Is anyone following this story? I have, and I think it is going to be a really big deal.
Any thoughts?
Let em burn
.
All part of the plan.
any ideas what it’s about? apparently the volume of documents is massive, and the contents unpleasant.
i’m guessing it’s not really about secret operations but more some very candid communications about which leaders are corrupt and which corruptible, where US interests have a toehold, etc.
and when’s it due out?
-mike
Much of it – which is part of a cache of ‘cables’ lifted by that Army SPC (E4) intel specialist who gave Wikileaks those Iraq videos and cables as well – has to do with State Department communications, especially as they pertain to our relations with friendly as well as potentially-hostile countries near Iraq or in the rest of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Supposedly, some of the dump is going to detail our support of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is a State Department-designated terrorist organization. Because we maintained a no-fly zone up in the Iraq Kurdish regions during the Hussein years after the first Gulf War, the PKK–which is working to create a separate country within lands belonging to Turkey–used that region as a base from which to operate. Of course, as well, certain Iraqi Kurds loyal to the PKK have gotten into the local government up there, and we knew it. It looks like we winked an eye at it, knowing all the while that those PKK thugs would be going into Turkey to do their dirty work.
Nowadays, with the Erdogan government in Turkey slipping more and more into the Islamo-fundamentalist sphere of influence, for many different reasons, it might be that the PKK could eventually become our new ‘we-own-those-SOBs’ cat’s paw, if we ever make the decision that Turkey’s generals just aren’t up to the task of running Erdogan and his folks out of power (the Turkish armed forces have done so more than a few times in the past) if they get too far out of hand with the ‘Islamic Republic’ stuff. Some of those cables, like those detailing our relationships with the PKK, are bound to be at least embarrassing, I have to say. And I think we’re playing with fire in at least minimally tolerating the presence of the PKK up in Iraqi Kurdish areas.
Yeah, that “lesser of two evil’s” equivocating usually dosen’t work out too well. See: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and any “adventures” the Brits. had in the last hundred years.
I don’t know. None of the prior dumps ended up being that big of a deal. They were in the news for a few days, and then gone. As far as I can tell they had about zero effect on the U.S. public with respect to support for the wars.
The potential impact is not with the American public, it is the impact on the working level diplomats that the State Dept. will work with each day. Nothing like reading someone else’s unflattering (to say the least) mail to make the next few conversations uncomfortable.
Actually BK, I think the guy was an E-2 PFC that got busted from E-4 under a UCMJ action and because of this, decided to “get even.” How is it that some low-level guy like this has access to such information that could potentially cause so many serious problems for the US Government? How did he get a top secret clearence in the first place (if he ever had one) and if he did, why did he not lose it after getting busted? After 9 years in the Marines as a grunt, perfect record, I applied for Embassy Duty. I got denied because my Wife was from Mexico = Greencard holder since 1974. And I got shot down for that. Grrrrrrrr…
I got some mixed emotions on this one and one of those is performing better background checks on dick-heads like PFC Manning. I knew a girl (US Army officer, 0-4) who was stationed at Abu Ghraib back in the day. She told me some stuff, so I asked her, “why are you telling me these things, I just met you, isnt that classified information?”
I hope it does not, but if this comes to what I fear it might, I think our military leaders/establishment might want to take a long hard look in the mirror…and revamp how they do Top Secret Background checks on not just low-level enlisted folks, but on everyone, regardless of rank and do it at least every six months.
“I think our military leaders/establishment might want to take a long hard look in the mirror…and revamp how they do Top Secret Background checks on not just low-level enlisted folks, but on everyone, regardless of rank and do it at least every six months.”
Do you know how big a backlog there already is for clearance investigations? It can take 8-10 months or longer from when your package is submitted before a final determination is rendered. If we had to do this every 6 months, we’d never do anything else.
The potential impact is not with the American public, it is the impact on the working level diplomats that the State Dept. will work with each day. Nothing like reading someone else’s unflattering (to say the least) mail to make the next few conversations uncomfortable.
Point taken, but when the Wikileaks first came out some in the media brought up the Pentagon Papers as a comparison. And, so far, they haven’t had Pentagon Paper-like effect.
I hope it does not, but if this comes to what I fear it might, I think our military leaders/establishment might want to take a long hard look in the mirror…and revamp how they do Top Secret Background checks on not just low-level enlisted folks, but on everyone, regardless of rank and do it at least every six months.
But on the other hand, I hope they don’t over-react by making the handling of classified information more onerous than it already is.
For example, I have all the USB storage drivers disabled on all my unclass machines because of one event of a USB-stick infecting a classified machine somewhere. Overkill for unclassified machines.
There are more than a few people in government that’d like to see Manning (he was either a crypto technician or somebody who needed a TSI(SCI) to handle what the cryptanalysts produced in the form of cables and such) be tried and given the death penalty if found guilty. What do you think the chances are of that happening?
The potential impact is not with the American public, it is the impact on the working level diplomats that the State Dept. will work with each day. Nothing like reading someone else’s unflattering (to say the least) mail to make the next few conversations uncomfortable.
Point taken, but when the Wikileaks first came out some in the media brought up the Pentagon Papers as a comparison. And, so far, they haven’t had Pentagon Paper-like effect.
I don’t think there’s any worry that Wikileaks releases will be pored over in detail by Joe “Attention span of a cockroach” Sixpack.
It’s not Joe Sixpack who I worry about when it comes to these document dumps. Think ‘reverse engineering,’ and ‘sources and methods’ and ‘gee, we just pissed off a bunch of allies with our gasbag “diplomatic” pronouncements.’
Valid point slowguy, I know the initial investigation is very deep and takes a long time. I think a little bit better ‘follow up’ investigations might not be a bad idea. I don’t think it is a very good idea to grant that level of clearence and never follow up again.
I think the proper response is not to clamp down on who eventually gets their hands on the records of these ‘gasbag’ pronouncements, but maybe NOT MAKING THEM and trying to act a little more professionally and ethically, so when transcripts and records do get out, you can say “see, we are acting in a professional manner” instead of a bunch of hand-waving about how the info shouldn’t have gotten out.
I read that these ‘cables’ are telegraphs that are ‘robo-signed’ as coming from the USSOS, marking it as official communication from the USA. Nice observation though. A little bit more ‘professional decorum’ might be in order after this shit goes down!! No-one these days, even at the highest levels of government should ever believe that their private communications are “Private Communications.”
I think the proper response is not to clamp down on who eventually gets their hands on the records of these ‘gasbag’ pronouncements, but maybe NOT MAKING THEM and trying to act a little more professionally and ethically, so when transcripts and records do get out, you can say “see, we are acting in a professional manner” instead of a bunch of hand-waving about how the info shouldn’t have gotten out.
Disagree. You want your lower-level State Dept. people to be able to openly speak “truth to power” without worrying about couching their language in politically correct tones. That’s a job for higher pay grades. It’s not “hand-waving.” The info really shouldn’t have gotten out. A State Dept. that cannot communicate privately is a hamstrung State Dept.
I could be wrong but I took gbot to mean that we should play in fantasy land where everyone is up front about everything, politica dont exist and we all get along because we dont do anything without telling our friends or enemies about it. Of course every country would follow suit based simply on our example.
If I misunderstood then my appologies. Im on a pumpkin pie high so anything is possible.