Wikileaks Under Banking Embargo

No shit, Savage.

That's what I meant, because that's what I took the suggestion to mean: just start mass arresting US citizens to attack our government.

edited 2nd Nov '11 4:47:17 AM by USAF721

Stirring up bad feelings is exactly what's supposed to happen. That's ideally what gets the US to stop doing this shit.

Unfortunately we don't have any evidence as to whether they have stopped doing this shit.

@Black Humor

Dude, in case you hadn't noticed, people have always had bad feelings against the US, even long before Wikileaks existed. The folks in charge didn't care then, and they don't care now. All they think is "Hey, the whole world hates us! So, you know, business as usual. Big effin' deal. Intern, where's my coffee?"

This kind of goes back to the hippie daydream theory that all it takes to get politicians to be good boys and girls is to waggle your finger at them.

edited 2nd Nov '11 8:57:55 AM by Jeysie

its because the US won't play fair. Most of the most powerful corporation in the US and they have places in everyone's else country instead of their own -yes I am strongly against globalization- and the fact that we want every country to be like us, and we think we're the hero", and we come up with really useless shit...damn Axis Powers Hetalia has America pegged.

While I'm not defending the companies, I could also point out that the other countries are also the ones who allowed them there, and it would help immensely if they didn't.

I mean, my girlfriend actually likes a lot of the American companies where she is in Australia, and can't understand why I find the thought that there's so many US-based stores there so depressing/weird. They even love Walmart over there, for pity's sake.

edited 2nd Nov '11 9:13:01 AM by Jeysie

speaking of Valmart (lol trying to sound German)

anyway Turbo-Capitalism (as Edward Luttwak called it) is like playing a game of pinball on a table tilting to oneside.

I strongly disagree that we should suppress information about ongoing war crimes until the particular war in question is over.

While releasing it may put soldiers lives at risk, not releasing it could very well put civilians lives at risk by enabling those types of crimes to continue unabated, enforcing the sense that soldiers are above the law.

Releasing it allows the people of the country behind those acts to put pressure on their governments to stop it, and to bring those responsible to justice. This not only serves to put a stop to ongoing acts (like the leaks about Guantanamo Bay did), but to help stop future acts from occurring because the military brass knows that a PR shit storm is brewing, and so they need to keep their people in line.

I am fully convinced that without the Guantanamo Bay leaks, the vile treatment of prisoners there would have continued this day, with no one being the wiser. (I'm aware that Wikileaks was not behind the leaks for that particular instance, but I'm using it as an example where public outrage about an ongoing act caused positive change).

edited 2nd Nov '11 11:00:44 AM by Meeble

What planet do you live on, exactly?

If you could isolate the documents on the war crimes and censor most things about intelligence and such... which would be rather difficult, but probably doable... then sure.

WikiLeaks didn't bother to do so in any effective manner.

The leaks on Guantanamo Bay didn't do anything to really pressure the US Government anymore than it already did. All it did was tell us what we already knew.

AKA more useless information that was late to the party.

And you would be wrong, because:

• 1) Guantanamo Bay is still open.
• 2) I'm almost positive we're still doing stupid shit there.

So, yeah, good luck with that belief.

Being strongly against globalization is a pretty dumb idea, IMO.

Edit: Whoops, that's off-topic.

edited 2nd Nov '11 6:34:51 PM by Ultrayellow

You can always start a topic for that.

Also I disagree with Wikileaks being characterised as reckless with the documents they obtained. They didn't release it themselves, nor did they do the vetting themselves. They in fact even offered the CIA to vet the documents before release. In the end, it was just given to journalists to vet. So no matter how crazy Assange is, he's just a freedom of information hacker kind of guy, but he's the face of Wikileaks and that's all. In fact, I don't even know why everyone is focusing so hard on him, he seems like some kind of patsy. He was just a fundraiser stationed in USA before.

Because it's always easier to focus on a person than on something less concrete. It's why spokesmen exist.

And it's why choosing Assange was a terrible choice, because judging by him alone, Wikileaks is a despicable organization.

I think it more or less just happened because wikileaks doesn't actually have any leadership. So there's no one to counter him when he took up the mantle of "leader" of a leaderless organisation.

For better or for worse, Assange is the spokesman and effective leader of Wikileaks.

Under Assange, the Wikileaks hydra is a declared enemy of the United States. Assange has said as much; his goal is explicitly to damage American interests. Taken in that light, I don't see any reason to spout moral arguments for or against him; clearly, he believes that he has a personal casus belli and a means to fight back; furthermore, he has no legal obligation to the United States, under existing United Kingdom or Australian law, not to release truthful information that will lead to our people's deaths. He doesn't owe us anything.

The banks, meanwhile, have every right to refuse to do business with him, or by extension Wikileaks. They're private organizations, they can do what they want.