Friday, 17 December 2010
The scale of horror regarding current US 'standard practice' in Iraq and Afghanistan
"The supposed horror of the unveiled secrets (in Wikileaks) does not begin to compare to the public and documented horrors of aerial bombing, the near-daily use of which has left the US' reputation tarnished and tattered in a way no piece of paper could hope to achieve." Philip Cunningham, Cornel University, NY.
The US and Wikileaks, from China Daily's Philip Cunningham
The power behind the US curtain
By Philip J. Cunningham (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-16
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains committed to sharing and publishing secret US diplomatic cables, despite condemnation from Washington and threats from outraged politicians.
From what documents have been made public to date, it looks like the messy work of diplomacy as usual. As veteran whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said on TV program Democracy Now, the material comes from a database which has been given a security classification so low in the hierarchy of US intelligence briefings that he wouldn't even have bothered to look at such cable summaries when he worked as a mid-level intelligence analyst, because of the priority accorded to truly secretive and sensitive documents.
That's not to say the data trove is irrelevant; it is the sort of raw material that makes diplomats cringe and historians rather intrigued. It is a random, grab-bag snapshot of official US thinking about friends and enemies, diplomatic challenges past and present. It has shed rather more humiliation than light, sort of like a bathroom stall being suddenly kicked open.
The unflattering material ranges from sordid to insightful, from Machiavellian finesse to blunt bullying, but it's the methods of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's State Department, which calls on diplomats to cull biometric data and engage in virtual stalking, that really raises eyebrows.
Much of the information is awkward but not at all secret, rather like transcripts of friends talking about friends behind their backs. Some of the "statecraft" described in the data has an odor of hypocrisy and deception, but what foreign ministry could survive without a certain amount of double-speak?
In due time, the sheer volume of data to come may help better determine whether the US government has so lost sight of its espoused ideals as to allow deception, petty thuggery and double standards to be the new norm.
The US State Department is quick to perceive skullduggery when dealing with others but it apparently cannot see the same in its own behavior.
What can be said about the US frittering away diplomatic goodwill and twisting arms to get allies like Belgium to accept token pariah prisoners from Guantanamo, or to pressure Germany to hush up and halt legal proceedings against illegal extraordinary renditions?
Is that the kind of wheeling and dealing the world's so-called beacon of democracy engages in? If it is so, it is not just petty but pathetic.
The supposed horror of the unveiled secrets does not begin to compare to the public and documented horrors of aerial bombing, the near-daily use of which has left the US' reputation tarnished and tattered in a way no piece of paper could hope to achieve.
What the data dump offers is a compelling view of the world as seen from Foggy Bottom, the State Department's home base in Washington. It's a Manichean view that reduces planet Earth to a giant game board of friends and enemies, informants and subjects.
Historians know well that the US has never been half as idealistic as it likes to see itself; it takes a certain amount of over-arching ego and sustained brutality to seize and secure a continental land mass, however sparsely populated it might have been when the great American experiment got started.
But the US was, and still is, in a much-diminished sense, a beacon for immigrants fleeing oppression or simply seeking economic opportunity. The spirit invoked by the Statue of Liberty, embracing the poor and huddled masses, still shines brighter than all the lights in New York City, but somewhere during the transition from an ordinary nation to an over-extended military power, the US lost touch with its better angels and set itself on the road to being the new Rome.
In doing so, the US lost what high moral ground it might have possessed after liberating Europe from Nazism and got stuck in a series of murky quagmires and armed interventions that have lead to the slippery slope it treads today.
There's a temptation to date the fork in the road to the back room machinations in 2000 that put George W. Bush in the White House, though the roots of imperial rot go back much further, back to bombs over Belgrade, bombs over Hanoi, bombs over Pyongyang and of course, back to the terrible juncture when the US, victory almost at hand, needlessly dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
The massive leak of documents, only a portion of which is already in plain view, may one day be seen as a moment in Uncle Sam's imperial history akin to the denouement in the Hollywood classic, The Wizard of Oz, when little dog Toto pulls back the curtain on the control room, revealing that the Wizard is not only less omniscient and powerful than was previously believed, but is something of a sham.
The author is a visiting fellow in the East Asia Program, Cornell University, New York.
By Philip J. Cunningham (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-16
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains committed to sharing and publishing secret US diplomatic cables, despite condemnation from Washington and threats from outraged politicians.
From what documents have been made public to date, it looks like the messy work of diplomacy as usual. As veteran whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said on TV program Democracy Now, the material comes from a database which has been given a security classification so low in the hierarchy of US intelligence briefings that he wouldn't even have bothered to look at such cable summaries when he worked as a mid-level intelligence analyst, because of the priority accorded to truly secretive and sensitive documents.
That's not to say the data trove is irrelevant; it is the sort of raw material that makes diplomats cringe and historians rather intrigued. It is a random, grab-bag snapshot of official US thinking about friends and enemies, diplomatic challenges past and present. It has shed rather more humiliation than light, sort of like a bathroom stall being suddenly kicked open.
The unflattering material ranges from sordid to insightful, from Machiavellian finesse to blunt bullying, but it's the methods of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's State Department, which calls on diplomats to cull biometric data and engage in virtual stalking, that really raises eyebrows.
Much of the information is awkward but not at all secret, rather like transcripts of friends talking about friends behind their backs. Some of the "statecraft" described in the data has an odor of hypocrisy and deception, but what foreign ministry could survive without a certain amount of double-speak?
In due time, the sheer volume of data to come may help better determine whether the US government has so lost sight of its espoused ideals as to allow deception, petty thuggery and double standards to be the new norm.
The US State Department is quick to perceive skullduggery when dealing with others but it apparently cannot see the same in its own behavior.
What can be said about the US frittering away diplomatic goodwill and twisting arms to get allies like Belgium to accept token pariah prisoners from Guantanamo, or to pressure Germany to hush up and halt legal proceedings against illegal extraordinary renditions?
Is that the kind of wheeling and dealing the world's so-called beacon of democracy engages in? If it is so, it is not just petty but pathetic.
The supposed horror of the unveiled secrets does not begin to compare to the public and documented horrors of aerial bombing, the near-daily use of which has left the US' reputation tarnished and tattered in a way no piece of paper could hope to achieve.
What the data dump offers is a compelling view of the world as seen from Foggy Bottom, the State Department's home base in Washington. It's a Manichean view that reduces planet Earth to a giant game board of friends and enemies, informants and subjects.
Historians know well that the US has never been half as idealistic as it likes to see itself; it takes a certain amount of over-arching ego and sustained brutality to seize and secure a continental land mass, however sparsely populated it might have been when the great American experiment got started.
But the US was, and still is, in a much-diminished sense, a beacon for immigrants fleeing oppression or simply seeking economic opportunity. The spirit invoked by the Statue of Liberty, embracing the poor and huddled masses, still shines brighter than all the lights in New York City, but somewhere during the transition from an ordinary nation to an over-extended military power, the US lost touch with its better angels and set itself on the road to being the new Rome.
In doing so, the US lost what high moral ground it might have possessed after liberating Europe from Nazism and got stuck in a series of murky quagmires and armed interventions that have lead to the slippery slope it treads today.
There's a temptation to date the fork in the road to the back room machinations in 2000 that put George W. Bush in the White House, though the roots of imperial rot go back much further, back to bombs over Belgrade, bombs over Hanoi, bombs over Pyongyang and of course, back to the terrible juncture when the US, victory almost at hand, needlessly dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
The massive leak of documents, only a portion of which is already in plain view, may one day be seen as a moment in Uncle Sam's imperial history akin to the denouement in the Hollywood classic, The Wizard of Oz, when little dog Toto pulls back the curtain on the control room, revealing that the Wizard is not only less omniscient and powerful than was previously believed, but is something of a sham.
The author is a visiting fellow in the East Asia Program, Cornell University, New York.
CNN and Wikileaks Julian Assange
16 December 2010 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is granted bail
Mr Assange is expected to be freed in the next hour after his paperwork is completed
The founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been granted conditional bail by a judge.
The 39-year-old was granted bail in London earlier this week but prosecutors objected to the decision and he remained in jail.
The Australian is fighting extradition to Sweden over sex charges involving two women. He denies the allegations.
His supporters have offered to put up a surety of £240,000 to guarantee he surrenders to bail.
The appeal was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London by Mr Justice Ouseley.
Earlier the judge made a ruling banning the use of Twitter to give a blow-by-blow account of Thursday's proceedings.
The ruling was made just before 1300 GMT but it is understood it may take up an hour to process his release paperwork.
'Politically motivated'
Mr Assange has received the backing of a number of high-profile supporters including human rights campaigners Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger, and film director Ken Loach.
Wikileaks has published hundreds of sensitive American diplomatic cables, details of which have appeared in the Guardian in the UK and several other newspapers around the world.
Mr Assange's supporters claim the charges are politically motivated He has come under criticism in the US where former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said he should be hunted down like the al-Qaeda leadership.
Mr Assange argues the allegations against him are politically motivated and designed to take attention away from the material appearing on Wikileaks.
He is accused of having unprotected sex with a woman, identified only as Miss A, when she insisted he use a condom.
He is also accused of having unprotected sex with another woman, Miss W, while she was asleep.
Mr Assange is expected to be freed in the next hour after his paperwork is completed
The founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been granted conditional bail by a judge.
The 39-year-old was granted bail in London earlier this week but prosecutors objected to the decision and he remained in jail.
The Australian is fighting extradition to Sweden over sex charges involving two women. He denies the allegations.
His supporters have offered to put up a surety of £240,000 to guarantee he surrenders to bail.
The appeal was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London by Mr Justice Ouseley.
Earlier the judge made a ruling banning the use of Twitter to give a blow-by-blow account of Thursday's proceedings.
The ruling was made just before 1300 GMT but it is understood it may take up an hour to process his release paperwork.
'Politically motivated'
Mr Assange has received the backing of a number of high-profile supporters including human rights campaigners Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger, and film director Ken Loach.
Wikileaks has published hundreds of sensitive American diplomatic cables, details of which have appeared in the Guardian in the UK and several other newspapers around the world.
Mr Assange's supporters claim the charges are politically motivated He has come under criticism in the US where former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said he should be hunted down like the al-Qaeda leadership.
Mr Assange argues the allegations against him are politically motivated and designed to take attention away from the material appearing on Wikileaks.
He is accused of having unprotected sex with a woman, identified only as Miss A, when she insisted he use a condom.
He is also accused of having unprotected sex with another woman, Miss W, while she was asleep.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Assange and the Little Twist of Perception
Even with the growing support for Julian Assange, it is interesting to note that this is mostly because he's a white guy. There is far more interest in him being either gaoled or freed than there is interest in bringing to judgement the monsters, the Great Molestors, employed by America to perform its systematic and ethnically focused tortures...and the vicious bombing of innocent peoples family homes...even though these continue today.
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