The WikiLeaks thread

[jarze]

"on a losing streak for the past decade,"

Jersey City's been on a losing streak for much longer than a decade.

[MCA™]

Jersey City gets several mentions in latest WikiLeaks release
Published: Saturday, September 03, 2011, 11:00 AM
Updated: Saturday, September 03, 2011, 11:05 AM
By Adam Robb/For The Jersey Journal

An unredacted diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, dated 2004 but just released Thursday by WikiLeaks, offers a frank and grim perspective on life in Zarqa, Jordan, the country's second largest city and former home of the militant Islamist terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Written by the embassy's then-Charge d'Affaires David Hale, the cable descrbies Zarqa as a city "on a losing streak for the past decade," populated by a younger, poorer class of people densely populated in the shadow of the more cosmopolitan and politically important Amman.

"The highly concentrated population, only a short bus ride from better-off Amman, does however seem uniquely suited for developing a culture of disaffection. If the role played by Amman in Jordan is something like New York City and Washington, D.C., rolled into one, Zarqa would best be described as Jordan's Jersey City," Hale, a resident of Princeton and now U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, concludes in a portion of the cable titled "Jersey City of Jordan."

The mention is just one of several nods to Jersey City in the latest WikiLeaks release.

Another Jersey City mention comes from a 2008 cable from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

The document focuses on then-Cameroon Mission Counselor Nganje Kinge Monono, who lived in New York while his wife, Priscilla Jemea Misodi Nganje Kinge, then living in Texas, was charged with felony assault of a minor child.

According to the cable:

Priscilla was not protected by diplomatic immunity because she and her husband lived apart. After charges were filed in Texas, the family returned to Cameroon but soon returned to the United States. Priscilla was convicted in Texas while her husband relocated with his family to Jersey City. The cable relays the message to the Secretary of State that Monono would like his wife to be able to serve her probation in New Jersey while residing with her husband in Jersey City once she completed community service and a batterer's workshop in Texas.

Although the family's current residence could not be confirmed, according to the Cameroon embassy's website, Monono now serves as a Second Counselor at the Cameroon Mission to the United Nations in New York City.

Another cable, meanwhile, offers a positive mention of Jersey City while  detailing its relationship to Sig, Algeria.

Dating from 2007, the cable explores the favorable opinion residents of the small olive oil-producing region have of the United Sates, and their desire to emigrate to it -- legally or illegally -- rather than popular alternatives France and Spain.

"The migration relationship between Sig and the United States is largely the result of a significant community of former Sig residents in northern New Jersey," the dispatch reads. "Jersey City, New Jersey has a sister-city relationship with Sig."

[duke_of_earl]

Wikileaks Releases Guantanamo Prisoner Files

WASHINGTON — A trove of more than 700 classified military documents provides new and detailed accounts of the men who have done time at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, and offers new insight into the evidence against the 172 men still locked up there.

Military intelligence officials, in assessments of detainees written between February 2002 and January 2009, evaluated their histories and provided glimpses of the tensions between captors and captives. What began as a jury-rigged experiment after the 2001 terrorist attacks now seems like an enduring American institution, and the leaked files show why, by laying bare the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal.

The documents meticulously record the detainees’ “pocket litter” when they were captured: a bus ticket to Kabul, a fake passport and forged student ID, a restaurant receipt, even a poem. They list the prisoners’ illnesses — hepatitis, gout, tuberculosis, depression. They note their serial interrogations, enumerating — even after six or more years of relentless questioning — remaining “areas of potential exploitation.” They describe inmates’ infractions — punching guards, tearing apart shower shoes, shouting across cellblocks. And, as analysts try to bolster the case for continued incarceration, they record years of detainees’ comments about one another.

...more...

[duke_of_earl]

If this would have happened under Bush's reign, there would be countless articles excoriating the president for letting this happen under his watch.  And they would have been right.  Now there are only a few timid nods in The One's direction and general blaming of the "US Government".

[CeeDub]

Manning Speaks About His Conditions

[TheFang]

U.N. to investigate treatment of Bradley Manning
By Glenn Greenwald

Both The Guardian and the Associated Press are reporting that the U.N.'s top official in charge of torture is now formally investigating the conditions under which the U.S. is detaining accused WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning.  Last week, I described the inhumane terms of his detention at a Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, including being held 23 out of 24 hours a day in solitary confinement for seven straight months and counting as well as other punitive measures (such as strict prohibitions on any exercise inside his cell and the petty denial of pillows and sheets).  Manning's lawyer, former U.S. Army Major and Iraq War veteran David Coombs, thereafter publicly confirmed those facts, and then announced two days ago that efforts to persuade brig officials to allow more human conditions have failed, meaning it is likely that Manning will languish under these repressive restraints for many more months to come, at least.

In addition to confirming the facts I reported, Maj. Coombs added several disturbing new ones, including the paltry, isolated terms of Manning's one-hour-a-day so-called "exercise" time (he's "taken to an empty room and only allowed to walk," "normally just walks figure eights in the room," "if he indicates that he no long feels like walking, he is immediately returned to his cell"); the bizarre requirement that, despite not being on suicide watch, Manning respond to guards all day, every day, by saying "yes" every 5 minutes (even though guards cannot and "do not engage in conversation with" him); and various sleep-disruptive measures (he is barred from sleeping at any time from 5:00 am - 8:00 pm, and, during the night, "if the guards cannot see PFC Manning clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him").

Although prolonged solitary confinement can unquestionably constitute torture (the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande made the definitive, undeniable case for that last year in The New Yorker), I wasn't prepared to state based on what I could confirm that the treatment of Manning met the legal definition of torture (though it is clearly inhumane and certain to produce long-term psychological damage).  That was because Manning wasn't subjected to the full-on sensory deprivation used at America's SuperMax prisons (his lawyer said "he can occasionally hear other inmates talk," though he cannot now) and did get the minimally required one hour a day of "exercise."  But others have made the argument persuasively that this is torture. 

Ralph Lopez chided me for my equivocation on that question, assembling ample evidence to support his view that the treatment amounts to torture.  Digby made a strong case that "locking up someone who has not presented any kind of threat to other prisoners and who has not been convicted of a crime for months on end in solitary confinement under tight restrictions is torture."  The psychologist and torture specialist Jeffrey Kaye made the same argument.  The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote:  "I don't really see any argument for keeping Manning in these conditions, except a punitive one."  And in the wake of my report, there have been several reports of the damage to Manning that is now apparent, including in The Guardian ("Bradley Manning's health deteriorating in jail, supporters say"), The Independent (Manning "in weak health and wracked with anxiety"), The Daily Beast ("The conditions under which Bradley Manning is being held would traumatize anyone"), and from his lawyer ("who says the extended isolation -- now more than seven months of solitary confinement -- is weighing on his client’s psyche . . . . His treatment is harsh, punitive and taking its toll, says Coombs").

The U.S. is one of the world's most prolific practitioners of prolonged solitary confinement: unsurprising given that it enjoys the distinction of being the world's largest Prison State and the Western world's most merciless one.  As NPR noted in 2006, there are roughly 25,000 prisoners in the U.S. kept in those conditions.  But the vast, vast majority of them -- unlike Manning -- have actually been convicted of crimes.  It is very rare (though, when it comes to Muslims accused of Terrorism, by no means unheard of) for these conditions to be imposed on people who have yet to be convicted of anything and never posed any threat to prison security. Prolonged solitary confinement is inhumane, horrendous and gratuitous even when applied to those convicted of heinous crimes, but the fact that it's being done to Manning here in order to "persuade" him to offer incriminating statements against WikiLeaks and Julian Asange makes it particularly repellent.

As is true for so much of what it does, the U.S. Government routinely condemns similar acts -- the use of prolonged solitary confinement in its most extreme forms and lengthy pretrial detention -- when used by other countries.  See, for instance, the 2009 State Department Human Rights Report on Indonesia ("Officials held unruly detainees in solitary confinement for up to six days on a rice-and-water diet"); Iran ("Common methods of torture and abuse in prisons included prolonged solitary confinement with extreme sensory deprivation . . .Prison conditions were poor. Many prisoners were held in solitary confinement . . . Authorities routinely held political prisoners in solitary confinement for extended periods . . . All four [arrested bloggers] claimed authorities physically and psychologically abused them in detention, including subjecting them to prolonged periods of solitary confinement in a secret detention center without access to legal counsel or family"); Israel ("Israeli human rights organizations reported that Israeli interrogators . . .  kept prisoners in harsh conditions, including solitary confinement for long periods"); Iraq ("Individuals claimed to have been subjected to psychological and physical abuse, including . . . solitary confinement in Ashraf to discourage defections"); Yemen ("Sleep deprivation and solitary confinement were other forms of abuse reported in PSO prisons"); Central African Republic ("As of December, there were 308 inmates in Ngaragba Prison, most of whom are pretrial detainees. Several detainees had been held for seven months without appearing before a judge"); Burundi ("Human rights problems also included . . . prolonged pretrial detention").

What's been most striking to me since I wrote that Manning article has been how the debate over detainee abuse has "evolved" -- and not evolved -- from the Bush years.  Back then, Bush defenders were completely incapable of separating their opinions of the detainees from the question of whether the treatment was abusive and inhumane (these are Terrorists, so who cares what is done to them?).  That has been the primary response to those defending the government's treatment of Manning as well (he's a Traitor!!) -- except now, of course, it's found among many progressives:  note how identical is the response from this front page writer of the liberal blog Crooks & Liars ("the meme o the day seems to be on Manning’s so-called torture, to which I say ‘boo hoo'") to that of The Weekly Standard ("Don't Cry for Bradley Manning") and RedState ("Give Bradley Manning His Pillow and Blankie Back").  This convergence is a perfect microcosm for how much our political discourse over such matters has transformed since January 20, 2009.  At The Atlantic, Coates asked: 

    I think the worse part, is that very few people care what kind of conditions the incarcerated endure. We have essentially accepted prison-rape. The New Yorker piece asks is solitary confinement torture? I'd ask, even if it is torture, whether we even care?

Three years ago, many people who are conspicuously silent now loudly and continuously claimed they did care.  Indeed, prolonged solitary confinement was one of the worst aspects of detention at Guantanamo, as many civil rights groups highlighted, but the type of glib and dismissive responses to such concerns back then ("'It's kind of like having their own apartment,' Camp 6 Guard, Guantánamo Bay Naval Station") is quite similar to what I've heard from people across the political spectrum in response to my Manning article.

As was true for the debates over War on Terror detainees, one's views of Manning are totally irrelevant to the issue here (that's aside from the fact that he's been convicted of nothing; is not, contrary to many claims, charged with espionage or treason; and what he's alleged to have done has resulted in no deaths).  The only relevant issue is whether -- after reading Gawande's New Yorker article -- you believe that prolonged, 23-hour-a-day pre-trial solitary confinement is acceptable and humane treatment.  It may or may not fall short of actual torture -- it's good that the U.N. will now formally investigate that question -- but either way, it's designed to degrade both Manning's psyche and resistance to incriminating WikiLeaks and is highly likely to achieve both.

[TheFang]

I had the first CD-ROM reader on the ship.  We still used triple bladed shredders that turned paper into dust.  Granted the post thumb drive Army faces different challenges, but again, how does a kid with dual citizenry get a TS clearance?  There exists an implicit loyalty issue from the outset.

then again, I had a TS-SBI with SCIF clearance as needed for special weapons - so I guess anybody can get one

Most of the cables that were snuck out on cd (that was dressed up to look like a lady gaga cd supposedly.), but more importantly the majority of the leaked cables were not only NOT labeled Top Secret, they weren't even Secret.

[CeeDub]

I had the first CD-ROM reader on the ship.  We still used triple bladed shredders that turned paper into dust.  Granted the post thumb drive Army faces different challenges, but again, how does a kid with dual citizenry get a TS clearance?  There exists an implicit loyalty issue from the outset.

then again, I had a TS-SBI with SCIF clearance as needed for special weapons - so I guess anybody can get one

[TheFang]

Bradley Manning is a traitor and should be hung as such.
I'll start a fund to buy the rope to string him up!

Don't you think if he had committed a crime the DOJ would've charged him with something by now instead of keeping him in solitary confinement for 7 months?
And further if he is such a traitor, why would the government be trying to work out a deal with him to get him to testify against Assange? 

And from Greenwald today:

Second, Savage's story appears to shed substantial light on my story from yesterday about the repressive conditions under which Manning is being detained.  The need to have Manning make incriminating statements against Assange -- to get him to claim that Assange actively, in advance, helped Manning access and leak these documents -- would be one obvious reason for subjecting Manning to such inhumane conditions:  if you want to have better treatment, you must incriminate Assange.  In The Huffington Post yesterday, Marcus Baram quoted Jeff Paterson, who runs Manning's legal defense fund, as saying that Manning has been extremely upset by the conditions of his detention but had not gone public about them in deference to his attorney's efforts to negotiate better treatment.

Whatever else is true, the DOJ seems intent on pressuring Manning to incriminate Assnage.  It would be bizarre indeed to make a deal with the leaking government employee in order to incriminate the non-government-employee who merely published the classified information.  But that may very well at least partially explain (though obviously not remotely justify) why the Government is holding Manning under such repressive conditions:  in order to "induce" him to say what they need him to say in order to indict WikiLeaks and Assange.

[Darna]

"To vett any/all forthcoming comments I disclose that I have not really dug into this at all.  That said, my first question is, how did PFC Manning gain access to the cables - especially if he has DUAL CITIZENSHIP in the USA and the UK?"

Here's a brief explanation of how Manning could have gotten his hands on the cables.  I'm guessing you, CeeDub, would have a better sense than anyone on this board whether this explanation is likely.  http://conflicthealth.com/how-did-manning-steal-the-cables/

The facts in the newspaper articles seem conflicting--some state that Manning had top level security clearance; I've read some others indicating that he was a junior officer who had low level clearance.  In any case, Robert Gates attributes the serious security problems in storing and sharing classified info to post 9-11 hysteria.  According to Gates, " . . . Manning - a very junior soldier indeed who holds the lowest rank in the US Army's enlisted structure - shouldn't have been able to trawl as much classified information as he allegedly did, and should never have been able to get it off his government system and away to Wikileaks as easily as he allegedly did. The post-9/11 push to share intelligence around the US government had gone too far, and measures were now going into place to claw back some of the (limited) secrecy of the old days."

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/02/gates_wikileaks_poohpooh/

[CeeDub]

To vett any/all forthcoming comments I disclose that I have not really dug into this at all.  That said, my first question is, how did PFC Manning gain access to the cables - especially if he has DUAL CITIZENSHIP in the USA and the UK?

[Soshin]

Bradley Manning is a traitor and should be hung as such.
I'll start a fund to buy the rope to string him up!

A traitor to who exactly?  And why?

[CeeDub]

That UCMJ can be a bitch!!

[AmbushBug]

According to his support network site, so far "over 1,200 individuals and organizations have responded with contributions totaling over $90,000, either to the defense fund or to Bradley’s legal trust account. Thus far $50,000 has been transferred to Bradley’s lead civilian attorney, David Coombs, half of the total expected legal expense of $100,000."

You can learn more at their site:
http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Bradley Manning is a traitor and should be hung as such.
I'll start a fund to buy the rope to string him up!

Curious as to how much Assange's supporters have done for PVT Manning either financially or otherwise.

[bdlaw]

Bradley Manning is a traitor and should be hung as such.
I'll start a fund to buy the rope to string him up!

Curious as to how much Assange's supporters have done for PVT Manning either financially or otherwise.

[MCA™]

Interestingly, Julian Assange's estranged ex-colleagues are about to start their own leak site, a.k.a., "WikiLeaks minus the political agenda."

Parallels to the great AtS–WJC Schism of 2007?


New leaks sites set to proliferate
11:56 14 December 2010
Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

By successfully showing how whistleblowers can use computer and internet technology to both leak and publish secret information, WikiLeaks looks set to spawn a legion of imitators.

Since mid-September, an organisation called Openleaks has been quietly registering web domains around the world and is planning an imminent launch as a rival "leak engine" to WikiLeaks - albeit one with a slightly different management ethos and modus operandi. Peopled by former WikiLeaks staffers dismayed that the organisation's high-profile founder, Julian Assange, is often at the heart of the story, Openleaks will take a different tack, says one of its founders, Daniel Domscheit-Berg.

Leak submission, presumably, will be similar to WikiLeaks: furtive delivery of discs/USB sticks, via the online Tor anonymising network, or even paper documents. But Openleaks promises distributed management sans a personality cult - and unlike WikiLeaks, it currently plans not to publish every leak it receives. Instead, it will choose relevant media partners with expert subject knowledge and leave it to them to publish stories or video news packages based on them. (more)

[shahaggy]

Bradley Manning is a traitor and should be hung as such.
I'll start a fund to buy the rope to string him up!

[TheFang]

You can make a (tax-deducatable) donation to Bradley Manning's defense fund here.

------------------

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention

By Glenn Greenwald

Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime.  Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture.  Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems.  He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a "Maximum Custody Detainee," the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement.  For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell.  Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions.  For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch).  For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs.  Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not "like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole," but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado:  all without so much as having been convicted of anything.  And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture.  In his widely praised March, 2009 New Yorker article -- entitled "Is Long-Term Solitary Confinement Torture?" -- the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande assembled expert opinion and personal anecdotes to demonstrate that, as he put it, "all human beings experience isolation as torture."  By itself, prolonged solitary confinement routinely destroys a person’s mind and drives them into insanity.  A March, 2010 article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law explains that "solitary confinement is recognized as difficult to withstand; indeed, psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture."

For that reason, many Western nations -- and even some non-Western nations notorious for human rights abuses -- refuse to employ prolonged solitary confinement except in the most extreme cases of prisoner violence.  "It’s an awful thing, solitary," John McCain wrote of his experience in isolated confinement in Vietnam. “It crushes your spirit."  As Gawande documented: "A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam . . . reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered."  Gawande explained that America’s application of this form of torture to its own citizens is what spawned the torture regime which President Obama vowed to end:

    This past year, both the Republican and the Democratic Presidential candidates came out firmly for banning torture and closing the facility in Guantánamo Bay, where hundreds of prisoners have been held in years-long isolation. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain, however, addressed the question of whether prolonged solitary confinement is torture.
. . .



Much more here

[glx]

Too much to paste here, so check: http://www.ding.net/wikileaks/234867.txt

[CeeDub]

oh snap!  Jehu changed his post after Soshin quoted it!  LOVE that!

Colbert is gn' off on AHH-sahonje as I type - good shit.

[Soshin]

I heard he was dress like a Scotsman. No one wanted to talk to him or even get to know him.

Nice to see there are still some journalists out there who won't sell their soul for a story

A Scotsman who knew how to speak English and use "dressed" no doubt

[jehu]

I heard he was dressed like a Scotsman. No one wanted to talk to him or even get to know him.

Nice to see there are still some journalists out there who won't sell their soul for a story

[fasteddie]

  Think of Wikileaks as the modern day equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein and you'll get the idea.  As long as governments are up to nefarious doings (and they always will be) then they need to be exposed 

More like Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood for wonky liberal political nerds.

[Soshin]

Nice to see there are still some journalists out there who won't sell their soul for a story

[jehu]

They way the are going after Assange scares me. Yes, he is an ass, but it wasn't like he STOLE this info and then posted it.

85%+ was non-secret info, that any good reporter could have dug up from other avenues. This wasn't posting of CIA documents or up to date military codes, this was talk between diplomats voicing their concerns/worries about issues that are known and have been well documented before.

*sigh* Where to start?  This has been the most fascinating news story in decades and it continues to be so.    The allegations that the House of Saud wants YOU (the American taxpayer) to fund a war on Iran for them is a personal favorite.  

After all, why shouldn't you when they funded those lovely 9/11 hijacker people?

The secret war in Yemen has been another good one, people on the right need to stop complaining about Obama, he is out-scoring the Bush admninistration on war-mongering on all counts.

All the other stuff which has been eye opening is corporate.  It's no surprise that Shell has a lot of power in Nigeria but the fact that they are so blatant about it is shocking

Another thing which is shocking is the way they have gone after Assange.  If they succeed in shutting him down or killing him it has enormous repurcussions for news organisations and free speech all over the world.  Think of Wikileaks as the modern day equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein and you'll get the idea.  As long as governments are up to nefarious doings (and they always will be) then they need to be exposed