whistleblowers: wikileaks, snowden i...

[luba]

vreme je za podsecanje, u susret novom paketicu kablova, ali i legalnih zackoljica 7 i 8 februara.1. Unlike earlier disclosures by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of secret government records, the group is releasing only a trickle of documents at a time from a trove of a quarter-million, and only after considering advice from five news organizations with which it chose to share all of the material.ako je verovati stephensu i ekipi, ovo je dovoljno da se odbaci direktna krivicna odgovornost zulijena, ili da se svi urednici novina -- njih petoro -- takodje optuze.2. As stories are published, WikiLeaks uses its website to release the related cables.dakle, ako opasnost postoji, prvenstveno je tu zbog novinskog izvestaja, tek onda kablova. opet paradoks.3. Days before releasing any of the latest documents, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appealed to the U.S. ambassador in London, asking the U.S. government to confidentially help him determine what needed to be redacted from the cables before they were publicly released. The ambassador refused, telling Assange to hand over stolen property. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called Assange's offer "a half-hearted gesture to have some sort of conversation."govori samo za sebe.in another news, tri moguca topika za novu turu kablova:- bank of america- izrael- rupert m. (to je zato sto se ja lozim na to, inace su to insurance files)delovi pilgerovog intervjua sa zulijenom u new statesmanu

[luba]

US cable leaks' collateral damage in Zimbabwe: If Morgan Tsvangirai is charged with treason, WikiLeaks will have earned the ignominy of Robert Mugabe's gratitudeLINK

When WikiLeaks whistleblowers began circulating in April footage of a 2007 Iraq war incursion in which US military personnel unwittingly killed two war correspondents and several civilians, the international community was aghast at the apparent murder. With sobering questions on the material's full context largely falling on deaf ears, the group was free to editorialise the scene as it pleased: "collateral murder".But now, with the recent release of sensitive diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks may have committed its own collateral murder, upending the precarious balance of power in a fragile African state and signing the death warrant of its pro-western premier.Zimbabwe's Morgan Tsvangirai's call to public service has been a tortured one, punctuated by death and indignity.His numerous arrests and brushes with death began in 1997, when he emerged as the unlikely face of opposition to President Robert Mugabe. That year, Mugabe's henchmen nearly threw Tsvangirai from the window of his tenth floor office. He would be arrested on four separate occasions in the years to follow. During one such arrest, in 2007, he was severely beaten and tortured by Zimbabwean special forces at the behest of the ruling political party.After Zimbabwe's 2008 presidential contest – featuring incumbent Mugabe, Tsvangirai and independent Simba Makoni – failed to award any candidate with the majority necessary to claim victory, the election defaulted to a runoff between the two highest vote-getters, Mugabe and Tsvangirai.In the days succeeding the first round of balloting, Tsvangirai was the alleged target of an assassination plot and subsequently taken into the custody of Mugabe's police, for which American and German diplomats demanded his immediate release. After initially committing to pursuing a second challenge to Mugabe, Tsvangirai withdrew in protest, lambasting the election as a "violent sham" in which his supporters were risking their lives to cast ballots in his favour. Indeed, it is estimated that over 100 MDC supporters met an untimely demise in the period following the election.Following intense negotiations, the two parties agreed in February 2009 to a coalition government, in which Mugabe would remain head of state – a post he had held uninterrupted for 30 years – and Tsvangirai would assume the premiership. Not one month later, Tsvangirai and his wife were involved in a suspicious collision with a lorry. Though the prime minister survived, his wife for 31 years died.With little regard for the nuances and subtlety of soft international diplomacy, WikiLeaks released last week a classified US state department cable relating a 2009 meeting between Tsvangirai and American and European ambassadors, whose countries imposed travel sanctions and asset freezes on Mugabe and his top political lieutenants on the eve of Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential election.Though western sanctions don't prohibit foreign trade and investment or affect international aid – it's said that Zimbabwe's 2009 cholera epidemic topped 100,000 cases, registering some 4,300 deaths – the Mugabe administration effectively characterised the sanctions as an affront to the common Zimbabwean, further crippling the nation's already hobbled economy. (Zimbabwe's national unemployment figure hovers somewhere near 90%.)Publicly, Tsvangirai opposed the measures out of political necessity. In private conversations with western diplomats, however, the ascendant Tsvangirai praised its utility in forcing Mugabe's hand in the new unity government.Now, in the wake of the WikiLeaks' release, one of the men targeted by US and EU travel and asset freezes, Mugabe's appointed attorney general, has launched a probe to investigate Tsvangirai's involvement in sustained western sanctions. If found guilty, Tsvangirai will face the death penalty.And so, where Mugabe's strong-arming, torture and assassination attempts have failed to eliminate the leading figure of Zimbabwe's democratic opposition, WikiLeaks may yet succeed. Twenty years of sacrifice and suffering by Tsvangirai all for naught, as WikiLeaks risks "collateral murder" in the name of transparency.Before more political carnage is wrought and more blood spilled – in Africa and elsewhere, with special concern for those US-sympathising Afghans fingered in its last war document dump – WikiLeaks ought to leave international relations to those who understand it – at least to those who understand the value of a life.

pretpostavljam da si video glenovo raznosenje po svakom slovu :D

[DarkAttraktor]

Hahaha, kakva pizdarija ! Oni su ladno redaktirali deo prvog clanka koji je piso GOP-ovac i koji je stojao u Glas Naroda sekciji, a drugi koji je Guardian news artikal (koji valda treba da se bazira na nekim cinjenicama za razliku od mrsomudjenja GOP placenika) su ostavili u celosti da tako stoji.

[luba]

dzejkoba su ipak cimali na aerodromu, ali bez posledica.nego, po jos uvek nezvanicnom glasanju rsf, ai, eff i jos nekih skracenica i ljudi, pet kablova zbog kojih sve ima smisla:- “Dancing Boy” Scandal Alleges Child Prostitution, Possible Drug Use among U.S. Private Contractors - Pfizer Allegedly Sought to Blackmail Nigerian Regulator to Stop Lawsuit Against Drug Trials on Children - U.S. Failed to Bully Spain Into Adopting Untested Anti-P2P bill- U.S. to Uganda: Let Us Know If You Want to Use Our Intelligence for War Crimes- U.S. Haggling over Guantánamo Detaineesi da wl odrzava obecanje:

On Monday, WikiLeaks fulfilled its pledge to contribute toward the legal defense of accused whistleblower Bradley Manning by transferring $15,100 to the legal trust account of Manning’s attorney. WikiLeaks publicly solicited donations specifically for the expenses of Manning’s legal defense following his arrest in May 2010.

Edited January 13, 2011 by luba

[dragance]

Opa, prvo potvrdjenje kako je rat u Zalivu (onaj prvi) poceo, mada se secam da je ovo jos tada bila glavna vest, kako Kuvajcani namerno obaraju cenu nafte da bi naskodili Iraku. No, da ne budem teoreticar zavere i kazem kako je ovo oduvek bio plan (naterati Sadama da krene u rat, pa ga sastaviti sa zemljom i dati kontrolu naftnih polja povoljnijim i pozeljnijim igracima), procitajte sami.Hvala Aftenposten!

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

[Mostly harmless]

Ma da li je moguce da su Ameri hteli taj rat? <_< I ne mora se uopste biti "teoreticar zavere" da se ukapira ko je obrao mlekce iz citave price

[dragance]

Pa naraavno da nije tajna, niti je bilo ko iznenadjen - samo eto, prvi pismeni tragovi se pojavljuju tek sada, nekih 20 godina posle...

[kim_philby]

Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaksSlavoj ŽižekYou are invited to read this free essay from the London Review of Books. Subscribe now to access every article from every fortnightly issue of the London Review of Books, including the entire archive of 12,574 essays.In one of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks Putin and Medvedev are compared to Batman and Robin. It’s a useful analogy: isn’t Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’s organiser, a real-life counterpart to the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight? In the film, the district attorney, Harvey Dent, an obsessive vigilante who is corrupted and himself commits murders, is killed by Batman. Batman and his friend police commissioner Gordon realise that the city’s morale would suffer if Dent’s murders were made public, so plot to preserve his image by holding Batman responsible for the killings. The film’s take-home message is that lying is necessary to sustain public morale: only a lie can redeem us. No wonder the only figure of truth in the film is the Joker, its supreme villain. He makes it clear that his attacks on Gotham City will stop when Batman takes off his mask and reveals his true identity; to prevent this disclosure and protect Batman, Dent tells the press that he is Batman – another lie. In order to entrap the Joker, Gordon fakes his own death – yet another lie.The Joker wants to disclose the truth beneath the mask, convinced that this will destroy the social order. What shall we call him? A terrorist? The Dark Knight is effectively a new version of those classic westerns Fort Apache and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which show that, in order to civilise the Wild West, the lie has to be elevated into truth: civilisation, in other words, must be grounded on a lie. The film has been extraordinarily popular. The question is why, at this precise moment, is there this renewed need for a lie to maintain the social system?Consider too the renewed popularity of Leo Strauss: the aspect of his political thought that is so relevant today is his elitist notion of democracy, the idea of the ‘necessary lie’. Elites should rule, aware of the actual state of things (the materialist logic of power), and feed the people fables to keep them happy in their blessed ignorance. For Strauss, Socrates was guilty as charged: philosophy is a threat to society. Questioning the gods and the ethos of the city undermines the citizens’ loyalty, and thus the basis of normal social life. Yet philosophy is also the highest, the worthiest, of human endeavours. The solution proposed was that philosophers keep their teachings secret, as in fact they did, passing them on by writing ‘between the lines’. The true, hidden message contained in the ‘great tradition’ of philosophy from Plato to Hobbes and Locke is that there are no gods, that morality is merely prejudice, and that society is not grounded in nature.So far, the WikiLeaks story has been represented as a struggle between WikiLeaks and the US empire: is the publishing of confidential US state documents an act in support of the freedom of information, of the people’s right to know, or is it a terrorist act that poses a threat to stable international relations? But what if this isn’t the real issue? What if the crucial ideological and political battle is going on within WikiLeaks itself: between the radical act of publishing secret state documents and the way this act has been reinscribed into the hegemonic ideologico-political field by, among others, WikiLeaks itself?This reinscription does not primarily concern ‘corporate collusion’, i.e. the deal WikiLeaks made with five big newspapers, giving them the exclusive right selectively to publish the documents. Much more important is the conspiratorial mode of WikiLeaks: a ‘good’ secret group attacking a ‘bad’ one in the form of the US State Department. According to this way of seeing things, the enemy is those US diplomats who conceal the truth, manipulate the public and humiliate their allies in the ruthless pursuit of their own interests. ‘Power’ is held by the bad guys at the top, and is not conceived as something that permeates the entire social body, determining how we work, think and consume. WikiLeaks itself got the taste of this dispersion of power when Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Bank of America joined forces with the state to sabotage it. The price one pays for engaging in the conspiratorial mode is to be treated according to its logic. (No wonder theories abound about who is ‘really’ behind WikiLeaks – the CIA?)The conspiratorial mode is supplemented by its apparent opposite, the liberal appropriation of WikiLeaks as another chapter in the glorious history of the struggle for the ‘free flow of information’ and the ‘citizens’ right to know’. This view reduces WikiLeaks to a radical case of ‘investigative journalism’. Here, we are only a small step away from the ideology of such Hollywood blockbusters as All the President’s Men and The Pelican Brief, in which a couple of ordinary guys discover a scandal which reaches up to the president, forcing him to step down. Corruption is shown to reach the very top, yet the ideology of such works resides in their upbeat final message: what a great country ours must be, when a couple of ordinary guys like you and me can bring down the president, the mightiest man on Earth!The ultimate show of power on the part of the ruling ideology is to allow what appears to be powerful criticism. There is no lack of anti-capitalism today. We are overloaded with critiques of the horrors of capitalism: books, in-depth investigative journalism and TV documentaries expose the companies that are ruthlessly polluting our environment, the corrupt bankers who continue to receive fat bonuses while their banks are rescued by public money, the sweatshops in which children work as slaves etc. However, there is a catch: what isn’t questioned in these critiques is the democratic-liberal framing of the fight against these excesses. The (explicit or implied) goal is to democratise capitalism, to extend democratic control to the economy by means of media pressure, parliamentary inquiries, harsher laws, honest police investigations and so on. But the institutional set-up of the (bourgeois) democratic state is never questioned. This remains sacrosanct even to the most radical forms of ‘ethical anti-capitalism’ (the Porto Allegre forum, the Seattle movement etc).WikiLeaks cannot be seen in the same way. There has been, from the outset, something about its activities that goes way beyond liberal conceptions of the free flow of information. We shouldn’t look for this excess at the level of content. The only surprising thing about the WikiLeaks revelations is that they contain no surprises. Didn’t we learn exactly what we expected to learn? The real disturbance was at the level of appearances: we can no longer pretend we don’t know what everyone knows we know. This is the paradox of public space: even if everyone knows an unpleasant fact, saying it in public changes everything. One of the first measures taken by the new Bolshevik government in 1918 was to make public the entire corpus of tsarist secret diplomacy, all the secret agreements, the secret clauses of public agreements etc. There too the target was the entire functioning of the state apparatuses of power.What WikiLeaks threatens is the formal functioning of power. The true targets here weren’t the dirty details and the individuals responsible for them; not those in power, in other words, so much as power itself, its structure. We shouldn’t forget that power comprises not only institutions and their rules, but also legitimate (‘normal’) ways of challenging it (an independent press, NGOs etc) – as the Indian academic Saroj Giri put it, WikiLeaks ‘challenged power by challenging the normal channels of challenging power and revealing the truth’.[*] The aim of the WikiLeaks revelations was not just to embarrass those in power but to lead us to mobilise ourselves to bring about a different functioning of power that might reach beyond the limits of representative democracy.However, it is a mistake to assume that revealing the entirety of what has been secret will liberate us. The premise is wrong. Truth liberates, yes, but not this truth. Of course one cannot trust the façade, the official documents, but neither do we find truth in the gossip shared behind that façade. Appearance, the public face, is never a simple hypocrisy. E.L. Doctorow once remarked that appearances are all we have, so we should treat them with great care. We are often told that privacy is disappearing, that the most intimate secrets are open to public probing. But the reality is the opposite: what is effectively disappearing is public space, with its attendant dignity. Cases abound in our daily lives in which not telling all is the proper thing to do. In Baisers volés, Delphine Seyrig explains to her young lover the difference between politeness and tact: ‘Imagine you inadvertently enter a bathroom where a woman is standing naked under the shower. Politeness requires that you quickly close the door and say, “Pardon, Madame!”, whereas tact would be to quickly close the door and say: “Pardon, Monsieur!”’ It is only in the second case, by pretending not to have seen enough even to make out the sex of the person under the shower, that one displays true tact.A supreme case of tact in politics is the secret meeting between Alvaro Cunhal, the leader of the Portuguese Communist Party, and Ernesto Melo Antunes, a pro-democracy member of the army grouping responsible for the coup that overthrew the Salazar regime in 1974. The situation was extremely tense: on one side, the Communist Party was ready to start the real socialist revolution, taking over factories and land (arms had already been distributed to the people); on the other, conservatives and liberals were ready to stop the revolution by any means, including the intervention of the army. Antunes and Cunhal made a deal without stating it: there was no agreement between them – on the face of things, they did nothing but disagree – but they left the meeting with an understanding that the Communists would not start a revolution, thereby allowing a ‘normal’ democratic state to come about, and that the anti-socialist military would not outlaw the Communist Party, but accept it as a key element in the democratic process. One could claim that this discreet meeting saved Portugal from civil war. And the participants maintained their discretion even in retrospect. When asked about the meeting (by a journalist friend of mine), Cunhal said that he would confirm it took place only if Antunes didn’t deny it – if Antunes did deny it, then it never took place. Antunes for his part listened silently as my friend told him what Cunhal had said. Thus, by not denying it, he met Cunhal’s condition and implicitly confirmed it. This is how gentlemen of the left act in politics.So far as one can reconstruct the events today, it appears that the happy outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis, too, was managed through tact, the polite rituals of pretended ignorance. Kennedy’s stroke of genius was to pretend that a letter had not arrived, a stratagem that worked only because the sender (Khrushchev) went along with it. On 26 October 1962, Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy confirming an offer previously made through intermediaries: the Soviet Union would remove its missiles from Cuba if the US issued a pledge not to invade the island. The next day, however, before the US had answered, another, harsher letter arrived from Khrushchev, adding more conditions. At 8.05 p.m. that day, Kennedy’s response to Khrushchev was delivered. He accepted Khrushchev’s 26 October proposal, acting as if the 27 October letter didn’t exist. On 28 October, Kennedy received a third letter from Khrushchev agreeing to the deal. In such moments, when everything is at stake, appearances, politeness, the awareness that one is ‘playing a game’, matter more than ever.However, this is only one – misleading – side of the story. There are moments – moments of crisis for the hegemonic discourse – when one should take the risk of provoking the disintegration of appearances. Such a moment was described by the young Marx in 1843. In ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’, he diagnosed the decay of the German ancien regime in the 1830s and 1840s as a farcical​ repetition of the tragic fall of the French ancien regime. The French regime was tragic ‘as long as it believed and had to believe in its own justification’. The German regime ‘only imagines that it believes in itself and demands that the world imagine the same thing. If it believed in its own essence, would it … seek refuge in hypocrisy and sophism? The modern ancien regime is rather only the comedian of a world order whose true heroes are dead.’ In such a situation, shame is a weapon: ‘The actual pressure must be made more pressing by adding to it consciousness of pressure, the shame must be made more shameful by publicising it.’This is precisely our situation today: we face the shameless cynicism of a global order whose agents only imagine that they believe in their ideas of democracy, human rights and so on. Through actions like the WikiLeaks disclosures, the shame – our shame for tolerating such power over us – is made more shameful by being publicised. When the US intervenes in Iraq to bring secular democracy, and the result is the strengthening of religious fundamentalism and a much stronger Iran, this is not the tragic mistake of a sincere agent, but the case of a cynical trickster being beaten at his own game.

[Indy]

The Guardian has profited hugely from the WikiLeaks disclosures, in many ways. On the other hand, WikiLeaks, which survives on mostly small donations and can no longer receive funds through many banks and credit companies thanks to the bullying of Washington, has received nothing from the paper. In February, Random House will publish a Guardian book that is sure to be a lucrative best-seller, which Amazon is advertising as The End of Secrecy: the Rise and Fall of WikiLeaks. When I asked David Leigh, the Guardian executive in charge of the book, what was meant by "fall," he replied that Amazon was wrong and that the working title had been The Rise (and Fall?) of WikiLeaks. "Note parenthesis and query," he wrote, "Not meant for publication anyway." (The book is now described on the Guardian website as WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy). Still, with all that duly noted, the sense is that "real" journalists are back in the saddle. Too bad about the new boy, who never really belonged.

[Mark Rothko]

Kajmanska ostrva Banke pomagale klijentima da izbegnu placanje poreza.http://www.bbc.co.uk/serbian/news/2011/01/110117_wikileaksswissbanks.shtml

[DarkAttraktor]

,ličnosti iz sveta umetnosti,

^_^

[Mark Rothko]

^_^

:o Filantrop koji iz saosecanja ne podriguje pred sirotinjom...nemoguce...Bice zanimljivo-poslovni ljudi,kompanije,politicari,fondovi,umetnici...Ipak su to pare od poreza na koje su sva drustva osetljiva.Mozemo da otvorimo kladionicu.Moj fiks sa ovih prostora sa kvotom 1.5

[Weenie Pooh]

Miloševići u Prokletoj Avliji, bilo li je?http://content1c.omroep.nl/403800d2fef8e38dd5026bde576240cc/4d3bf34c/nos/docs/wikileaks/03THEHAGUE2835.pdf

McFadden referred to a broad range of emotions and approaches that Mira Markovic deployed to goad or cajole Milosevic to take particular actions. When he failed to heed her advice, she was not beyond telling him* that bad outcomes could have been avoided had he listened to her. Markovic served as a source of information, comfort, motivation, and strategy for Milosevic and he relied heavily on her guidance. When Markovic pressed Milosevic to do something he did not want to do, Milosevic rarely pushed back directly but simply never acted on the particular entreaty. McFadden referred back to the relationship a number of times in the discussion as the central one in Milosevic's life. McFadden made clear that Milosevic's blood pressure spike in September (ref) caused serious alarm at the Tribunal, driving registry officers to consider ways in which to reduce his stress and, as one contact had previously said, "make him happy." McFadden even described his proposal that the Registry find a way to bring Markovic to The Hague from Russia with some immunity from arrest (which the Deputy Registrar noted was not feasible), because McFadden believed so strongly that getting the two together could help keep down Milosevic's stress and perhaps his blood pressure. He added, however, that even that was a risk because ""she can be a very volatile person."

*Čuveni leposamtijagovorilaalidžabekadneslušaš pristupFascinantno je da su stvarno razmatrali conjugal visits da čoveku olakšaju stres. Kao da u regionu nije bilo dosta mlađih, lepših, i kriminalno neoptuženijih žena čije su usluge na raspolaganju po povoljnoj ceni...Takođe,

McFadden said that Milosevic believes that "he is surrounded by fools" both inside and out of the courtroom, though he added in an aside that this was a problem of his own making, as he had surrounded himself with "fools" throughout his career out of a fear of being challenged by more competent and intelligent advisors.

Nisam siguran da li se sugeriše da je Milošević dodao taj poslednji deo, ili je to komentar tog McFaddena? Verovatno ovo drugo, šteta... Edited January 23, 2011 by Weenie Pooh

[minka]

Dakle, glavni cuvar deLux Hotela u Seveningenu je u stvari obicni Americki dousnik... A mi se zalimo da udbu... <_<

[Eraserhead]

Dakle, glavni cuvar deLux Hotela u Seveningenu je u stvari obicni Americki dousnik... A mi se zalimo da udbu... <_<

Siroti Sloba, šta mu uradiše zlikovci...