I want to know who it was that called Berlesconi a dick…so I can shake his (or her!) hand!

Oh wait, it’s like almost everyone that knows anything about Italian politics. Except they usually don’t use such “diplomatic” language.

Instead, they call him a maggot-encrusted scrofulous sack of corruption. But less politely, and with expressive hand gestures.

I had the exact same reaction. The “tell” for me in these situations is how the MegaMedia plays things. It’s either “move along, nothing to see here,” or it’s “this is the biggest story since Shirley Sherrod!!111!”

The audience will play along accordingly, just as the always do so predictably, and that’s especially true for “true progressives.” Seems like the last Wikileaks release had much more to it than this one, yet passed the MegaMedia filter with a whimper. The way this one is going so far, I’m starting to think it’s an attempt to undermine something President Obama is working on, considering how it was huge across the local paper this morning, and I heard people talking about it in a coffee shop…bashing Obama for it of course. We’ll see…

It’s like the “climate-gate” thing. You see all the raw data without the context and without knowing the jargon. You see one side (where are the Saudi or Iranian diplomatic cables?), so you can’t see the game being played and how the other players work. Maybe we’re a paragon of virtue by comparison, or maybe not. I agree that this was just pointless and harmful to global dialog.

Just because diplomacy and negotiations are not always a pretty thing. doesn’t mean they have to be made secret.

Especially if the secrecy has more to do with covering up embarrassing information than protecting lives.

Like sausage making, diplomacy and negotiations are not always a pretty thing.

Neither is warfare.
Considering that the military leaks, which was almost all housekeeping traffic that doesn’t really tell anyone anything, and these leaks came from the same guy, who had the same motivation for both, I gotta ask, Tbogg:
Why the fuck does it matter to you now?

Tbogg’s point is that they seem to be releasing information just because it’s embarrassing. See Joe Buddah above as well.

Truly. I’d much rather have wise minds like Judith Miller and Fred Hiatt carefully filtering through their information to decide what I need to know and what I can handle.

Information, sunlight, hypocrisy, etc.

I’m feeling pretty conflicted about these leaks, but while there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the specific fallout to diplomacy, on balance I favor more information and transparency.

The transition from lying to honesty won’t be easy; governments keep their secret agendas secret for a reason.

Regarding Benen, he’s generally extremely insightful and fair…albeit a huge apologist for Obama. He clearly understands the current administration is going to (unfairly, imo) take a bite from a ginormous shit sandwich, so his response is weighted against Wikileaks. At least that’s one way to read it.

Like I said, I’m conflicted.

And how is that ANY different than the last time? Just because one approved of leaks that embarrassed one part of the government doesn’t make Manning’s or Assange’s motives for embarrassing the government any more pure. It does, however, make the person who approved of the earlier leaks but disapproves of these leaks look stupid and/or hypocritical.
If that really is Tbogg’s point, then it’s stupid fucking point, or as my smarter and more polite wife would say, it’s a distinction without a difference.

In a lot of circumstances, the alternative to secret negotiations is no negotiations at all. As (I’m afraid) we’ll discover in the wake of this incident.

Especially if the secrecy has more to do with covering up embarrassing information than protecting lives.

“Embarrassing information” != wrongdoing; exposing wrongdoing arguably justifies damaging the national interest, but exposing the merely embarrassing doesn’t. I’ve seen plenty of the former in this dump, and the latter not so much.

Pentagon papers = good

Cable from German Embassy attache calling Merkel “fat = what is wikileaks point?

Or try this; vocalize every single thought you have about your wife and family out loud and see how that works out for you.

As per usual: brilliant.

Thanks.

Well, this will tie up Obama for the next 2 years…I initially thought this was good – transparency in government! But then, after all of the pointless diplomacy crap got filtered and I started reading about the “Iran has NK ballistic missiles that can reach European capitals”, I thought…there’s goes START. Now I really want to know more about this pfc and what his motivations were. Typically, a kid this age and this low down the foodchain really doesn’t strike me as a person who either has access to these type of cables nor a compelling reason to want to see these released.

Perhaps the real motivation is to further fragment progressives between the “total sunshine at any cost’ and the “hey, wait a minute…why now?” factions.

So there is a distinction without a difference then. Got it. You and Mr. Benen have no problems with the motivations of people who leak things you want leaked, but you are concerned about the motivations of people who leak things you don’t want leaked. When the leakers/publishers in these cases are the same people and these current publications came from the same original leak, it REALLY is a distinction without a difference.
You’re one of the smarter people I read on the net. I am really at a loss to understand how you couldn’t see this coming given prior events, or that you appear to be incapable of appreciating the lack of an operational or moral difference. I also don’t see how the content of the leaked material makes the act of the leaking something good (and makes motivations of the leakers irrelevant) in one case and bad (and the motivations of the leakers important) in another.
You asked, in your original post what their motivations were. I could speculate, but I don’t have access to them to confirm that speculation. I do, however, have some access to you, and when I asked why you suddenly care about their motivations, I really was and am curious.

It may be a valid point that much of this dump is pointless and/or vaguely gotcha-ish, but: if the government hadn’t made everything so damn “secret” there wouldn’t be the same incentive for someone like Assange to expose it all.

In other words: if Sir Change-a-Lot had delivered on some of that transparency and open government shit he campaigned on, then perhaps there’d be less sympathy for someone who offers to “expose” it, snarky comments and all. But with the government’s actions shrouded in secrecy (while the rest of us have our junk and banking details scrutinized by any bureaucrat who wants it), I can see the temptation — however sophomoric — to simply throw it all out there… if most of it is lame shit like “nyah nyah, Merkel is fat” then the damage should be minimal and Peter King’s idea that Wikileaks is a terrorist organization vaguely ridiculous (like, duh). If, on the other hand, we learn that the US is busy spying on the UN, that’s perhaps interesting and relevant enough to justify a few thousand “fat” memos.

Typically, a kid this age and this low down the foodchain really doesn’t strike me as a person who either has access to these type of cables nor a compelling reason to want to see these released.

The Top Secret facility in which Manning worked served the entire CENTCOM AOR. Diplomatic cables are sent in SIPRNet because it’s secure and it already exists. No need for the State Department to maintain their own secure network. Manning had a Top Secret clearance with a Special Compartmented Information endorsement. Why these weren’t yanked when he got his Article 15 earlier in the year, or why nobody ever questioned him in regards to his accessing things outside his scope of duty is beyond me. That information, as well as his motivations for committing the breach will be explored at his Court-Martial.

In other words: if Sir Change-a-Lot had delivered on some of that transparency and open government shit he campaigned on, then perhaps there’d be less sympathy for someone who offers to “expose” it

Right on cue. This is probably the most transparent Administration in history, which is working on adding more. Guess that means nothing to the self-described DemocratIC base. It wasn’t until I started seeing “true progressives” pen missives about how President Barack Hussein Obama has been bad for America’s melanin-enhanced communities, that I knew what was really happening here.

A distinction without a difference?

TBogg said this:

Pentagon papers = good

Cable from German Embassy attache calling Merkel “fat = what is wikileaks point?

Or try this; vocalize every single thought you have about your wife and family out loud and see how that works out for you.

Regardless of whether or not one thinks the Wikileaks release was a good thing — and in case you were wondering, I’m thinking that on the whole it probably was, particularly as it revealed information about the State Department’s take on the Honduran coup last year that would have been nice to have been made public at that time, just to shut Lanny Davis up — you cannot say that T’s argument was a distinction without a difference.

Many other people have brought up the argument I believe T’s making — the idea being that it’s gong to be impossible for US diplomats to be trusted now that these cables have been made public. I don’t think it’s a particularly accurate argument, as one of the things it hinges on is the belief that only a handful of people had access to them when as Jane points out they were accessible by over three million Federal government employees, which is not exactly a super-duper high-octane level of classification. But it’s a understandable one, and not something you can talk past by, in essence, pretending it was never made.

Wikileaks’ point is to disseminate otherwise unavailable info. I agree discovering Merkel was called fat is useless, but then again those are your tax dollars at work: what sort of diplomat would say that Merkel is fat in the first place? Why is that tidbit included in a presumably secret diplomatic cable??

It’s unfortunate Assange doesn’t bother to select out only the important bits and leave the stupid parts out, but then again I don’t want him or anyone else making that choice for me. Say it with me: document dump.

Here’s what I was talking about WRT Honduras: http://my.firedoglake.com/phoenix/2010/11/28/wikileaks-on-the-honduran-coup/

That’s all very interesting if a little wrong (having clearance does NOT grant unfettered access) but it doesn’t answer my question of why does Tbogg care TODAY about Assange’s and Bradley’s motivations when he didn’t earlier?
Because nothing changed for Assange and Bradley. Assange hates the US and seeks to damage it, even bypassing the posting of secrets from other countries. His own son and several former employees have said as much. For Bradley, it’s probably a mixture of the fact that he saw some bad shit and also wasn’t getting the ego stroking he thought he deserved. His chats with Adrian Lamo are dripping with contempt for his coworkers and superiors. Anyway, a court-martial will sort that all out for Bradley.
What I am genuinely interested in is the fact that Assange and Bradley’s motivations for the first leaks appear to be the same motivations for these leaks. The only thing that appears to have changed was Tbogg’s reaction to them, and I’m wondering why that is. He doesn’t strike me as someone given to stupidity or self-delusion or hypocrisy. I am genuinely baffled as to how he reconciled his earlier attitude with his attitude today, because knowing that Assange had this data, a reasonably intelligent person should’ve been able to figure out that he was going to release it.

This from DN! this morning:

The US military believes the leak can be traced to Private First Class Bradley Manning who has been held in solitary confinement for the last seven months and is facing a court martial next year. In an on-line conversation with computer hacker, Adrian Lamo, who would later turn him in. Manning said, “Hilary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in a searchable format to the public. Everywhere there is a U.S. post there is a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. It is open diplomacy, worldwide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope and breathtaking depth. It is beautiful and horrifying.”

The grandiosity of this kid sorta says it all, don’t it?

“This is probably the most transparent Administration in history” — Or, probably, not. YMMV.

It’s also — probably — the most fragrant, the most eloquent, the most sexy, the most pure, the most… whatever. Prove it, please.

Well, when the Preznit runs on universal coverage, then lies about it, that’s transparent. And good. Because we were able to vet and analyze Ellsberg’s motivation and Halperin’s motivation before, during and after the Pentagon Papers release, that was transparent and good. And if you don’t understand that, try repeating an unflattering thought you had about your mother in law. At all events, though, you mustn’t in the end attack Preznit Obama OR talk about a third party even though a third party just about took over the Republicans. That clear enuf for you?

What makes anyone think you can embarrass any of the psychopaths that run this country?

I can see a large moral difference in leaking information about the operations of the government’s institutions for the prosecution of VIOLENCE in its interests and leaking information about the operations of the government’s institutions for INFORMATION GATHERING and NEGOTIATION in its interests.

In the first case we are being informed about decisions, events and processes of dealing out human death and dismemberment on a large scale. In the second we are being informed about decisions, events and processes that, at least in principle, are designed to avoid large-scale human death and dismemberment.

For me it is easier to understand why someone would want to disseminate information about the processes of state-sponsored violence than it is to understand why someone would want to disseminate information that could conceivably undermine a state’s efforts to prevent interstate violence.

Hence TBogg’s (and my) confusion about motives. It does seem from the evidence of this latest dump that Wikileaks’ purpose is ultimately far less high-minded than they initially pretended.

Not sure why I still bother around here given all the time wasted in the past…

Let’s see, Senator Obama introduced the legislation that started the development of things like these, that never existed before:
http://transparency.gov/

http://www.data.gov/

They’ve been strengthened and given much bigger budgets since Obama became President, and entirely new sites have begun.

Hmmm….unprecendented amounts of White House visitor logs released, and with easy access, also, too!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/visitor-records

Whoops…there’s this I guess…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031402797.html

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/transparencygov_20100122/

Sure, I wish all kinds of stuff would be released and think Daniel Ellsberg is a national hero. I’m down with that. I’m also down with saying Obama has set a new high bar for transparency in government and is moving things in the right direction on this issue, especially since PROBABLY the most secretive Adminstration in history was there before him. Not really my opinion…just simple fact.

Ah, whatevs…I probably know exactly what you’ll probably say given your “Sir Change-a-Lot” comment above. I probably bet you probably say “Hopey Changey” also, too, which of course is one of Sayrah Paylin’s favorites. Huh.

It’s become a comedy around some parts of the Liberal blogs to read comments and see how long it takes, no matter what the main post is about, for someone to turn the topic into Obama-bashing, and looks like you won this thread! (nevermind of course, as I’ve shown in 2 minutes of searching, that he has delivered on much of what he campaigned on already as far as transparency). Then, the thread becomes about Obama this-and-that, with hardly any discussion of the main post, which I’d hate to have happen to this important discussion our esteemed host started up above on this important issue.

Oh shit. What am I doing?!? You won again, champ!

Julia up above pretty much described my opinion, but just to be clear, I was unaware of Assange’s motivations before. I can’t say that I remember posting on him in particular. I do know that I was pretty outraged by the video of soldiers shooting up a van full of civilians and wounded in Iraq like it was a PS3 game.

That said, national security issues and such and such are much more Spencer’s bailiwick than mine. I’m all about personalities and the failures of the media.

Also, dogs, too.

Hence TBogg’s (and my) confusion about motives. It does seem from the evidence of this latest dump that Wikileaks’ purpose is ultimately far less high-minded than they initially pretended.

I do not believe that Tbogg is or ever was that naive or simplistic. Certainly not since I started reading him back in 2004 or so. Are you that naive?
What I’ve asked is why concern about Assange’s motives now? Why weren’t you concerned back a few months ago when it was just military personnel and local Afghan and Iraqi who were the subjects of the leaks? It would seem to me that you (and Tbogg) would at least be bothered by your own lack of intellectual consistency on this point.
Cause honestly, I have to wonder about people. All the outrage over this particular leak but those of us who were upset in the first place were roundly condemned and laughed at as being paranoid and looking for things to be upset about and just making things up about how evil Assange is and so on and so on.
See, I’m not surprised at any of this, because I paid attention to the things Assange has said since this whole thing started with the ‘collateral murder’ video.
The only surprise I’m experiencing is the surprise at learning that some people are only now experiencing any confusion or angst about this guy. Because now it’s the diplomats being embarrassed and placed at increased risk and THAT bothers you. Either you’re slower than George W. Bush in a Jeopardy game, or you value one group of public servants over another.
In any event, I didn’t ask you. I asked Tbogg. Why does he care TODAY about their motivations but he didn’t earlier? And since Assange has been pretty forthcoming for a long fucking time about the fact that he hates the US and wants to do as much damage to the US as possible, what changed for Tbogg?

I think the fact that Berlusconi is a dick should surprise no one. I have no problem with anything that Wikileaks has posted. These scumbags deserve it. It’s not Wikileaks’ job to decide what is and isn’t important information to censor. We can see where that got us in the first place.

You ever come back from running an errand and think to yourself “wow, now that I read what I posted earlier, I come off as kind of an asshole.”
Yeah.

FWIW – The MOTU are on the ropes, and the ref is looking the other way. They don’t play by the rules, so I’m not concerned about their kidneys.

“Then, the thread becomes about Obama this-and-that, with hardly any discussion of the main post, which I’d hate to have happen to this important discussion our esteemed host started up above on this important issue.” Oh, you mean like a discussion about why we need Julian Assange with all his flaws (and in this case, perhaps, excessive Berlusconi/Merkel gossip) in order to understand what the hell is driving US foreign policy these days, because we sure as hell aren’t getting anything like facts from our government?

That’s a great discussion, and one which we certainly could be having. Alas, those of us to the left of Ron Paul have all been roundly dismissed by your favoritest president evah as crack-smoking delusionists, so opinions like “Afghanistan looks a lot like Vietnam; let’s not go there…” or “heck, doing Saudi Arabia’s dirty work for them while they continue to fund Al Queda may be counterproductive” — however correct and pertinent — just don’t seem to matter much.

But you and your kick-ass googly research skills can probably turn that into an attack on Obama, too. Let’s call it a tie…

Here’s former-soldier-turned-conscientious-objector Josh Stieber’s take on the video of the Iraq helicopter incident (“Collateral Murder”) that came to light in an earlier Wikileaks release. Maybe his thoughtful and nuanced analysis of that leaked video might offer lessons for this (seemingly) less weighty mass of releases from the world of diplomats and politicians?

FWIW, that was Stieber’s company that was involved in the incident, and he in fact recognizes some of the voices of his former Army comrades that are heard in the video.

Oops, didn’t really mean that as a reply to you, Sooner. I started out that way, then instead decided to go with the Stieber thing for the general lessons I thought it could offer.* I forgot to refresh and start with a “clean” comment box that replied to no one.

*As near as I can tell, the lesson is that basically we American’s want our petroleum cheap; our wars heroic, tidy, and nicely wrapped up; and no one telling us otherwise. Anything off of that script IS…NOT…MY/OUR…FAULT, with proper blame to be assigned by a skilled commentariat practiced in the art of soothing message control.

Not at all.

Honestly I never got into the whole Assange controversy when it was going on. I think the only wikileaks post I ever did was on our buddy Colby Hall’s glib treatment of the collateral damage video.

Sorry. Let’s just say that the new memo dump was a wake-up call to me.

It’s always a good idea as long as it’s something with which you agree…kind of like “good” (you agree) vs. “activist” (you don’t) judges. Welcome to a world where American interests don’t matter a damn.

Well, champ, I was only showing off my fairly lame Goojitsu skillz since you demanded I “prove it,” but alas, I foolishly fell into the sinkhole once again, as your response shows. So anyway…

Wikileaks is now talking about some sort of upcoming doc dump exposing the nefariousness of a major bank. Now this makes sense. Still not sure about this current batch though, especially with Grifter Queen Paylin getting unfettered headlines to bash Obama about them, including a frontpage headline at her personal PR agency, The Huffington Post. Suspicious…

Let’s agree to disagree and see where this takes us all. The Grifter will milk any event for all it’s worth, so I’m reluctant to use her reaction to this as a yardstick.

Most of the random comments I’ve seen from “real” people (i.e. not politicians, not pundits, and, no mine is not an “objective” sample or particularly neutral, either) from across the spectrum have been cautiously positive — almost all seem to realize and appreciate that the MSM and the powers-that-be are not voluntarily going to provide us with the info we need to be in the know.

Yeah, I tend to agree about this leak. But oh boy, am I ever looking forward to this one.

WikiLeaks…planning a release early next year of a huge cache of internal documents from a big U.S. bank.

People talk one way in public, and another way in private. This is true whether you’re flipping burgers at McDonalds or conducting mid-level negotiations with Western Europe.

Not really surprised, and tend to agree that this seems to miss the point other than to scuttle any attempt to get START ratified and probably cut off any chance of making headway in other diplomatic circles.

Sarah Palin can’t allow attention to be diverted from her so….

Sarah Palin compares her book to WikiLeaks

The English Major tweeted: I recently won in court to stop my book ‘America by Heart’ from being leaked,” she wrote, “but US Govt can’t stop Wikileaks’ treasonous act?”

It’s not the Quitter Queen’s reaction I’m interested in. She’s a programmed robot.

It’s the MegaMedia gatekeepers, which means the small handful of men that control the public discourse in nearly all the entire industrialized world, that concern me. If they decide she’s not a useful idiot anymore, the only thing Mooselini would be “milking” is Tawd’s friend Brad’s Pole-aris.

So this is why I feel watching how the MegaMedia spins things is the “tell” on most any issue. It can either be a coordinated PR effort that they all knowingly prop up, or it’s a random event that happens which they feel they can exploit in order to keep the electorate voting against their own best interests. Whatever the case, the MegaMedia owners decide what goes through their outlets, and no one else. It’s all on purpose. Intentional.

Seems to me this latest batch is getting far more press and commentary than the really important ones preceding it. Since there doesn’t seem to be much actual “news” so far, and at the same time there’s been plenty of Obama-hate all over the place about it, this is why I’m suspicious. Let’s see if this upcoming banking doc dump gets this kid of coverage, since Assange is suggesting it could “bring down a bank or two.” I seriously doubt it, but hope I’m wrong.

Whoever controls the Message, controls the Masses. Busting up and replacing the MegaMedia is Issue #1, in my opinion.

…scuttle any attempt to get START ratified and probably cut off any chance of making headway in other diplomatic circles.

I was just realizing that timing too, also, as well. Could be our answer right there, and would explain why this doc dump seems odd.

Like sausage making, diplomacy and negotiations are not always a pretty thing.

Amen to that. And given a choice between foreign relations being in the hands of professional sweet-talkers with diplomatic passports or borderline-sociopathic software engineers, then frankly, I’ll take the diplomats.

You and Mr. Benen have no problems with the motivations of people who leak things you want leaked, but you are concerned about the motivations of people who leak things you don’t want leaked.

Er, no. And personally, I had the same reaction to the earlier leaks, and to the entire basis of the Wikileaks project. I’m inclined to agree with Clifford Stoll, when he talked about the early internet:

It seems to me, however, that most of what we call knowledge is not information–the kind of thing you can get from an encyclopedia or you get from an online service–most of what knowledge is is experience and judgment, and having done something before or having an interest in something. What the information highway promises is a lot of knowledge. We’ll be smart if we use it. In fact, it delivers mostly just data. And data is just bits and bytes; and words and paragraphs, without context or content.

Wikileaks is as high-minded and committed to the principles of accountability and honesty as /b/.

Maybe they were just easy to get hold of & the sheer quantity of “paper” is an ego-boost for the WikiLeaks chap?

I have had my own wake up calls, Sir. They can be painful sometimes.

It ain’t easy carrying on a conversation with people whom you cannot see. I try hard(er) to not take offense all the time, and I try to be cognizant of my own emotions and occasional hair trigger, especially in relation to my service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And while Mr. Steiber’s experiences have led him to become a CO, and mine have not, please don’t think that I was ever under any kind of illusion about the Iraq mission on any level. For me, both of my tours there were strictly about maintaining my own health and honor and the health and honor of my Soldiers, to whom I owed every possible exertion of my life. Perhaps having went into it with my eyes open, I didn’t have an epiphany because I didn’t NEED one, per se.
Or maybe I’m just full of shit.

the point seems to be to undermine American foreign policy, just for the sake of undermining American foreign policy

I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

Bingo.

Thank you from a member of the bright shining lie cohort.

I’d rather have people talking than blowing the hell out of each other. If the folks on the other side of the table are worried whatever they say (particularly if what they say runs counter to the official public stance of the nation they represent) will end up splashed on Page 1 of the New York Times, then they aren’t likely to deal fairly with the U.S.

Thus putting “blow the hell out of each other” back in as Plan A. How’s that for a bad thing?

Even Winston Churchill, no shrinking violet he, famously observed that “jaw jaw is better than war war.”

Why would anyone want to undermine U.S. foreign policy? I mean it’s killer!

Thanks for your service.

You’re not full of shit.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Sooner. Seeing as I hold our political “leadership” and their (mostly civilian) enablers responsible for you guys/gals being sent out on such Unnecessary Adventures – and that I am not a pacifist (though perhaps I should be) – I didn’t expect or deserve an explanation from you or others in your situation.

Also, what puravida @54 said.