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Thread: The Wikileaks collection

  1. #321
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Guilt by association may justify more investigation, but it's not conclusive.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    Guilt by association may justify more investigation, but it's not conclusive.
    You are probably correct. It is more interesting why Sweden is doing this than who put these women up to it.

  3. #323
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    You are probably correct. It is more interesting why Sweden is doing this than who put these women up to it.
    You're assuming that they were put up to it.
    Perhaps they passed the Swedish polygraph criteria.
    If a prostitute is raped, is it any less of a crime?
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdamG View Post
    You're assuming that they were put up to it.
    Perhaps they passed the Swedish polygraph criteria.
    If a prostitute is raped, is it any less of a crime?
    This is just too weird.

    One minute it is said that there was a condom malfunction... the next this:

    Assange's London attorney, Mark Stephens, told AOL News today that Swedish prosecutors told him that Assange is wanted not for allegations of rape, as previously reported, but for something called "sex by surprise," which he said involves a fine of 5,000 kronor or about $715
    Only in Sweden, it seems.

  5. #325
    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdamG View Post
    You're assuming that they were put up to it.
    Perhaps they passed the Swedish polygraph criteria.
    If a prostitute is raped, is it any less of a crime?
    Apparently, the complainant says they had consensual sex once with condom and a second time without condom. The complaint is based on the second time, with complainant asserting that she didn't consent to sex sans condom. The prosecutor is, supposedly, a radical feminist. Much as I would like to see strong action taken against Assange, the best I expect from this incident is schadenfreude. (Sorry, I don't recall the news source for the above information, but it should pop up in a Google search.)
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    Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
    Apparently, the complainant says they had consensual sex once with condom and a second time without condom. The complaint is based on the second time, with complainant asserting that she didn't consent to sex sans condom. The prosecutor is, supposedly, a radical feminist. Much as I would like to see strong action taken against Assange, the best I expect from this incident is schadenfreude. (Sorry, I don't recall the news source for the above information, but it should pop up in a Google search.)
    A second time? Wow, I used to be able to do that...

  7. #327
    Council Member Pete's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdamG View Post
    Perhaps they passed the Swedish polygraph criteria.
    I think the M4 Carbines made by Colt most likely passed the test, even though they were probably pretty nervous about their Minutes of Angle beforehand.

  8. #328
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    Default Show 'em what they've won johnny!

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  9. #329
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    Default Makes you think...

    This WikiLeaks business has caused me to take stock of a lot of my position on a range of issues.

    George Bush has repeatedly admitted that he authorised "torture" (waterboarding) but that seems to be OK. No calls from senators, congressmen and the main stream media for his prosecution.

    Then we have some creepy sort of guy who gets handed a flash drive with 250,000 items of State Department correspondence some of which is classified secret (but none top secret) and starts to "leak" them slowly on the internet and hitherto thought to be sane senators, congressmen and members of the main stream media go ballistic, calling for assassination, contract hits, drone strikes and the like. The mind boggles.

    As one US journo has said "WikiLeaks brings out the worst in U.S.". I remain a fascinated observer.

  10. #330
    Council Member Hacksaw's Avatar
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    Default In Re: JMA

    It appears you are under the delusion that our elected officials are "sane"

    I can guarantee that they are not, as a rule, although some are very good friends. The fact is that.... not unlike China, Afghanistan, Iran or any other place on earth that we as a general rule take great exception to... much if not all commentary from capital hill is meant for domestic consumption - and by domestic I mean their specific district.

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  11. #331
    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    This WikiLeaks business has caused me to take stock of a lot of my position on a range of issues.

    George Bush has repeatedly admitted that he authorized "torture" (waterboarding) but that seems to be OK. No calls from senators, congressmen and the main stream media for his prosecution.

    Then we have some creepy sort of guy who gets handed a flash drive with 250,000 items of State Department correspondence some of which is classified secret (but none top secret) and starts to "leak" them slowly on the internet and hitherto thought to be sane senators, congressmen and members of the main stream media go ballistic, calling for assassination, contract hits, drone strikes and the like. The mind boggles.

    As one US journo has said "WikiLeaks brings out the worst in U.S.". I remain a fascinated observer.
    Not sure what the point is here. A president is advised by his lawyers and staff that an action is a legal interrogation technique and gains his authorization to employ it in good faith reliance, vs. a man who knowingly violates the law in publishing classified information with the intent of damaging the state whose information he is releasing.

    The whole "secret" vs "Top Secret" is a red herring; as it is a violation to release "Confidential" or "Official Use Only" material as well.

    No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.
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  12. #332
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    but for something called "sex by surprise,"


    Is there any other sort?

    Seriously, while I pride myself as someone wedded to rational discourse and the suppression of emotion for the purpose of objectivity, the mere visage and demeanour of Mr Assange brings out a very nasty side of me.

    On the kinder side I have no problem with him going to jail for a very long time, for any reason, because of the utterly self-serving and unnecessary damage he has done. I have no ethical problem with "fitting him up," because my policy is always ethical. My Ends always justify My Means.

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  13. #333
    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    ...

    No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.
    Exactly.
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  14. #334
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    She probably forced him to endure a political monologue before they hopped in the sack. He could counter-sue for emotional battery.

    The story began on August 11 this year, when Assange arrived in Stockholm.

    He had been invited to be the key speaker at a seminar on ‘war and the role of the media’, #organised by the #centre-Left Brotherhood Movement.

    His point of contact was a female party official, whom we shall refer to as Sarah (her identity must be #protected because of the ongoing legal proceedings).

    An attractive blonde, Sarah was already a well-known ‘radical feminist’. In her 30s, she had travelled the world following various fashionable causes.

    While a research assistant at a local university she had not only been the protegee of a militant feminist #academic, but held the post of ‘campus sexual equity officer’. Fighting male discrimination in all forms, including sexual harassment, was her forte.
    DO take the time to look at the two photos of the complainants - the Daily Mail outdoes itself with irrelevant journalism (do pixilated photos showing nothing enhance the article?): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz17REgMueI
    Last edited by Ken White; 12-07-2010 at 05:11 PM. Reason: Remove unnecessary bold type.
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  15. #335
    Council Member Sargent's Avatar
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    Default Waterboarding is not moral courage

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.
    I'm sorry, but I don't see how being willing to torture one's prisoners constitutes "moral courage." In fact, it would be the opposite action, to restrain from such behavior, that would be courageous, because the impulse would be to do anything to get information one thought was important. And so, it is more proper to say that moral courage is a Marine Lieutenant jumping in between an Iraqi prisoner and the Iraqi soldiers, the latter of whom are trying to beat the detainee to death.

    While the measures may have been deemed legal, the recourse to such acts of coercion was neither moral nor courageous. And into the calculus of lives lost and saved, you must add the number of new terrorists created because of such actions. How many American soldiers and Marines lost their lives to enemies who joined the fray because of this brutal course? To what extent were the objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan harmed by this stain upon the American reputation?

    As for Assange, the situation is what we make of it. But if the information is of such importance that its release will put folks in danger than we ought to pin a medal on the soldier who leaked it because he's alerted the apparatus to the fact that it is not properly safeguarding our secrets. If such sensitive information is susceptible to the form theft utilized then we are well and truly doomed, Assange and WikiLeaks notwithstanding.

  16. #336
    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sargent View Post
    I'm sorry, but I don't see how being willing to torture one's prisoners constitutes "moral courage." ...
    At the time, there was reason to believe additional attacks were immanent, and that we had custody of people with sufficient knowledge of them that we would be able to thwart them. There were two moral principles in conflict: a. Torture is morally wrong. b. The President is responsible for protecting the citizens against attacks.

    When confronted with conflicting moral principles, the first step of moral behavior is determining which violation is the greater evil. Moral courage consists of acting to prevent that evil, knowing that one is committing a lesser evil, and accepting the consequences of that act. To take an example from another era, Dr. M. L. King chose a course of action that would highlight the denial of civil rights to a large group of citizens. He did so in the knowledge that he would be violating the prevailing laws, spent time in jail for that violation, and, to my knowledge, never complained about it.

    Mr. Bush chose to authorize harsh interrogations, knowing that some would characterize the methods as torture, in the belief it was necessary to prevent the murder of civilians in the US and abroad. He choses the lesser evil, and responsibility for it, in order to prevent the greater evil. That is moral courage.

    Before you respond, place yourself in his position and consider the alternative: "Yes, they murdered a lot of people, and we could have forced this guy to give up the information to stop that, but at least we didn't make anyone uncomfortable."
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  17. #337
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    Not sure what the point is here. A president is advised by his lawyers and staff that an action is a legal interrogation technique and gains his authorization to employ it in good faith reliance, vs. a man who knowingly violates the law in publishing classified information with the intent of damaging the state whose information he is releasing.

    The whole "secret" vs "Top Secret" is a red herring; as it is a violation to release "Confidential" or "Official Use Only" material as well.

    No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.
    Bob I have some problems with your take.
    Firstly I worry about the lawyers and staff that are appointees of the President. Some regimes are apt to appoint those who are going to give the advice their masters want to hear. I am British and watching the iterations of the advice that Lord Goldsmith went through until PM Blair got the answer he wanted, re the legality of invading Iraq did not inspire confidence. I have even less confidence in the impartiality of US Presidential appointees and in President Bush’s in particular. Had he gone to an impartial civil rights lawyer I suspect he would have got rather different advice.

    The protected information is not very secure if it is available to about one percent of the population and as Wikileaks is not American what law have they broken by releasing some low grade tittle-tattle? Assange is a convenient scapegoat but is not Wikileaks. As to lives lost or put at risk I wholeheartedly agree there is no contest between a slightly embarrassing leak and the damage done by the Bush administration in destroying decades of hard fought gains in demonising the use of torture to the current situation where every sadistic despot just plays the ‘terror threat’ get out jail free card.

    Bob I usually think you write a lot of good sense but think you are long way off the mark here.

  18. #338
    Council Member Sargent's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
    At the time, there was reason to believe additional attacks were immanent, and that we had custody of people with sufficient knowledge of them that we would be able to thwart them. There were two moral principles in conflict: a. Torture is morally wrong. b. The President is responsible for protecting the citizens against attacks.

    When confronted with conflicting moral principles, the first step of moral behavior is determining which violation is the greater evil. Moral courage consists of acting to prevent that evil, knowing that one is committing a lesser evil, and accepting the consequences of that act. To take an example from another era, Dr. M. L. King chose a course of action that would highlight the denial of civil rights to a large group of citizens. He did so in the knowledge that he would be violating the prevailing laws, spent time in jail for that violation, and, to my knowledge, never complained about it.

    Mr. Bush chose to authorize harsh interrogations, knowing that some would characterize the methods as torture, in the belief it was necessary to prevent the murder of civilians in the US and abroad. He choses the lesser evil, and responsibility for it, in order to prevent the greater evil. That is moral courage.

    Before you respond, place yourself in his position and consider the alternative: "Yes, they murdered a lot of people, and we could have forced this guy to give up the information to stop that, but at least we didn't make anyone uncomfortable."

    You are confusing moral relativism with courage.

    Moral courage is doing what it right, even when there is a cost, to you personally. MLK put his own liberty at risk, accepted that his actions were going to be found illegal in many cases, and took the consequences. That is not what Bush did, not at all. The expedient solution is never moral courage. The ends do not justify the means. The road to hell and all that...

    Moral courage on Bush's part would have been to stand before the American people and say, "I will not sacrifice our principles, the values that this country stands for, to achieve an easy solution. We may face danger, but we will remain the country we were meant to be. If that means I will not be re-elected, I will accept that consequence." That's courage. And that would have been a message heard round the world and would have done more to protect the public than any harsh interrogation technique.

    And by the way, none of your argument takes into account the fact that all good evidence is on the side of torture and harsh interrogations being the worst possible way to get good intelligence from captives. No, sorry, there was nothing courageous in a bunch of overprivileged executives playing cowboy -- I'm thinking Rumsfeld's contemptuous commentary regarding the difficulty in being forced to stand for hours at a time because, after all, he stood at his Churchill desk in his office.

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  19. #339
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    I pretty much agree with the last two posts. That is not to condone the actions of a certain little prick. It concerns our reactions to those actions.

    My first reaction to this line by Bob:

    No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information.
    was that it appears to be based on assumptions, since no one knows.

    If we flip those assumptions the line could read as follows:

    No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information.

    I’m not saying I make these flipped assumptions (I don’t). My point is that assumptions such as these lead to loaded and primed statements and questions that may lead us down a path we should perhaps not be going down.
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  20. #340
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    "Torture" is what waterboarding is called now. That is the current legal interp, so fine, I'll go with that. While I attended the Army SERE school at Ft Bragg and did not have to endure waterboarding personally, the Navy school did it as a matter of course to our own people as training to help them prepare for situations where they might have to deal with real torture. When Bush made his decision, waterboarding was a training tool. The lawyers believed it to be legal. A president has to make hard decisions, and I doubt this was really that hard of a decision in the big scheme of things under the perspectives, legal and otherwise, that waterboarding was held in at that time.

    Now, after the fact, it has been deemed to be "torture." I'm not a big Bush defender, but I won't bash anyone for not playing by rules that haven't been written yet. Again, waterboarding was a standard training tool for US service members in SERE and deemed as legal by the experts. This is not an issue, this is not news. Now, if the President had been told it was Illegal and gone on and ordered it anyway, then it would be news.
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