wikileaks – Moe Lane

The deadly incompetence of Wikileaks.

By now, you’ve probably heard that Wikileaks managed to have over 250K classified US diplomatic dispatches released out into the digital wilds, complete with the names of what used to be informants and intelligence assets in a large number of unpleasant countries. I say ‘used to be’ because, thanks to Wikileaks, a lot of those people are going to be arrested, fined, turned, beaten, coerced, raped, tortured, imprisoned, and/or killed. Spiegel has the details of how it happened; the details can be summed up as A variety of adult children stole and disseminated information that the US State Department had officially deemed too dangerous to distribute free; and these children did so in a manner that demonstrated that the State Department was right. Seriously, the whole thing – what with the theatrical, too-complicated security arrangements; the lackadaisical treatment of the original information; the pointless grudge matches; and of course the lack of self-control – reads like a demented high school clique fight. Except that those usually don’t end with SAVAK goons raping and murdering dissidents in underground interrogation rooms.

Just to remind potential financial supporters of Wikileaks about what their money is likely to be funding.

Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading The deadly incompetence of Wikileaks.

#rsrh Obama throws PJ Crowley under bus.

Apparently, Crowley – who until quite recently was a State Department guy – was too-publicly critical over the Pentagon’s treatment of Bradley Manning, who is of course locked up and awaiting trial on numerous espionage and breach of security charges. This will no doubt enrage the Online Left, who has championed Manning’s cause ever since an unfortunate wisecrack of Manning’s regarding how easy it’d be for him to commit suicide while in jail resulted in Manning being put under a Prevention of Injury order and being required to sleep naked until a couple of days ago. They’re all quite upset about this over on the Left side of the ‘sphere, really*.

I could make a comment that perhaps the Online Left should be more worried about the Afghans that Manning put at risk, but I’m not sure that enough of what we will charitably call the Online Left’s “leading lights” really get that Afghans are actually people.

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Obama throws PJ Crowley under bus.

#rsrh QotD, Greenwald’s Guts for Garters Edition.

Via @bdomenech, from Wired’s acid-dipped and lovingly-sharpened evisceration of Glenn Greenwald over Greenwald’s rather sad attacks on Wired over the Bradley Manning story:

…while we welcome the honest views of other journalists acting in good faith, we now doubt this describes Glenn Greenwald.

To which I reply: “Doubt?” Some people need to get out more.

[Link fixed.]

…Crud. [UPDATED]

I had to pull the post that was here originally: it turns out that it was based on an article that relied on the illegal dissemination of material declared classified by the US government (the article was from a foreign paper, which gives them some cover). That’s the annoying thing about Wikileaks and other anti-American organizations; they taint everything that they touch.

Moe Lane

PS: Shoot, I don’t even feel comfortable offering hints.

[Update]: On the other hand, if the person involved is claiming that Wikileaks is publishing faked classified material, well…

New Wikileaks cable?

I’ll be honest: I hesitated to put up this link to what claims to be a Wikileaked cable regarding issues with the US/UK special relationship during the previous administration. I truly did. I have long made it clear that I take our security classification system likely, and I subscribe wholeheartedly to the notion that some things are and should be on a need-to-know basis. In a very real sense, linking to this alleged cable can be seen as a certain betrayal of trust.

But I wouldn’t link if I didn’t think that my readers should see this; so here you go. I will totally understand if you don’t want to click on through – or whether you have long-term problems with me for putting it up in the first place.

http://www.ding.net/wikileaks/234867.txt

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I had somebody who does have a security clearance look at it; that person couldn’t authenticate the cable, but I was told that the header is in a format that’s consistent with standard American classification language. So there’s that.

Assange keeps digging Wikileaks’ grave.

Accused rapist Julian Assange* continued to justify the upcoming backlash against transparency this weekend by promising to illegally release more classified government documents on the notorious site Wikileaks. These documents in particular are apparently State Department diplomatic cables: up until, oh, today, those documents were typically much more blunt and ambiguity-free than the standard State Department bumpf, mostly because nobody out there considered that anyone would be insane enough to release them even if they had access. This will likely change – quickly – now that the diplomatic corps knows that its private communications are insecure; in other words, from now on the folks in the striped-pants brigade are going to be as mealy-mouthed in private as they are in public. As Allahpundit noted above, the Left should keep this in mind when trying in the future to boost State at Defense’s expense: Assange just made that harder for you.

And I will also note that, while I will happily ding President Obama for both his wrong actions and for not living up to his own side’s previously-established standards of behavior, this line of attack by Wikileaks is made up of pure garbage designed to weaken both my country and my government. The President needs his ambassadors to know what he wants; they need to be able to tell him what he can get. So it’s stupid to not be blunt and forthright in private about matters that require a softer public touch. It’s even more stupid for Wikileaks to keep publicly attacking the USA like this.

Because when the backlash comes, it’s going to splatter.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading Assange keeps digging Wikileaks’ grave.

#rsrh Julian Assange slowly realizing his future status.

Which is to say, “screwed.”

Yes, I can tell that you’re all just as depressed as I am that the guy who gave the names of 1,800 Afghani patriots to a bunch of women-hating, gay-hating, Jew-hating, and American-hating violent terrorist scumbags is discovering that there’s a line between ‘romantic bad-boy sticking it to the Man’ and ‘to be among the enemies-general of humankind, to be dealt with as wolves are.’ And that he’s on the wrong side of it. Yup, you’re all ready to weep at the unfairness of it all.

Not that I want the guy dead, or anything. Life in jail will do.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

For a given value of ‘unfortunate.’

I’m not saying that, put in a position of sufficient power and responsibility, I would initiate or sign off on a series of events that ended with Julian Assange’s head interfacing with a large-caliber bullet at supersonic velocities. I’m merely saying that, if such a thing happened and I was made aware of the gory details afterward, I suspect I wouldn’t feel obligated to forward them along to Wikileaks.