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Re: WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning isn't a criminal. He's a hero.

"When a government secretly engages in such consequential activities as aggressive wars justified by at best questionable and at worst fabricated intelligence, covert bombings and assassinations, and diplomatic maneuvering designed to support such global meddling, the people in whose name that government acts – and who could suffer retaliation – have a right to know."

Everyone should read that paragraph half a dozen times before they blindly fall in lock-step with the fascists who continually place our lives in jeopardy.

On 12/1/2010 6:46 AM, MJ wrote:

Opinion
WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning isn't a criminal. He's a hero.
Many are condemning Bradley Manning for allegedly providing WikiLeaks with sensitive reports about US foreign policy. But a government that can make war while keeping essential information about its justification and conduct secret is neither open nor fit for free people.
By Sheldon Richman / November 29, 2010
Little Rock, Ark.

First it was a video of a helicopter gunship killing and injuring unarmed Iraqi civilians, including two children, and two newsmen as they walked down a street in Baghdad.

Then in two separate document dumps, hundreds of thousands of classified military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan were released to the public. Now more than a quarter-million State Department cables, more than 15,000 of which are classified "secret" and/or "noforn" (not to be shared with foreign governments), have been released without authorization.

The US government's problems with WikiLeaks continues, and the Obama administration "condemn[ed] in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."

The White House said the release of "stolen cables" was "reckless and dangerous."

It attributed the leaks to Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been in custody since the release of the Baghdad video, which WikiLeaks titled "Collateral Murder." In July, Mr. Manning was charged with "transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system" and "communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source." He faces up to 52 years in prison.

Naturally, WikiLeaks refuses to confirm that Manning was the source of the documents, but assuming he was, what are we to make of him? Is he a hero or a villain?

I say hero. When a government secretly engages in such consequential activities as aggressive wars justified by at best questionable and at worst fabricated intelligence, covert bombings and assassinations, and diplomatic maneuvering designed to support such global meddling, the people in whose name that government acts – and who could suffer retaliation – have a right to know.

Are 'we the people' really in charge?

How can the American system be regarded as participatory if the most potentially explosive government conduct is hidden? Are "we the people" really in charge or not?

Or is "government of the people, by the people, for the people" so much pabulum to keep us contentedly ignorant?

The same Obama administration that condemns the leaks has said: "Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing." But if the government decides what constitutes transparency, how can it achieve either objective?

War is the most serious thing to which a government can commit a society. A government that can make war while keeping essential information about its justification and conduct secret is neither open nor fit for free people.

President Obama, like his predecessors, asks for our trust. He'd say he can't tell us everything, but government in a democratic society requires confidence in its leaders. A similar appeal for trust failed to impress Thomas Jefferson in 1798.

Bogus appeals for trust

In his protest of the Adams administration's Alien and Sedition Acts (which essentially criminalized harsh criticism of the government), Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions, "[I]t would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism – free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power."

Or as the Irish statesman John Philpot Curran said eight years earlier, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

Yet how can Americans exercise vigilance against government threats to their liberty if critical information is systematically withheld? They can't. That's why people such as Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers 39 years ago, and perhaps Manning heroically risked personal ruin and defied authority to bring that information to us.

Foreign policy vs. imperial foreign policy

WikiLeaks' critics will say that foreign policy cannot be conducted in public. As stated, that assertion is false. It is only an imperial foreign policy that cannot be conducted in public. A policy of global policing and intervention does indeed require secrecy and intrigue, but the pacific foreign policy envisioned by Jefferson and George Washington – "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible" – does not.

It is the rejection of George Washington's advice that has caused Americans to be concerned about their safety, especially when flying.

Many foreign policy "experts" hype the "dark, violent side" of Islam. Yet anti-American terrorism originating in the Muslim world has been solely in retaliation for US military invasions, occupations, and covert wars that have taken countless innocent lives. The work of Robert Pape, founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, establishes this beyond a reasonable doubt. How would Americans react to a foreign occupation?

Moreover, foreign intervention and the inevitable retaliatory "blowback" have brought a frightening devaluation of our privacy and other civil liberties. As the late professor Chalmers Johnson put it, either give up the empire or live under it.

Can't afford to police the globe

Policing the globe poses another kind of threat to Americans: economic. All told, American military and "security" spending exceeds $1 trillion a year. Nearly 20 years after the end of the cold war, the United States accounts for almost half the world's military spending. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $1 trillion and are far from over.

Yet our $14 trillion national debt is quickly approaching 100 percent of GDP, and trillion-plus-dollar budget deficits loom for the foreseeable future. If we are to get our fiscal house in order, the military budget must be slashed. No government can play global policeman yet remain small and nonintrusive at home. War hawks make poor budget hawks.

We have a choice. Peace, nonintervention, and low government expenditures? Or perpetual war and out-of-control government? Knowing the legal consequences of his brave action, Bradley Manning made an apparently difficult choice. For us, it's not a hard choice at all.

Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman magazine and blogs at Free Association.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1129/WikiLeaks-Bradley-Manning-isn-t-a-criminal.-He-s-a-hero/%28page%29/2 --
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JP 'Isha' and Fajr Prayers in Congregation

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`Uthman bin `Affan (May Allah be pleased with him) reported:
I heard the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) saying:
"One who performs `Isha' prayer in congregation,
is as if he has performed Salat for half of the night.
And one who performs the Fajr prayer in congregation,
is as if he has performed Salat the whole night.''
[Muslim]

The narration of At-Tirmidhi says:
`Uthman bin Affan (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated
that he had heard the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) saying:
"He who attends `Isha' in congregation,
is as if he has performed Salat for half of the night;
and he who attends `Isha' and Fajr prayers in congregation,
is as if he has performed Salat for the whole night.''

Re: The Proper Response to Wikileaks

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:53 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

"Government propagandists proclaim that people will die from this latest release. Unless they mean die laughing, this is quite an overstatement. Government goons, soldiers and bureaucrats in foreign countries will not face a greater threat to their lives, most especially from these cables. What they will face is snickers, chuckles, and outright laughter."

The Proper Response to Wikileaks
by Karen Kwiatkowski

President Obama is wrong, and Secretary Clinton is wrong. Those remoras of state at CNN, FOXNews, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR and many Congressmen are all wet in their frantic response to Cablegate, and Wikileaks in general.

I'll admit the U.S. government should have been a bit angry about the Wikileaks release over the summer of the 2007 gunship video and narration of a bloody massacre of unarmed Iraqis and reporters. There was nothing redeeming there, no points of light or lessons to be learned. That release fundamentally explained to Americans and others who supported the Iraq invasion and occupation exactly what democracy at the point of a gun looks like. Perhaps the US government wasn't as upset as it might have been because no one affected by this crime was surprised. Similar massacres, according to soldiers involved in Iraq, were routine and conducted as ordered. The Iraqis, of course, knew this from the beginning.

The Wikileaked Afghanistan reports didn't indicate much more than the antiwar and the pro-war crowds already knew, and as a result, again, there were no changes in the bleachers of American foreign policy. It's likely that the Rolling Stone interview with General McCrystal around the same time was more embarrassing to Washington. One wonders why McChrystal has not yet been declared a domestic terrorist. He shared secrets and embarrassed the administration. A case could be made that his pussyfooting around the Afghans (a Special Forces nuance that our good Prussian Petraeus was quick to eliminate) was intentionally designed to help "lose the war" in Afghanistan. Well, give it time.

But Cablegate is different, and the reaction of the ruling class so far ranges from simply demanding Assange's head on a platter to demanding the Internet be declared a terrorist entity, and destroyed.

Government propagandists proclaim that people will die from this latest release. Unless they mean die laughing, this is quite an overstatement. Government goons, soldiers and bureaucrats in foreign countries will not face a greater threat to their lives, most especially from these cables. What they will face is snickers, chuckles, and outright laughter.

And truly, this is as it should be. When one declares that his robes are the most beautiful, made of the finest silk, so glorious that they compete with the sun – sometimes a little blond-haired boy with a most serious look about him declares that it seems to him that the Emperor has no clothes! And we see, slowly at first, then an unstoppable surge of laughter and finger-pointing by the common people who, for all their ignorance and all their flaws, know enough to put on clothes before going out in public.

The US government shrieks, tone-deaf, of global democracy – but disparages the populist language of Italian officials and declares the elected and popular prime minister there to be unqualified. Yet, this same democracy-loving government enjoys very much its dealings with the evilest of dictators. This hypocrisy has long been a staple of both libertarian and Marxist critiques of US foreign policy, for well over a century. Now it's out in the open – and it's kind of funny.

Hillary Clinton approves a State Department-wide command to surreptitiously collect DNA and credit card numbers on UN representatives and other diplomats. This particular case is breathtakingly Nuremburgian. The order Hilary was transmitting was already government policy – the great Diplomat Herself was just following orders. And certainly, any of us common folk who watch enough CSI to be dangerous know that collection of DNA samples with chain of custody procedures that will stand up in court is not something we would automatically trust to a bunch of pinstripers at State. Beyond that, the rest of us who watch COPS know that taking people's credit card numbers without their knowledge and permission is a crime.

Now that we know what they are trying to do, the proper reaction is to giggle and glance at each other while we check our pockets, handbags, backpacks and satchels for our wallets and watches whenever we find ourselves near a government representative. Of course, air travelers in this country have been doing just that for some time. But the sweet lesson here is that a government goon is a government goon, just following orders, no matter where they buy their suits. Our ability to quickly recognize that government goon is increasingly unifying average Americans, and strengthening us. As our government goonar continues to develop, the game becomes more fun, and funnier. Cablegate improves everyone's goonar!

There is talk that the data released this week actually helps Israel's case for a good old-fashioned pre-emptive attack on Iran. Why? Because Saudi Arabia supports it! Well, skyrocketing oil prices certainly would come in handy to the still dollar dependent House of Saud about now, but I digress. Now, if I were the little old US of A thinking about starting one more war with a country I didn't like, especially given I was dead broke and already a military laughingstock based on past and present performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, listening to what the corrupt, US-dependent ruling class of Saudi Arabia had to say about it would be right up there on my go-to-war-decision-meter. Give the obvious and otherworldly stupidity of our politicians, generals, and diplomats, perhaps the Saudis do tell us what to do, and maybe Wikileaks hearts neocons. A better sense of where the US diplomatic head is at can be gained by reading reports of meetings in Tel Aviv, where the great US stumbles over itself to be inoffensive, seeking simultaneously to be both submissive and warlike when speaking to Israelis. Pathetic little weasels, the lot of them. But their pathetic weaselness cannot be blamed on Julian Assange, no matter how many neocons and other cons declare the problem to be facts in the open, rather than simply the facts.

On a more serious note, beyond the debate on whether to assassinate Assange, blow up the Internet, conduct an unwarranted attack on an NPT signatory that is following the rules, or to continue to ally ourselves with the crazies in Pakistan and Israel, it is important to recognize that fascism of one kind or another is currently embraced by a majority in Congress, and by a large minority across the country. An alert and informed citizenry, valued by presidents from Washington to Eisenhower, is now deemed by D.C. to be a nascent domestic terrorism threat. As the American wholesale subsidy of banks, bullets and butter metastasizes, devouring freedom and wrecking the system, the desperation of the ruling class and those in its employ is palpable. Americans ought to gratefully smile as we review these latest Wikileaks, and we should savor the hilarity. Seeing our government as theatrical stooge, as incompetent popinjay, as naked and embarrassed Emperor, sets the stage well for what comes next.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski259.html

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Re: WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning isn't a criminal. He's a hero.

No civilian court for this kid. He's toast

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WikiLeaks vs. the Political Class

WikiLeaks vs. the Political Class
Why they hate Julian Assange
by Justin Raimondo, December 01, 2010

Rep. Peter King characterizes WikiLeaks as a "terrorist" organization, but who's the real terrorist-supporter? Wasn't it Rep. King who signed a statement of support for the "National Council of Resistance," a front for the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), which appears on the State Department's list of designated terrorist organizations? The MEK has killed American diplomatic personnel, and is described as a fanatic cult by many observers: its supporters, who adhere to a weird combination of Marxism and Islam, were succored by Saddam Hussein in Iraq before the US invasion, where they still persist (under US guard) to this day.

King's support for terrorism doesn't stop there, however: he is also a fervent booster of the "Real IRA," an Irish Republican terrorist organization that plants bombs and assassinates its enemies. As a supporter of Irish Northern Aid, King lent his name and prestige to a group that was buying weapons for the "Real" IRA, which were used to murder civilians as well as British government officials and police.

If anyone should be accused of support for terrorism – material support – it's King, and the only reason he's not been charged is because there are two sets of laws in this country, one for us lowly plebs, who might travel to, say, Colombia, or Palestine, and meet with someone our government doesn't approve of, and another set of laws for the political class, the members of which can do anything [.pdf] they damn well please as long as they don't inconvenience higher-ups in the DC food chain.

Speaking of the political class, listen to William Kristol, the little Lenin of the neocons, as he dispenses advice to the Obama-ites on how to deal with WikiLeaks:

"From now on, a policy of no comment about anything in any of these documents should be the absolute rule. No apologies, no complaints, no explanations, no excuses. No present or former government official should deign to discuss anything in these documents. No one in the executive branch should confirm or deny the accuracy of any document. No one should hasten to reassure any foreign leader of anything, or seek to put any cable in context. No one in Congress should cite anything in these documents to make a point about any issue. The entire American government and political class should simply go about its important foreign policy business, and treat these leaks as beneath contempt, and beneath comment."

Kristol and his ilk don't believe they're answerable to anyone but other members of the "political class" – because, don't you know, they're above reproach, or criticism of any kind. Sniffy disdain is the only possible response to any attempt to question their royal prerogatives. These Bourbons have learned nothing in the past decade, during which their failed policies have visited disaster on American foreign policy and the peoples of the Middle East – and, what's more, they don't care to learn anything. They would rather close their eyes and ears, and just "go about their important foreign policy business," wreaking murder and mayhem in their wake, while the rest of the world marvels at the enormity of their crimes, and the small-mindedness of the chief criminals.

Kristol's prescription perfectly expresses the neoconservative view of power and its proper exercise: the common people who pay for our overseas empire have no right to know about, let alone criticize, our overseas shenanigans. Their role is simply to subsidize the whole mess, and let their betters (i.e. Kristol, various Kagan family members, and the laptop bombardiers at AEI and Heritage) determine policy. How dare the hoi polloi interfere!

This is a perfectly natural impulse on the part of the political class, of which Kristol is an exemplar: secrecy is essential to the success of their most important ~~scams~~ operations, and always has been. That's where the tremendous resistance on the part of the Establishment to Ron Paul's campaign to audit the Federal Reserve is coming from. If the American people knew, in detail, what scams were robbing them blind, and what murderous plots were being carried out in their name, they'd rebel – and we can't have that!

Which brings to mind a particular item from the WikiLeaks document release, a cable from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, a small Central Asian nation where the US had to make a major effort to keep Manas air force base from being dismantled by the local authorities, who were demanding more "foreign aid" as the price to keep it open. Meeting with the Chinese ambassador, our own envoy "mentioned that Kyrgyz officials had told her that China had offered a $3 billion financial package to close Manas Air Base and asked for the Ambassador's reaction to such an allegation."

According to this self-serving and prolix missive, Ambassador Zhang was "visibly flustered," and even "temporarily lost the ability to speak Russian and began spluttering in Chinese to the silent aide diligently taking notes right behind him." Our ambassador continues:

"Composing himself, Zhang inquired if maybe the Kyrgyz had meant the trade turnover between the two countries, which he claimed was about $3 billion a year. When disabused of that notion, Zhang went on at length to explain that China could not afford a $3 billion loan and aid package. 'It would take $3 from every Chinese person" to pay for it. If our people found out, there'd be a revolution,' he said. 'We have 200 million people unemployed" because of the downturn in exports, he said, and millions of disabled and others who need help from the government.'"

"If our people found out, there'd be a revolution" – and that is precisely the point. That's why Kristol and the war-bots are frothing at the mouth over WikiLeaks' latest coup. Because if the American people really understood what was being done in their name, and at their expense, they'd rise up as one and deliver one thumping kick in the ass to the entire political class. There would indeed be a revolution – which is why WikiLeaks is being excoriated by both the right and and the left, by Clare McCaskill (on CNN the other day) as well the Fox News types.

Curiously, it looks like the Chinese political class is much more sensitive to popular sentiment than our own mandarins, at least when it comes to foreign adventurism and extravagant spending abroad. As the dialogue between the two ambassadors continues, the essential cluelessness of the American envoy – one Tatiana Gfoeller, career diplomat and former Consul General of the US embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – comes through as she continues to press Ambassador Zhang:

"The Ambassador then asked what Zhang thought about the $2 billion plus Russian deal with Kyrgyzstan. After some hemming and hawing, Zhang said it was 'probably true' that the Russian assistance was tied to closing Manas. Asked if he had any concerns about the Kyrgyz Republic falling ever deeper into the Russian sphere of influence and whether China had any interest in countering this, he answered that Kyrgyzstan was already in that sphere, and China had no interest in balancing that influence. 'Kyrgyzstan is Russia's neighbor,' he intoned … 'And when the Kyrgyz ask me about this, I always tell them that a neighbor is a gift from God.' As for China's interests in the Kyrgyz Republic, he stated flatly: 'We have only commercial interests here. We want to increase investment and trade. We have no interest in politics.' He claimed that some Kyrgyz had argued for China to open a base in Kyrgyzstan to counterbalance Russian and American influence in the country, but China has no interest in a base. 'We want no military or political advantage. Therefore, we wouldn't pay $3 billion for Manas,' he argued."

It never occurs to Ambassador Gfoeller that maybe, just maybe, the Kyrgyz came up with that story about an alleged Chinese offer of $3 billion because they want to create the illusion of a three-way bidding war – and wring more money out of the extravagant Americans. Zhang, the Communist, is more cost-conscious than Gfoeller, supposedly the representative of a capitalist country, and, what's more, he is full of good advice about how to get the best price:

"Zhang asked the Ambassador whether the U.S. would negotiate to keep the Base open. The Ambassador answered that the U.S. side was evaluating its options. Zhang then offered his 'personal advice.' 'This is all about money,' he said. He understood from the Kyrgyz that they needed $150 million. [Gfoeller] explained that the U.S. does provide $150 million in assistance to Kyrgyzstan each year, including numerous assistance programs. Zhang suggested that the U.S. should scrap its assistance programs. 'Just give them $150 million in cash' per year, and 'you will have the Base forever.' Very uncharacteristically, the silent young aide then jumped in: 'Or maybe you should give them $5 billion and buy both us and the Russians out.' The aide then withered under the Ambassador's horrified stare."

That young aide just couldn't help himself. The Americans – bankrupts going around the world throwing money out of airplanes – just beg to be mocked. Ambassador Gfoeller, fortunately for her self-esteem, didn't seem to get it. In any case, as it turned out, we wound up having the yearly rent on the Manas base tripled, to $60 million, in addition to paying $150 million in "assistance" programs.

Our policy of global interventionism doesn't come cheap: if you add the military budget to a great deal of the operational costs of the US government, what you end up with is the total cost of our overseas Empire – an enterprise that is enormously lucrative for a very small minority of Americans, and hideously burdensome for the rest of us. And then there are the moral costs of supporting dictators, sucking up to numerous sleazeballs, and generally treating the peoples of the world like pawns in a game.

"We have only commercial interests here. We want to increase investment and trade. We have no interest in politics" – this is a foreign policy that makes sense for a republic of traders and entrepreneurs. Why is it that it has to be enunciated by a representative of a Communist state?

The way Julian Assange is releasing these cables is a stroke of genius, because the cumulative effect paints a devastating portrait of a policy wielded by spendthrift know-it-alls, one designed to do nothing but enrich the undeserving and empower the worst. As the foibles of our preening viceroys are publicized, and the enormous scale of the waste and fraud comes to the attention of the American people, a revolution is indeed possible. That's why the Establishment of both parties, and pundits on the neocon right and the Obama-ite left, are out to knife Assange and bring down WikiLeaks. They may fight about how much to raise the retirement age, and how to divide the tax loot, but when it comes to defending the Empire – and the cult of secrecy that sustains it in a "democratic" Imperium such as ours – they stand united, both red and blue. That's why Chris Matthews can smear Assange as a "rapist," even though he knows it's a trumped-up charge, and neoconnish "libertarian" Michael Moynihan – who believes the very idea of any US government pressure on the Swedish government to harass Assange is only credible to " wild-eyed, spittle-flecked conspiracists [sic] bloggers" – can get in on the act, too.

Oh, but of course the US government – our government – would never do anything so rude, so crass, so un-libertarian as to try to discredit a prominent critic through sexual innuendo or other dirty tricks. Now would it?

The smear campaign against Assange is a disgrace, and good for him for walking out of an interview when his interlocutor insisted on pursuing the "rape" angle. And bravo for making the New York Times go to the Guardian for the cables: that Times " profile" of Assange was another in a long series of smear pieces that have appeared in our court press with suspicious regularity. This is the price some "journalists" pay for access to the corridors of power, and they're not only willing but downright eager to pay it. Jobs in journalism are hard to come by these days.

One thing I personally appreciate about the WikiLeaks mega-dump is that it provides me with plenty to write about for the next few years, at least. There is so much material here that one could hardly hope to cover it all, and pick up all the little gems that are just waiting to be discovered by the avid researcher. For some time to come I'll be mining this rich lode – rich with meaning, and heavy with lessons for critics of the interventionist foreign policy consensus.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/11/30/wikileaks-vs-the-political-class/

Re: Good news: Latinos set to form "tequila party" modeled on tea party

Yep, I see nothing but good coming from this.....Help futher splinter the Marxist/Socialist/Anti-American coalition sometimes called, "The Democratic Party".

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 5:42 AM, Cold Water <coldwater000@gmail.com> wrote:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/11/30/good-news-latinos-set-to-form-tequila-party-modeled-on-tea-party/?print=1

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Who Precisely Is Attacking The World?

November 30, 2010
Who Precisely Is Attacking The World?
By Paul Craig Roberts

The stuck pigs are squealing. To shift the onus from the US State Department, Hillary Clinton paints Wikileaks' release of the "diplomatic cables" as an "attack on the international community." To reveal truth is equivalent in the eyes of the US government to an attack on the world.

It is Wikileaks' fault that all those US diplomats wrote a quarter of a million undiplomatic messages about America's allies, a.k.a., puppet states. It is also Wikileaks' fault that a member of the US government could no longer stomach the cynical ways in which the US government manipulates foreign governments to serve, not their own people, but American interests, and delivered the incriminating evidence to Wikileaks.

The US government actually thinks that it was Wikileaks patriotic duty to return the evidence and to identify the leaker. After all, we mustn't let the rest of the world find out what we are up to. They might stop believing our lies.

The influential German magazine, Der Spiegel, writes: "It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy."

This might be more a hope than a reality. The "Soviet threat" during the second half of the 20th century enabled US governments to create institutions that subordinated the interests of other countries to those of the US government. After decades of following US leadership, European "leaders" know no other way to act. Finding out that the boss badmouths and deceives them is unlikely to light a spirit of independence. At least not until America's economic collapse becomes more noticeable.

The question is: how much will the press tell us about the documents? Spiegel itself has said that the magazine is permitting the US government to censure, at least in part, what it prints about the leaked material. Most likely, this means the public will not learn the content of the 4,330 documents that "are so explosive that they are labelled 'NOFORN,'" meaning that foreigners, including presidents, prime ministers, and security services that share information with the CIA, are not permitted to read the documents. Possibly, also, the content of the 16,652 cables classified as "secret" will not be revealed to the public.

Most likely the press, considering their readers' interests, will focus on gossip and the unflattering remarks Americans made about their foreign counterparts. It will be good for laughs. Also, the US government will attempt to focus the media in ways that advance US policies.

Indeed, it has already begun. On November 29, National Public Radio emphasized that the cables showed that Iran was isolated even in the Muslim world, making it easier for the Israelis and Americans to attack. The leaked cables reveal that the president of Egypt, an American puppet, hates Iran, and the Saudi Arabian government has been long urging the US government to attack Iran. In other words, Iran is so dangerous to the world that even its co-religionists want Iran wiped off the face of the earth.

NPR presented several nonobjective "Iranian experts" who denigrated Iran and its leadership and declared that the US government, by resisting its Middle Eastern allies' calls for bombing Iran, was the moderate in the picture. The fact that President George W. Bush declared Iran to be a member of "the axis of evil" and threatened repeatedly to attack Iran, and that President Obama has continued the threatsAdm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has just reiterated that the US hasn't taken the attack option off the tableare not regarded by American "Iran experts" as indications of anything other than American moderation.

Somehow it did not come across the NPR newscast that it is not Iran but Israel that routinely slaughters civilians in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, and that it is not Iran but the US and its NATO mercenaries who slaughter civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yeman, and Pakistan.

Iran has not invaded any of its neighbors, but the Americans are invading countries half way around the globe.

The "Iranian experts" treated the Saudi and Egyptian rulers' hatred of Iran as a vindication of the US and Israeli governments' demonization of Iran. Not a single "Iranian expert" was capable of pointing out that the tyrants who rule Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear Iran because the Iranian government represents the interests of Muslims, and the Saudi and Egyptian governments represent the interests of the Americans.

Think what it must feel like to be a tyrant suppressing the aspirations of your own people in order to serve the hegemony of a foreign country, while a nearby Muslim government strives to protect its people's independence from foreign hegemony.

Undoubtedly, the tyrants become very anxious. What if their oppressed subjects get ideas? Little wonder the Saudis and Egyptian rulers want the Americans to eliminate the independent-minded country that is a bad example for Egyptian and Saudi subjects.

As long as the dollar has enough value that it can be used to purchase foreign governments, information damaging to the US government is unlikely to have much affect. As Alain of Lille said a long time ago, "money is all."

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/101130_who_attacking.htm

WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning isn't a criminal. He's a hero.

Opinion
WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning isn't a criminal. He's a hero.
Many are condemning Bradley Manning for allegedly providing WikiLeaks with sensitive reports about US foreign policy. But a government that can make war while keeping essential information about its justification and conduct secret is neither open nor fit for free people.
By Sheldon Richman / November 29, 2010
Little Rock, Ark.

First it was a video of a helicopter gunship killing and injuring unarmed Iraqi civilians, including two children, and two newsmen as they walked down a street in Baghdad.

Then in two separate document dumps, hundreds of thousands of classified military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan were released to the public. Now more than a quarter-million State Department cables, more than 15,000 of which are classified "secret" and/or "noforn" (not to be shared with foreign governments), have been released without authorization.

The US government's problems with WikiLeaks continues, and the Obama administration "condemn[ed] in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."

The White House said the release of "stolen cables" was "reckless and dangerous."

It attributed the leaks to Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been in custody since the release of the Baghdad video, which WikiLeaks titled "Collateral Murder." In July, Mr. Manning was charged with "transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system" and "communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source." He faces up to 52 years in prison.

Naturally, WikiLeaks refuses to confirm that Manning was the source of the documents, but assuming he was, what are we to make of him? Is he a hero or a villain?

I say hero. When a government secretly engages in such consequential activities as aggressive wars justified by at best questionable and at worst fabricated intelligence, covert bombings and assassinations, and diplomatic maneuvering designed to support such global meddling, the people in whose name that government acts – and who could suffer retaliation – have a right to know.

Are 'we the people' really in charge?

How can the American system be regarded as participatory if the most potentially explosive government conduct is hidden? Are "we the people" really in charge or not?

Or is "government of the people, by the people, for the people" so much pabulum to keep us contentedly ignorant?

The same Obama administration that condemns the leaks has said: "Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing." But if the government decides what constitutes transparency, how can it achieve either objective?

War is the most serious thing to which a government can commit a society. A government that can make war while keeping essential information about its justification and conduct secret is neither open nor fit for free people.

President Obama, like his predecessors, asks for our trust. He'd say he can't tell us everything, but government in a democratic society requires confidence in its leaders. A similar appeal for trust failed to impress Thomas Jefferson in 1798.

Bogus appeals for trust

In his protest of the Adams administration's Alien and Sedition Acts (which essentially criminalized harsh criticism of the government), Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions, "[I]t would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism – free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power."

Or as the Irish statesman John Philpot Curran said eight years earlier, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

Yet how can Americans exercise vigilance against government threats to their liberty if critical information is systematically withheld? They can't. That's why people such as Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers 39 years ago, and perhaps Manning heroically risked personal ruin and defied authority to bring that information to us.

Foreign policy vs. imperial foreign policy

WikiLeaks' critics will say that foreign policy cannot be conducted in public. As stated, that assertion is false. It is only an imperial foreign policy that cannot be conducted in public. A policy of global policing and intervention does indeed require secrecy and intrigue, but the pacific foreign policy envisioned by Jefferson and George Washington – "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible" – does not.

It is the rejection of George Washington's advice that has caused Americans to be concerned about their safety, especially when flying.

Many foreign policy "experts" hype the "dark, violent side" of Islam. Yet anti-American terrorism originating in the Muslim world has been solely in retaliation for US military invasions, occupations, and covert wars that have taken countless innocent lives. The work of Robert Pape, founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, establishes this beyond a reasonable doubt. How would Americans react to a foreign occupation?

Moreover, foreign intervention and the inevitable retaliatory "blowback" have brought a frightening devaluation of our privacy and other civil liberties. As the late professor Chalmers Johnson put it, either give up the empire or live under it.

Can't afford to police the globe

Policing the globe poses another kind of threat to Americans: economic. All told, American military and "security" spending exceeds $1 trillion a year. Nearly 20 years after the end of the cold war, the United States accounts for almost half the world's military spending. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $1 trillion and are far from over.

Yet our $14 trillion national debt is quickly approaching 100 percent of GDP, and trillion-plus-dollar budget deficits loom for the foreseeable future. If we are to get our fiscal house in order, the military budget must be slashed. No government can play global policeman yet remain small and nonintrusive at home. War hawks make poor budget hawks.

We have a choice. Peace, nonintervention, and low government expenditures? Or perpetual war and out-of-control government? Knowing the legal consequences of his brave action, Bradley Manning made an apparently difficult choice. For us, it's not a hard choice at all.

Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman magazine and blogs at Free Association.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1129/WikiLeaks-Bradley-Manning-isn-t-a-criminal.-He-s-a-hero/%28page%29/2

Re: The Proper Response to Wikileaks

I have a hard time mustering sympathy for this kid....
-------------------------------------------------

Ditto. And he doesn't have the option of being tried in civilian
court. This kid is fucked for life

On Dec 1, 9:07 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a hard time mustering sympathy for this kid....
>
> I would like to bitch slap that blonde headed wimpy looking asshole from
> Sweden....
>
> On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 9:01 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vinc...@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > WikiLeaks is laughing alright.
>
> > A 22 year old PFC who will die of old age in a 6 X 9 cell, not so much.
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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Re: Big Government O'Reilly / Rush Limbaugh vs Constitutionalist Judge Napolitano on Wikileaks as a "Terrorist Organization"

I watched the segment(s) as well as the segment with John Stossel.

I don't think that Napolitano or O'Reilly were all that far apart. I agreed with both of their viewpoints, and again, think that they were on the same page. (Keeping in mind that O'Reilly is a dumb fuck, and would toss the Constitution when it is inconvenient for him)

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 9:06 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Whoever leaked all those State Department documents to the WikiLeaks
website is a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life,
…"

-----------------------------------

The latter is a gimme mate, and we are way past, "whoever"

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Re: The Proper Response to Wikileaks

I have a hard time mustering sympathy for this kid....

I would like to bitch slap that blonde headed wimpy looking asshole from Sweden....

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 9:01 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

WikiLeaks is laughing alright.

A 22 year old PFC who will die of old age in a 6 X 9 cell, not so much.

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Re: Big Government O'Reilly / Rush Limbaugh vs Constitutionalist Judge Napolitano on Wikileaks as a "Terrorist Organization"

"Whoever leaked all those State Department documents to the WikiLeaks
website is a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life,
…"

-----------------------------------

The latter is a gimme mate, and we are way past, "whoever"

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Re: The Proper Response to Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is laughing alright.

A 22 year old PFC who will die of old age in a 6 X 9 cell, not so much.

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Re: WikiLeaks, "Progressivism," and "National Security"

I agree. I didn't say life in the dungeon was a bad thing.

Pretty fucking stupid though

On Dec 1, 8:54 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That 22 year old kid turned over documents that did in fact, threaten and
> harm our national security.
>
> What William Anderson, (who's column I agree with for the most part, with
> one major exception) fails to acknowledge or touch upon, is that our Nation
> depends upon "secretive" information gathering in order to protect and
> defend against those individuals and entities that wish to see our Nation as
> we know it, and Western civilization as we know it, destroyed and done away
> with. Those that provide this "secretive" information, will be far more
> reluctant to provide such information in the future, if the perception
> continues that we cannot keep a secret.
>
> On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:40 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vinc...@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > That "flimsy security line", is about to put a 22 year old kid in a
> > dungeon for the rest of his life
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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Big Government O'Reilly / Rush Limbaugh vs Constitutionalist Judge Napolitano on Wikileaks as a "Terrorist Organization"

Big Government O'Reilly / Rush Limbaugh vs Constitutionalist Judge Napolitano on Wikileaks as a "Terrorist Organization"
Posted by Peter Porteous at 6:19 pm

Some segments of the establishment's lapdog main stream media are calling for extreme measures to protect Big Government from having its secrets revealed. On the recent leak of the classified State Department cables, big government O'Reilly said; "Whoever leaked all those State Department documents to the WikiLeaks website is a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life,…"

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points: There Are Traitors In America – 11/29/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPpqQk3KlLY&feature=player_embedded

Big government Rush Limbaugh manages to circumvent asking for a direct assassination with this gem; "Now, the WikiLeaks website's international law, so we just can't unilaterally shut the guy down, but, you know, back in the old days when men were men and countries were countries, this guy would die of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain, and nobody would know who put it there! I mean, if our secrets were really being compromised like this, and if some people were really upset about this, and this is not… I mean, everybody knew this was coming, and this is not the first leak from Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. We've known he's out there doing this stuff, we've known this stuff is coming, and yet, it keeps coming!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH_y3TpGqfw&feature=player_embedded

Historically Conservatives and small government Liberals have seen political secrecy as the main threat to lawful government, and we would expect so called Conservatives like O'Reilly and Limbaugh to embrace the media revelations as to what their government is really up to; Instead they are seen propagandizeing and defending big government secrecy, while calling for what appear to be cold blooded assassinations.

Today the job of defending transparency is left to the newly minted Freedom Movement and its Tea party. Judge Andrew Napolitano represents the Constitutional rule of law view in this video with Shepard Smith where he shows good old Tea Party common sense. "I understand the view of those who would like to believe that the government always tells the truth, that government is always doing the right thing, my own view is, it is better for mature people to know the truth and understand it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfJJbrFvF7A&feature=player_embedded

Let's hope that the Tea Party returns common sense to America, continues to be wary of the behemoth, out of hand, over grown state, and continues to demand transparency and Constitutional governance by those we elect to represent us.

http://dailyteaparty.com/2010/11/30/big-government-oreilly-rush-limbaugh-vs-constitutionalist-judge-napolitano-on-wikileaks-as-a-terrorist-organization/

Re: WikiLeaks, "Progressivism," and "National Security"

That 22 year old kid turned over documents that did in fact, threaten and harm our national security.

What William Anderson, (who's column I agree with for the most part, with one major exception) fails to acknowledge or touch upon, is that our Nation depends upon "secretive" information gathering in order to protect and defend against those individuals and entities that wish to see our Nation as we know it, and Western civilization as we know it, destroyed and done away with. Those that provide this "secretive" information, will be far more reluctant to provide such information in the future, if the perception continues that we cannot keep a secret.

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:40 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

That "flimsy security line", is about to put a 22 year old kid in a
dungeon for the rest of his life

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The Proper Response to Wikileaks

"Government propagandists proclaim that people will die from this latest release. Unless they mean die laughing, this is quite an overstatement. Government goons, soldiers and bureaucrats in foreign countries will not face a greater threat to their lives, most especially from these cables. What they will face is snickers, chuckles, and outright laughter."

The Proper Response to Wikileaks
by Karen Kwiatkowski

President Obama is wrong, and Secretary Clinton is wrong. Those remoras of state at CNN, FOXNews, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR and many Congressmen are all wet in their frantic response to Cablegate, and Wikileaks in general.

I'll admit the U.S. government should have been a bit angry about the Wikileaks release over the summer of the 2007 gunship video and narration of a bloody massacre of unarmed Iraqis and reporters. There was nothing redeeming there, no points of light or lessons to be learned. That release fundamentally explained to Americans and others who supported the Iraq invasion and occupation exactly what democracy at the point of a gun looks like. Perhaps the US government wasn't as upset as it might have been because no one affected by this crime was surprised. Similar massacres, according to soldiers involved in Iraq, were routine and conducted as ordered. The Iraqis, of course, knew this from the beginning.

The Wikileaked Afghanistan reports didn't indicate much more than the antiwar and the pro-war crowds already knew, and as a result, again, there were no changes in the bleachers of American foreign policy. It's likely that the Rolling Stone interview with General McCrystal around the same time was more embarrassing to Washington. One wonders why McChrystal has not yet been declared a domestic terrorist. He shared secrets and embarrassed the administration. A case could be made that his pussyfooting around the Afghans (a Special Forces nuance that our good Prussian Petraeus was quick to eliminate) was intentionally designed to help "lose the war" in Afghanistan. Well, give it time.

But Cablegate is different, and the reaction of the ruling class so far ranges from simply demanding Assange's head on a platter to demanding the Internet be declared a terrorist entity, and destroyed.

Government propagandists proclaim that people will die from this latest release. Unless they mean die laughing, this is quite an overstatement. Government goons, soldiers and bureaucrats in foreign countries will not face a greater threat to their lives, most especially from these cables. What they will face is snickers, chuckles, and outright laughter.

And truly, this is as it should be. When one declares that his robes are the most beautiful, made of the finest silk, so glorious that they compete with the sun – sometimes a little blond-haired boy with a most serious look about him declares that it seems to him that the Emperor has no clothes! And we see, slowly at first, then an unstoppable surge of laughter and finger-pointing by the common people who, for all their ignorance and all their flaws, know enough to put on clothes before going out in public.

The US government shrieks, tone-deaf, of global democracy – but disparages the populist language of Italian officials and declares the elected and popular prime minister there to be unqualified. Yet, this same democracy-loving government enjoys very much its dealings with the evilest of dictators. This hypocrisy has long been a staple of both libertarian and Marxist critiques of US foreign policy, for well over a century. Now it's out in the open – and it's kind of funny.

Hillary Clinton approves a State Department-wide command to surreptitiously collect DNA and credit card numbers on UN representatives and other diplomats. This particular case is breathtakingly Nuremburgian. The order Hilary was transmitting was already government policy – the great Diplomat Herself was just following orders. And certainly, any of us common folk who watch enough CSI to be dangerous know that collection of DNA samples with chain of custody procedures that will stand up in court is not something we would automatically trust to a bunch of pinstripers at State. Beyond that, the rest of us who watch COPS know that taking people's credit card numbers without their knowledge and permission is a crime.

Now that we know what they are trying to do, the proper reaction is to giggle and glance at each other while we check our pockets, handbags, backpacks and satchels for our wallets and watches whenever we find ourselves near a government representative. Of course, air travelers in this country have been doing just that for some time. But the sweet lesson here is that a government goon is a government goon, just following orders, no matter where they buy their suits. Our ability to quickly recognize that government goon is increasingly unifying average Americans, and strengthening us. As our government goonar continues to develop, the game becomes more fun, and funnier. Cablegate improves everyone's goonar!

There is talk that the data released this week actually helps Israel's case for a good old-fashioned pre-emptive attack on Iran. Why? Because Saudi Arabia supports it! Well, skyrocketing oil prices certainly would come in handy to the still dollar dependent House of Saud about now, but I digress. Now, if I were the little old US of A thinking about starting one more war with a country I didn't like, especially given I was dead broke and already a military laughingstock based on past and present performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, listening to what the corrupt, US-dependent ruling class of Saudi Arabia had to say about it would be right up there on my go-to-war-decision-meter. Give the obvious and otherworldly stupidity of our politicians, generals, and diplomats, perhaps the Saudis do tell us what to do, and maybe Wikileaks hearts neocons. A better sense of where the US diplomatic head is at can be gained by reading reports of meetings in Tel Aviv, where the great US stumbles over itself to be inoffensive, seeking simultaneously to be both submissive and warlike when speaking to Israelis. Pathetic little weasels, the lot of them. But their pathetic weaselness cannot be blamed on Julian Assange, no matter how many neocons and other cons declare the problem to be facts in the open, rather than simply the facts.

On a more serious note, beyond the debate on whether to assassinate Assange, blow up the Internet, conduct an unwarranted attack on an NPT signatory that is following the rules, or to continue to ally ourselves with the crazies in Pakistan and Israel, it is important to recognize that fascism of one kind or another is currently embraced by a majority in Congress, and by a large minority across the country. An alert and informed citizenry, valued by presidents from Washington to Eisenhower, is now deemed by D.C. to be a nascent domestic terrorism threat. As the American wholesale subsidy of banks, bullets and butter metastasizes, devouring freedom and wrecking the system, the desperation of the ruling class and those in its employ is palpable. Americans ought to gratefully smile as we review these latest Wikileaks, and we should savor the hilarity. Seeing our government as theatrical stooge, as incompetent popinjay, as naked and embarrassed Emperor, sets the stage well for what comes next.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski259.html

Re: Democrat: Lame Duck Session is "all rigged" (Video)

"The whole process being
rigged against having a real conversation about tax cuts, the estate
tax and
the defense authorization. We're not having a lot of those
conversations.
It's just a symptom of Washington being broken."*

----------------------------------

No, its a symptom of Harry Reid being broken. Guy Cecil just isn't
allowed to say that, which is yet another example of what's broken

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Re: Democrats will pose difficult problems for Republicans who want to be reelected

<Grin>!

Good point Greg!

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:39 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

The Democrats speak of, "Fairness", which
is their code word for, "Redistribution of Wealth".
---------------------------------------------

Don't forget legislating an audience for crappy libbie talk shows.

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Re: WikiLeaks, "Progressivism," and "National Security"

That "flimsy security line", is about to put a 22 year old kid in a
dungeon for the rest of his life

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Re: Democrats will pose difficult problems for Republicans who want to be reelected

The Democrats speak of, "Fairness", which
is their code word for, "Redistribution of Wealth".
---------------------------------------------

Don't forget legislating an audience for crappy libbie talk shows.

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Secrets safe

WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton, and the Smoking Gun

WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton, and the Smoking Gun
The leaked cables make it impossible for Hillary Clinton to continue as secretary of state.
By Jack ShaferPosted Monday, Nov. 29, 2010, at 5:32 PM ET

Hillary ClintonA U.S. diplomat must possess patience, poise, and tact. He must also be attentive to cultural differences, a good observer, and proficient in several languages. When called upon, he must use his skills as a negotiator in the national interest. And, as the latest dump of WikiLeaks tells us, if the dip works for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he must also be prepared to spy on his fellow diplomats.

To be fair to Clinton, she isn't the first secretary of state to issue cables telling U.S. foreign service officers to spy on other diplomats. According to the leaked diplomatic cables, Condoleezza Rice likewise instructed State Department diplomats to collect such intelligence, and I wouldn't be surprised if previous secretaries of state encouraged if not instructed their diplomats to push information-collection all the way to intelligence-gathering.

But what makes Clinton's sleuthing unique is the paper trail that documents her spying-on-their-diplomats-with-our-diplomat orders, a paper trail that is now being splashed around the world on the Web and printed in top newspapers. No matter what sort of noises Clinton makes about how the disclosures are "an attack on America" and "the international community," as she did today, she's become the issue. She'll never be an effective negotiator with diplomats who refuse to forgive her exuberances, and even foreign diplomats who do forgive her will still regard her as the symbol of an overreaching United States. Diplomacy is about face, and the only way for other nations to save face will be to give them Clinton's scalp.
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How embarrassing are the WikiLeaks leaks? A secret cable from April 2009 that went out under Clinton's name instructed State Department officials to collect the "biometric data," including "fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans," of African leaders. Another secret cable directed American diplomats posted around the world, including the United Nations, to obtain passwords, personal encryption keys, credit card numbers, frequent flyer account numbers, and other data connected to diplomats. As the Guardian puts it, the cables "reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network."

Additionally, Clinton's State Department specifically targeted United Nations officials and diplomats posted to the United Nations. Among the targeted were Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and permanent security-council representatives from China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom, as this secret cable from July 2009 lays out. The State Department also sought biometric information on North Korean diplomats, security-council permanent representatives, "key UN officials," and other diplomats at the United Nations.

Of course, U.S. diplomats have always collected information, no matter where posted. And, as the New York Times reports today, the United States has routinely placed intelligence officers abroad under the diplomatic cover of a State Department posting. But the price of a diplomat (or undercover intelligence officer) overstepping to engage in what the host nation considers to be spying has always been expulsion or, as illustrated earlier this month in Norway , a demand that the U.S. ambassador explain the "spying."

As the Times and other publications report, international treaties make the United Nations a spy-free zoneor at least they're supposed to make it spy-free. "In one 2004 episode, a British official revealed that the United States and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq in 2003," the Times reports. Anne Applebaum writes in Slate today that nobody should be honestly horrified at the image of the United States spying in the United Nations. Nobody in the diplomatic community is. But that doesn't mean that they're not going to take advantage of the moment to demand retribution that will shame the high-and-mighty United States.

There is no way that the new WikiLeaks leaks don't leave Hillary Clinton holding the smoking gun. The time for her departure may come next week or next month, but sooner or later, the weakened and humiliated secretary of state will have to pay.

http://www.slate.com/id/2276190/