Text: White House condemns Wikileaks disclosures

[cal04]

Source: BBC

The White House in Washington has strongly condemned the release by the Wikileaks website of a huge batch of US diplomatic cables on 28 November 2010. Here is the text of the statement.

We anticipate the release of what are claimed to be several hundred thousand classified State department cables on Sunday night that detail private diplomatic discussions with foreign governments.

By its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions.

Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only US foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11859198

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WikiLeaks 'reckless and dangerous': White House
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101128/pl_afp/usdiplomacymilitaryinternetwikileakswhitehouse_20101128185156

[DJ13]

1. "In a memo leaked to the press, the WH condemns....."

[Catherina]

6. "the release of what are claimed to be several hundred thousand classified State department cables"

:ROFL:

[L0oniX]

21. LOL ...yea they leak shit but don't want others to leak shit.

[derby378]

2. Some of our foreign policy interests DESERVE to be impacted

What part of "Not In Our Name" do some of these Washington insiders not understand? :shrug:

[L0oniX]

20. "our foreign policy interests"??? ...They aren't my interests.

[iamtechus]

3. Try to smear someone who has embarrassing information on you and ....

Shit happens!

[Lint Head]

4. So the WH is condoning criminality?

What lies are being exposed that the WH wants to hide? Why must you continually lie to us?

[L0oniX]

19. What else would you expect from those who won't prosecute the Bush crime syndicate.

[saigon68]

37. Cowards who allowed Cheney to run wild

War Criminals unpunished

[Imagevision]

5. Obama, now don't believe everything you hear now...

[L0oniX]

18. Obviously we shouldn't have believed what we heard him say before and during his campaign either.

[pleah]

7. Big deal. They pretty much have to say that.

Or, at least think they do.

[ProSense]

8. Here is the

official statement

[struggle4progress]

9. I'm quite sympathetic to the White House on this. Every country in the world attempts

to keep its diplomatic traffic confidential: that makes perfect sense, and it's why diplomatic pouches aren't usually opened when crossing international borders

I don't know exactly what's in the wikileaks release. But if there's a large volume of classified diplomatic communications exposing current or recent negotiating stances and strategies, then the release undermines the Administration's ability to conduct foreign policy, and one needs to understand the security breech

[jberryhill]

10. No... Disclosure of confidential information is good... baaaa /nt

[Alamuti Lotus]

11. When said policies are flat wrong, "undermined" is the least that they deserve to be

[struggle4progress]

12. People frequently disagree about policy. Is it your view that anyone who disagrees

with a US negotiating stance automatically acquires a moral right to publish current US diplomatic cables?

[L0oniX]

17. When do "we the peole" get to control policy?

[Alamuti Lotus]

23. NEVER, and that's the real point at hand

[struggle4progress]

24. What does that mean? There are 300+ million people in the US. A presidential term

lasts about 126 million seconds. Would you like everybody in the US to have play Secretary of state for 2 or 3 seconds once every four years? Or perhaps you would like a national election for every different foreign policy decision -- or maybe an internet poll for every different foreign policy decision?

If you have a specific foreign policy issue that concerns you, organize around it and try to change it. People have been doing that for years

[Arctic Dave]

31. Do you see the strangeness of your statement?

"If you have a specific foreign policy issue that concerns you, organize around it and try to change it. People have been doing that for years"

How does one change a policy decision that they are lied to about?

In case you haven't noticed but many people have been trying to change our policies only to be be ignored by our own government.

My hope is that many more Mannings will be brave enough to pull back the curtain.

[BrendaBrick]

32. Kudos to Mannings!

"My hope is that many more Mannings will be brave enough to pull back the curtain."

Damn Skippy! He should be considered a true *American Idol* ~ Brave indeed!!!

I share your hope that many more like him will step up to the plate.

This song came to my mind and I think it applies in 2010 as it did back in '67.

For What It's Worth - Written by Stephen Stills, recorded by Buffalo Springfield:

http://www.reasontorock.com/tracks/for_what_its_worth.html

....for what it's worth....

[struggle4progress]

33. I can remember a number of foreign policy fights won by grassroots organizing,

despite the fact that official sources lied. There was, for example, the Vietnam war. There was also the struggle against apartheid: go back and review the US position on the Nationalist government was, during the late Cold War period. There were also the murderous Reagan era wars against Central American peasants

[L0oniX]

36. Sorry ...I am not a global corporation. I have no say with the government.

[No Elephants]

38. It isn't 1965. Organizing doesn't work anymore. Only money moves DlC nowadays.

you organize to garner public support, on the theory that Washington will respond. At one point, over 70$ of Americans polled wanted a public option. Washington could have cared less.

Welcome to the plutonomy, the real "new normal."

[Imajika]

26. When you go to the ballot box to vote.

"When do 'we the peole' get to control policy?"

That's what elections are for. Each of our 300 million citizens do not get to make foreign policy or play diplomat. You get to elect representatives from the President on down to do that for you. If you think your voice needs to be heard more loudly on policy issues, you are welcome to run for office yourself.

There is no government, even a super progressive one, that would want its diplomatic cables and internal discussions released to the public.

[L0oniX]

35. LOL ...ok what ever. It's nice to have dreams and goals ...even if they aren't realistic.

[No Elephants]

39. LOL!

[Alamuti Lotus]

22. This is not a matter of a minor, one-off disagreement

Considering a long, consistant error with virtually all the power in the world backing it, any strike against it is justified.

[truthisfreedom]

13. It's hard to imagine what the fallout from all of this will be. Certainly little good will come of

it.

[L0oniX]

16. Certainly little good comes from letting our government do what ever it wants!

[No Elephants]

40. Depends on your perspective. IMO, good things have already come from it.

And I can certainly imagine that both good and bad will continue to come from it.

[saras]

14. We had it coming.

To turn a right-wing trope back on them, if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to hide. Right?

[L0oniX]

15. Yea you can snif our assholes and spy on us and test us for drugs ...so what do you have to hide?

[krabigirl]

28. +1000

[Pavulon]

30. The budget to clean this mess up.

that will be black and you will not get to review the line items.

[No Elephants]

41. Meh. We spend a lot more on other crap and we never get to review the line items.

[Alamuti Lotus]

25. Cockroaches fear the light too

[Milo_Bloom]

27. The White House can sit and spin.

[Pavulon]

29. You expected..

Obama has remanded GW Bush to custody and sent him to the Hague along with dick cheney and doug feith. The president ordered all embassies closed, shut down all CIA and NSA operations globally, dissolved the Joint Chiefs and sold the US Navy for scrap.. He also apologized for the US not being nice and has declared Monday national free American money day and told all the people trying to kill us we give up and handed over 3000 nuclear weapons to be divided evenly between them.

Wow, here is the deal. Enjoy the party, you WILL be paying cash to clean this shit up (the part of your check that says FIT), and the US is not taking our football and going home.

Sorry, you know know exactly what a white haired Australian asshole wants you to know. No more, no less..

[andym]

34. Rightly so, the release of these documents will promote war and reduce chances for peace worldwide

The release of these cables will result in unintended consequences where US knowledge of private information will inflame sensitive situations around the world.

This information will cause problems with many "allies" like Pakistan. For example, it is now going to be extremely difficult to remove the research reactor that was considered insecure, due to public outcry in Pakistan that the USA is taking away Pakistan's nuclear weapons....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html?s...

"A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”

At least in this case nuclear disarmament will now not occur.

[No Elephants]

42. Gee, and we had that world peace thing nailed until now, too.

Very little of this is very likely to comd as news to any government or other entity that gathers intelligence. And much of it seems to be at the gossip level, anyway, like someone is pudgy, ffs.

[andym]

43. The problem isn't with governments, it's with nationalists in the general populace

a prevalent problem in places like India and Pakistan. They cause a lot of problems in these countries and the wikileaks reports will stir up nationalists in Pakistan as well as other places. That is what increases the chances for war.