No thread about the new WIKILEAKS United States diplomatic cables leak?

[Hauldren Collider]

A likely excuse.


You're missing the point that obvious things on a list doesn't make them any more obvious.

In the civ example, all five cities are extremely obvious targets. It would surprise nobody that they are on the list of strategic locations. But knowing precisely how you rank your cities in terms of importance (even if you are WRONG about your ranking) is extremely valuable information for your enemies.

[Hauldren Collider]

This is a basic strategy concept, I could use pretty much any game that has information that is not known to everyone (think Stratego as opposed to chess).

[Asher]

In the civ example, all five cities are extremely obvious targets. It would surprise nobody that they are on the list of strategic locations. But knowing precisely how you rank your cities in terms of importance (even if you are WRONG about your ranking) is extremely valuable information for your enemies.

No, it's not, because any one of them can cause huge amounts of damage.

Again, it's obvious you've not read such a list (and I doubt you ever will, given your bizarre deferral to authority and depressing sense of nationalism), but if you look at the list you'll see why it's not such a big deal.

You act like the list exposes some little house in rural Ohio that would lead to the downfall of your entire country. If that house is bombed, the country will explode. Top secret stuff.

[Asher]

Honestly, do you guys thinks the terrorists just ran out of targets to attack?

Isn't it more likely they already know where to hurt you? Look at 9/11 -- attack the WTC, and your nation turns into a nannystate overnight with half your population sucking their thumbs and the other half asking to be violated by TSA employees.

They know where to hurt you, they know where to cause damage.

[giblets]

This is a basic strategy concept, I could use pretty much any game that has information that is not known to everyone (think Stratego as opposed to chess).

All we need to do is chop-rush a stack of axemen and take down al qaeda

[Hauldren Collider]

Asher, you are arguing against a strawman. Knowledge about your enemy's preferences is valuable. The fact that they exist and are important is not what we are talking about. It's the subjective ranking the military or DHS or whoever gives to these sites.

[Asher]

Asher, you are arguing against a strawman.

Am I?

I'm arguing against the argument that this list is a critical piece of intelligence and a Big Deal.

If that is a strawman, then you have changed your position.

FWIW, you'd have to be a remarkable idiot to trust a bureaucrat's opinion on anything, least of which a list of priorities.

Last I checked, your government is more interested in killing towelheads on the other side of the world rather than saving malnourished children in your own country. ****ed up priorities.

[Hauldren Collider]

All we need to do is chop-rush a stack of axemen and take down al qaeda

Are you going to continue to deliberately miss the point or can you accept the fact that analogies are useful tools for explanation?

[DaShi]

Disappointment for HC and DD. No one has died from the wikileaks.

Has release of Wikileaks documents cost lives?
By Katie Connolly
BBC News, Washington
The latest release of Wikileaks documents - a trove of US diplomatic cables which offer, among other things, unflattering and candid assessments of world leaders - has deeply angered American officials.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wikileaks' actions undermined US foreign policy efforts and amounted to "an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conventions and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity".
New York Congressman Pete King has called for the US Attorney General to designate Wikileaks a terrorist organisation and to prosecute founder Julian Assange for espionage.
Much of the criticism of Wikileaks, though, revolves around the notion that releasing such information risks lives.
Identities of informants could be compromised, spies exposed, and the safety of human rights activists, journalists and dissidents jeopardised when information of their activities is made public, the argument goes.
US military officials contend that allowing enemies access to their strategic and operational documents creates a dangerous environment for American troops serving abroad.
On Saturday, US state department legal adviser Harold Koh wrote in a letter to Wikileaks that the most recent document dump "could place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals" as well as "ongoing military operations".
He accused Wikileaks of endangerment "without regard to the security and the sanctity of the lives your actions endanger".
But is there any real evidence of this peril?
Justification for secrecy
The problem for officials like Mr Koh is proving direct links between the information released and any loss of life.
After the release of an enormous haul of US defence department documents in August, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told the Washington Post: "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the Wikileaks documents."
But, he added: "There is in all likelihood a lag between exposure of these documents and jeopardy in the field."
After this latest release a Pentagon official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the material involved, told the McClatchy newspaper group that even three months later the US military still had no evidence that people had died or been harmed because of information gleaned from Wikileaks documents.
Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers which detailed government lies and cover-ups in the Vietnam War, is sceptical of whether the government really believes that lives are at stake.
He told the BBC's World Today programme that US officials made that same argument every time there was a potentially embarrassing leak.
"The best justification they can find for secrecy is that lives are at stake. Actually, lives are at stake as a result of the silences and lies which a lot of these leaks reveal," he said.
"The same charges were made against the Pentagon Papers and turned out to be quite invalid."
Unknowable effects
Mr Ellsberg noted that with this release, the newspapers involved co-operated with the US government to ensure that the information they published did not imperil lives.
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told the BBC that although his newspaper did not always agree with the advice of US authorities, it had carefully redacted the published documents to remove identifying information.
"Our hope is that we've done everything in our power to minimise actual damage," he said.
Carne Ross, a former UK diplomat at the United Nations, told the BBC that the effects of Wikileaks were largely unknowable at this point.
"I don't think it has been proven that this is dangerous to US troops, for instance. I haven't seen that case made very clearly," he said. "What I think this means is that we need to look at our own mechanisms for democratic accountability and foreign policy. We need to be much, much better."
One thing the experts appear to agree on is that the leaks will make it more difficult for US diplomats and human intelligence operatives to do their jobs. Although that does not present an immediate threat to American lives, strained international relations may create a more dangerous world.
"They embarrass governments with which the US co-operates," Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said of the leaks on the BBC's World Today programme.
"At the very least, they will make governments like Pakistan and Yemen and others, which are collaborating with the US in the battle against terrorism, more reluctant to co-operate.
"It's harming some of the vital activities that the US government, the UK government or others engage in, which are protecting us against terrorism."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11882092?print=true <--See? It's all true! You can't argue against that.

[Riesstiu IV]

Disappointment for HC and DD. No one has died from the wikileaks.

What about the death of patriotism caused by wikileaks?

[DaShi]

Patriotism is alive and well in America.

[Asher]

Here's an article about the Canadian targets. Are you telling me, nye, that any of these surprises you?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/wikileaks-dump-lists-us-interest-in-canadas-energy-assets/article1827374/

WikiLeaks dump lists U.S. interest in Canada’s energy assets

When Americans think about Canada’s most vital assets, they think energy.

The latest WikiLeaks dump of secret U.S. government cables includes a list of infrastructure and facilities in foreign countries crucial to U.S. interests. The country with the most identified sites, by far, is Canada, with more than 30 facilities or structures listed, most of them energy-related.

The list includes such items as the James Bay Project and other Hydro-Québec assets described as a “critical irreplaceable source of power to portions of Northeast U.S.”; the Mica Dam and other power sources in British Columbia; the Pickering and Darlington nuclear power stations in Ontario; the Hibernia Atlantic undersea cable landing at Halifax; and natural gas transmission lines.

“The energy economies of Canada and the United States are highly integrated,” said Lawrence Solomon, executive director of Energy Probe, which analyzes energy policy. “It’s not surprising that Americans would attach importance to maintaining the security of energy facilities.”

But the Americans should rest assured: Canada’s energy facilities are as secure as practically possible, maintains Aaron Shull, a lawyer and professor who specializes in security and intelligence issues.

“Our law enforcement, security and intelligence officers and protocols are as good as theirs are,” he said in an interview. Nuclear facilities are heavily protected, and while more remote sites such as hydro-electric generating facilities in Northern Quebec may be less strictly guarded, “from a terrorist perspective, those don’t make very good targets, because though they’re easily accessible, they’re not symbolically important,” he said.

Also listed in the cable are the Windsor-Detroit bridge and other vital border crossings, several mines, the nuclear isotopes produced at Chalk River, private companies that supply military hardware, and pharmaceutical manufacturers such as GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals in Quebec, which is considered a vital supplier of vaccine to ward off pandemics.

[Asher]

The full list of Canadian targets (I AM NOT A TERRORIST FOR POSTING THIS :ANGRYFURIOUSMADREPUBLICANCOMPENSATION:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/list-of-canadian-sites-considered-key-to-us-interests/article1826307/

Hibernia Atlantic undersea cable landing Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

James Bay Power Project, Quebec: monumental hydroelectric power development

Mica Dam, British Columbia: Failure would impact the Columbia River Basin

Hydro Quebec, Quebec: Critical irreplaceable source of power to portions of Northeast U.S.

Robert Moses/Robert H. Saunders Power, Ontario: Part of the St. Lawrence Power Project, between Barnhart Island, New York, and Cornwall, Ontario

Seven Mile Dam, British Columbia: Concrete gravity dam between two other hydropower dams along the Pend d’Oreille River

Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, Ontario, Canada

Chalk River Nuclear Facility, Ontario: Largest supplier of medical radioisotopes in the world

Hydrofluoric Acid Production Facility, Allied Signal, Amherstburg, Ontario

Enbridge Pipeline Alliance Pipeline: Natural gas transmission from Canada

Maritime and Northeast Pipeline: Natural gas transmission from Canada

Transcanada Gas: Natural gas transmission from Canada

Alexandria Bay POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing

Ambassador Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing

Blaine POE, British Columbia: Northern border crossing

Blaine Washington Rail Crossing, British Columbia

Blue Water Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing

Champlain POE, Quebec: Northern border crossing

CPR Tunnel Rail Crossing, Ontario (Michigan Central Rail Crossing) International Bridge Rail Crossing, Ontario International Railway Bridge Rail Crossing

Lewiston-Queenstown POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing

Peace Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing

Pembina POE, Manitoba: Northern border crossing

North Portal Rail Crossing, Saskatchewan

St. Claire Tunnel Rail Crossing, Ontario

Waneta Dam, British Columbia: Earthfill/concrete hydropower dam

Darlington Nuclear Power Plant, Ontario, Canada

E-ONE Moli Energy, Maple Ridge, Canada: Critical to production of various military application electronics

General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada, London Ontario, Canada: Critical to the production of the Stryker/USMC LAV Vehicle Integration

Raytheon Systems Canada Ltd. ELCAN Optical Technologies Division, Midland, Ontario, Canada: Critical to the production of the AGM-130

Missile Thales Optronique Canada, Inc., Montreal, Quebec: Critical optical systems for ground combat vehicles

Germanium Mine Graphite Mine Iron Ore Mine Nickel Mine Niobec Mine, Quebec, Canada:

Niobium Cangene, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Plasma Sanofi Pasteur Ltd., Toronto, Canada: Polio virus vaccine

GlaxoSmithKile Biologicals, North America, Quebec, Canada: Pre-pandemic influenza vaccines

The terror!!!

[notyoueither]

Asher, up to now the few cells of wanna-be t'rists in Canada have picked things like the CN Tower or the Parliament buildings as targets. They obviously were not putting much thought into looking for something that might actually be important.

Well, they have a road map now. Thank-you, Mr Assange.

And no, I would have had no idea off the top of my head, or with some research even, which certain few facilities in Canada were important enough to the US military for the manufacture of weapons systems to be on such a list; or which facilities were important enough to the medical community in the US that they would be singled out.

I did know about Chalk River because of the recent press coverage over problems and the shortage of medical isotopes. I did not know though that the US government thought it a matter of their national security. Those people have nuclear material coming out their asses. What they need with a rinky-dink, broken down reactor in Canada is a bit of a mystery.

Additionally, the article points out that a high proportion of these targets are in Canada. Hmmm. What do you think the more professional members of AQ might do when reaching a similar conclusion? Do you think they might be a bit more interested in targets in 'soft' Canada, with relatively lax security, massive unprotected borders, etc.? What would you do with information like this? Think about it for a moment.

[notyoueither]

BTW, every facility on that list just gained symbolic importance.