Page 1 of 2

wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 5:12 pm
by kiryan
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/ ... te-killed/

what the fuk... seriously we bitch constantly about china's regulation of the Internet and democratic bastions of freedom across the world are essentially trying to censor them to protect "state secrets". They cloak themselves in law, but how is that law any different than the ones China applies. This is almost enough to overcome the revulsion I have for that asshate who runs it to become a supporter.

I do believe the world would be a much better place if they stopped hiding all these secrets and frank assessments from the public... from their allies. complete and utter bullshit. We should have a right to know what our governments are doing and what our positions are towards them.

Before I was on the fence... it is a crime, it was theft, it does work against our government's goals so its probably treason as well... but the world wide response to this to try and censor them feels very dangerous.

I wonder how zealously our NSA/FBI are investigating the cyber attacks. I wonder which government official called amazon and encouraged them to find a reason to shut them off. Crap like this is why government power must be restrained and limited. Amazon should not have to worry about retaliation from government like France is threatening to its industry or Chavez threatens in his country.

Does no one else see how horribly wrong this is? illegal activity or not?

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 5:33 pm
by Corth
I'm with you on this. It looks like a witch-hunt. I don't see how Wikileaks is any different than the New York Times when it published the Pentagon papers. The person who broke the law is the soldier that leaked these classified documents - not the journalists that publish it.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 6:16 pm
by kiryan
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45930.html

Ron Paul says it well...

“In a free society we're supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. ..."

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 6:36 pm
by kiryan
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12 ... tml?hpt=T2

Well Wikileaks also apparently believes in bullshit

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange defended its posting of confidential documents Friday, saying that not a single person in the website's four-year publishing history has ever been harmed as a result of material it put online.

This guy is a real asshat, but I still believe the principle idea of wikileaks is foundational.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 7:21 pm
by Pril

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 7:37 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
Part of having a free society is the right to privacy. Human beings, leaders of other nations, and those people conducting the business of the United States of America should be able to have freely converse with only their intended recipients in the course of conducting legal business without fear of reprisal, unknown or unidentified eavesdroppers, or unauthorized release to the public.

Privacy is an important human right, beyond the practical needs for privacy in communications concerning the business of a nation that often must negotiate with other parties. To be stripped of this is to be stripped of our basic rights both as human beings and as a government.

Every bit as important as the truth is respect for the basic human right to privacy. While not absolute, it is pretty clear that there has been little respect for the privacy of the United States of America and its people by this Assange fellow. Should we show him the same disrespect he has shown us, the same trampling of rights as he has trespassed upon all of us, a little waterboarding might well be called for.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:07 pm
by kiryan
I can agree with you to a point.

The government is not a 3rd party, the government is the people. Nothing government does should be private or hidden. To allow that is to allow the travesties that already occur on a regular basis that no one has to be accountable for because its kept secret. Water boarding could be construed as one of those from a liberal point of view, Obama's tacit approval of the Lockerbie bomber would be one on the conservative side. Presidents have lied to the american people for some time because to release the truth would be detrimental to our national security. I find the notion highly irregular and patently false.

I support your viewpoint that private conversation between two private individuals, even two private or public companies, is private and that is a necessary part of freedom. That same principle does not extend to our government lest we end up like China or past and future KGB years of Russia

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:34 pm
by Kindi
also note the calls for assassination

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... hacked.ars

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:45 pm
by kiryan
Yea... wow what bullshit, assassinate him? Leaglly I think they probably have the justification... same with the charge of treason, but its still not right.

I agree to some degree that he has blood on his hands... but the problem with this statement is that the truth should never hide... can not be hidden long term.

The problem is that all he is doing is telling the truth. He didn't make the decisions that put you in a situation where disclosure results in your death, you did, xyz government did. If you have secrets, if you are undermining or working against other interests, thats your deal and you reap it whether your a good guy or a bad guy.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:03 pm
by Botef
Lieberman is also pushing some new legislation to change the espionage act to make it illegal to publish the name of a source for intelligence, I'm assuming to try and dissuade newspapers from publishing anything. I doubt it will pass, but who knows given the current response to all of this. Lieberman was also the one who put pressure on Amazon and another Seattle based firm to give WL the boot.

This is probably as good of an example as any for why I support net neutrality.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:17 pm
by kiryan
The Internet is really the next evolution of the press. Democracy and freedom rely on a free press and as the traditional press dies, the new press must enjoy the same protections and freedoms. the US government should not be able to use legal authority to stop wikileaks, should certainly not be able to firewall its content and should certainly not engage in cyber warfare with them as some in the article suggested.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2010 6:34 am
by Teflor Lyorian
I agree that nothing the government does should be hidden from the people forever. However, we task our government with such tasks as negotiating with other foreign powers. It is best that those details are kept secret among those involved in the negotiations, lest a citizen somewhere singlehandedly shows our opponent all of our cards.

Furthermore, public entities need some of the same rights as private entities, simply because business must be conducted between the two. Public entities should not have an inherent disadvantage when it comes to things like negotiating a price on a service by being forced to reveal all of their cards.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2010 3:11 pm
by Kindi
he's just trying to help reduce the size of govt!

"These leaks are not specifically about the war(s) at all, and most seem to simply be a broad swath of the everyday normal secrets that a security state keeps from all but its most trusted hundreds of thousands of people who have the right clearance. Which is the point: Assange is completely right that our government has conspiratorial functions. What else would you call the fact that a small percentage of our governing class governs and acts in our name according to information which is freely shared amongst them but which cannot be shared amongst their constituency? And we all probably knew that this was more or less the case; anyone who was surprised that our embassies are doing dirty, secretive, and disingenuous political work as a matter of course is naïve. But Assange is not trying to produce a journalistic scandal which will then provoke red-faced government reforms or something, precisely because no one is all that scandalized by such things any more. Instead, he is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller."

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11 ... %E2%80%9D/

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:11 am
by kiryan
I can't agree with that Teflor. Its an ends justify the means argument that always leads to abuse of power. Only truth can reign in power and prevent abuses. Secrets enable this nefarious illegitimate unstomachable action.

Why do you think Ron Paul has been doggedly chasing the Fed for 30 years? They operate in secrecy without oversight and wield immense power.

I wonder if it our government "protecting" us from the truth is why we're so dependent. We honestly can't handle the truth, its been kept from us so long. Just keep living in the Matrix.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:07 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
kiryan wrote:I can't agree with that Teflor. Its an ends justify the means argument that always leads to abuse of power. Only truth can reign in power and prevent abuses. Secrets enable this nefarious illegitimate unstomachable action.

Why do you think Ron Paul has been doggedly chasing the Fed for 30 years? They operate in secrecy without oversight and wield immense power.

I wonder if it our government "protecting" us from the truth is why we're so dependent. We honestly can't handle the truth, its been kept from us so long. Just keep living in the Matrix.

Which argument?

Secrecy is a necessity of government. If you're worried about it, just ensure that it is only temporary secrecy. The solution is not to destroy secrecy, because other nations and private entities will not do so, leaving us at a permanent disadvantage.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 6:56 pm
by kiryan
the argument that we should allow our government to conduct itself in secrecy... even if it will be revealed 50 years later.

The whole foundation of secrets is to create advantages. I think secrets are more detrimental to negotiation than transparency is. Could you blackmail a diplomat with racy photos if everyone already knew he was having an affair?

Instead of wasting time and resources speculating on what xyz has and what you have and how they need this more than you need that, and whether they said this as code for that or whether they were just saying it. you could get straight talk and back to the real issue... what is it that you want and at what price.

Everyone should know what China is offering North Korea, what Iran is offering Iraq. Everyone should know to what extent the USA has promised to intervene in Taiwan. These are secret obligations our government is making and we have no ability to weigh in because we're kept in the dark. Insulating our leaders from criticism is a terrible insult to Democracy and freedom.

Also understand, all these "secrets" are just secrets from us, joe public. There are probably well over a million people with clearance to this information... but the rest of us can't have it? A 21 year old private had access to this data and we don't?

Seriously?

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:00 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
But transparency that is only one way is just stupid.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:34 pm
by kiryan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

The way this article reads... the rape charges are complete bullshit. At least in america they would be. Apparently, he had sex with a radical feminist he was staying with and continued to stay with her for a few more days, a few days later he had sex with some other chick twice and they went out to breakfast together the next day. The two chicks found out about each other and went to the police together to get "justice" for her. Because the condom had broken in sexual encounter #1, and he didn't want to use a condom in the 2nd encounter with the second woman, there is some sort of rape/abuse from a swedish law perspective.

There you go, progressive Europe on display, its sexual abuse against the man if the condom breaks while your balls deep. nice.

I wouldn't be surprised if the US government is involved somehow, but it doesn't sound like they orchestrated it.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 4:57 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
kiryan wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336291/Wikileaks-Julian-Assanges-2-night-stands-spark-worldwide-hunt.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

The way this article reads... the rape charges are complete bullshit. At least in america they would be. Apparently, he had sex with a radical feminist he was staying with and continued to stay with her for a few more days, a few days later he had sex with some other chick twice and they went out to breakfast together the next day. The two chicks found out about each other and went to the police together to get "justice" for her. Because the condom had broken in sexual encounter #1, and he didn't want to use a condom in the 2nd encounter with the second woman, there is some sort of rape/abuse from a swedish law perspective.

There you go, progressive Europe on display, its sexual abuse against the man if the condom breaks while your balls deep. nice.

I wouldn't be surprised if the US government is involved somehow, but it doesn't sound like they orchestrated it.

It seems Assange should look to other governments to attack.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 5:57 pm
by kiryan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/de ... -wikileaks

Assnge denied bail. I think the court's rationale had a good basis. He clearly didn't remain in Sweden and left relatively recently if i understand things correctly. He did turn himself in though so that seems to be a credit. Ultimately, his lack of ties to the community and his past nomadic lifestyle and flagrant disregard for US law probably outweighs any of that.

On the other hand, refusing to submit DNA and finger prints is a bullshit move on his part... like he hasn't left DNA all over the place, like he doesn't leave finger prints all over the place. If anyone wanted to use these things to frame him, well they can get them at will.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 9:30 pm
by Corth
ROFL - Assange is basically getting railroaded by a couple of Euro feminazis with a grudge.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

Too funny. I guess it's a risk you take when you're a famous heterosexual male who spends most of his time around cute female liberal academic types.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:16 pm
by kiryan
http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/1 ... icans.html

OPED piece by assange.

He starts out with a good quote

“In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win,” Assange quotes a young Murdoch as saying in 1958.

Follows up with calling out some serious bullshit, the calls for him to be assassinate etc.

but finishes with some bullshit of his own.

"...have not had a word of criticism for the other media organizations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small."

No its because you are responsible for releasing classified documents to them. Not because you're a young upstart.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:19 pm
by kiryan
Corth wrote:ROFL - Assange is basically getting railroaded by a couple of Euro feminazis with a grudge.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

Too funny. I guess it's a risk you take when you're a famous heterosexual male who spends most of his time around cute female liberal academic types.


Yea I read that one too... mental note, keep pud in pants while anywhere near sweden where it is rape if you try to talk a willing partner into something.

I wonder how many pelvic thrusts you get before you have to pull out after a condom breaks? If you're mid thrust how many centimeters and seconds you're allowed before your forward motion must cease! How many minutes do you have to wait before renegotiating further penetration without being seen as coercive. That probably means the blue ball argument is outlawed too!

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 2:47 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
kiryan wrote:http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/1210/Assange_swipes_at_Palin_Republicans.html

OPED piece by assange.

He starts out with a good quote

“In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win,” Assange quotes a young Murdoch as saying in 1958.

Follows up with calling out some serious bullshit, the calls for him to be assassinate etc.

but finishes with some bullshit of his own.

"...have not had a word of criticism for the other media organizations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small."

No its because you are responsible for releasing classified documents to them. Not because you're a young upstart.

Established journalism organizations also have developed a working relationship with government - one of the reasons why they continue to exist. They also are much better at applying the standards and practices of journalism, where Wikileaks is simply an anti-American organization that specifically targets the United States. A lot of former US supporters and staff members of Wikileaks have cut ties with the organization due to what it has become.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 4:16 pm
by Corth
Journalists have a 'working relationship' with government... which is the reason they continue to exist. Hmm.

This patriotic Libertarian might just have to consider making a donation to Wikileaks.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 4:19 pm
by kiryan
Yea ... I'm pretty sure journalism's rallying cry is independence.

Assange can go fuk himself though, he's an ass hat of the 1st order even if I somewhat support some of his principles and actions. I'm not giving hitler an award or a dollar for building a giant library and feeding the German poor cuz he's a grade A scumbag.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:01 pm
by Kindi
the US is hosting this year's 'World Press Freedom Day'.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm

"The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information."

lol

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:03 pm
by Dalar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYR ... re=related

Obama's thoughts on the wikileak crap.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:19 pm
by Kindi
i guess one of the benefits of slow internet is that i can see the title (RickRoll'd) and close the tab before anything even loads

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 11:48 pm
by kiryan
Kindi wrote:the US is hosting this year's 'World Press Freedom Day'.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm

"The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information."

lol


Yea the US's position on wikileaks, and action through coercing paypal/visa/mastercard/amazon to drop them, gives China mountains of cover for their censorship.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:37 am
by Adriorn Darkcloak
On an interesting note, it appears Wikileaks might vindicate Bush and the presence of WMDs in Iraq.

Interesting.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:34 am
by Kindi
oh. they're talking about those years expired, useless chemical containers they found every here and there, which everyone already knew about, and is already part of the standard 'they did find WMD!' crowd chain-emails

the official definition of 'weapons of mass destruction' can include a single can of useless material. for example, they're charging that guy in oregon of attempted WMD use (that fake bomb the FBI gave him)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11852953

and actually, searching on the term 'charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction' shows that they're using it for the underwear "bomber" and the NY time square "bomber" too (put in quotes since what they had wouldn't have exploded unless they added some explosives)

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:28 am
by Adriorn Darkcloak
Kindi, did you read the entire article?

"But WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins"

"In 2008, our military shipped out of Iraq -- on 37 flights in 3,500 barrels -- what even The Associated Press called "the last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program": 550 metric tons of the supposedly nonexistent yellowcake."

What would have been a good example of WMDs to find? Actual nuclear missiles ready to fire? Rockets full of chemical warfare goodies on the launchpad? Did they ship out 550 metric tons of expired, useless chemical containers?

Dunno. The WikiLeaks info might not contain the full detail many don't actually want to see. Or it might, shrug.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:04 pm
by Kindi
if it did, i'd expect it to come from Fox News, George Bush, and the BBC rather than "townhall.com"

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:07 pm
by Sarvis
Adriorn Darkcloak wrote:On an interesting note, it appears Wikileaks might vindicate Bush and the presence of WMDs in Iraq.

Interesting.


Like Kindi said, if that were true we'd hear about it constantly as the Republicans used it to ridicule the Democrats for being soft on terror.

I mean, why doesn't this article even link to some of the wikileaks articles that it's talking about?

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:26 pm
by kiryan
I read the article, but I don't understand why if our government found this much uranium, they didn't trumpet it as a victory.

It was either suppressed (for what reason?) or is not true. I'm going to have to lean on not true. Maybe the documents are some sort of fake counter intellegience... not sure, something just doesn't sound right. Maybe there was a good reason for hiding this information like we gave it to them in the first place, who knows.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:11 pm
by Sarvis
Maybe this Wikileaks Article will clear things up...

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:12 pm
by kiryan
that is epic.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:00 pm
by Kindi
i figure most likely, the guy did a keyword search thru the wiki archives, didn't understand what he was reading and just made up a story around it, especially since govt uses lots of weirdly defined terms

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:54 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
Corth wrote:Journalists have a 'working relationship' with government... which is the reason they continue to exist. Hmm.

This patriotic Libertarian might just have to consider making a donation to Wikileaks.

It's not to imply anything underhanded, but journalists and the government at least feel free to communicate with the other. For instance, if a journalist has questions about whether or not publishing a damaging piece will harm our troops in the field, he can ASK the government without fear of being disappeared to Lebanon.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 12:02 am
by Teflor Lyorian
kiryan wrote:I read the article, but I don't understand why if our government found this much uranium, they didn't trumpet it as a victory.

Because the spin doctors raised the bar of requirements to WMD. Yellowcake is not a WMD, just a required component to building one.

Same thing with the chemical weapons labs. It 'doesn't count' unless there are finished chemical weapons around, thanks to how the critics of the Bush administration spun their criticism of Bush's Iraq war case to the public.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:06 am
by Zabam
No big secret here.
US Army led the clean up of Tuwaitha. The place was very crapped up. Locals scavenged the reactor facility for metal before any US Forces got there and scattered the uranium all over the place. We took out alot of fairly large sources too, that was a US Army/DOE joint mission.

I'm waiting for the leaks to ID what the Russians took out of Iraq (into Syria) weeks before the shooting started.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:49 pm
by kiryan
Not convincing Telfor considering Bush cited Iraq trying to get yellow cake in Africa as one of the proofs for going to war.

Had they found a significant amount of yellowcake, it would've validated that Iraq was pursuing WMD and had apparently acquired a large quantity of a crucial building block.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 4:39 am
by Teflor Lyorian
kiryan wrote:Not convincing Telfor considering Bush cited Iraq trying to get yellow cake in Africa as one of the proofs for going to war.

Had they found a significant amount of yellowcake, it would've validated that Iraq was pursuing WMD and had apparently acquired a large quantity of a crucial building block.

You might want to read my post again.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 4:50 am
by Zabam
Teflor Lyorian wrote:
kiryan wrote:Not convincing Telfor considering Bush cited Iraq trying to get yellow cake in Africa as one of the proofs for going to war.

Had they found a significant amount of yellowcake, it would've validated that Iraq was pursuing WMD and had apparently acquired a large quantity of a crucial building block.

You might want to read my post again.


Kiryan,

Are you questioning:
1. If Iraq attempted to obtain yellowcake from Niger, or
2. The physcial presence of yellowcake in Iraq, or
3. Both ?

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 5:24 pm
by kiryan
Teflor Lyorian wrote:
kiryan wrote:Not convincing Telfor considering Bush cited Iraq trying to get yellow cake in Africa as one of the proofs for going to war.

Had they found a significant amount of yellowcake, it would've validated that Iraq was pursuing WMD and had apparently acquired a large quantity of a crucial building block.

You might want to read my post again.


I think I understood your post, I just disagree what the "spin doctors" could prevent the president of the USA getting on the television and saying we found a WMD program in iraq, here's enough yellowcake uranium to build 10 nuclear bombs and they have no civilian nuclear program. Maybe they felt like it was too distracting, but I don't think spin doctors stopped an administration that wrote its own legal opinion justifying "torture".

--

zabam.

1. is immaterial if sufficient quantities of yellowcake were found in iraq. It doesn't matter to me if the claim specific to Niger was true or not.
2. I recall hearing a little about finding some yellowcake in iraq, but I don't remember hearing about massive quantities...

Regardless if a lot of yellowcake was found in Iraq, it lends a lot of credibility to Bush's claims that were the basis for going to war.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:19 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
Ok, thanks for expanding.

I think it would have been a poor political move for the administration to tout finding yellowcake when the public was expecting screwdriver-ready nukes and chemical weapons rockets (even though the administration did not setup that expectation).

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 2:54 am
by Zabam
Its just that yellowcake is not a WMD, its only natural ore. It still requires conversion to uranium hexafluoride (UF6) for enrichment - a very intricate, time-consuming, an extreme technical challenge, and expensive process. With enough effort, enriching to ~4% will fuel a power reactor. Iraq had no intact enrichment facilities (Israel saw to that). Saddam was researching other radiological issues, but the tradiation nuke was not recently one of them.

So the yellowcake was not the issue. Most likely big-time money funneling to terrorist organizations and allowing safe harbor/training facilities to terrorist organization was a factor. Iraq was (Saddam ran) a terrorism clearing house.

In-country reports of chemical weapons-grade material were noted in the Tigris and Euphrates (dumped into the rivers?). Russia took out massive amounts of something, transporting into Syria. Is it any wonder Israel hit "a secret underground" Syrian facility a few years ago?!

I'm not a politican, so I have no idea why stuff is/is not reported. Something was there, just not the yellowcake cover story.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:22 pm
by Teflor Lyorian
Yeah... and four pounds of flour and two pounds of butter doesn't mean there's an intention for baked goods...

Yellowcake = WMD waiting to happen, FYI.

Re: wow wiki leaks bullshit

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:24 pm
by Sarvis
Teflor Lyorian wrote:Yeah... and four pounds of flour and two pounds of butter doesn't mean there's an intention for baked goods...

Yellowcake = WMD waiting to happen, FYI.


I have tons of food in my pantry that will probably never be turned into anything at all...