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Assange Calls For Obama's Resignation If Confirmed President Approved UN Spy Ring
When we first heard of the latest Wikileaks "cablegate" fiasco, we speculated that Hillary Clinton may be forced to resign for what is rapidly becoming the biggest crisis for US foreign policy since the Bay of Pigs. Today, in an interview with Spanish El Pais, Julian Assange goes one better and says that if it is proven that he approved the spying on UN officials, then Obama should resign. As a reminder as per one of the released cables, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
asked for UN personnel's telephones, emails, credit card details and
frequent flier numbers. Let's recall that Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment under somewhat comparable circumstances. The only difference is that back then Woodward and Berstein were not on the receiving end of what is becoming an endless barrage of death threats for doing their journalistic duty. This time around, the "deep throat" is the target of an international witch hunt, where however is moot: the early attempt by the like of Joe Lieberman to censor the internet is doomed from the beginning. However, it does show that in the past 40 years little has changed at the top echelons of power when the sordid truth of "Standard Operating Procedures" are revealed. And, unfortunately, things have only gotten worse. Also, keep in mind that Wikileaks has so far released only a small fraction of the 250,000 cables that will ultimately be declassified by Wiki. One wonders just how long the world can maintain the damage control before foreign relations between both friends and enemies are terminally frayed.
More from AFP:
"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais.
"Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign," he added during an Internet chat interview published online.
WikiLeaks threw US diplomacy into chaos when it started releasing more than 250,000 classified State Department cables on November 28, creating an international firestorm as American diplomats' private assessments of foreign leaders and politics have been publicly aired.
According to one of the documents, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked for UN personnel's telephones, emails, credit card details and frequent flier numbers.
The United States and other governments said the release of the documents broke their laws.
Assange gave the interview to El Pais on Saturday from an undisclosed location. The 39-year-old Australian is believed to be in Britain, and a report said he could be arrested this week.
To be sure, life for Wikileaks over the weekend has gotten progressively more difficult: first Paypal rolled over, and agreed to stop all Wikileaks transactions, and now even the site's last bastion: it's Swiss hosted site wikileaks.ch, is intermittently off and on.
He said WikiLeaks had "dozens" of people who were helping the organisation deal with the cyber-attack and set up the mirror websites "but it takes a lot of time for us to manage the process".
"We are automating that process and will soon have hundreds. If there is a battle between the US military and the preservation of History, we have insured History will win."
Assange said he and others who work for WikiLeaks had received "hundreds" of "specific" death threats from "US military militants".
Oddly enough, despite broad speculation that the British authorities are well aware of where Assange is located, his arrest has so far been elusive, making many wonder just what is contained in the 1.4 gigabyte file floating in torrentspace, which is considered to be Assange's prison insurance...
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Good Lord if that's true they should be keeping mum about it like a prior sexual indiscretion involving something with more than two legs...
You mean like an Octopus (or, shudder, a Squid)??
What a crock of shit this whole thing is. What has he released so far? Not much really. The most pressing problem/s in the world were not started by Obama and is not caused by the United States. Our most pressing problem is class warfare and it crosses national boundaries. If this guy was for real, he would be exposing more than just secretly collecting frequent flyer numbers of UN officials. This is just complete bullshit.
If you are for real then you will release secret documents detailing international class warfare. Hop to it.
This guy is probably exposing the work of 50,000 Gov'n employees with maybe the help of a dozen people. Bjennings, you are the crock of shit sitting on your hands doing what? go blow it out your ass. Milestones
Seems to me with this latest announcement "Obama resign" he now joins part of the media problem in company with Fox News or MSNBC. He just went from journalist to politician. I smell something fishy here - like what has been mentioned several times here already, psy ops. Julian Assange is the new Osama bin Laden -- this elusive guy that turns up (freely) for interviews, etc... but that all the authorities in the world can't quite seem to catch. Next, he is going to release the secret files on what really happened to Elvis, where he is currently living, etc..
Assange's attorney says that the British authorites know his location. It's being kept secret so a lone nut doesn't try to harm him. It's as simple as that.
I give Assange 6 months before he's gone. Less than 3 for some of his worker bees.
Methinks ZH has already covered this in terms of the roots thereof:
The details are what is called history.
stress must be getting to Obama LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zttMj_pV1Tw&feature=player_embedded
If this is not fake, I think our President is trying to tell us something here.
If the RePubs get cute, he may finally take the gloves off. Still have Senate and Potus.
hey Wiki, time to deliver a big one
shit or get off the pot
Are we supposed to be impressed with your demand for the big girl potty?
See my reply to another person above that have let their mouth overload their ass. Milestones
Would be interesting if WL posts the death threats, would prolly lend even more credence to their cause.
Hide well, Julian.
Intimidate the predators-that-be well, Julian.
Everyone with inside information about the predator class: collect, prepare and release that information the day they arrest Julian.
First, many thanks ZH. Sometimes the best defence is offence and I suppose Wikileaks is learning the lessons the hard way.
Tyler may see the comparison between Watergate and Wikileaks when it comes to the political shenanigans and legal ramifications. I see parallels in this whole situation between Julian Assange and what happened when whistleblower Dr.Jeffrey Wigand and CBS's 60 Minutes tried to expose the activities of the American Tobacco Industry in 1995. When organizations are so powerful and corruption so widespread that all avenues to bring them to justice are closed, the only option left is public exposure. Without Wikileaks and the brave few people of conscience who blow the whistle on them by providing concrete evidence, we have no way to learn anything truthful about what government or corporate entities do in our name or in the pursuit of profit. I honestly do not care about the nationalities of those who commit crimes/corruption/injustice, only that they are exposed.
If you want to know how deeply the popular media is controlled by the US government, all you have to do is read the contents of the entire files on release - an undertaking that I have started. Even the release of these files have not changed the general media one iota - they have decided to concentrate on the frivolous and titillating information and virtually ignore any of the truly heinous crimes/corruption/injustice. E.G. The spate of bombings in Yemen in Dec 2009 that killed 21 children and 120 others (Presumably "Baddies"), that was hushed up and revealed by Wikileaks as the work of the US military. Why is ANYONE surprised about the recent blowback? - that the angry nutjobs in Yemen are sending bombs in inkjet printers?
There are parallels in history, and you don't have to be an historian to know the difference between right and wrong. All serious crimes should be punished, no matter what your nationality, your rationalization, or excuses. In this information age, we have so much easily available, indelible, and incorruptible evidence against those in power who say one thing and do another, that everyone is beginning to see the irony of Mrs.Clinton's protestations about China's censorship of Google, and her ruthless, illegal hack attacks, and criminal persecution of Wikileaks for merely telling the truth provided by people of conscience to expose injustice. The World desperately needs Wikileaks so that whistleblowers in other countries can come forward to expose the same failings in human nature: No other animal kills its own species for a fucking profit.
Wikileaks is learning the lessons the hard way.
So far Assange is doing better than David Kelly or that fellow who linked the CIA to crack cocaine distribution.
Webb did INCREDIBLY WELL. His story was published, and he got his book out too. And it's all very well-researched and documented. Sure, it looks like someone got him eventually, but anyone who even for the briefest moment questioned the crack explosion knows about him.
The problem, if there is one, is that "the anyone" comprises a tiny percentage of the population. Most folks are more interested in what's for lunch and who won last night.
The MSM has BECOME tabloid journalism! All genuine journalism is slowly dying in newspaper-land.
Golly-goshers, no sooner do I post the above than I read this from Acting Man:
It is important to remember that the State has historically come into being by means of violent conquest and enslavement. It was established as an effective tool of exploitation – it was never a 'voluntary arrangement', where a bunch of people suddenly decided it was better for them to be ruled by others instead of remaining free. Our modern-day democratic State with its (s)elections has grown from these historical roots and represents only a marginal improvement upon its earlier versions – elections do not retroactively alter the State's genesis or its raison d'etre.
And yet, the State qua State is rarely discussed or questioned anymore. Do we really need it, as governments everywhere claim? Would the world sink into chaos if the State ceased to exist? Lastly, is it even legitimate to equate the State with 'government'? We think not. For interested readers we would strongly recommend the irreverent and hard-hitting book 'Our Enemy The State' by that seminal hater of politics, Albert Jay Nock, in which Nock points inter alia out that native Americans had no State – but they nevertheless did have government.
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=5710
so if he says Obama must resign, does Palin retract the hit and sends him a moneygram?
Misdirection is at hand!
I fear for Julian's life. If he is indeed murdered, Obama has to be impeached. Resignation is not an option.
I read something of this nature in a previous ZH excellent comment (by B9C9 or something like it - can't remember the name), The scenario will play as follows: Obama is impeached, and the new President will not be a Dem or Rep. It will be a military man, i.e., General Petraeus. Welcome to the 13th military President of the US.
At first, I found the comment struck me as unrealistic, but that was before the Wikileaks. And Julian's "rape" accuser has CIA ties. The other woman already has gone in hidding in Israel.
I don't believe in coincidences.
Obama became a murder on his third day in office with a drone attack on Pakistan. He's killed thousands of innocents by now. This is not held against him. The trick to ousting Obama or any other sitting politician is to find material which is embarrassing rather than criminal.
Did he order the civilian attack?
Is he not the Commander in Chief?
The drone attacks are his policy. So, yeah.
Not only have thousands been killed but it has been reported that a million people have been made refugees by the US attacks on Pakistan.
blowjobs don't work
depends on who's giving them
The "Valentine's Day Massacre" occurred while Al Capone was in Florida, in a meeting with the State D.A. Check your premises.
JA will simply disappear. If the US and UN don't have the balls to do it, Russia will. And they are very good at keeping you on ice for decades.
Bye, bye JA.
Hey, who put polonium in this tea?
I got to the bottom of posts and now forget what I wanted to say.
I compare this to Daniel Elsberg's "The Pentagon Papers" a hero of the left
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
In late 1969 - with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague, Anthony Russo — Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers. As an editor of the New York Times was to write much later, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance".[7] They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed the government had lied to Congress and the public.[7]"
Judge Napolitano says that the Pentagon Papers set a precedent when the Supreme Court upheld the right of the press to publish classified materials which are in the public interest. Not that anyone is interested in the rule of law...
Seems it depends on who's ox is getting gored.
GPS =Global Positioning System, so don't forget to provide diplomats' travel plans, destinations and timetables, dinner appointments, dentist appointments. Oh, yeah...and parents' and childrens' data, too...hey, hey, USA! Whatever leverage works.
...or any persons of interest.
SNL did a great skit on Julian Assange - "if I am found dead, yes I was murdered". LMAO
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSXQx9bnrDI
Amen.
"foreign relations between both friends and enemies are terminally frayed."
let us be reminded that the breakdown between the afformentioned will involve heads of state only. Yes this could eventually lead to engagements between populations from "rivaling" countries, but do I really have it in for Afghans? Sri-Lankans? Tongans? Chinese? Are they out for my blood? Might not matter in the end, but it's nice to think the people may feel differently.
I don't know what some of you think about the 'egregious' nature of the 'spying', but what the fuck do you think cheney and addington were up to?
Assange had better pour a cup of STFU for a little while and put a lid on his job reccommendations and let the documents speak for themselves.
I don't know what history books Tyler has been reading but Nixon was up to criminality past his eyeballs. Obama isn't getting another vote out of me, but there isn't a republican worth shit.
There hasn't been a President since nixon who so totally imploded. Obama seems worse because with nixon we expected it with BO it was a betrayal a total sellout of what was entrusted. It was to the most venal, craven lot banksters. It is my hope the next document dump has impeachable collusion between the administration and jp squidman.
Probably a bit late in the thread to bring up this idea, but I haven't seen it here before, so feel like sharing. Of course there's a contingent that is dead-certain that WL and Assange are a disinfo outlet operating to help shield the real story. Personally I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other--I suspect most folks will believe pretty much whatever they prefer no matter what you show them or tell them, and WL/Assange is just another source of information or disinformation that the critic has to grapple with.
But something occurred to me that might be interesting to others.
IF WL/JA are disinformation outlets, it would seem to me that the most useful application would be to release different types of information to help the PTB determine what might MATTER to a largely uninformed and apathetic population.
In other words: release clues about potential plans solely for the purpose of determining whether public response would be passionate or not.
The US public didn't seem overly bothered by "revelations" that the military tortured a bunch of Iraqis to death a few years ago, right? So what possible better use of a disinfo outlet than to find out just what WOULD upset people. "What can we get away with?" has to be one of the primary considerations of an authoritarian state dealing with an increasingly unhappy domestic population and no long history of successfully quelling social momentum.
Well, for one thing this country would rather vote for a dancer than think about an election.
Obama has taken a page from rove's book and just won't do anything about it. bush let most of new orleans drown and the corporate refused to show the bodies floating down the street. Lay back and hope for ennui.
They may 'put the information out' but it is filtered through republican corporate media.
The country is so punch drunk by the real economy they drink the wormwood of reality tv. The department of 'justice' is more impotent than it was under fredo. Watching that and a clueless congress most people are just wracked with ambivalence.
D@mn! Do you ever meet yourself coming around a corner? Now I gotta layer on some more tin-foil!
OK, JA is calling for OB's resignation, implying that HC committed a crime by requesting shitloads of personal information about UN employees, what I want to know is:
- Did she receive said information?
- Please cite the statue that makes requesting this information a crime.
- Please cite the agency who has jursidiction over said crime.
- Please cite the statue that makes receiving said information a crime.
- Please cite the agency who has jurisdiction over this crime.
If an objective legal basis exists that warrants prosecution of the individuals involved in this then JA is perfectly reasonable in calling for resignations of the key players.
This isn't about whether WL is moral or heroic or merely grand standing for it's 15 minutes of fame. The allegations are specific and should be addressed absent the fervor and debate swirling around the overall WL issue. Simple as that.
That being said, good/bad or ugly, someday they will make a movie about this guy and it will be a damn good one.
Google is your friend. So is Wikipedia. The info you request has been discussed in multiple locations on the Web, with attendant citations of the relevant regulations and governing bodies. Google the name of the current Secretary General of the U.N. He has recently reminded President Obama of the seriousness of these charges.
The cables are credible, imho. JA's points of interest and thoughts are interesting, but just interesting.... he of all people should have a go with his opinion on them.
The cables speak for themselves.
The government and thier wingnut defenders from Lieberman chasing servers to all sorts of GOPers inciting murder, speaks volumes. Nobody seems to be denying their validity. And the best the tin foil hatters can come up with is their topic du jour is missing. And, btw, this is far from the first time the site has suffered attacks.
For those who say nothing shocking is here, well we are all more than a bit numb to the worst of crimes, wouldn't most agree? We simply do not know how to get rule of law.... and we have no shame.
Assange should shut up and not editorialise, Wikkileaks is supposed to just release raw data and let everyone else fight about it.
Making comments on the data makes it look you have a political or other ulterior purpose and makes possible for others to say they obtain leaks for political ends. Assagne should remember that now he is represent no just himself but the whole of Wikkileaks.
And...they cannot realese documents until they have been redacted so as to be sure to not put anybody in peril. To me it seems they might be working back from he most recent documents.
They can't release documents from other countries if they don't have them. The leak they recieved was from the USA and that person obviously doesn't have access to the archives of other countries.
Assange should shut up and not editorialise, Wikkileaks is supposed to just release raw data and let everyone else fight about it.
Well, since you're the boss of him can't you make him do that?
not so long ago our government and a very large corporation were caught red handed spying on every one of us. Then everybody let them go.
Let's all try to imagine what kind of atrocity the US government could engage in that could POSSIBLY piss off enough people to do something...
Obama and his cabinet gang-rape a class of 1st-graders on Fox News? The NSA shuts down every Internet porn site on the web? Our military nukes the Gulf-states into oblivion because of reports of a zombie uprising? A $4/gallon tax on gasoline?
It's amusing to ponder the possibilities.
How about a collection of recipes ("How to Serve Man" V2.0) for welfare/SNAP recipients and Senior Citizens on Medicare?
Assange organized a PROTEST in 2006 against radical islamic fundamentalism in Australia.
That's his ONLY instance of political activism that has been made public.
He has asked for two Democratic politicians to step down.
After claiming 200,000 plus cables, he gets jumpy about this issue? Strange.
Could it be that Assange has more PERSONAL politics than we've been allowed to know?
Perhaps.
Let that 2006 protest be your guide. Start asking questions about why that protest, of all things he could organize.
He seemed very close to his mother at that time. She organized it with him. They organized a few things together.
We know NOTHING yet about this sudden media star.
A few questions wouldn't kill him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsjybfVJBCM&feature=related
See, the ShoeShineBoy does know ShitFromShinola!
Regardless of the contents of the secrets spilled, Assange expects to be lauded, and with no retribution? Come on man, get real.
Assange and Michael Moore are either superior marketers appealing to their audience, or the two biggest fools of the century.
The worst is yet to come for JA, not BO.
I love ZH, and I love the fight against TPTB, but they are not wrong all of the time.
Do not advocate anarchy until you are willing to live and die in it. And, you will most likely die in it before you can say that you have a good quality of life.
If you take a stand, you must be willing to die for your beliefs. Are you? If not, you're just another boring "armchair quarterback" with nothing useful to offer.
don't know if this has been posted
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/
Obama to resign!
Assange has to ask Obama's masters.
Obama is nothing other than a pupper.
The Ulsterman interviews prove it beyond doubt.
this is rich - the bitch who was so gleeful in 1973/4 writing legal briefs to impeach and prosecute the president is doing exactly what nixon did and even worse. what happened to ye mr jaworski?
we mustn't forget that nixon was taken out by the cia.
of course the clintons are cia children so hillary is doing what her cia bosses tell her....it is most likely that obama ordered the spying - the man has lied about everything else and performed intelligence operations by going to pakistan in the 1980s is no stranger to intrigue.
and yet it is possible that the liar-in-chief, citizen of indonesia, could be compartmentalized by a task force in the white house charged to carry out these operations in such a way as to give the president - even an indonesian one - plausible deniability.
if you want to know how these operations work study the ordered destruction of the uss liberty by such a team....of course johnson was directly involved and screamed into the phone to the 6th fleet commander to let that "damned ship sink to the bottom of the ocean." mcnamara's band chimed in that the "president isn't going to war over a bunch of goddamned dead sailor" after the black flag op failed.
it is foolish to think of the american government as a monolithic whole. it is a balkanized collection of fiefdoms run with byzantine obscurantism whose ultimate ovelords are the cia and banksters.
obama is bush.
I think those that understand this know WL is not what it seems to be.
Many, Many do not understand this.
You have to see it for yourself to believe it... I think.