Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Wikileaks And The Lankanosphere

I'm one of millions who have been captured and enthralled by this Wikileaks business. The unspoken question on the edge of everyone's lips sounds a bit like:

"Cables? I thought they went out years ago!"

Because, in this high tech iEverything age, who the hell, apart from electricians, uses cables? I really didn't even know they still exist. My parents used to use them, mostly when someone had died, and frankly even I'm pretty old compared to most of my readers.

Everything these days is secure, password and PIN number protected. To penetrate a careful person's email account you need the advanced computer skills of Harry Potter after he's been to some evening classes on hacking, or a fourteen year old Nigerian fraudster.

The Americans chose cables to communicate these highly sensitive bits of information. Surely they weren't surprised when something sprang a leak?

They were, and don't call me Shirley, with my thanks to Leslie Nielsen.

The reaction of the Sri Lankan blogosphere has been surprisingly subdued. I don't know why this is the case, perhaps as more leaks specifically related to Lanka are released the momentum will increase or maybe people just aren't interested.

There have been three main blogs and a few posts that have caught my eye.

First, and undoubtedly foremost, there's Groundviews with this fantastic precis of the situation to date. It's got even more graphs, diagrams and flashy charts than a piece of homework submitted by my fourteen year old daughter and it explains things pretty clearly and succinctly. There are links galore and it tells you everything you need to know, everything if you're me that is.

The only thing it's missing is a good pie chart. Perhaps Sanjana might want to use the one I've shown below, the only pie chart ever worth using IMHO. By the way, the invention of the pie chart is often credited to Florence Nightingale, her of Florence and the Machine. She didn't invent it, sorry about that.











Moving on we've got Sittingnut on Lanka Libertarian with his take on things. It's his first post for months and it's good to have him back and active in the Lankanosphere. His approach demonstrates his usual degree of level headedness and wisdom with his unparalleled ability to see things from the perspective of a large bird with a very long neck.

He asks "Who will be most embarrassed in Sri Lanka when these cables come to light", something I think is an interesting question. Sadly I think the answer, at least where Sri Lanka is concerned, is a resounding "no one", as so many things are so shameless there anyhow.

In the updated section of Sittingnut's post he reports on the Commonwealth turning down Sri Lanka's offer to host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting because of "concerns about lending international credibility to the Government's actions".

Sittingnut's response to this is to ask who cares about the commonwealth anyway. This response is akin to a child who, on being told he can't join in a game with his friends because they think he might have cheated last time, retorts by saying he never wanted to play anyhow. He then goes and plays with a bunch of Chinese kids and......

Lastly we come to Indi with his views on the matter at hand. He's given Wikileaks quite a chunk of attention with three posts at the time of writing.

This one informs us that Wikileaks has 3166 documents to be released on Sri Lanka. They'll be released in forthcoming months so we don't yet know what secrets they contain. Here in the UK I expect their release will be carefully planned around the X Factor and Cheryl Cole's scheduled appearances, possibly synchronised with her clothing.

Indi's first post about the thing starts off by showing us a picture of Julian Assange, the Wikileaks' founder, doing a hand shadow puppet thing. He's evidently not very good at it, but I reckon he'll attain fame in other ways.

Indi uses this post as a platform to argue that the over 100,000 deaths in Iraq revealed by Wikipedia recently are far more than alleged in Sri Lanka and that the US has lost much of the trust from the rest of the world because of this. It's undoubtedly a valid view, with one major flaw.

There isn't a massive body of people in the West saying that the actions of the US, the UK and whoever else are correct and justified and that it's just little old Sri Lanka who have done wrong. No, there's huge public opinion here in the UK that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, that the public was misled and that the troops should withdraw. People here are allowed to say these things quite freely too.

His post here demonstrates the Indi thinks it's a positive thing that Julian Assange and Wikileaks exist, I'm inclined to agree with him.

Indi has a lot more readable stuff on his blog about the whole Wikileaks saga, check it out.

Finally I must tell you what I think. I guess it would be a cop out to criticise others without revealing my thoughts.

The first thing that struck me, on reading Indi's and Sittingnut's opinions was that they shared a view, perhaps a first. They both demonstrate a lack of consistency. They both believe that it's okay for these secrets about the US Government to be revealed, thereby showing us its real face and giving us a true picture. Yet they both think that it's perfectly acceptable for Sri Lanka to keep certain things secret as it's in the interests of national security.

Indi says this

"Their logic for dialling back these leaks works on a local level in the same way that the white flag story works in Sri Lanka. These are our secrets and we keep them to protect our country."

Sittingnut tells us

"It appears that american state is run by arrogant hypocrites who care nothing for ethics and morality when they want to dominate others..."

My stance is that Sittingnut's take on the US is, or maybe was, correct. But, if it's good that these things are revealed, then it should be good if all atrocities are revealed in all countries.

Fundamentally I feel it's a good positive thing that this information has been made public. I care not one iota for the arguments about patriotism, national security etc. I think that, if the Americans, Brits and whomever else have behaved this cynically then they deserve what they get.

But I wonder on the wisdom of Wikileaks in revealing all of this. There are cases when people have been named, people who have been motivated to pass on information to the Americans for genuinely good reasons, and some of them may now be in very real danger.

In the longer term this may discourage others from coming forward to people in not just American but all diplomatic circles, that can't be good.

The whole thing makes the Americans look cynical and arrogant. If I had a friend who was an American diplomat right now I'd be wondering if he really was my friend and whether I could trust him. It's a stroke of luck that I have no friends in these circles. Apart from Condoleezza and Hillary that is.

In the UK, at least at the time of writing, our main concerns have been the plainly stupid and bigoted views of Prince Andrew, as well as his very dodgy choices on when to air them. Most of us think he's an idiot anyway. I'm sure there'll be more to come though.

I leave you with the last word quoted from Groundviews, in itself a quote from Kusal Perera:

“The first is that, in Sri Lanka, it would never be possible for any one to play “Julian Assange” and dare face an open media briefing in Colombo, to justify his or her claims on war crimes and torture. Right or wrong, excessive or not, that “democracy” is nowhere within the shores of Sri Lanka and would not be, for many decades to come. There is also no possibility of any lawyer, any public litigant, requesting Courts to “order” relevant authorities to begin investigations into allegations of crimes committed during war, as in Britain. Relevance if any on such democratic practices, is almost naught.” – From WikiLeaks to WikiLanka: War Is Definitely Savage Though “Accusations” Differ, Kusal Perera

18 comments:

sittingnut said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
sittingnut said...

i hope this will be published and that i wont have to wait days to see it here behind other comments after several attempts due to 'technical gliches ' as happened in your blog before. esp since you make false statement about me here and i am correcting them

1 of 3

-
"the perspective of a large bird with a very long neck"

lol
thanks for copying me such faithfully after i said the same thing to you, hour or two before you posted this blog post. but really you should be more original in name calling.
how about calling me a mammal with a long neck next time? love giraffes.

any way long neck of some kind and rational speculations based on verifiable facts may be why i tend to get my predictions right time after time ( defeat of terrorists , elections, inflation etc etc. ) . my record is there to judge.

this contrasts, to records of indi son of corruption ( who prefers to keep several blogs such as padashow one)and terrorist funded sanjana ( whose old moju blog was deleted due to embarrassing accumulation of terrorist propaganda filth therein ) . why are they always wrong about stuff ? no-necked insects prefer dung?

sittingnut said...

2 of 3

you say, sittingnut "believe that it's okay for these secrets about the US Government to be revealed, thereby showing us its real face and giving us a true picture. Yet they both think that it's perfectly acceptable for Sri Lanka to keep certain things secret as it's in the interests of national security. "

never said or believed anything of the kind.
may be your face buried in sanjana's bottom is affecting you ability to read?

do point me ever saying that sri lanka government should keep anything secret in interest of national security.

why do you make such stuff up? you hate me that much? lol

all i have asked is not to apply double standards when it comes to covering sri lanka and west. we are subjected to slander while truth about west is minimized .

sri lanka is accused of all sorts of warcrimes by western media and ngo tools with no credible evidence whatever ( if anyone has them please let me know i would be the first to publish them ) while west's crimes with mountains of authentic evidence is routinely minimized.


eg .
the fake video of alleged 'executions' in sl were boardcast in channel 4 even while they admit they cannot verify authenticity or origin.
in contrast same channel 4 is yet to broadcast in full detail authenticated us military video of americans killing civilians , reporters and children.
http://llibertarian.blogspot.com/2010/04/wikileaks-video-of-us-helicopters.html


-
similarly hrw , amnesty, icg etc, is yet to ask for warcrimes inquiry in to west's conduct in spiste of all the evidence. why ?

should i not ask it from your masters? shouldn't you ask it yourself?


-

i believe this double standard and hypocrisy is due to racism.

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Hi Sittingnut, All are published as you will have seen. You misunderstand, I meant the bird thing as a compliment about your ability to be graceful and see things with a far reaching view!

sittingnut said...

3of3
i will repeat so you can read .
i have never objected to disclosing truth about sri lanka.
nor have ever advocated banning anyone from saying truth or falsehood

i will point out slander, hypocrisy, racism , ( and with ppl like you ) born slavishness to west. with facts to back my claims.

you cannot stand that can you ?

=
isn't kusal perera the guy that was with late tamilnet editor just (as in seconds)before he was abducted by terrorists? and did nothing? said nothing? etc etc

so no wonder he did not read that there is interpol wanted order against julian assange. that he does not have open press conferences due to fear (latest time mag interview was through skype from an 'undisclosed location' , that there are all sorts of legal proceedings against him in no of countries / that throughout this year and yesterday there were unprecedented cyber attacks on wikileaks and it went down.

that much hounding of one man . and blogger here admires west freedom of expression. what can i say !
.
-
you speculations about uk public opinion are your own opinion.

"there's huge public opinion here in the UK that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, that the public was misled and that the troops should withdraw. "
facts- troops are still there. politicians who keep them there are elected . and what about afghanistan?

a uk person's opinions about occupation of another country where british soldiers are getting killed and same person's opinion about war crimes committed by same soldiers are not identical as you assume. get your head untangled.

-
"people here are allowed to say these things quite freely too. "

ppl in sri lanka are ,were. free to oppose military defeat of ltte terrorists too. some of them .did and do . don't imply otherwise . why do you do that?

and as i have asked you before do tell me any valid story about sri lanka that was not covered in local sl media . so if you are unble to answer do not imply there is censorship here. or do you prefer slander?

in fact we saw terrorist leader big pussy's speeches in full in sri lanka in all national media year after year. when did you see a bin laden speech in uk 's main media and where?

sittingnut said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
sittingnut said...

last one 3+1.
-
"Sittingnut's response to this is to ask who cares about the commonwealth anyway. This response is akin to a child who, on being told he can't join in a game with his friends because they think he might have cheated last time, retorts by saying he never wanted to play anyhow. "

did i ask to " join in a game with his friends " or host commonwealth? lol
where?
are you too busy sucking sanajana to notice i that i do not support everything sl gov does? including staging big events with state subsidies or that i have a low opinion of most international talking shops?

now you can go back to sucking sanjana ... be quick your western masters want to ...play with you too.

-
"I guess it would be a cop out to criticise others without revealing my thoughts. "

you are right on that .
so what was your opinion on militarily defeating tamil tiger terrorists?
are they not a gang of armed criminals that had to be defeated with violence ?
what is your opinion of racists protesting against defeating of tamil tigers


you were asked to state your opinion in every case ( and some others) here bc you criticized ppl who stated and/or acted on their opinion . you 'copped out' every time.
why ? mr cop our do tell us. lol

sittingnut said...

altogether i posted 4 comments before this. in addition i deleted 2 duplicates due to my fault reloading after error msg from blogger.
-
appreciate your posting them in a timely manner

-


"I meant the bird thing as a compliment about your ability to be graceful and see things with a far reaching view!"

lol. yes sure i believe you .-)

anyway i was not complimentary when i said the same thing to you before you posted this copying what said . i see no need to change or disguise my opinion with word play or humor .

thekillromeoproject said...

Lol...! I see you've been caught in the direct path of a Snut verbal diarrhea attack...!!

It seems like he's been having constipation issues and just managed to let it all go in one massive dump!

N said...

Just one point on reading your post, "There isn't a massive body of people in the West saying that the actions of the US, the UK and whoever else are correct and justified and that it's just little old Sri Lanka who have done wrong." - I don't think Indi actually says that in his post?

In the US the condemnation of Iraq is not that widespread, even when it comes to things like the Apache incident video. The point seems to be that people like Hillary and Milliband cannot try and act like some kind of moral world police when they willy nilly break international law.

Also you cannot really compare the British and American people's reactions to the injustices of the Iraq war since the war is in a different country. If you've had bombs going off, loved ones not coming home for 30 years in your country, I would think the measures taken to 'win' the war would be off less concern to the average citizen.

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

N - Thanks for your comment, hope you're well.

Fair point that Indi doesn't actually say that in his post. My frustrations exist though because I feel that many people in Sri Lanka respond to people in the West by saying that they have no right to criticise because of the acts committed by "their" governments. It's something that people say to me all the time.

The thing is that I'm also against the breaking of laws in Iraq, Afghanistan or wherever, by whomever, that's how I think much of the British public feel too. I don't claim any level of knowledge about the American public and bow to your knowledge on them.

Yes, the two situations are very different. BUT, my thinking is that no country LOOKS innocent when confronted with serious allegations that it refuses to allow to be investigated by any party.

I don't really feel as if I know the answers N, but I do think that if measures taken to end the conflict were reasonable taking all the circumstances into account then open scrutiny would be a way to end all the speculation once and for all.

Thanks again for the comment, hope to see you soon.

sittingnut said...

rhythmic diaspora :
i see no answers to my questions about why you intentionally distorted what i have said or assumed thing i have never said.

no links or quotes to prove you were right to say what you said about me either.

again your intellectually dishonesty and blatant lies in full display.

----
thekillromeoproject:
thanks for your inconsistent remarks on my alleged excretion issues.

when i am slandered, or sri lanka is, i do let the person making them have a full blast of truth and reason.

slanderers usually hide in silence ( as rd does here) or talk about my shit ( as you do)


anyway your reaction is not surprising. your brain ... opps sorry, you stomach, is unable digest my shit, being bred to digest western shit only ( at 2nd hand in your case) from your masters like indi and sanjana ( who eat western shit at 1st hand )

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Sittingnut - It's simply because I've got better things to do than get drawn into a childish namecalling argument with you. Have a good weekend!

RD

sittingnut said...

rhythmic diaspora a britsh welfare recipient ass licker admits he has time to slander, but runs like the filthy dog he is , when asked to substantiate what he says i said.

lol

run bitch run !

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Sittingnut - I'll tell you what. Really mate, I can't be bothered to have a namecalling online and childish argument with you but I'll be there in January, why don't we meet for a drink and a chat?

I would be genuinely interested to see what you're really like and it would be an opportunity for you to see that I'm not actually the "British welfare recipient ass licker" that you think I am.

I'll send you a private message on Twitter. RD

sittingnut said...

you said certain things about me in your post, here, i have right to demand, here, that you say where i said those things.

i was very specific with what i consider your lies about me in my long detailed comments above .

when you fail to provide the answers , i have a right to say you are a proven slanderer. here.

its that simple. that is not childish if one wants truth to prevail.

may be i 'name call' but the name called (slanderer)is also a truthful description based on your actions here alone.

--
same with other things i call you. they are truthful unlike you i stick to truth.

unless you clear up here in public what you said about me here in public i have no desire to meet a filthy slanderous bitch like you who runs from truth and demands for truth.

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Up to you Sittingnut.

sittingnut said...

rather its upto you to prove that you did not slander me in above post. a demand for truth.

you prefer to run or create tangents about private meetings.
i prefer sunlight, public , direct confrontation in the appropriate place ( in this case here) without dogshit.