Empire of the Iguanadons

On November 28, 2010, the internet whistle-blower site known as Wikileaks began publishing a series of confidential diplomatic cables from the US government. In total, some 250,000 documents in all. This has sparked a major controversy in the US and abroad.

This isn't the first time Wikileaks has done this though. They first brought themselves into the mainstream light back in November of 2009 with the infamous Climategate emails that were obtained by a group of hackers. In these emails, several scientists were caught lying about climate data and lamenting the fact that they could no longer prove that global warming was even taking place - much less that man was causing it. Most folks considered it a bold and heroic revelation and it's all but killed any hopes the climate scammers had of pulling off the greatest hoax in the history of mankind.

Before that, Wikileaks was primarily devoted to the mundane task of outing corporate secrets and the occasional classified document or two from a foreign government. For the most part they were regarded as a shining light of truth in an otherwise evil and malicious world that was trying to hide it's worst secrets from us. Somewhere along the way, that all changed.

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, soon realized he could make himself famous if he began leaking secrets from the US government. It wasn't long after Climategate broke that the site was given a copy of a US military video, which has been called "Collateral Murder". The argument was that the crew of an Apache gunship fired on civilians, killing two reporters and the people who were trying to rescue them, along with wounding civilian children in the area. Army Private Bradley Manning was charged with the leaking of the classified video, causing a mass uproar around the world. However, following a military investigation, the crew of the Apache was found to be within the rules of engagement for the war, and their actions found to be in compliance with the laws of armed conflict.

Not satisfied with stoking hatred for the US over the incident, Assange obtained hundreds of thousands of reports on both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and posted them on the site for all to see. The sheer volume of information posted and the uncensored nature of it all causes serious harm to the US/NATO war operations in both theaters. Information that is now being used by our enemies to gain an advantage over us. Not to mention the propaganda value these documents have in getting the rest of the world to turn against the wars.

When even that failed to get the bombshell reaction he wanted, Assange announced yet another batch of documents, the now infamous Cablegate release of 250,000 or so confidential diplomatic cables. This batch, along with all of the previous batches, are said to have been supplied by Private Manning. Given the nature of the information and the damage it can cause, the government has finally had enough of Assange and his activities and is now investigating the possibility of having him charged with espionage against the United States.

Activities began in order to bring Assange down. The DNS service which was hosting his site fell under a denial of service attack by a hacker who calls himself The Jester. Using a tool he calls Xerxes, he was apparently able to bring down the US based DNS servers which were supplying the wikileaks.org their domain resolution. When EasyDNS could no longer bear the brunt of the traffic, they terminated Assange's account with their service. It is worth noting that EasyDNS does not charge for domain name resolution.

Shortly after, Wikileaks moved their site over to the cloud system being run by Amazon.com. Once again, the site fell under attack, but due to Amazon's sheer size, the attack was largely ineffective. When a US Senator began making inquiries with Amazon about the nature of their relationship with Wikileaks, Amazon terminated their accounts without warning. Wikileaks was then forced to seek internet services outside the US.

Their domain at wikileaks.ca has once more fallen under a brutal assault from more of The Jester's toys and from other hackers around the world. Though as of this writing the site is up and responsive.

As a result of the attacks, and the looming prospect that Assange might be arrested on sexual assault charges in Sweden, he made his fatal mistake. Assange has had a file available on the wikileaks site since July simply titled insurance.aes. The file is some 1.4GB in size and is estimated to be large enough to hold all of the unreleased cables. Wikileaks has publicly stated that if Assange should be arrested or killed, the passcode to the encrypted file would be released and the contents of the file would then be available to any of the thousands of people who now have copies.

Needless to say, as a result of the Interpol warrant, Assange was arrested in Britain and will be extradited to Sweden to face charges. Thus far, the insurance file password has not been passed out.

Shortly after, both Paypal and Mastercard terminated payment agreements with Wikileaks on the basis that they were violating the terms of service. French officials went to court to have the Wikileaks servers taken offline but fell short of achieving this when the French Supreme Court said more arguments are needed before determining if that should be done. Attacks against Wikileaks' assets continue on all fronts with more and more countries seeking to drive them offline.

After Assange's arrest, a number of hackers took to the internet to "strike back" at the "capitalist pigs" who are "bending to government pressure" by cutting off Wikileaks' ability to make money. Anonymous has taken to the wire with a campaign they call Operation Payback. It mainly consists of a large number of script kiddies using a program called the "Low Orbit Ion Cannon". This program is a simplistic application who's only purpose is to deliver a blistering HTTP based attack against a specified target. Thousands of members of Anonymous are currently using the program to target Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, Fox News, Sarah Palin, Joe Leiberman, and the US Senate website itself. As they see it, the first cyberwar has begun and they say they will not let up until their side has won.

At present, Eric Holder (US Attorney General) is looking into charging Julian Assange with espionage along with Private Manning and anyone else they may find out is involved. There's been rumblings that they may also charge any US media outlets with the same if they choose to ignore common sense and print any of the released documents.

In an even stranger twist of events, Glenn Beck has come out effectively in defense of Wikileaks, saying that coming after them would be playing right into the hands of those who would seek to destroy our freedoms. While I am often inclined to agree with Beck on many things, I cannot see any logic in defending terrorists of any stripe. He's presented evidence that Wikileaks is also receiving funding from several organizations run by George Soros, among them the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Institute. So while I can see where Beck is coming from on this, I think he's dead wrong on this issue and it should be no surprise to most that he's standing alone on this one.

My personal conclusion is that Wikileaks is a terrorist organization and that Julian Assange should be treated as an enemy combatant and prosecuted for espionage here in the US. Any US citizens who have aided him in stealing documents should be tried for treason and espionage. Private Bradley Manning needs to be brought up on charges of treason and espionage in a military tribunal. The Wikileaks website must be shut down before any more US and allied forces can be harmed by their actions.
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RIP United States of America

July 1776 - November 2012.

Abu Ghraib was adjudicated by the only legitimate governmental authority that was operating in Iraq at the time. Saddam's regime had already fallen and the Iraqis had no government of their own under which to try the case. Therefore it fell to the jurisdiction of the US military to try those responsible for what happened there, and that's exactly what happened.

I'd never even heard of Gabe Watson before you mentioned him. Looked it up, and from what I can gather (since the simpletons who write the news these days didn't say) he's a US citizen. That he was tried in an Australian court doesn't bother me. That your courts are such a sham that they couldn't be bothered to convict him of murder DOES bother me. It's an obvious murder for profit - insurance scam. We had every right to prosecute that case once he came home since a US citizen murdering another US citizen falls under US jurisdiction even if the crime happens outside our sovereign territory.

David Hicks was caught on the battlefield as an enemy combatant. So yes, we again had every right to detain him for that. As there are no US torture camps, your argument is invalid. If you don't want your citizens detained for attacking US soldiers, maybe you should persuade them to knock that shit off. You guys should have charged him with treason upon his return home btw. It REALLY bothers me that you didn't since he was out for blood against coalition forces, not just US forces in particular.

Julian Assange committed his crimes in Europe, against the US as a party, so we have every right to charge him with espionage as other States have done elsewhere in the world when spies are caught. There's nothing out of place here and you're making an argument based entirely on bullshit. He'll be extradited to the US, and you guys can stuff it. If you don't want your citizens tried for espionage, you should persuade them to knock that shit off.

I believe the old adage regarding spies would be that if you don't want your spies charged with espionage, make sure they aren't caught. Since Assange has been caught, not only red handed but bragging publicly about it, it's a little silly to say that he wasn't really doing it. As for the rest, well, international extradition rules and international laws in general are pretty well established at this point. If you don't like them you'll need to pretty much move to another planet to escape them.

Samson, America made it clear from the start that all they wanted to do was punish Gabe, not give him a fair trial (sweet home Alabama). Its your courts that are a sham, not Australia's. Also, I don't think anyone can safely say from a bunch of media reports the someone is 'obviously' guilty, much less a case as murkly as this one. The case against him itself was very, very shady and he was only convicted on a precarious technicality and further more there have beenerrors found in the inquiry that puts the conviction under an even larger degree of doubt. And even if he is guilty; he's done the time and shouldn't be charged for the same crime twice. I'm dissapointed Australia didn't act to protect him.

As for David Hicks, well, I think its bullshit he got imprisoned for five years without (a fair) trial. You're all up in flames about America's right to do what it wants to it citizens. He's and Australian citizen and Australia should have the right to do what it wants to him. And Australia can to a consensus that we wanted him back here so we could deal with him the way we want.

Our courts require something called Evidence to be able to convict someone of a crime, the fact that evidence and facts are not required to imprison someone in the US is rather alarming, but then, we are talking about a nation who thinks its ok to murder people who are politically trouble some.



HE was guilty, blind freddy could see that, but, if there is not enough evidence and he does not admit to a crime, a court has to rule on what is before it, it cannot just make up shit US Guantanamo Bay Style to suit itself.



5 years of torture in G.Bay then a sham trial where they say, you admit to this and we will let you go home. No evidence, No defense, No rule of law, just bullshit, and then the US wonders why people wanna scream FUCK YOU, in your face.

Right, so we can let your government and it's sham courts give him a slap on the wrist and promise not to kill our soldiers any more? No thanks. If you're not willing to do the time, don't do the crime. Hicks and Watson got what was coming to them. If you don't think our courts are fair, you're simply unaware of how our process works and are letting the leftist media brainwash you into believing something that's not true.

Protect Assange all you want, provide him the representation that is due him, but that doesn't translate to "fuck you, you ain't taking him in" either. He's committed a crime and needs to be held account for it.

@Fury who ninja'd me despite my best efforts:

You of all people clearly demonstrate you know nothing of how our courts work.

Assange isn't just "politically troublesome". He's outright dangerous. On the same level as Hicks. As dangerous as any Taliban on the battlefield. That your country doesn't understand this is extremely disturbing.

You guys also have no clue what Guantanamo is like. It isn't nicknamed Gitmo Hotel or Club Gitmo for nothing. Those guys being held there are getting far better treatment than our own prisoners here in the states.

I don't think our courts are fair either, but they're what we've got and what we have to make do with in order to punish the guilty in this country despite the fact that they also punish the innocent from time to time.


I do agree that no one should have to pay for their crime twice, but I honestly don't know anything about this Gabe Watson so I really can't fairly say much beyond what I already have. Keep in mind, I don't really care enough to want to know more about him either. Whatever the case, it's done now and can't likely be changed and I gather that he's no longer a threat in any event.


I also don't really know that much about Hicks either, but I believe Assange has essentially not just been caught with a smoking gun but caught waving the gun in our face while bragging about the crimes he used it for. Basically, regardless of anyone else you want to discuss, Assange has very clearly demonstrated that he's an extreme danger to many countries and needs to be stopped, one way or another, ideally in such a way as to prevent, or at least discourage, anyone else from wanting to follow in his footsteps.


Sadly, I doubt Fury or Prettyfly do know anything about how our courts work, but I suspect that Samson knows far less about them than he'd like to believe too. Our courts are not based on fairness, justice, or any other noble ideals, regardless of whether or not they ever were, they're based on politics and other petty motivations. The courts do require evidence here, but they're not always very picky about the type of evidence or the degree of validity of that evidence. They claim that everyone's presumed innocent until proven, beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt, guilty. The truth is that every victim of the judicial system is presumed guilty until proven, beyond the oratory talents and judicial social schmoozing skills of the prosecution, of their innocence. Fortunately for society, most common criminals don't pose a significant political risk to incarceration and tend to rely on public defenders who have no desire to actually do their job nor funding to really try to prove innocence anyway.


As for Guantanamo Bay, I don't know anything beyond what the media has told us, true or otherwise, about the treatment of prisoners there compared to the ones here in the states proper, but I do know that, amongst those in the military on active duty, the nickname 'Gitmo' is short for 'Git Motivated', as in get motivated or die because it's one of the few bases we have where, even during peace time, you're pretty well guaranteed to see enemy fire, if not exchange it, on a regular basis if you get assigned there.


[Edit] Sorry for the rant about our court systems, but I've personally watch them fail a couple too many times and they've become one of my pet peeves.

We exchange fire with Cuba on a regular basis? Since when?

Conner is right to some extent about our justice system. There's justice for celebrities, and justice for the rest of us. It's the celebrity justice you guys out there tend to see more than anything. Mundane trials don't get noticed much.

It's probably considered classified so no one's supposed to know, but, yes, we exchange fire across the fence routinely, or at least did through the late 80s and early 90s, and have probably since the establishment of the base. Usually it's only a few shots here and there, maybe a couple of rounds from either side every couple of days or so, but even that still counts when you're the one being shot at. Anyway, I'd be far more surprised if that had stopped than if it hadn't.

TradeLeaks And now there is a 3rd leaks site which deals with business leaks. LOL Come on Aussie Come on, Come on, Come on Aussie Come on. Us Aussies have the entire leaks market covered now. We ROCK. Take that and FUCK YOU the man.

More power to them. TradeLeaks is precisely the kind of think Wikileaks started off with and should have stuck to. It has nothing to do with "the man" unless you think capitalism is bad.

If they get themselves involved in stealing classified documents though, I'll be right there calling for them to be shut down and the people who run it arrested for espionage.

It seems Wikileaks has brought to light that the US was blackmailing and bribing nations at the Copenhagen talks on climate change last year to stall the process and limit consensus. Hardly surprising really, murder, bribery, blackmail, the US seems to have no ends to the asshatery it will undertake to protect corporate interests.

Funny, because I heard they were trying to badger others at Copenhagen into going along with the whole AGW theory. You'd think that if that were true, the US would be hailed as a hero. but no, big bad evil US. Always bad US. Never good US. Nobody bothers to stop and think though. No US means most of them wouldn't exist at all because real asshats like Hitler would have long ago taken them all out.

The whole world does a wonderful job of bashing our good name, but when shitstorms brew up, the first people they call on to fix the problem is us. If ya'll don't want us around, just say so, at least then I could get behind Ron Paul's insanity of total isolationism and enjoy my freedoms while the rest of you burn in the fire of your own stupidity.

That might have been the SPIN usa media put on things, that the general public lapped up, but the reality is slowly coming to light that the US went to Copenhagen with the sole intention of sabotaging the talks.



A hero for what? The US government is nothing more than systematic LIES. Again, more reasons why the rest of the world has little fondness for the US.



I think you already enjoy your freedom to be lied to and deceived by your government which murders, bribes and blackmails people and nations so that you can enjoy cheep soda and fries. The US brainwashing machine has you hook line and sinker.

For exposing the lie that is AGW. Copenhagen is old news. It was a bust because none of the other countries would give up what they arrogantly expected us to give up, and yet our leftist democratic bozos were bending themselves over backward to jam AGW regulation down our throats as part of Cap & Trade. When India and China said F U to Copenhagen, it was all over except for the keg parties.

The leaks have been heavily reported as saying the US was trying to browbeat unwilling parties into signing the agreement. The AGW agreement is what all the leftist countries wanted. That's why I said we should be getting hailed as heros. The "evil oil companies" you keep imagining weren't even represented there.



Or perhaps the leftist brainwashing machine has you hook, line, sinker, and pole. Jealousy of our world supremacy has made most other countries look like dimwitted fools when they try to make us out to be the bad guys. Yet they all still come running when the really bad people punch them in the nose.

I enjoy my freedom to sit here and yell and scream on the internet. I get to loudly proclaim my right-wing viewpoints and nobody can stop me. Legally anyway. I get to bitch about Obama, laugh at Clinton, and point out how much of a lunatic Ron Paul is on foreign policy. Ironically, the only people who care at all that I do these things are the so-called liberals who claim to defend free speech. Sure, free speech as long as you agree with THEM. Dissenting opinion = dangerous, in their minds.

Our government is not to be trusted, this much we know, but Julian Assange is not in a position to decide for us what is and isn't important, and it's not his call to decide the fate of our armed services.

You seem to be big on defending the sovereign interests of your country. Well excuse me if I'd like Assange to butt the fuck out of our business because it's in OUR sovereign interest.

You and your media have played this card over and over, but what i want you to see, there is a huge difference between potential and actual threat. QUESTION: How many US soldiers have been killed since the release of the leaked docs and is this number significantly different to any other similar period in the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.


The answer to the above is pretty simple and you do not have to be a brain doctor mathematician to realize that there has been no adverse outcomes for US occupiers in either of those counties as a result in all those docs being released.

There is one thing which Assange has done and done well and that is to make the US look like a bunch of dickheads, but instead of getting embarrassed for the actions of your nation you go all nationalistic and crap on about a potential threat where no actual threat exists.

Smoke and Mirrors as they say, because the truth is much less palatable and the truth is not something the citizens of the US are ever accustomed to being treated with, when it slaps them in the face, they want to murder someone for doing so.

Or perhaps we're just sick of terrorist asshats like Assange making it their life's work to bring harm to our troops. You may be too blind to see it, but leaking documents with specific logistical target data contained within them most certainly does put them at risk. So does revealing logistical targets on civilian territory like that anti-venom lab.

I think we've been more than tolerant as it is. Assange has been doing this for 2 years now, and has very clearly shifted his focus to provoking the US. If he gets himself killed now, he's brought it on himself in the same way Saddam Hussein did when he insisted on bragging to the world that he had nukes and then wouldn't let the inspectors come see what he had.

Assange is no innocent in all this. He knew exactly what he was doing by soliciting the theft of classified documents. Anyone with half a brain can see that he's doing it to sow the seeds of anarchy in an insane attempt to try and collapse the US government. It's obviously not going to work, and the draconian measures that will come that he claims to despise are going to be blamed on him by anyone who looks at this objectively.

I wonder just how tolerant the Australian people would be if I decided to open up AussieLeaks.com and solicit the theft of classified documents from your government and then recklessly plaster them all over thousands of websites around the world. You'd be a naive fool to think your government isn't hiding secrets from you, and a complete gibbering idiot to think they're not hiding things your people would strongly disapprove of. ALL governments do it. At least I wouldn't have to worry about putting your troops in danger since your leaders are too chicken shit to put them into a real fight.

Off topic inquiry: Does Australia make you guys buy a license to watch TV the way they apparently have to in the UK?

Seconded.


You know, it's funny but that's almost exactly what the French and English said after we saved their asses in WWII too, yet history shows that every nation ever established basically is guilty of exactly the same things, most of the longest surviving ones much more so. And, while you're busy calling out kettle black, sir, let's not forget that your on pot's pretty black too given that your own country was established by a group of criminals (despite prettyfly's assertions, England didn't consider them so petty) who basically overthrew their wardens by use of exactly those same measures you're so moralistically accusing the US government of enacting.


Bah, you're making idle talk. They've told us that already hundreds of ways hundreds of times, it's only when they need us to save them from their own stupidity or defend them against someone they can't handle anymore that they suddenly want us again. Ron Paul's a bit extreme, but I don't know that he's wrong.


Has it occurred to you that maybe actual numbers and how exactly this has impacted our troops and such are classified for the sake of needed moral of the troops involved, let alone to not bolster the moral of enemy troops? Has it occurred to you that maybe it's bad business for a military engaged in a war to tell the enemy that they've struck significant blows? Has it occurred to you that even if none of that's the case, maybe the enemy is purposely delaying action on the information that Assange has so conveniently handed them in order to plan and make best use of it? I wonder how you'd feel if it were your nation being exposed to terrorists and other enemies as mere targets of opportunity at nationally critical civilian facilities.


How could anyone not get defensive and nationalistic when we're attacked by Assange and then his actions are not just defended but heralded by the likes of you as a constant assault against our nationalism? If you want a conversation to remain civil, you must remain civil yourself.

Right, us war mongering gun happy Americans can only ever respond to anything with brute force because only Australians have the intelligence to accomplish any of the things America has managed to accomplish historically. When someone wants to attack Israel, who is it everyone in the world turns to to beg them to talk Israel out of retaliating ten-fold, not Australia... How about other countries of the world, when was the last time a delegation of emissaries was sent to Australia to plead aide? We get them nearly daily here...

The problem with that idea is that our own government would come along saving Australia yet again because we wouldn't tolerate it from one of our people against another allied nation any more than we'll tolerate it from someone outside our borders doing it to us. But the US would still be the bad guy in the eyes of the rest of the world because no one would be willing to admit we were protecting an outside interest and would only insist that we'd just been cleaning up our own mess.


I can't answer for Fury or Prettyfly about Australia, but from what I've heard from folks living in England, there's no apparently about it.

No.

No license to watch TV over here.



America's world supremacy has done nothing but corrupt it. Power corrupts. I don't ever want Australia weilding anywhere near that kind of force.



The vast majority of the criminals that came to Australia had done things like steal a loaf of bread. That classifies as petty to me. The english prison system was incrediably harsh (but then, so was life in london during that time) and the criminals definitely petty. Also, we never had a revolution against the English like America did, all our sceeding was done peacefully and with the blessing of the English government.



Feel free. Wikileaks did release stuff about the Australian government though. In particular they released a document showing that our planned military upgrade was far more expensive than anything we could afford.



I'll tell you why the worlds asks America, its because America gives them the money they use to buy the weapons that they're going to do that retaliating with...

I hardly think that qualifies as even being noteworthy in terms of information. Everything a government does is usually something that's far too expensive than can be afforded. That would be a bit like leaking a document saying that the US spends far too much on social welfare programs and that the administration knew it ahead of time. It's nothing more than a "duh" moment.

I can assure you your government is doing plenty of the same kind of backroom dealing and secretive activities that ours is doing and much of it is just as worthy of criticism. To think otherwise would be naive at best.



Perhaps, but at the end of the day, it's our world supremacy that keeps it from burning in fire. That's why everyone continues to come running to us to save their bacon.

Derail Alert:

Irony Alert:

Mohammed N Islam of the University of Michigan is working on a missile defense system to protect helicopters from ground based missile attacks, so that the US is better protected when it is out killing Islamic extremists. Now if this dont secretly make you chuckle at the irony, you just don't have a sense of humor at all. SOURCE

If you say so...


Right, wikileaks attacked Australia too, see, they posted one of our government's over-expenditures, that's clearly as bad as posting classified locations of civilian emergency medical facilities that the entire nation depends upon...

Prettyfly, surely you can do better than that to make your point, unless your side of that particular argument is truly without merit...?


Right, because only America is capitalistic enough to have that kind of funding to offer, right? You must not realize anywhere close to how many inventions and new products have come to the world from Israel, ranging from the Uzi to a wheelchair like device that lets paraplegics walk again. Hell, even stuff like ICQ came to us originally from Israel. They've got their own weapons and one of, if not the, best trained military and secret service organizations in the world. It's not that folks come begging the US to bribe Israel not to retaliate but that other countries come begging the US to entreat Israel not to retaliate because without our influence they would and most of the middle east would be part of Israel by now.


Sorry, Fury, while I'll certainly agree that there's some pretty heavy irony going on in that statement, I think it's more sad that we've got to get Islamics (of all people) to help develop shields against Islamic militants than funny in this case. Why we're not asking some bright Israeli who'd be more likely to have his full heart in the matter to do it instead is beyond me, but I guess you work with what you've got sometimes. Perhaps a more pertinent question would be why is the government/military/university trusting someone who's so Islamic as to have changed his name thusly with a program to defend our aviators against Islamics. Either way, it's too sad a commentary on the state of things for the irony to be funny this time. More of a head shaker than a chuckler.