Wikileaks: US Diplomats Pushed Boeing Planes

The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA space flight. And in Bangladesh, the prime minister pressed the State Department to re-establish landing rights at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Each of these government leaders had one thing in common: they were trying to decide whether to buy billions of dollars’ worth of commercial jets from Boeing or its European competitor, Airbus. And United States diplomats were acting like marketing agents, offering deals to heads of state and airline executives whose decisions could be influenced by price, performance and, as with all finicky customers with plenty to spend, perks.

This is the high-stakes, international bazaar for large commercial jets, where tens of billions of dollars are on the line, along with hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs. At its heart, it is a wrestling match fought daily by executives at two giant companies, Boeing and Airbus, in which each controls about half of the global market for such planes.

To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest levels.

It is not surprising that the United States helps American companies doing business abroad, given that each sale is worth thousands of jobs and that their foreign competitors do the same. But like the other WikiLeaks cables, these offer a remarkably detailed look at what had previously been only glimpsed — in this case, the sales war between American diplomats and their European counterparts.

The cables describe letters from presidents, state visits as bargaining chips and a number of leaders making big purchases based, at least in part, on how much the companies will dress up private planes.

The documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least payment to suspicious intermediaries who offer to serve as “agents,” still take place. Boeing says it is committed to avoiding any such corrupt practices.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured site: So, Why is Wikileaks a Good Thing Again?.

View the original article here

Wikileaks Lists “Vital” US Security Sites

BBC reports:

A long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security has been released by Wikileaks.

The US State Department in February 2009 asked all US missions abroad to list all installations whose loss could critically affect US national security.

The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.

Several UK sites are listed, including cable locations, satellite sites and BAE Systems plants.

This is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation.

The definition of US national security revealed by the cable is broad and all embracing.

In addition to obvious pieces of strategic infrastructure like communications hubs, gas pipelines and so on, it contains, amongst other things, a cobalt mine in Congo, an anti-snake venom factory in Australia and an insulin plant in Denmark.

The US missions were asked to list all installations whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security or national security of the United States.

In Britain, for example, the list ranges from Cornwall to Scotland, including key satellite communications sites and the places where trans-Atlantic cables make landfall.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Ron Paul Defends Wikileaks Founder

Politico reports:

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is taking a stand as one of Julian Assange’s few defenders in Washington, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder should get the same protections as the media.

Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that the Justice Department is examining whether Assange can be charged with a crime for posting hundreds of thousands of leaked government intelligence documents and diplomatic cables.

Many Republicans have gone even further in their attacks on Assange, especially former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee, who said this week that the source who leaked?to the?WikiLeaks founder should be tried for treason and executed if found guilty.

But in a Thursday interview with Fox Business, Paul said the idea of prosecuting Assange crosses the line.

“In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.”

“This whole notion that Assange, who’s an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren’t they jumping to a wild conclusion?” he added. “This is media, isn’t it? I mean, why don’t we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Amazon: Gov. Did Not Push us to Drop Wikileaks

Computerworld reports:

IDG News Service – Amazon Web Services (AWS) kicked WikiLeaks off its servers for breaking rules designed to ensure websites use their own content and that it won’t injure others, and not due to pressure from the U.S. government, Amazon said Thursday.

“AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not following them,” Amazon said in a blog posting. “For example, our terms of service state that “you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity,” it added.

A day earlier, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman said Amazon stopped hosting Wikileaks after being contacted by the U.S. Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, a committee Lieberman chairs.

Wikileaks drew controversy for the continued publication of classified U.S. documents, including videos and documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This time the classified documents in question were sensitive cables sent from and between U.S. embassies and the U.S. State Department. The cables contain embarrassing details about the U.S.’s relationship with governments around the world. U.S. officials had complained that information in the cables could compromise government personnel, while human rights groups had written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution in the release and not name human rights defenders that might then face persecution by their governments.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Huckabee: Execute Source of the Wikileaks

The Huffington Post reports:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and possible Republican presidential candidate provided a harsh assessment of what he believes to be an appropriate punishment for the source of the latest WikiLeaks transmission of U.S. embassy cables, saying that “anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.”

“Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason,” Huckabee said, according to a report from Florida Independent. “They’ve put American lives at risk.”

Huckabee continued:

“They’ve put relationships that will take decades to rebuild at risk, and they knew full well that they were handling sensitive documents, they were entrusted and anyone who had access to that level of information was not only a person who understood what their rules were, but they also signed, under oath, a commitment that they would not violate it. They did. And I believe they have committed treason against this country, and any lives they endanger, they’re personally responsible for and the blood is on their hands. And, in addition to their reckless irresponsibility, an act of criminal intent, I think the New York Times has shown an utter, reckless disregard for any responsible journalism by printing something that they know that they obtained in a way that is is not appropriate.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Ahmadinejad: WikiLeaks Release is U.S. Plot

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday accused the United States of orchestrating WikiLeaks’ Sunday release of more than 250,000 internal State Department cables, some of which suggest that Arab leaders fear Iran’s nuclear program and regional influence.

“The material was not leaked but rather released in an organized way,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, adding that the WikiLeaks “game” is “not worth commenting upon and that no one would waste their time reviewing them.”

“The U.S. administration released them, and based on them, they pass judgment. … [The documents] have no legal value and will not have the political effect they seek,” he said.

“Cablegate,” as it already is being called, contained numerous revelations ranging from State Department orders for U.S. diplomats to act as de-facto intelligence agents to the role of the Chinese Politburo in the cyber attack on Google.

But none garnered more headlines than the unusually blunt language many Arab leaders used in private to discuss Iran.

One April 2008 cable from Riyadh speaks of Saudi King Abdullah’s “frequent exhortations to the U.S. to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program [or to] cut off the head of the snake,” as the monarch is quoted as saying.

Another, from Cairo in March 2009, says that Egyptian President Hosni “Mubarak has a visceral hatred for the Islamic Republic, referring repeatedly to Iranians as ‘liars,’ and denouncing them for seeking to destabilize Egypt and the region.”

An April 2009 cable from Amman notes that “[t]he metaphor most commonly deployed by Jordanian officials when discussing Iran is of an octopus whose tentacles reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best laid plans of the West and regional moderates.”

The cables also report that leaders of small Gulf states, such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have — like the Saudi king —?urged military action against Iran. The prime minister of Qatar, one Gulf state with closer ties to Tehran, is quoted in a December 2009 missive from Doha as describing his country’s relationship with the Iranians as one in which “[t]hey lie to us, and we lie to them.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad shrugged off the reported comments, saying that “the countries in the region are like friends and brothers.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here

Obama’s WikiLeaks Wake Up Call

This is a pivotal moment in the larger foreign policy debate. During Bush’s second term, realists (i.e. Baker/Hamilton) and leftists (Obama’s crew) joined forces and presented what seemed like a coherent critique of Bush foreign policy and neoconservatism. Cheney’s influence was replaced with Condi’s. The realists/leftists agreed that we needed to negotiate with Iran and Syria, leave Iraq, and focus on creating a Palestinian state. Then Obama was elected and turned this agenda into policy.

On the peace process, Obama made these ideas the basis of his approach. He got tough with Israel and made settlements the centerpiece of the conflict while refusing to ever criticize or pressure the Palestinians.

So the peace process has quickly fallen apart, and now, just as this reality is setting in — that Obama mishandled it from day one, in thrall to bad ideas — we get Wikileaks, which is quickly obliterating the Gulf-side Middle East worldview of the leftist-realists.

They said the Palestinians are the key to pleasing the Arabs — but in private, we now know that the Arabs barely ever mention Palestine. They said that the Israelis manipulate our foreign policy — but we now know that the Arabs were the ones openly calling for the U.S. to start a war with Iran. They said that America’s closeness with Israel alienates the Arabs — but we now know that what’s really alienating the Arabs is America’s reluctance to use its power to confront Iran and enforce a security architecture in which Israel is America’s most capable client.

In both halves of the Middle East — Levant and Gulf — the realist-leftists have gotten their way for the past few years. And the collapse of the peace process plus Wikileaks shows that their way is a fantasy that is scaring the daylights out of our allies and risking catastrophe.

As I see it, the meaning of Wikileaks is that we are at a moment when a bookend is being placed on a brief period of ascendancy for the realist-leftist foreign policy movement. It’s going to be a bruising downhill ride for these guys from here on out. (I hope.)

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here