Well, humans.
The truth is always messy, it's much more pleasant to discuss how it should be.
Agreed. The quote which jumped out at me:Originally Posted by davidoff
http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.co...+Generalist%29The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.
What I find most surprising and shocking from the whole incident is that any diplomatic service could be so creative, expressive and entertaining in their reporting. Using metaphors like "Robin to Batman" in official reporting is exactly what I never would have expected.
'...the gods of war are capricious, and boldness often brings better results than reason would predict.'
Donald Kagan
Well, humans.
The truth is always messy, it's much more pleasant to discuss how it should be.
For the intel purists, nobody collects intelligence. Tech systems collect data and humans (incl diplomats) collect information. Analysts produce intelligence.
Foreign Service Officers collect political and economic information that analysts then transform into finished intelligence. That is the function of diplomatic missions.
In fact, there are even rules of engagement on how we do it. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 lays them out. http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/ins...s/9_1_1961.pdf Art 3d establishes the collection mission. Art 9 defines PNG. When you read or hear about someone being declared persona non grata for activities not in keeping with their diplomatic status, that means that they have stepped over the line. (Although there are occasional ### for tat expulsions (what's a tat?)) There are also provisions for the safeguarding and inviolability of diplomatic missions and communications.
I have not read the tasker on biometric data, so I won't comment on its rationale. I can assure you, however, that my likeness is/was on file in the data bases of numerous foreign countries.
The word itself is funny. intelligence = Geheimdienstinformationen (secret service information) in German.
I wonder why English uses the word "intelligence" with many meanings?
My current Wikileaks Top 10 list
Ten shocking, never-before-imagined revelations I’ve learned so far from Wikileaks:
10. Arab leaders don’t trust Iran (and vice-versa).
9. Israeli leaders don’t trust the Arabs (and vice-versa).
8. The North Korean situation is complicated.
7. Yemen likes foreign aid, and sometimes lies.
6. The British royal family aren’t the smartest folks on the planet.
5. Robert Mugabe wants to hold on to power in Zimbabwe.
4. Brazil is an emerging, robust, ambitious democracy
3. Diplomats sometimes *gasp* collect information on other governments.
2. US officials are sometimes clever, sometimes less so, and generally appear to be much like officials everywhere else.
...and, the number one Wikileaks revelation:
1. Just because it’s classified doesn’t mean it's true.
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
My guess is that the British Army started using the term in the late 19th century, although earlier uses of the term with that connotation can probably be found.
Yes, it was something they identified as being sorely lacking at that time...
Charlie Rose
A handful of worthwhile videos on the Wikileaks matter:
WikiLeaks with guest host Jon Meacham
Admiral Dennis Blair on WikiLeaks
Rick Stengel (Time magazine) on WikiLeaks
Here's why MI6 hates WikiLeaks
The UK Daily Mail is hardly an anti-establishment newspaper and it takes something for one of their columnists to write such a column:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz16u3aXapl
Such choice sentences as:Ending with:Too secret to be discussed: that’s the root problem of ‘intelligence’. It’s too easy for them to conceal their failings.
This is why WikiLeaks is useful. There’s a conspiracy of silence over what’s going on in Afghanistan, except when our military chiefs want to leak details of successful SAS attacks on the Taliban.Meanwhile, MI6 wheels a Pakistani conman posing as a Taliban commander into President Karzai’s office for peace talks. We’re being lied to. Count on it. Bring it on, WikiLeaks!
davidbfpo
Wait a minute -- Wilf is an intelligent guy and he served in the British Army. To give you a bit of credit, though, he has admitted in our marksmanship threads that when he was in the Royal Green Jackets he couldn't hit a barn even if he fired his rifle while he was inside of it.
WikiLeaks just made the world more repressive
SCOTT GILMORE
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010 5:00AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010 7:35AM EST
I am an aid worker, the kind who rants about transparency, open governments and reforming the United Nations. But, I used to be a diplomat and I used to write secret cables, like the ones being released by WikiLeaks. And I said some very frank and nasty things in those cables.
Why? I was posted to Jakarta. My job was to find out as much as I could about the human rights abuses being committed by the Indonesian military, and to help apply whatever pressure we could to make them stop. I wrote cables back to Ottawa that would raise the hair on the back of your neck, describing abuses that still make me sick years later. These cables gave the Canadian government the ammunition it needed to lean heavily on the Indonesian leadership at the UN and at summits like APEC.
...
It’s not just the militant activist in Guelph, Ont., reading the cables. It’s the military dictatorships and the secret police in capitals all around the world. In the days and weeks ahead, people who dared to share information with U.S. diplomats will be rounded up. And thousands more who may have been willing to pass on pictures of tortured bodies will keep them in the desk drawer instead.
Ironically, WikiLeaks is inflicting the same collateral damage it so loudly abhors. The “Cablegate” release is not a real victory for a more open world. It will lead to a more closed world, where repressive governments will be more free to commit atrocities against their own people and the people who try to stop them will have even less information to help prevent this....
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
Wait a minute -- Wilf is an intelligent guy and he served in the British Army. To give you a bit of credit, though, he has admitted in our marksmanship threads that when he was in the Royal Green Jackets he couldn't hit a barn even if he fired his rifle while he was inside of it.(OK as it seems you took me seriously, I'll use one of these.)
Look Pete while on my fathers side they departed mud island in 1793, my mother was first generation to be born outside Scotland. Still kith-and-kin so to speak.
The British soldier is outstanding and even those from fish-and-chip units are good by comparative international standards. As to the quality of their generals its all a bit like flipping a coin. The Brits have had as many military disasters in the past as glorious victories. This says much about the hit and miss approach of the generals (not to mention the sheer arrogance).
If you want to find out the good in the Brit military system (of which there is much) better to go dig for it yourself... meaning don't let them blow their own trumpet (as the officers are prone to terrible fabrication).
Last edited by JMA; 12-02-2010 at 07:42 AM.
Nah...
The system is broken. Everything is negotiable and if it suits a blind eye is turned to human rights excesses. More of the same is not doing much to advance global human rights. Gilmore from "little" Canada was man enough to take on Indonesia in terms of human rights violations... but who has the balls to take on China for their human rights abuses in Tibet or Russia for its human rights abuses in Chechnya. Countries and their diplomats can delude themselves but the 20-30 something generation see right through the hypocrisy.
OK, so this is what I see.
The appointment of ambassadors on the basis of political allegiance or as a thank-you for past services rendered to the present President and his party does little for the quality of ambassadorial assessments of local situations.
Reading the crap that is generated by supposedly professional diplomats leads me to believe that budget cuts at the State Department of 25% or more would do no harm and assist to work down the deficit.
Two all time favorite quotes from Richard Kneip, U.S. ambassador to Singapore (1978-1980):
"You mean there are two Koreas?"
"What's Islam?"
I defy Wikileaks to find anything more embarrassing...
Now if its getting a little embarrassing for the US due to Wikileaks spare a thought for that other Keystone Cops like organisation across the pond... MI6.
These are the guys who introduced a high-powered and high-ranking Taliban leader to negotiations with Karzai and NATO who turned out to be an impostor and has now run off with GBP 600,000.
Was it not Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who based on stunning levels of ineptitude and incompetence introduced a bill to abolish the other half of the Keystone Cops, the CIA?
I still think the main revelation in wikileaks is that American diplomats have the same TIME magazine-level notions in private that they seem to have in public. Its tragic and comic at the same time.
It IS interesting to learn that ambassador Patterson (the anti-Christ in ISI propaganda) was willing to discuss selling Brahmdagh Bugti to Pakistan in exchange for Baradar (Though luckily for Bugti, they may not have him available to sell, since they seem to have as little influence over their friends in Kabul as they do in Islamabad).
It also seems that the American diplomats in Islamabad fully understand and sympathize with GHQ's concerns and priorities. Probably because they think they would have the same zero-sum notions of Indian threat and associated priorities if they happened to be Pakistani. And even in their secret cables, they do not blame ISI for every problem or for all the criticism they get in Pakistan. America comes off looking positively saintly in these cables (naive and a soft touch, but saintly)..
omarali50:
I have a question. We all know how stupid the US elites are to swallow the GHQ nonsense, latest evidence being the leaks you are citing (I am taking your word for the content since I haven't read them). But since it takes two, how charming can the Pakistani elites be when they really turn it on? Do those guys practice and exchange tips on how to put one over on the Yankees? This is a serious question (sort of). Do they practice?
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
A step-grandfather of mine was in the 17th London from 1915 to 1919. His battalion was a Rifle unit -- its cap badge resembled that of Rifle Brigade and included the campaign honor of "South Africa" on it. If you are unsure what that campaign was all about it would be better for you to go dig it for yourself. Remember what they say, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Put it to Sleep
Funny.
I actually have a great deal of respect for his commitment to his cause, not that I agree with it (or with his personal issues).
But any intelligent opponent has to recognize that the more controversy generated, the more power we give him. Kill him, arrest him, and he and his cause are martyred beyond limits drawing endless die-hard followers.
Better to recognize that he is the name/face of a movement/cause, and deal with competent counter-measures to that cause.
The old time crap of "round up the regular (internal) suspects" (alcohol, etc...), does no good if the real threat comes from a hack-savvy technocrat or very smart idealist. The last thing you want to do is martyr a symbolic idealist, creating hundreds more.
Let him do his thing, but control your thing. The outward response: Yeah, whatever. Everybody already knows this stuff. Big deal.
This from a guy who has probably has some skin in this game.
Steve
PS: One was just written up in the Post that breathed directly down my neck....
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks