I can tell you where Wikileaks gets it's funding. They got a major financial shot in the arm last year (to the tune of several million dollars) from the Open Society Foundation, a George Soros front group.

"Originally, WikiLeaks was mainly devoted to "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East." They ran into a critical money shortage about a year ago, but somehow got enough money to be back in business last February. And since then, their primary focus has been exposing the secrets of the United States. Could there be a connection between the sudden infusion of cash and their shift in focus?"

There are black markets for weapons, drugs etc. They are not constrained by state borders and I guess if the price and agenda is aligned you're in business. Why not a similar business model for embarrassing intelligence?

Hmmm. Interesting thoughts. However, let me posit a more benign reason in the form of one of my absolute favorite political jokes:

Q: Why do PETA (animal rights) activists get so much more angry about people wearing fur than people wearing leather?

A: Because they have discovered that rich, matronly old ladies have a very different reaction to them than motorcycle gangs.

As in, and this is why I look at SO many "activists" with a jaundiced eye.... they learn quickly that going after the US is cheap, easy, and gets high-profile results. Going after the others is to butt a head into a stone wall, or even to antagonize a gang that WILL, quite literally, beat the tar out of them or worse, without hint of apology or fear of being called to account in any real manner.

So they take the easy route, which is human nature.

And also why so many of should be ignored, at least from a moral sense. They are not heroic fighters against oppression, they are cheap agitators out to throw a rock into the pond for kicks, with a Western media elite all to prepared to applaud them fordoing it. (A media elite that will likely ignore them when they DO go after the other guys. Even a dog will do whatever brings it the snausages.)

Aren't diplomatic e-mails encrypted?

There is something VERY VERY WRONG when the President's 6th grade report card is better guarded than classified State Department email.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Good Grief, is this adminstration that incompetent or is this on "purpose" to try and truly destroy this country? Or a bit of both?

Everything that has been happening under this administration has far exceeded my nightmare. The kow-towing to muslims (all of them!),terrorist, North/South Korea, this weaky-leaky business, the economy, jobs, leftist struting around, immigration not controlled, Americaqns being treated as terrorist and terrorists being treated like an endangered speices-what the hell, people like G. Soros openly saying he what to wreak this country, the passing of healthcare when NO one wanted it, the spending, raising of taxes, people in government thumbing their noses at us, activist judges going against the will of the people. And personally, I don't care if other countries like us or not, but I do mind them thinking we are weak and therefore can try and walk all over us.

I know there are many more of moderns and conservatives than leftist...so why is this happening. I fear we been sleeping thinking this could never happen here to THIS EXTEND. We better start making lots of noise!

Of course Wikileaks is going after the targets that are profitable.

The question I want to know is why has obama done absolutely nothing about it? I think the answer to hat question is that he simply does not care how damaged the US gets from the disclosure of these documents. It damages Hillary so she won't be able to run in the primary against him. It damages the US and it's standing abroad, which fits his agenda of making our country less influential.

This guy could have been silenced if we wanted to contain this. Only the far left would have complained. But we will violate the rights of millions of innocent civilians before we violate the rights of a foreigner conducting espionage against our country. Assange should have been snuffed out just like the leaders of the Taliban.

"It damages Hillary so she won't be able to run in the primary against him."

B I N G O and Barry is his name O

Bingo indeed, #7 and #8. I have been asking the Cui Bono question myself for the last several days. While a lot of it does not reflect particularly well on the Obama administration in general, it is particularly damaging to Hillary. A weakened and ineffectual president sees a strong possibility that he will be beaten in the primary in 2012 by Hillary, and voila! Leaked cables that show her to be ruthless, conniving, untrustworthy, and perfectly willing to use blackmail and illegal/unethical private information gathering against adversaries.

As George Soros provided the funding for Wikileaks, it would make sense that he does not want to see his useful puppet Obama challenged by Hillary in 2012.

If you just acknowledge and accept the simple fact that the greatest theat ever to the United States of America, the biggest, most powerful enemy the United States ever had, the entity that desires and is working toward the destruction of the United States more than any other throughout all of history is the Obama administration and it's master--Soros, then all of your questions will be answered and you will no longer be confused by current events like this.

Good Grief, is this adminstration that incompetent or is this on "purpose" to try and truly destroy this country? Or a bit of both?

"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." -Grey's Law

#8 hit the nail right on the head. And *onebanged it.

*Drove it home with one stroke

I'll go with 7 & 11.

Beelzebub just isn't that into you, Amerikkka. And that goes double for the Limeys, Frogs and Heinies and any other peoples of European extraction-who all look alike, BTW.

Stacy McCain's theory is hard to justify since much of the most damaging leaked info is from the Obama Administration, and hurts their efforts. Of course, he thought Christine O'Donnell was a winner, too, so . . .

The idea that Obama orchestrated or allowed the leaks to go forward to damage Hillary is just as odd, since it is his Administration which is hurt permanently. It's like letting a skunk loose at your own dinner party to get at your mother-in-law: she will go home eventually, while you are left with the stench.

Not that it's impossible to conceive of Obama's people doing something like that - but if they did, it was to damage America, not Hillary.

"It damages Hillary so she won't be able to run in the primary against him."

Yeah, I thought that too, since as soon as I heard Hillary accepted the SecState job I expected her to try to primary Obama in 2012.

I don't actually believe the Obama is behind this. It's too convoluted a plot, and he gets wrong-footed too. Assange was doubtless encouraged by knowing Obama is a weakling, but I think that's as far as it goes.

In addition, knocking Hillary out (especially this early) means she would have nothing to lose, and could nuke Obama from space. She and Bill probably have some juicy nuggets socked away for just this purpose. So it would be a stupid thing to do, which is probably the best argument for Obama's participation in it.

Overall, my money is on George Soros. It was a black day indeed when that cockroach infested our shores.

How is it that Barry lackswit can get such an early start on trashing Hillary and campaigning nonstop but cannot after 2 and a half long years, create jobs to better the lives of fellow Americans?

2012 cannot come soon enough!

Leaked documents authored by the State Department, this early in the cycle for '12, will have no impact on Hillary. They will add to the cumulative "buyer's remorse" on Obama, however.

"Keep your enemies closer" doesn't mean "inside easy shiv range." The knives are out, and Team Clinton is drawing blood. She's running, make no mistake, and I feel fairly sure the embarassment level is no accident.

[Being "forced" to resign keeps her from dealing with accusations of being a "quitter" as well. It's a total win for her.]

I'd long assumed that Hillary! would launch her primary campaign by picking a fight with the Messiah and resigning on principle, thereby distancing herself from the B. O. Titanic.

The best issue: Barry's lack of support for Israel. Score those good, good heavy hitting campaign donors, thereby kicking the financial props out from Barry, lining up Hollywood behind her, all the while subtly plucking the "Muslim" string.

Barry'll never know what hit him.

What do Wiki-leaks, Alinsky, Soros, Clinton and Øbama all have in common?

The Cloward - Piven Strategy; any means to justify the end of America.

Jay:

WikiLeaks, feeling empowered by the laudations it collected for its release of U.S. military records, has decided that it would find even more success and acclaim by continuing to embarrass the United States government.

Imagine wikleaks as journalists having the cheek to try to embarrass the Obama government. I thought that is what good journalists should do-when the shoe fits. or is that something that you think that only the wingnuts have the right to do.

Jay, or are you insuinating that it is your duty as a blogger is now to shield the Obama government from embarrassment?

Steve, this might be a foreign concept to you, but every now and then I don't think of "the Obama government" or "the Bush government," but "our government." Obama is my president, even though I didn't vote for him, and this is my nation.

And it's my nation's security that is being assaulted and threatened here. That in the process it embarrasses Obama doesn't matter; that's not good enough reason for me to give it a pass.

I'm an American first, and these assholes are fucking around with MY country. I want Obama to man up and act like a president, and will support him if he does. I've backed him before, and will again -- he just has to be right.

Which is a rare occasion, but not unheard of.

J.

"That in the process it embarrasses Obama doesn't matter; that's not good enough reason for me to give it a pass."

He embarrasses us, so whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

Well said, Jay Tea.

For some reason leftists seem to view all issues through a partisan lens, to the exclusion of any other consideration.

It's not about partisan politics; it's about the good of the nation.

The Wikileaks incident transcends whether it makes Obama look bad. It makes the country look bad, it hinders our ability to conduct effective foreign policy, and even worse, could get good people killed.

So to hell with scoring points off Obama (or any other American political figure). If the cigs catch up with him, and he slumps to the floor with a heart attack tomorrow (something I very much hope does not happen), all of the problems above will still obtain. Wikileaks has hurt us as a nation.

For us conservatives, politics does end at the water's edge. It's a perspective I recommend.

Jay, I was right I hit a tender spot. You don't mind that many of your commenters refer to the President in evocative terms as a muslim or from kenya but you get the vapors if a wikileaks orgnization that tries to widen the three million access of these files about observations of foreign countries that are circulating, many of which show the Obama government was just using smoke and mirrors, when they had other facts, that were inappropriate such as on Iran. Don't you realise how this has opened up information, which was privy to those who only had were expected to edit and shape their tendentious decisons before hand?

Journalists (and bloggers) are supposed to pry open secrets that is how they arrive at their stories. Governments try to protect them. Checks and balances in our 'political system'. The only problem or advantage depends how you see it, is everyone on the internet is now a publisher. The State Department got a wake up call that is 2010 and if they try to deceive, a state department directive for everyone to spy on other diplomats, they will probably be found out. No US national interests were at risk, - the The Feds I believe (from the NSC) checked/vetted all the documents before that were published in the New York Times -only the vanity of some of our top world leaders injured. too bad!For example, it is about time someone in the G8, called Russia "a kleptocracy".

Rumor has it that Assange is going to leak Russian secrets next.

But I doubt it.

I don't think he has the balls, knowing that the Russians play by an entirely different set of rules. In other words, Assange is a coward and has no stomach for putting his own little white ass on the line for anyone.

Reveling US secrets might get him laid on a regular basis. Reveling Russian secrets will get him DEAD. And you ain't getting laid if your DEAD.

I guess we should go back to the old system of selective leaks to a few cozy powerful journalists who mutually ingratiate themselves with the powerful. Here is example; everyone's favorite journalist in mainstream media headlined in CNN's billboard "Bob Woodward describes in his new book a secret U.S. program to assassinate terrorists in Iraq" Hundreds of officials in Bush and Obama adminstration were practically falling over themeselves to give selective leaks, "the vanity of knowing a secret is telling it", many of them classified leaks to Woodward on the wars Iraq and Afghanistan. I rather not have to read the book, but settle for something less explosive and one-sided but more informative.

Apparently, the biggest mistake made was a lifting of the ban of removable media being able to be attached to secure government computers.

The story is that all this stuff supposedly burned over top of a Lady Gaga DVD (I doubt this story because high volume production CDs and DVDs aren't erasable or rewriteable).

You don't mind that many of your commenters refer to the President in evocative terms as a muslim or from kenya but you get the vapors if a wikileaks orgnization that tries to widen the three million access of these files about observations of foreign countries that are circulating, many of which show the Obama government was just using smoke and mirrors, when they had other facts, that were inappropriate such as on Iran. Don't you realise how this has opened up information, which was privy to those who only had were expected to edit and shape their tendentious decisons before hand?

Are you being deliberately obtuse? There's no problem with criticizing the President within the country. That's normal, traditional, and desirable. But I don't want him embarrassed overseas. Doesn't matter who he is - Bush, Obama, whoever.

Regarding "widening access" to information, is there any information to which access shouldn't be "widened?"

If no, please post your address (including country, which apparently isn't the U.S.) and credit card numbers. Widen that access, baby!

Its their actions and words which cause embarrassment but I get your drift Jay G. Sometimes, politicians can be too much, especially hyperbolic Hillary Clinton

CLINTON: This is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community.

I expect she will be going to the UN General Assembly next to ask for support from the UN international community, to denounce wikileaks for revealing the fact that she ordered everyone in the State Department to get the paswords and credit cards numbers for the president WHO, the Canadian delegation and twenty-nine other delegations.

Life's funny.

Here you are attacking the Obamanauts, and here I am defending them.

I yield to no man in my low regard for the Obama Administration. I think their policies are dangerously flawed.

But, 1) I could be wrong (yes!), and 2) in any case they've been legally elected, and consequently I'm bound to support them and their right, granted by the electorate, to act on their behalf. I might think the Obamanauts are wrongheaded (I do), and I might criticize them (I do), but they're my elected government, and they have been given the authorization to act for all of us.

To do that in foreign policy, they need some wiggle room, and ability to confer overseas in confidence. Furthermore, those leaking the information had no authorization from the electorate to do so.

So I'm pissed at Wikileaks. Who knows? Maybe Obama and Clinton had some ingenious plan that would have ended strike all over the globe. (Yeah, I doubt it too, but bear with me.) Some self-righteous asshole has now put his foot in the middle of that, and potentially jeopardized American security in so doing.

And that's where I draw the line.

Bwhahahahaha.

Lets freeze and confiscate the assets of those supporting this terrorist organization - George Soros - and maybe O can make a dent in the deficit after all.

Don't worry Jay this is only a temporary reversal of our usual partisan roles. USA diplomacy will show resilence. There is no smoking gun and Russia is about to be exposed in the next batch of WikiLeaks as a parallel criminal state.

Now as regards to this American private breaking his oath or the law, it is not so cut and dried, at least in regard to the Iraq logs, and we have lawyers and the US Constitution to thank for that.

According to Daniel Ellsberg, who metaphortically was lynched by the right before he won his case before the Supreme Court after releasing the Pentagon papers,

In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."

Ellaberg not surprisngly states:

"The material that he revealed in the Iraq Logs, which were just revealed recently- some 400,000 logs- revealed hundreds if not thousands of cases of Americans who reported that they understood they were turning people over to be tortured, clearly against U.S. and international law, and they were then being ordered not to pursue the investigation further or take any measure to stop this illegal process. Now that order was blatantly illegal so it will be interesting to take a look at those thousands of cases and just see which one led to a refusal to carry out that blatantly illegal order as the USMJ requires them to do. Bradley Manning seems to have been the one who did that, the one who lived up to his oath of office.

Ellsberg stated in an interview that "if [the alleged leaker, Bradley Manning] has done what he is alleged to have done, I congratulate him. He has used his opportunities very well. He has upheld his oath of office to support the Constitution. It so happens that enlisted men also take an oath to obey the orders of superiors. Officers don't make that oath, only to the Constitution. But sometimes the oath to the Constitution and oath to superiors are in conflict" while Wikileaks "is serving our democracy and serving our rule of law precisely by challenging the secrecy regulations, which are not laws in most cases, in this country."

Steve, at first I was going to ask you "What kind of an american are you"? but then I go back to the liberals credo of self loathing and anti americanism. You perform to type.

On the post: Obama at this point is weaker then Jimmah Carter and that is saying something. Since this weakling came into office we had numerous terror attacks on our soil, some very successful, and now this. I would not be surprised that it is found that one of Obama's cronies in the administration is doing this. ww

The corrected second link on Bradley Manning is this and I meant a parallel criminal state to Putin's so called democratic Russia. Russia really is a mafia parallel state, that has been given a pass as member of the G8. I suppose revealing the truth about Putin's Russia will more dangerous to the security of the US and passage of the Start treaty, than any pricking of the pretensions of the State Department heads such as Rice or Clinton, or not pandering to the vanity of world leaders, but so be it.

Steve, no time to check right now, but I think you mischaracterize the Pentagon Papers decision. IIRC, the crux of it was the attempt by the Nixon Administration to curtail publication by the NYT.

That's entirely different from defending Ellsberg, who should have been hanged (ideally alongside Jane Fonda, but that's another story). Ellsberg was not prosecuted (again IIRC) because the break-ins of his psychiatrist's office tainted the evidence.

So (if my recollection is correct), it is grossly inaccurate to characterize the Supreme Court decision as vindicating Ellsberg.

Assange is going to release Russian documents?

RIP Assange.

Steve, one of the key elements of a good relationship is candor, and a key element of that candor is knowing that the other party will respect your confidence. I've had discussions, both with commenters and other Wizbang authors, that have broached "sensitive" matters that none of us would want broached publicly.

For example, you and I have exchanged e-mails on occasion. Would you like, for example, me to disclose the times we discussed your tenure at WizbangBlue, and your colleagues there? There were some rather candid opinions offered in that discussion.

We NEED to be able to discuss, in confidence, some matters with our representatives abroad, and dignitaries of other nations.

Think of some of these contacts as between police and informants. Should we outlaw entirely the anonymous tip?

I understand that Obama has a touch of the "L'etat, c'est moi" mentality, but I don't confuse the two. And this is not about embarrassing the administration, but weakening my country.

As I said, I have no problems defending Obama when he's in the right, or unfairly attacked. I was pissed when a top Iranian official called Obama a "nigger" in Farsi. (Well, technically and literally, "negro slave," but the meaning was clear.) I was happy when he authorized the shooting of those pirates, and I like his policy of blowing up terrorists with drone strikes.

The fallout of the WikiLeaks will last for years. And it will do more than just embarrass and hurt the Obama administration. That's why I get angry about them.

Apparently, more angry than the Obama administration, but I don't think they're smart enough to realize how badly this whole mess is screwing over not just them, but the whole country. And not just now, but for years to come.

J.

You are right, thnks for reminding me the New York Times won the case, not Ellsberg. His was dropped due to the Plumbers break-in of his psychiatrist's office.

In August 1971, Krogh and Young met with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in a basement office in the Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Liddy recommended a "covert operation" to get a "mother lode" of information about Ellsberg's mental state in order to discredit him. Krogh and Young sent a memo to Ehrlichman seeking his approval for a "covert operation [to] be undertaken to examine all of the medical files still held by Ellsberg's psychiatrist." Ehrlichman approved under the condition that it be "done under your assurance that it is not traceable."[18]

On September 3, 1971, the burglary of Lewis Fielding's office -- titled "Hunt/Liddy Special Project No. 1" in Ehrlichman's notes -- was carried out by Hunt, Liddy and CIA agents Eugenio Martinez, Felipe de Diego and Bernard Barker. The "Plumbers" failed to find Ellsberg's file. Hunt and Liddy subsequently planned to break into Fielding's home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary. The break-in was not known to Ellsberg or to the public until it came to light during Ellsberg and Russo's trial in April 1973

On April 26, the break-in of Fielding's office was revealed to the court in a memo to Judge Byrne, who then ordered it to be shared with the defense.[19][20]

On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense.[21] During the trial, Byrne also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI. Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.[20]

Due to the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering all charges were dismisied

For all the weakness of Obama, he is not going to initiate a Plumber's team, that seems to be a signature of another time, but some of you may be hoping. This what I fear a Palin presidency could be like. But would be as 'entertaining' as Nixon`s. Carter's certainly wasn't.

"Assange is going to release Russian documents?

RIP Assange."

For all the weakness of Obama, he is not going to initiate a Plumber's team, that seems to be a signature of another time,

I'm curious - why do you think this?

Given how Obama won his previous elections through dirty tricks (see Palmer and Ryan, for two cheap shots), that he's a part of the Chicago machine, and that his close advisors are/have been Emanuel, Axelrod, and Stern, and that leftist causes (and presumably Obama's campaign too) have been bankrolled by Soros - who's no choir boy - I'd have thought a dirty tricks campaign was pretty likely. If Barry starts getting really gored by Wikileaks, I'd say a plumber's team is on the cards.

(Btw, I think Nixon got a slightly raw deal on the plumbers. He was trying to find a dangerous leak in time of war, and couldn't trust potentially leaky branches of government to investigate themselves. If I'd been in a foxhole in Vietnam, I'd have appreciated his efforts to keep me skin whole. Not saying it was nice; but am saying there was a valid argument for doing it.)

On reflection, I'd say Carter and Ford would have been the least likely to initiate a plumbers team.

Bush I and Bush II next, then Reagan, then Clinton. I think Obama himself is unlikely to initiate one, but I think he's a spokesmodel who doesn't really count. The Chicago and leftist thugs that put him in power are the ones who matter. (For example, consider Obama's campaign turning off address verification of credit card donations. Hard to imagine any reason for doing this other than to illegally circumvent campaign finance laws. Pretty stinky, yes? The difference from a Nixon is that the MSM hated Nixon as much as they love Obama, so the latter gets a pass on things they'd scream about from the former.)

Yeah, THOSE guys don't mess around. Hope his life insurance is paid up and his next of kin are designated...

Or maybe not designated. Remember when the Muzzies were kidnapping all and sundry in Beirut? At one juncture they kidnapped four Russian diplomats. Big mistake.

When negotiations stalled, the Russians rounded up some likely Muzzies, sliced off body parts, and sent them to the Muzzie leadership.

The Muzzies jumped up so fast to release the remaining three (one had been killed) that they almost stepped on their dicks. Needless to say, these were the last Russians to be kidnapped. Message received.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2742/is_370/ai_n24993269/

Jay you make a reasoned answer. These are philosphical differences. If we didn't have these okay i will say excessive leaks such as watergate, the pentagon papers, downing street memos, royal commissions the wikileaks abu ghraib photos, mi5 diaries, we would be living in a 1984 world of spin and press release. The Bush adminstration did'nt even want to release the August al queda cia memo after the fact to the public. If there had been more sharing of memos between agencies, or if the public had been alerted and notified and heard of the august memo "an al queda attack is imminent" 9/11 may not have occured.
The State Department still hasn't shed low level redacted cables going back to 1972.
Sure there are unintended consequences, people may be more discreet to the State Department-you guys are always complaining what idiots they are over there anyways and what little importance it has. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon completely ignored them in the runup to Iraq- or other informants, counter intuively, will know now the US will be tighter with state confidences.
At the same time, the freer flow of information through the internet (Iran is a good example) should be encouraging more democracy and protest in the middle east and countries, such as China with rigid censorship. Let their authoritarian leaders in Iran, Saudi Arabia, China or Russia be embarrassed or wince, the public there can't be so disappointed to see what they really think when they are not stage managing.

Steve, here's what's going to happen: we're going to ask people questions. They will answer us with what they think will make them look the best when it's released. Honesty and candor will go right out the window.

For example, we ask the Saudis what they think about our hitting Iran's nuclear weapons sites. How do you think they'll answer, knowing that within a year or so that answer will be publicly released around the world?

J.

Jay, point taken we shall see what the balance is. There is no doubt there may be some negative practical repercussions. I think in the instance you cite, it would be a high level cable, that privates wouldn't have access to. Of course, we could have high level cable releases, though not as likely, especially now.

Then again, with your Saudi example, we are conniving with what their unelected leaders want. This is how we misread the sutuation in Iran with the Shah, for example. If the Saudi princes don't want to go on record, it may be for the very good reason that they know their people wouldn't support it, so it may be worthwhile to discount any assurances that Saudi supports a US Iranian military invasion,...naturally to the last American.

The other Jay, I saw this 14 minute BBC documentary on the real Russia , behind the facade a few weeks ago. It is very good and frightening.

Be careful JT, perhaps you shouldn't keep trying the same thing and expect different results.

Of course Wikileaks is going after the targets that are profitable.

Well, I read now that the Russian Intelligence service is monitoring Wikileaks now...Unlike our agency, THEY won't hesitate to terminate the preening bastard if they catch him.

Julian assange is a member of the Open Society Institute-a Soros stooge, and I share the same feeling as Stacy McCain; this going all the way to the top.
I also believe it's a diversion to some more sinister, which in time will come out.
Always look what the other hand is doing.