August 2008: “the king [Bahrain’s King Hamad] describes his time at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College as ‘the most personally and professionally rewarding of his life.’” (link)

December 2009: “Crown Prince Salman received his high school education at the DOD school in Bahrain and earned a BA from American University in 1985. He is very Western in his approach…” (link)

US embassy cables released by wikileaks

June, 2005: “[A]ll efforts must be made to keep Aristide from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process” - John Danilovich, U.S. Ambassador to Brazil (link)

October, 2008: “The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti [MINUSTAH] is an indispensable tool in realizing core USG [U.S. Government] policy interests in Haiti. …. A premature departure of MINUSTAH would [increase the risk of] resurgent populist and anti-market economy political forces - reversing gains of the last two years.” - Janet Sanderson, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti (link)

See also: How Obama helps black people

indians-vs-cowboys: A wall outside the Prime Minister’s office in Tunis, Tunisia, on January 22nd, 2011. (Photo REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly) The L.A. Times has an interesting short report on the recent protests in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, and Albania. A short Associated Press video on the same topic is included. See also: What sparked the Tunisian revolution? The vibrant democracy movement in Tunisia was directed against “a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems,” ruled by a dictator whose family was hated for their venality. This was the assessment by U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec in a July 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks. Therefore to some observers the WikiLeaks “documents should create a comforting feeling among the American public that officials aren’t asleep at the switch”—indeed, that the cables are so supportive of U.S. policies that it is almost as if Obama is leaking them himself (or so Jacob Heilbrunn writes in The National Interest.) “America should give Assange a medal,” says a headline in the Financial Times. Chief foreign-policy analyst Gideon Rachman writes that “America’s foreign policy comes across as principled, intelligent and pragmatic—the public position taken by the U.S. on any given issue is usually the private position as well.” In this view, WikiLeaks undermines the “conspiracy theorists” who question the noble motives that Washington regularly proclaims. Godec’s cable supports these judgments—at least if we look no further. If we do, as foreign policy analyst Stephen Zunes reports in Foreign Policy in Focus, we find that, with Godec’s information in hand, Washington provided $12 million in military aid to Tunisia. As it happens, Tunisia was one of only five foreign beneficiaries: Israel (routinely); the two Middle East dictatorships Egypt and Jordan; and Colombia, which has long had the worst human-rights record and the most U.S. military aid in the hemisphere. Noam Chomsky

indians-vs-cowboys:

A wall outside the Prime Minister’s office in Tunis, Tunisia, on January 22nd, 2011.
(Photo REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly)

The L.A. Times has an interesting short report on the recent protests in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, and Albania. A short Associated Press video on the same topic is included.

See also: What sparked the Tunisian revolution?

The vibrant democracy movement in Tunisia was directed against “a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems,” ruled by a dictator whose family was hated for their venality. This was the assessment by U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec in a July 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks.

Therefore to some observers the WikiLeaks “documents should create a comforting feeling among the American public that officials aren’t asleep at the switch”—indeed, that the cables are so supportive of U.S. policies that it is almost as if Obama is leaking them himself (or so Jacob Heilbrunn writes in The National Interest.)

“America should give Assange a medal,” says a headline in the Financial Times. Chief foreign-policy analyst Gideon Rachman writes that “America’s foreign policy comes across as principled, intelligent and pragmatic—the public position taken by the U.S. on any given issue is usually the private position as well.”

In this view, WikiLeaks undermines the “conspiracy theorists” who question the noble motives that Washington regularly proclaims.

Godec’s cable supports these judgments—at least if we look no further. If we do, as foreign policy analyst Stephen Zunes reports in Foreign Policy in Focus, we find that, with Godec’s information in hand, Washington provided $12 million in military aid to Tunisia. As it happens, Tunisia was one of only five foreign beneficiaries: Israel (routinely); the two Middle East dictatorships Egypt and Jordan; and Colombia, which has long had the worst human-rights record and the most U.S. military aid in the hemisphere.

Noam Chomsky

Interesting to watch the continuing slide of U.S. journalism into irrelevance. Here are the first major international reports on today’s wikileaks release, in the order that they were published: First: Al Jazeera Second: The Guardian Third: The New York Times (h/t to apack)

Interesting to watch the continuing slide of U.S. journalism into irrelevance. Here are the first major international reports on today’s wikileaks release, in the order that they were published:

First: Al Jazeera
Second: The Guardian
Third: The New York Times

(h/t to apack)

Wikileaks is about to drop 400000 classified docs on the war in iraq

wikileaksstream:

dingane1:

I advise you to snap em up quick because something is gonna happen to the site

Stay frosty ladies and gents.