wikileaks

[snuffbox]

The site's very slow/down right now but this stuff is huge.

http://wikileaks.org/

 

[The Metal Maniac]

This is pretty insane, to be able to read the specifics of so many different battles.

 

[devo]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100726/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_afghanistan_wikileaks

 

[Dobbs3K]

Boy, this just further encourages my view that we should just get out of that fucking shit hole and be done with it.

 

[909]

Yep, we should still be in Afghanistan.

 

[909]

I would also add that anyone who votes for an incumbent at national level later this year and in 2012 is sick in the head.

 

[devo]

That's not really a great option for me, since although my current congressperson (Mary Jo Kilroy) could be generously described as ineffectual, her main opponent this November (Steve Stivers) is basing much of his campaign on increasing military spending (on his website he specifically mentions sending more troops to Afghanistan) and championing the rights of gun owners.

 

[still fly]

People are stupid because they hate incumbents yet still vote for their own rep. I've been voting anti-incumbent in my district since I vote.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to vote third party in these election. Whitman and Fiorina are absolute non-starters and fuck Boxer for leaving this state in the lurch during our budget battles. Boxer talks a good game, but hasn't delivered anything significant. Fuck the Senate anyways. I may just have to hold my nose and vote for ancient Jerry Brown, because Whitman would be more of a disaster than Arnold. Put even that's dicey because Brown is stuck in (literally) the 1970s. Shitty choices all around this year.

Sometimes I envy the people that don't vote. They may be on to something. I haven't followed politics in many months and honestly is for the better I feel.

 

[909]

That's not really a great option for me, since although my current congressperson (Mary Jo Kilroy) could be generously described as ineffectual, her main opponent this November (Steve Stivers) is basing much of his campaign on increasing military spending (on his website he specifically mentions sending more troops to Afghanistan) and championing the rights of gun owners.

Not voting would send some kind of message too.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I would also add that anyone who votes for an incumbent at national level later this year and in 2012 is sick in the head.

This would be really good advice if the major non-incumbent party wasn't literally filled with lunatics/racists/warmongers.

 

[KOAB]

this is why I don't vote my shit don't count. fuck politicians, sure there's different kinds of pillow talk but 9 times out of 10 nothing changes and it's still a terrible lay.

 

[909]

I would also add that anyone who votes for an incumbent at national level later this year and in 2012 is sick in the head.

This would be really good advice if the major non-incumbent party wasn't literally filled with lunatics/racists/warmongers.

Even more hilarious is how people think if you vote for something else, it's a vote for that other party.

Or how people use that to keep justifying voting for the party they've always voted for

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Like, the Democrats are incompetent fuck ups scared to break with what conventional beltway wisdom and their big money corporate donors tell them to do, but if the current iteration of the Republican Party takes control they will seriously snuff out any last hopes of economic recovery and also probably bomb Iran.

 

[devo]

That's not really a great option for me, since although my current congressperson (Mary Jo Kilroy) could be generously described as ineffectual, her main opponent this November (Steve Stivers) is basing much of his campaign on increasing military spending (on his website he specifically mentions sending more troops to Afghanistan) and championing the rights of gun owners.

Not voting would send some kind of message too.

I suppose. But that would mean I don't have a say in local issues or representatives either, both of which have much more of an impact on me than my representative at the national level. Spite isn't enough of a motivating factor for me to forego voting altogether - not yet, anyway.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I would also add that anyone who votes for an incumbent at national level later this year and in 2012 is sick in the head.

This would be really good advice if the major non-incumbent party wasn't literally filled with lunatics/racists/warmongers.

Even more hilarious is how people think if you vote for something else, it's a vote for that other party.

Or how people use that to keep justifying voting for the party they've always voted for

Our dumb gay system is broken beyond belief, but I just can't justify taking a Principled Stand when a band of jackals is at the palace gates. Call me a pragmatist wimp, but I'd rather have the shitty Democrats stay in power than risk giving Sarah Palin and John Boehner the keys to the kingdom.

 

[909]

That's what's wrong with this country. I will take my stand and vote for the Green Party if I have to.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

That's what's wrong with this country.

Probably, but whatever. Drastic sweeping change is never going to happen via the ballot box, anyway. Take up your guns!

 

[NoCalMike]

The "don't vote for incumbents" movement would probably sound better if the challengers in most cases were a better option, but in most cases they are as bad if not worse. See: Nevada.

I guess Michelle Bachmann being out of office though is good, cause it would be hard to have a bigger idiot be replacing her.

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

It's really not that big of a deal, this story. Sure it's shocking in the "OMG WAR DOCUMENTS LEAKED SHOWING SHIT SUCKS" fashion, but none of it is really new information. The Mujahadeen has some left over Stingers, the Pakistani intelligence agency is helping destabilize Afghanistan, and it's been going on for a while. There's a reason we're pissed at Pakistan, and it's for these very reasons besides the obvious harboring of militants. Regarding the details of the fighting, it's exactly what the press has been reporting on for years and no one's bothered to notice.

 

[snuffbox]

I get your point. But their were people who knew Vietnam was bad since the 1950s, and that doesn't make the release of Dan Ellsberg's files any less important.

 

[vivisectvi]

http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/international/article/88392--white-house-pleads-for-end-to-disclosure-of-war-secrets-accused-soldier-moved-to-brig

White House Pleads For End To Disclosure Of War Secrets; Accused Soldier Moved To Brig

The White House on Friday implored the website WikiLeaks to stop posting secret Afghanistan war documents as the Pentagon pressed its investigation of the leaks, bringing a soldier charged with handing over classified video back to the U.S. for trial.

Obama administration officials said the investigation of the release of tens of thousands of classified documents could extend beyond members of the military. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said posting the war logs on the Web jeopardized national security and put the lives of Afghan informants and U.S. military personnel at risk.

Asked what the Obama administration could do to stop the posting of more war secrets, Gibbs said, "We can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified top secret documents not to post any more."

"I think it's important that no more damage be done to our national security," Gibbs told NBC television's "Today" show Friday.

The Pentagon inquiry has been looking most closely at Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence specialist who was already charged with leaking video to the WikiLeaks website.

Manning, 22, has been moved from Kuwait to a military base south of Washington where he will be held while awaiting trial on charges stemming from posting of the video on WikiLeaks, the Army said in a statement Friday.

The classified helicopter cockpit video showed a 2007 firefight in Baghdad that left a Reuters photographer and his driver dead.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview aired Thursday that WikiLeaks had contacted the White House — via The New York Times acting as intermediary — and offered to let government officials go through the documents to make sure no innocent people were identified. The White House did not respond to the approach, he said.

Assange dismissed allegations that innocent people or informants had been put in danger by the publication of the documents.

"We are yet to see clear evidence of that," he said in the Australian Broadcasting interview.

WikiLeaks describes itself as a public service organization for whistleblowers, journalists and activists.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the release of the documents deeply damaging and potentially life-threatening for Afghan informants or others who have taken risks to help the U.S. and NATO war effort.

Theirs was the most sober assessment of the ramifications of the leak this past Sunday of raw intelligence reports and other material dating to 2004.

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," Mullen said Thursday.

Gates said the military's investigation "should go wherever it needs to go" and that he has asked the FBI to help. Gates would not rule out that Assange could be a target.

 

[ericmm]

How, exactly, are these leaks putting American soldiers' lives in any danger again?

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

They aren't. It's the illusion of control by the defense department that's being endangered. PFC Manning is going to become the scapegoat for all of these problems and not a bit of it will be acted on in a positive way. Fucking disgusting.

 

[909]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10662989

Told you guys this shit was gonna happen. They will find the guy who runs the site and put a bullet in his head or put him in prison for life.

 

[wnyxmcneal]

You did?

 

[KOAB]

It's a good thing he was able to do that Colbert Show interview before the shit hit the fan.

 

[909]

You did?

nvm, i'd rather just not respond to you

 

[devo]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10662989

Told you guys this shit was gonna happen. They will find the guy who runs the site and put a bullet in his head or put him in prison for life.

Nah - it's too public already. They'll rough him up a bit in an effort to get him to spill his sources but the outcry that would surface should they jail him is probably enough of a disincentive to let him go after a couple days.

 

[KOAB]

Eh, he'll probably die from a "heart attack" during a morning jog in November or something.

 

[Wacko Walrus]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10662989

Told you guys this shit was gonna happen. They will find the guy who runs the site and put a bullet in his head or put him in prison for life.

If you told us he was going to get shot, why hasn't it happened yet?