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When a leak becomes a deluge: Wikileaks’ US Embassy Cables are out

Nov 282010

Julian Assange, editor and head of Wikileaks

UK’s The Guardian is the first major newspaper out with coverage on the latest massive disclosure of information to come from whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. The first read is ominous enough, and probably quite accurate: “global diplomatic crisis”.

What is being revealed is the shady backroom deals that make up international politics and the balance of power the world over, and how the policy of nations of the world can be quite two-faced, when compared to public stances on the same international issues.

French paper Le Monde has justified its decision on participating in the disclosure by saying transparency and judgment are not incompatible, it does not mean to act irresponsibly, and this is what separates it from Wikileaks (and any allegations that Wikileaks itself is being the irresponsible one here).

By the way, austerity fails.

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Nov 232010

The new headquarters of the Anglo Irish Bank sits, mothballed, a reminder of how suddenly the Irish economy died in 2008.

As the financial crisis in the United States became a global pandemic in 2008, different countries reacted to the situation in different ways. Some of the smaller countries in the West that didn’t have pockets deep enough to keep their financial system adequately capitalized would consider severe government cuts in spending, more commonly known as austerity measures. When the public in said countries found out about the plans, people took to the streets – sometimes violently – because when you get down to it, austerity for the poor to cover the crimes of the rich isn’t going to go over well.

The most violent in nature of the protests were confined to Greece, but eventually they accepted the measures. They had little choice, as they had an IMF-shaped gun to their head, and the certainty that refusing of the international bailout – restrictions imposed on their economy and all – would have resulted in the destruction of their economy.

Another country decided to take a more “proactive” approach in dealing with the oncoming crisis. The nation of Ireland, another one of the smaller and shakier European states from an economic standpoint, decided to take on austerity measures at the onset of the crisis in 2008. A little more than two years later, they too have dragged their selves to the bailout window.

Austerity for the poor to cover the crimes of the rich doesn’t go over well

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Oct 222010

Protesters in Marseille, France, hold smoke grenades during a recent protest.

The effects of the 2008 Great Recession that have rippled out from America and circled the globe continue to be felt internationally to this day.

This past week the nation of France, especially the larger cities, has been rocked by demonstrations that are perhaps the largest and most widely supported since 1995‘s demonstrations against efforts to cut social safety-net programs.

The demonstrations from that time had a very different catalyst however. There were economic causes that sent things over the edge (planned budget cuts to social services in order to reduce France’s annual deficit as a percentage of its GDP in order to be compliant to become a Euro member nation) but there were social causes as well (attacks on women’s rights, the right to abortion, pay freezes, and a general right-wing policy that ran afoul of many of the country’s socialists and trade unions).

This year’s cause? Austerity for the poor to cover the excesses of the rich.

Spare the message, shoot the messenger

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Aug 022010

If the truth fell in a forest and nobody heard it, did it happen?

The closest thing that we are going to get to the Pentagon Papers incident of our generation, the leaking of over 90,000 documents by whistle-blowing site Wikileaks to three major news organizations around the world, has so far seemed to simultaneously caused a great deal of yawning, and a great deal of questioning of why the nearly decade-long war is allowed to continue with no real end in sight, nor any real final goal that will allow us to finally leave.

The yawning, surprisingly enough, comes from media outlets their selves who trotted out experts over the past week to address the content of the information that was leaked, and the near uniform response was along the lines of this was already known or there was nothing new added here: not addressing just how terrible that truth is, or bothering to repeat that truth one more time louder, just playing things off as this is the new business as normal, and off with life we go.

More depressing still (because the information contained within the leaked documents, “known” or not, is pretty depressing for the future war effort) is that the lead headline to evolve in the days since the leak is not the content of the leak, but how the information was leaked in the first place, and the efforts of the government to track down the source of the link and the leader of the Wikileaks site itself – letting the entire reality spelled out in plain black and white by the leaked documents to continue onward almost completely undisturbed.

The Truth-as-Reported burns down at the hands of Wikileaks

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Jul 252010

War for how much longer?

This is big. A “black eye” for how the war is being conducted, and what really is and is not being accomplished in Afghanistan doesn’t begin to come close to the 90,000 documents that Wikileaks has handed off to three major news organizations. The stories began to run tonight, and this will be an embarrassment to stretch across Presidential administrations.

Where do you even begin?

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret “black” unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

As for defense of the administration, the White House comes out swinging at Wikileaks for releasing the information…

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: “We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us.”

…though they would like you to know that a majority of this happened under the other guy’s watch…

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of “under-resourcing” under Obama’s predecessor, saying: “It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009.”

The forgotten war of the 21st century is about to become a lot less forgotten. It better, because if this isn’t enough to wake people up to the reality of the failed mission and the idea that troops don’t need to be dying there any longer, nothing will.

In the meantime, cheers to the light of truth, still being shone by those brave enough to do so.

We, the destroyers so efficient

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Jul 222010

A tide of solid oil washes ashore in Dalian, China (image from The Big Picture)

The irresistible luxuries of a life comfortable, filled with needs for wants that mere decades ago we never knew we had, continue to lead us down a path of pillaging and environmental destruction. The pace is slower than water torture in our eyes, but geologically similar to driving full-speed toward a brick wall. Recent efforts of green movements translate to tapping the breaks, but a glance at the headlines show that the other foot is still slammed on the accelerator, to the floor.

Our latest example comes from China. The northeastern Chinese port of Dalian is the sight of an unfolding environmental disaster. Explosions in two pipelines at the port on the night of the 16th triggered a major fire at first, and a spill of oil into the sea after the fact. The initial details of the story immediately bring back memories of another explosion-leading-to-disaster, that being the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the resulting Gulf of Mexico disaster. The Dalian spill is a paltry 170 square miles, whereas the Deepwater Horizon disaster is 2,500 square miles on the surface and an untold number of cubic miles when oil at varying ocean depths is taken into account.

Leaders of the world check in, freedom to protest checks out

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Jun 272010

A protesting calling card left in a shattered window in downtown Toronto

Saturday was a less than shining moment for the country of Canada and, specifically, the city of Toronto. Toronto is the site of the current G20 meeting of nations, where leaders of the 20 largest economic engines around the world gather to talk about the economy and how to maintain the comfortable sort of life that capitalism has earned us. Well that was before the 2008 economic crisis, now the meetings probably more closely resemble real-time disaster planning that may or may not be working. In any event, Toronto “won” the honor of hosting the summit – a reward I put in quotations because inevitably in seemingly every one of these summits, protesters show up and damage is done to local businesses – not to mention the increased costs of security. Canada is footing a nearly $1bn (USD) bill for this exercise in economic kumbaya.

Old fashioned dollars-and-cents issues aside with the cost, another cost to seriously consider is – as it is seemingly everywhere that real important people show up to – two things are destined to happen: small groups of very angry protesters will break things, and for the vast majority of peaceful protesters will inevitably suffer an infringement on their freedom of speech – in order to prevent the violence that is going to happen either way.

If anyone was wondering, Israel still doesn’t care what you think.

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May 312010

Israeli Defense Force troops board a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on May 31.

Since the election of a government containing the political wing of the terrorist group Hamas in 2007, Israel has put the entire territory and its population of 1.5 million on a “diet“. This diet has led to a humanitarian crisis at a slow boil in the impoverished territory. A group called the Free Gaza Movement was formed in 2008 to try and bring international attention to the non-stop blockade that Israel has put on the Gaza Strip for the crime of electing a government that Israel did not appreciate. Two ships were chartered that year and in August of 2008 sailed for Gaza with supplies – hearing aids for a special needs school. The ships made it to Gaza on the 23rd of that month without incident.

The group attempted two more sailings during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009 without success. Another attempt was made in July of 2009 and again they were diverted. Still, in all of these attempts it was mere diversion. A new sailing that was meant to reach Gaza this month has ended differently, with the shooting of unarmed civilians – as many as 19 killed as of this report, with dozens more injured. See for yourself:

Israel’s response was to spin before the video came out, saying that the civilians were ambushing their troops, and that their troops had no choice but to fire. The video is not going to help with that conclusion. Whether it be this, or walling off the entire region of the West Bank despite massive amounts of protests the world over against it, Israel has not and will continue to not care what anyone thinks.

This made in part possible by the continuous ample billions of dollars sent to Israel by the United States, Israel being one of the top recipients of aid from the U.S. since the 1970′s.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was scheduled to make a state visit to Washington on Tuesday but that has been canceled in light of the international condemnation over this attack.

For more on this story…

Gaza Flotilla Clash (wikipedia)
Israel massacres peace activists (Heathlander, a blog with more insight and many more link sources on this)
BBC story on the incident
CNN story on the incident

Looking for victory from a kindred party – if only you were still related.

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May 262010

Gordon Brown, his family, and 13 years of Labour rule depart #10 Downing Street on May 11.

On the night of May 6th the thirteen year reign of the Labour government in the United Kingdom came effectively to an end with an all-but expected triumph by the Conservative Party. Though the party only secured 305 of the needed 326 seats needed to form a government, a deal with the 3rd place Liberal Democrats five days later gave the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition a majority of 362 seats – allowing the victory of the Conservatives to progress forward, and crowning a new Prime Minister – David Cameron.

This defeat for Labour had been coming for a long time. While you could argue that the party of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was another government that saw its electoral toppling come at the hands of the worldwide recession, the fate of Labour was heavily sealed over the years when the predecessor to Mr. Brown, Tony Blair, continued to back the international policies of the increasingly unpopular American regime under George W. Bush – with opposition in the streets of the UK so long lasting against the wars they make American responses look almost timid by comparison.

Whatever the particulars – and facts, don’t let those get in the way - the meme of the triumph of the conservatives over the liberals causes Republican thinkers and hopeful individuals back in this country to think that maybe now is their time, too. If only the realization was apparent that if the UK’s Conservatives ran against the two parties in this country, they’d come out veering quite to the left of the Democrats in many respects. It’s cheering a victory of a party that you yourself would probably not vote for, assuming you’re of the mindset of a hardcore Republican (in its current 2010 form).

Smooth transition from one revolution to the next

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May 142010

A Kyrgyz riot police vehicle burns in the capital of Bishkek on April 7th.

A Kyrgyzstan riot police vehicle burns in the capital of Bishkek on April 7th.

After a series of post-election protests in Ukraine in 2004, dubbed and romanticized as the Orange Revolution, a second round of elections caused the fall of the previous ‘winner’, a pro-Russian leading candidate, and the ultimate victory for the pro-Western candidate. There were parties in the streets and all was well. (There was a rather large resentment that existed among parts of the country that were pro-Russian and they would eventually recapture the government in later elections, but let’s not let that get in the way of the overreaching positive theme).

Months later there was another romantically named revolution in a country thousands of miles to the east, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. While there will probably never be another romantic sounding name for the events that have occurred this year in the landlocked central Asian nation, what is for sure is that blood runs in the streets in another place where everything old is new again.

So which method of revolution is better?

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