Wikileaks diplomatic cables, just a bunch of petty useless information

[no limit]

US Tax Payers Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops

WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists

WikiLeaks cables: Pope wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of EU

WikiLeaks: America plays 'Let's Make a Deal' with foreign governments over Guantanamo prisoners

Wikileaks reveal near catastrophe with Libya’s Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)

WikiLeaks: Yemen radioactive security so poor, material could fall into wrong hands

WikiLeaks: How U.S. tried to stop Spain's torture probe


These are just the ones of the top of my head. Please feel free to add links to other useless petty gossip these leaks revealed. Because we as Americans simply don't give a shit that our tax dollars are going to sex slaves.

[arcane1]

1. Excellent post! n/t

[Poll_Blind]

2. WikiLeaks cables: US renegs on deal to help clean up area in hydrogen bomb accident (Spain)

Wikileaks: USA has no interest in Palomares. The actual cable is here and it sheds a bit more light.

Hat-tip to rainbow4321 who posted this thread on DU about it.

PB

[no limit]

6. Thanks!

[struggle4progress]

9. How safe is Palomares after its nuclear accident? (NYT via Green Change 2008)

Spanish Town Struggles to Forget Its Moment on the Brink of a Nuclear Cataclysm
Paul Geitner | New York Times | 09.12.2008
... A year ago, the United States agreed to pay $2 million for two more years of “technical assistance,” according to the Spanish newspaper El País ... http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=3228

US ends Palomares nuclear cleanup payments
By admin on Tuesday, August 24, 2010
El Pais has discovered that the US government will not continue to pay for cleanup efforts or continuing blood tests for the 1,500 people who live in Palomares ... http://www.davidjackson.info/2010/us-ends-palomares-nuclear-cleanup-payments.htm

Looks to me like El País has been covering this and Wikileaks really hasn't told us anything new

[Poll_Blind]

13. The cables reveal there is a report which neither Spain nor the US wants to get out about the...

...state of the site regarding contamination. That, at least, the Spanish government is interested in keeping their own citizens in the dark about the level of contamination and that they feel the U.S. government would assist them in keeping them in the dark about it.

¶12. (C) Moratinos asked the Secretary for &a real
response(whatever you can do8 to be helpful in terms of
Spanish public opinion, which he feared could turn against
the U.S. if news of the results of a recent study of the
site,s nuclear contamination were to spread. The Secretary
noted that she remembered the accident when it happened but
made no commitment.

It is unclear whether the report has been released yet or who exactly conducted it. Parsing the wording it would seem that whatever the report was, it had limited circulation which indicates it was conducted by a government/military institution or by some scientific research institution. Either way, though, your assertion that the release of the cables "hasn't told us anything new" seems to avoid an analysis of what the public reports have said versus the private communications, especially in regards to the intentional supression of information to quell potential public outrage over the continued contamination.

:shrug:

PB

[struggle4progress]

19. If you want to try to figure out in more detail what's being discussed, search the Spanish press:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.elpais.com/+palomares

My own guess is that several trenches with some plutonium contamination were discovered a few years back, so the US agreed to two years of additional assistance, which has since expired; at the time the trenches were discovered, there was uncertainty about the threat they posed, now largely resolved (at least to the satisfaction of officialdom) by subsequent investigation

The text you cite is not terribly clear and may not entirely accurately reflect the intent of the person cited secondhand, given potential issues such as translation, the Secretary's lack of technical knowledge, and the fact that a number of other issues were discussed in short time. In any case, it does not seemn to support the claim made in the OP

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, no limit.

[struggle4progress]

4. I personally think one has to be a real asshole to publicize lax security for nuclear materials

It's the sort of matter one wants to see addressed quietly without a big public splash

[no limit]

5. Right, the asshole is not the party responsible for the lax security

it's the guy that finally exposes that lax security in the hopes that it will change.

[struggle4progress]

10. Ambassador reports in classified cable he's pushing Yemen to improve the situation

All very responsible and appropriately quiet

Wikileaks comes along -- and makes sure everybody knows

[no limit]

11. How long have they been pushing them to improve the situation?

[rucky]

12. That's one of the issues John Kerry ran on in 2004

what an asshole

[struggle4progress]

16. Really? You think Kerry mentioned facilities by name in public and said something like

"Look, here's a place somebody could just walk into and grab materials to make a dirty bomb and then balk back out off"?

I bet he didn't

[rucky]

18. In the days following the warning, the material was moved to a more secure facility.

per the article

[struggle4progress]

20. We can only hope. This BTW is not the only instance of such irresponsibility

from wikileaks: some cables contain similar information

[no limit]

22. What do you mean we can only hope?

Obviously in this case wikileaks actually helped solve the problem.

[tekisui]

7. Don't forget the cluster bombs we dropped on 21 kids in Yemen.

Killing them and then trying to cover it up.

[struggle4progress]

8. Pope Backs Turkey’s Bid to Join European Union (NYT 2006)

By IAN FISHER and SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: November 29, 2006

ANKARA, Turkey, Nov. 28 — Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Turkey on Tuesday armed with a surprise gesture of good will aimed at blunting Muslim anger toward him: he backed Turkey’s long-stalled desire to join the European Union, reversing a statement he made two years ago ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/europe/29pope.html?_r=1

So ... we knew in 2004 that Cardinal Ratzinger opposed Turkey's entry in the EU. And he reversed his view in 2006 after he became Pope. And anyone can learn this in half a minute or less, by websearch

[struggle4progress]

14. Anybody who's followed the Guatanamo fiasco knows the Administration has had to

negotiate for destinations: it's been a long slow painful process, and people who've been reading the news aren't surprised that the destinations seem to have gotten payoffs for cooperating -- in many cases, the apparent payoffs were reported at the time

Lithuania to Start Negotiations with U.S. on Guantanamo Prisoners
Beirut, 11 Feb 09, 17:44
http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/story/5EBFA624F3BE2CD1C225755A0055CABA?OpenDocument

JUNE 11, 2009
U.S. Nears Yemeni Detainee Deal
Many in Largest Ethnic Group Held at Guantanamo Would Be Sent to Saudi Arabia
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124463776195601951.html

Hungary in talks to take in Guantanamo detainees
BUDAPEST | Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:27am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE55H3JE20090618

Administration Makes Progress on Resettling Detainees
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 20, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081903801.html

Georgia Considers Taking Guantanamo Prisoners
23 September 2009
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/georgia-considers-taking-guantanamo-prisoners/383998.html

Ottawa's refusal to take Gitmo inmates irks U.S.
2009/10/11 04:30:00
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/708666--ottawa-s-refusal-to-take-gitmo-inmates-irks-u-s

[Poll_Blind]

17. +1

PB

[no limit]

23. Funny way to negotiate. If you want to talk to us you must take a prisoner

[hootinholler]

15. Noise, just noise

Nothing to see here, these aren't the droids we're looking for, move along.

-Hoot

[ljm2002]

21. Interesting, isn't it...

...how, on the one hand, the claim is made that this information is useless and petty and can be found elsewhere anyway. And that Wikileaks are assholes for disseminating the information because it is dangerous and harms diplomacy and could get people killed!

One thing is for sure, the power elites really, really don't like their dirty laundry being aired. Because it could be "dangerous". Never mind that their little deals behind closed doors are often beyond dangerous, they really do end up killing people, wrecking economies, derailing democratically elected governments, etc. But it's all Wikileaks fault that these useless facts are getting out, and these facts weren't secret anyway -- oh but wait, for purposes of calling Assange a terrorist, these were *top secret, super-duper secrets* that no regular citizen could possibly know or need to know -- except for the nearly 900,000 citizens with top secret clearances, but hey, let's not split hairs here. And yes I am aware of compartmentalized security -- but really, nearly 900,000 U.S. citizens have top secret clearances? Really? How top secret can it all be?

The open secret is that our wholly-owned corporate-military government is running this show for the benefit of the few, and that the suffering of the many is of no, zero, zilch consequence to them. At present they have been very successful at keeping our population divided along party lines and on social issues, and at convincing us that anything we lack is our own damned fault anyway. I predict that as conditions become more harsh, there will be some rude awakenings, and it won't be pretty.

But then I'm not the first to predict that, and this sleeping giant continues to be in a bread-and-circuses-induced stupor.

[struggle4progress]

24. The claims are not made about the same information

[Wednesdays]

25. K&R

:kick: