Some links (3rd edition)

In Roman times, Roman soldiers sometimes were not paid. So they would go on a rampage looting the countryside, collecting their wages directly from the local population. That’s what the U.S. government has turned into: disorganized crime, operating out of control.

– J. Orlin Grabbe

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don’t know.

– Donald Rumsfeld

WikiLeaks is, day-by-day, publishing hundreds of some 250,000 leaked US Government diplomatic cables.  Compiled details about the diplomatic cables reveal the true feelings of the diplomats serving in various foreign embassies and consulates.  These diplomats are only one step removed from both the US Secretary of State, and the field agents of the numerous US intelligence agencies (when diplomats and agents are not one and the same, that is).  Governments around the world continue the time-honored diplomatic tradition of saying nothing by voicing vapid opinions about the leak.  Amusingly, Israel finds the current leaks favorable, while Iran has decided they are part of a propaganda campaign orchestrated by the US Government.

Bradley Manning faces certain decades in jail over the leak, which he unwittingly confessed to.  Snippets of a chat session between the naive and unstable Manning, and media darling Adrian Lamo show how a desperate, troubled soul searching for a confidant gets taken advantage of by a spineless, worthless pile of dog shit.

Lamo, who gained notoriety after hacking the New York Times web site, is far from honoring the early “hacker” ethic of information transparency that I grew up with.  To protect his government contractor job, he’s turned into an informant of the lowest kind, preying on weak people to protect himself in light of his own weaknesses.  As it turns out, I’m not the only person who is utterly repulsed by Lamo.

With more of his own weaknesses published on WikiLeaks for all to see, Lamo pushes for prosecution of Julian Assange (the WikiLeaks leader-in-hiding).  Julian conducted an eloquent interview weeks prior to the cable leak.  It explains why the work that WikiLeaks does can (in a theoretical way) be important.  Following the cable leak, Swedish rape charges (initially brought after the Iraq war SIGACT leak, and later dropped) were renewed via Interpol.

Sarah Palin’s response to the current WikiLeaks episode displays her typical ineptitude that repulses both the average Alaskan and usually supportive Fox News reporters.  I can’t see the republicans choosing her as the 2012 presidential candidate, unless they are willing to give this coming election to ye olde incumbent.

“In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth”

–Ron Paul

This is the first time we have seen an attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency. We are shocked to find countries such as France and the United States suddenly bringing their policies on freedom of expression into line with those of China.

–Reporters Without Borders

The Wikileaks phenomenon — the existence of an organisation devoted to obtaining and publicly releasing large troves of information the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret — illustrates just how broken our secrecy classification system is. While the Obama administration has made some modest improvements to the rules governing classification of government information, both it and the Bush administration have overclassified and kept secret information that should be subject to public scrutiny and debate. As a result, the American public has had to depend on leaks to the news media and whistleblowers to know what the government is up to.

–American Civil Liberties Union

“According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.” That’s what was said on September 10, 2001 by Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  Apparently things were so out of control back then, the government’s mix-mash of accounting baloney couldn’t keep track of itself.  Just imagine what it looks like now that we’ve blindly increased “defense” spending year after year.

With a $14 trillion dollar debt, (of which the war machine consumes $600 billion per year, as much as the rest of the world combined, and growing), there is a growing perception of US Defense Spending Bringing Down An Empire. (Now, depending on who you listen to, we’re beyond bankrupt with a debt as high as $200 trillion.  That depends on how you figure in future spending and future revenues.)

Two years ago, Geraldo was in New York City, standing in front of “9/11 Was An Inside Job” protesters, representing Fox News, and calling them crazy.  Now that Obama has been in office for a while, the “Inside Job” protesters are acceptable to Fox News, Gerlado eats his words and admits that the controlled demolition of WTC Building 7 was more than just a strange coincidence.  The first question I’d ask, why exactly did the World Trade Center towers have explosives ready to blow in the first place?