Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Bolton was and is a lying self-promoter who never misses an opportunity to inflate his role in things. Bush sent him off to the UN for a short stint to get rid of him.
I'll give you credit, Neil, you seem to have an amazing insight into the workings of the inner Bush circle and the American Enterprise Institute. Historians will be keen to talk to you.
So Bush appointed a known lying self promoter to the most important ambassadorial job of the lot to get him out if the way?
The reason his tenure was brief was because they couldn't get him confirmed BTW. He resigned because of that.
I think the intial point was that Bush was not a comeplete war-monger, that in the face of pressure to bomb Iran from some Arab countries he didn't.
And the repeated point is that you and I, nor almost everyone else on the planet don't have any idea what went down, the arguments made, who made them, what factors came into play - and likely won't for 25 years.
I do, however, think, with some confidence, that it was a little more complex than the 'initial point'.
I feel like I'm on an endless loop here. Time to get off.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Neil Morrison,
So, we have the cables that show the US did not attack Iran despite the pleas of some Arab countries but that evidence is worthless because there might be other secret documents that showed ...what exactly?
Nobody said they were worthless but it's glaringly obvious that the stuff that matters at this level does not appear in these sorts of cables.
We don't know what is in the more top secret stuff. Do you? Because it really matters when put up two statements like " Saudi Arabia wanted Iran bombed" & "Iran was not bombed." There is a lot of ground missing between the two that is undocumented.
I'm not inclined to trust his words on anything.
Which means what? He was and is a member of the hugely influential AEI and was close enough to the the centre of things to be named as Ambassador to the UN. I'm gonna assume he was closer to the centre of what was going on that any of the authors of the cables we have. And than you were/are.
There are two facts that one can be certain of - Saudi Arabia wanted Iran bombed and Iran was not bombed.
No, the only thing was can be sure of was that the King of Saudi Arabia (nobody else in his government that I know of, I may be wrong on that) suggested this. We have absolutely no idea why it didn't happen, if such was considered because of this, or the high level machinations that followed this. None. Zero. That the King suggested this is not an automatic trigger nor even a major revelation given history. I doubt it affected core policy in a major way.
Really Neil, I'm having trouble thinking that you are posting this stuff without your tongue firmly placed in the side of your face.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Neil Morrison,
so when the cables show the US in a good light, as James pointed out with Iran, then that can't possibly be true because there's the really secret stuff we don't know about.
Good grief, Neil. Think about it.
These cables are mid and low level communications from State Dept officials in the various embassies. How do we know that? Well aside from the obvious, they carry those sorts of classifications on the cables themselves.
CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN SECRET SECRET//NOFORN UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
There are no cables that I've seen that are classified higher.
There are no cabinet level cables, no executive level cables, no Top Secret cables, no DoD cables, no CIA documents, no NSA cables and so on.
It would be unreasonable to expect any confirmation - either way - of an intent to attack Iran or an advanced discussion of such to appear in these. The link James provided however takes that illogical leap and then he too leapt on the result, as you seem to be now.
It, however, makes no sense.
As Russell says, we know, fairly much beyond reasonable doubt that there was a conspiracy to rework the evidence to push the US into a war with Iraq. Perhaps you can point me to this in these releases? No? You won't find it because logically it won't appear here. It happened elsewhere.
Do you honestly think that discussions as to the Iran options, including attacks, have not been tabled at the highest level? And we know from the words of people like Bolton, who had enough influence in the Bush WH to be named UN Ambassador, that these were pushed hard by some parties but the CIA and the fact that US is stuck in two wars and struggling, plus potential adverse global reactions, put a brake on these.
Which while perfectly reasonable, doesn't conflict with the theory that many in the US think attacking Iran has merit.
Maybe John Bolton is a lefty plant.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Neil Morrison,
Saudi Arabia urging the US to bomb Iran was one of the first cables released.
Thanks Neil, but I think you rather miss the point on that. High level ME communications (or any high level communication) is not to be found in these cables.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
I must say, I deeply admire The Guardian's approach to these matters.
I agree with that. They've become the online newspaper of record of recent, even before the leaks. And they, and The Independent, are not only even handed but often eager to bend far further than their critics give them credit for. Both John Bolton and Sarah Palin have had OpEds in the Guardian this year.
but it's worth bearing in mind that some of the rebuttal was correct
The central point in the cable was that the movie had been banned to protect the myth. This seems to be completely untrue.
One, too, could argue that given 60 years of quite brutal sanctions, the Cuban health system - and the care they offer freely to much of the third world - is in surprisingly good shape.
Under this column, someone even accuses The Guardian of "persecuting" Assange.
I make a point of not reading the comments on newspaper pages. I'm not sure doing so adds anything to my life, my understanding or my mood. Not doing so adds to all three.
They're turning into the people they think they despise
I'm not sure many of them weren't already - see my comment above. The Guardian comments threads have been hard work for a very long time as has many of its CIF columns. However, I appreciate that they give the space.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Post hoc ergo propter hoc much?
A confusion of conflation on your part, Craig. You seem to be on endless loop in this thread.
Perhaps I am too, but you seem to offer some company.
But to be fair, I hadn't read the line Russell was quoting. CIA - no. Some junior diplomat scoring points - yes.
The idea that this cable was a CIA plot is just silly.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
So perhaps we could stop declaring everything we don't like to be a CIA plot.
I don't think that's the case but there is enough evidence, indisputable stuff, of CIA involvement in the odd international incident that such should not be dismissed either. There is a body count.
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to James Bremner,
has been debunked by Wikileaks.
Except as pointed out by Sacha the debunking has been debunked. It looks like US diplomats (you know James, the ones who have come out of all this so well) telling lies to ingratiate themselves with their masters. I think the same is obvious in the Wellington cables concerning our anti-Nukes policy.
Specific examples would be US policy regarding Iran, where the fever swamps of the left have for many years been positing that the US, and particularly the evilchimpybushhitler was and is just looking for an excuse to go bomb/invade Iran, when the leaked cables showed many Middle Eastern countries are pressuring the US to go bomb Iran's nuke program while the US is the reluctant party.
You, I assume, have access to the high level cables - the very secret stuff - that have not appeared yet (and are unlikely to). Either that or you are just parroting a few paragraphs of unsupported gibberish without quite knowing what they mean. Do you seriously believe that any such talk if it exists is transmitted at this level?
The lack of detail on Israel - the Israeli-US communications go through a completely separate channel not captured in the wikileaks releases. Surely you knew that? Maybe you have access to that as well?
The superpower measures are just odd. Firstly size of military. China has almost four times the number of men and women in army uniform and an airforce with more aircraft. They do that with a budget, even by the biggest estimates, of about 1/10 the US military budget - non of which they have the need to borrow from potential enemies. Even if you take into account reserves and non-Army manpower they have a bigger military - a million more than the US. Given that they easily beat a US force to a standstill in 1953 I'd put my money on the Sino side in any brawl, not that I think they desire it because they stack up fairly well in what they see as the more important business of money. And there, the world's biggest economy (by turnover) only remains standing because the Chinese (and others) push money into it. I'd refer you to the (right leaning) historian of some reputation, Niall Ferguson, on this and why the serving of debt is about to swamp the US economy in a fatal way. There several videos / interviews that go into this - make of them what you will.
Challenge the US military? The ragtag insurgency in Iraq did exactly that and your forces only managed to extract themselves by paying vast amounts of borrowed money to the Sunni insurgents and then handing them the reigns (where they remain to this day) in the regions where the fighting was strongest. The insurgents won.
Afghanistan is going well, no? The Taliban seem to have been 'seriously challenging' the US military and the billions and billions of (borrowed) dollars worth of hi-tech equipment for a decade.
I wonder how well the fuss in Spain, which the editor of El Pais says is probably the biggest story this newspaper has ever been involved with has reflected on the US there. Or the story on the European Human rights 'irritant' yesterday has been received across the Europe. How about the storing of cluster bombs in the UK in breach of UK law?
I don't think that US diplomats as a mass have, at least to my eyes, ever, despite the drivel in that FT piece you've attached yourself to, been perceived as uniformly evil, incompetent or part of some grand scheme to pervert the planet. The cables confirm that - but neither do they remove the grave disquiet around the world, which, if polling is to be believed, is very widely held, over decades of US human rights abuses and a nation at war, often of its own creation, continuously since I was born. I'd argue that such disquiet (I'm thinking of the likes of my own parents - National Party voting/members since 1945 with a military background) is pretty mainstream and centrist.
-
A wow type Gil Scott-Heron video of recent, remixed from one of the album's I've loved this year:
Music: I swore I'd not do this again but it's habit.
TV: Mad Men still, Steve Buscemi (but not the show itself) in Boardwalk Empire and watching the whole five seasons of The Wire the month parts of the city I'm in were burning outside.
Yeah and Beefheart going was a huge bummer this morning as was waking up to Gregory Isaacs' passing in October.
-
Hard News: The Wellington Cables, in reply to Russell Brown,
The broader plan of WikiLeaks is to move beyond the arrangement with the five newspapers currently involved, and to partner with other news organisations who can highlight stories of particular interest to specific regions.
That seems to be been the case for a while. The SMH has had access to regional stuff for at least the past week, including that Indonesian cable I linked above and the one where Gillard was found to have been scheming Rudd's departure far earlier than she had admitted/claimed pre election.