News Roundup - Hour 2
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-12-03/news-roundup-hour-2
Founder and editor of the WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange, faces the media during a debate event, held in London Tuesday July 27, 2010.
AP PHOTO/Max Nash
An international arrest warrant is out for the founder of Wikileaks as world leaders brace for more disclosures. And European nations seek further measures to contain the debt crisis. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top international news stories.
Guests
David Loyn
foreign correspondent for the BBC; author of "In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation."
Nadia Bilbassy
senior U.S. correspondent, MBC TV -- Middle East Broadcast Centre.
James Kitfield
senior correspondent, National Journal magazine.
Comments
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I am a retired Vietnam Vet and a retired military officer. Wikileaks is the best thing to happen in a long time. The only damage done is the damage to the pride of our diplomats by exposing their lack of competence and the fact that they use the secret label to hide that incompetence.
Obviously volumes could and have been written on the subject. It is time to bring ALL the facts into the open.
AL DelGarbino
NC
I do agree. The communications reek of shallowness, ignorance, and cultural misconceptions. No wonder that hardly any foreign policy initiatives undertaken by the U.S. since WWII succeeded.
We need to add a strategy to the Afghanistan's Nation Building.
The Army Corps of Engineers should be surveying the stable parts of Afghanistan and creating a public records system (Google maps) similar to the Southwestern United States in the 1800's.Maps and Public records of who owns what land will help bring stability to their country. Photographs and fingerprints identify the owners that have "opted in" to helping stabilize the country. The "owners" begin to band together to protect what is theirs. We are seen as the good guys helping them own and keep what is theirs.
Public records expose corruption. "Sunshine is the best disinfectant".
mmm.. notice how wiki leaks is finally being silenced functionally - something the US government was not able to achieve - could it be that the Assange is about to leak some information about the Banks -
ohh myy say it aint so
I wonder why it is so difficult for people to accept the truth.
It is not always nice to hear but it is time for people to grow up and realize how domestic and international politics actually operates.
The only negative aspect of these leaks is they do not include all the nations of the world. We need more open and honest reporting, not less.
We must ask ourselves why the truth is so shocking!
WikiLeaks may add pressure to end an un-winnable war that is costing our country lives and huge financial resources. Good for them! The truth will come out and these charges are surely false, the timing cannot be coincidental.
The previous commenter coveniently forgot to mention that the latest Wikileeks information was leaked by a member of the Uniformed Military. Perhaps the Military should get its own house in order before casting aspersions on the Diplomatic Corps.
A Machiavellian diplomatic, intelligence and military corps supporting the interests of a cruel and corrupt Elite. Karzai's regime (a puppet) is a high amplitude reflection of the example put forth by the American occupiers. Thanks for confirming my assessment WikiLeaks.
I think the spamming and jamming of their website and the censorship is mainly on behalf of big American banks and financiers. Didn't Scott Ritter face pedophile accusations just before the Iraq invasion? If our people had known the truth earlier the Oligarch controlled elections might have been different, not that the Democrats are any less beholden to the Oligarchy than the Republicans.
thanks for the program.
what troubles me is the "picture" of julian assange, on the home page of wikileaks, that he chooses to post.
this picture, with stark, dramatic lighting, tends to portray mr. assange as more 'celebrity hacker' than anything else.
there's something about that picture that makes me uneasy, in terms of his motiviation for dumping these documents.
is it about assange ego above the cleansing result of revealing the "secret" cables? we've continually heard there is
nothing 'new', but only supportive of what's been reported for years.
What I haven't heard from those who think we should simply pull out of Afghanistan is what the result of that action would be? Most presume the Taliban will re-take Afghanistan within 12 months and what would that do to the stability of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal? Will that create a more severe problem that will need to be addressed down the road?
Wikileaks is apparently another good idea gone bad.
Not unlike the two party system. It proports to provide transparency but offers only voyuerism.
It would be nice if an informed public could help create sane public policy and an international agenda that furthered the well being of all, but it would also be nice if opposing political parties could hold reasonable debates that ended in intelligent actions benefiting the people, all the people, who elected those opposing parties.
It would really be nice if Santa and the tooth fairy would cooperate to deliver world peace and redistribution of wealth that wasn't slandered as Socialism as if an absence of war and financial assistance for those in need are bad things.
I hope the demand for transparency doesn't move into healthcare. Do you really want to know how much of medicine is art and how much is science and how arbitrary life and death decisons can be.
What about boardrooms, bedrooms and doctors offices. Wouldn't we all prefer to watch a wikileaks channel for them instead of Dr. Phil or other daytime drama?
The policies of the alliance should win us true friends, not bought proxies.
The current diplomatic effort does not seem to deliver, and military action alone is not going to achieve this goal.
The result of our efforts should be that Westerners can travel these lands welcome and freely once more. The drones will not be able to get us there.
Read more here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2009/07/computers-mind.html
Given the last guest who characterized the 'improving' situation in Afghanistan in almost rosy, like the 'way you want civil society to be etc', I can only imagine that Obama, after a hand wringing or two, will be trying to convince us of the dawning of a new day too. When will the American public stop getting spun by the powers that be?
I dont know how to feel about wikileaks, but still want to know if it is correct to assume that what Wikileaks is doing (intintially or unintintially) is creating a new level of secrecy among the major goverments of the world??
I was somewhat incredulous at the tone of the discussion at the end of the program about the START treaty. Somehow everyone managed to say that it was wrong to block ratification of the treaty, but not one member of your panel could bring themselves to say the word "Republican." The notion that President Obama will be seen as "weak" if the treaty is not passed was infuriating, since no mention was made (except for a fleeting reference to "Kyl") of the Republican Senators who are actually holding up the bill. Say their names! Jim DeMint! James Inhofe! Say their political affiliation! They're REPUBLICANS.
Julian Assange as a disseminator of news is certainly a journalist. His rights in the United States are well covered bu both freedom of speech and press.
A website when used for the dissemination of news and information surly qualifies as "press" even though it is not a building with a printing press. For those conservatives who disagree, I submit that the Second Amendment uses the word "arms" that were at the time of the writing of the Constitution were "muskets." If arms covered by the second amendment now includes assault rifles then certainly "press" must include all media.
There is no allowance in the Constitution for the Government to have secrets. Should the Government insist on secrecy, then it is up to the Government to make sure they are kept secret. Apparently, they are not very good at it.