account information?
mark
Your response is utter nonsense. The poll is a worldwide poll, so the response rates are automatically the same for all countries. The third column is not non-respondents, as you misinterpreted it to be, it is people who responded to the survey but happened to be neutral about a country (i.e., neither approved nor disapproved), for whatever reason.
The table shows that of the population who actually responded to Gallup, 47% approved of the current US leadership while 40% approved of Germany's leadership. Also, 38% apparently just didn't give a damn what Germany was doing.
The "damage" Assange did is done, and there's no way you can hide what has been revealed. Just forget about him. move on.
That's thinking like a rational person, not an elite boss. When you want to shut down particular behaviors (e.g. whistleblowers, copyright violators), one technique is to take harsh action against them. Think Mafia and Mafiaa. Have any idea what Jane Akre is up to? No? That's because she's a success story, if you're a boss. Nobody who works at large corporations in the US, and most of Europe, wonders what happens to whistleblowers.