Moonlit_Angel, there is a massive hate campaign against Assange/Wikileaks in the US which is probably influencing people - it's pretty scary to see from this side of the pond...
Very scary indeed. Even if you disagree with what he's doing (and some valid arguments as to why he shouldn't be doing this, at least not to the extent he is), what good is the current reaction from the anti-Assange crowd going to do, really? If it's shown that he has indeed breached certain laws in relation to this issue, then let the proper authorities bring him to court and let them deal with him as necessary. Screaming at him and calling him names doesn't really solve anything.
this doesn't appear to be the case so much over here and some of the regular press are the ones actually publishing the leaks, there are news items on the televised news, not from an anti-wikileaks perspective, but just your normal news reporting... although France is starting to get vocal against wikileaks, possibly due to its strict privacy laws, i don't know...
disturbing to hear that paypal has now banned the wikileaks acount...
in contrast though, Switzerland has rejected international pressure and is still providing wikileaks with a website...
That is indeed very interesting. I may have to poke around on the Internet to see for myself the type of coverage this is getting, I'm curious to see what all others out there outside the U.S. have to say.
I could see some of our allies, like France, perhaps starting to side with us, since some of this information is likely to affect them in potentially negative ways down the line, too. And just 'cause they're our allies, as well.
Of course, they're all looking for something to feed their anti-U.S. sentiment.
Pretty hefty assumption to make, don't you think? There couldn't
possibly be any reasonable, logical arguments they could be making about this issue?
I hear those kinds of comments about demanding more government transparency very rarely.
Very rarely? I dunno, seems in the past couple years when
I check out the news there's an awful lot of stories/articles/essays about people, both Republican and Democrat, who are disillusioned with the Obama administration because they promised transparency and aren't always providing it. And then of course there were the numerous complaints about it during the Bush administration-most of which were from the left, yes, but rare they certainly were not. LOADS of people have been demanding that the government be more open for decades now, this isn't a new phenomenon.
When I do, it's usually coming from people who think the government is lying and covering up EVERYTHING (JFK, 9/11, etc.) so I don't listen to them anyways.
Usually, but not always. Some people are conspiracy-obsessed, yes, but there's others who just want some honest information about smaller matters, who understand the need for secrecy, but also understand the need for the public to know what's going on at least
some of the time.
Personally, one of the many reasons I (and probably many others) am bothered by wikileaks is because all this information is coming from a guy who isn't even an American, let alone a member of our government. He's simply a self-righteous prick. He doesn't care what happens to America because of anything he releases. He's just feeding anti-American sentiment, which I really don't think the world needs more of.
Well, as you've said in the other part I quote down below, some of the information is about other countries, too, it isn't just us that get talked about in those leaks. Self-righteous prick, well, that's personal opinion-I've no doubt he's definitely very arrogant. You'd kind of have to be, at least a little, to concoct something like this. But people could call those who are railing against this the very same thing-getting so outraged over something which may have some importance/necessity to it that we should know about.
(Also, if he's not an American, then the "traitor"/"treason" accusation's pretty well null and void, to those who've brought it up in this thread, right?)
Certainly some people will see this and be even more incensed against the U.S., but most who hold anti-American sentiment would hold it with or without these leaks. Unfortunately, not everyone will like us. It sucks, but this is something we need to learn to deal with.
Which brings me to my other point, that this actually DOES bother many other countries, particularly in the Middle-East. Now we know that countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya don't want a nuclear Iran just as much as we do, and even support pre-emptive strikes if it comes to it. I'm sure they're all REAL happy with us now that Iran now knows this! Somebody tell me why the hell this information needed to be leaked? It's certainly reassuring for us, but now diplomatic relations all across the middle-east are going to suffer. Way to go jackass!
Because they were just peachy before this, right? If Iran didn't know before these leaks that other parts of the world, areas near them included, weren't thrilled about the possibility of them becoming nuclear, then they're incredibly naive, if not altogether stupid. Which I don't think they are. I doubt that news was any sort of big secret, and if it was, if it didn't get exposed this way, I guarantee you it would've been exposed in some other form eventually.
If anything, the release of such information will, like you said, be reassuring for us, because now that we know for sure there's areas in the Middle East that we could possibly get to side with us on that issue, we can begin to work with them and put more pressure on Iran to back off the idea. And it'd be concrete proof to some that not everyone in that part of the world is excited about the idea of blowing us up as well, which, if we're going to work on improving our relations with that part of the world, which God knows we need to do, that's a very good place to start.
But to say this will only worsen the situation there, well, quite frankly, I fail to see how it could truly get much worse than it already is.
Headache does also raise an excellent point about the U.S. government failing in their security measures. How ironic that since 9/11 our mantra's been, "More security, more security!!!!", only for the government to...lack it when needed. If anything, I'd say that's probably the most unsettling revelation thus far about this whole mess, that our government, as well as other countries' governments,
don't know how to properly protect the stuff that needs to be protected.
Angela