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Will The Journalists Who Outed CIA's Pakistan Chief Be Treated Like Julian Assange?
from the questions,-questions dept
Richard Kulawiec pointed us to the news that got a lot of attention last week concerning how the CIA had recalled its chief in Pakistan back to the US after his name was outed in a lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by a guy who blames the CIA for his relatives being killed in a drone attack. Apparently, two Pakistani journalists gave him the name of the CIA chief, and the guy included it in his lawsuit, leading to the recall. While the American press is not reporting the guy's name, it's widely available in foreign coverage.
That said, Richard asks a key question: given how many people have complained that Julian Assange should face trial/imprisonment/death etc. for his work with Wikileaks -- which it's been claimed, with little proof, has actually put Americans in danger -- why are we not seeing the same sort of claims about the Pakistani journalists who put this CIA boss in danger? After all, the situations are similar. In both cases, these are non-Americans who had certain information, which they revealed. Except, in the case of Assange and Wikileaks, there's actually been an ongoing effort to redact names and keep important details like that secret. That didn't happen with the Pakistani journalists and the CIA chief. So why is one so evil, and the others mostly being ignored?
That said, Richard asks a key question: given how many people have complained that Julian Assange should face trial/imprisonment/death etc. for his work with Wikileaks -- which it's been claimed, with little proof, has actually put Americans in danger -- why are we not seeing the same sort of claims about the Pakistani journalists who put this CIA boss in danger? After all, the situations are similar. In both cases, these are non-Americans who had certain information, which they revealed. Except, in the case of Assange and Wikileaks, there's actually been an ongoing effort to redact names and keep important details like that secret. That didn't happen with the Pakistani journalists and the CIA chief. So why is one so evil, and the others mostly being ignored?
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*dismissive hissing noise*
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Because...
Well, if you'd actually taken the time to read the Guardian article, you'd know that the lawyer bringing this suit forth in Pakistan is Admiral Akbar, and he knows that it's a trap....
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Re: Because...
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Evil Ignorance
Which makes one worthy of salary, and the other worthy of persecution.
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Re: Re: Because...
Dark Helmet
1 Deathstarlane
902105 Thatsnomoon
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F that ad at the top of the page
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scale
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Re: Re: Re: Because...
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Re:
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Re: F that ad at the top of the page
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Re: F that ad at the top of the page
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=Adblock+Plus&cat=all&x=0&y=0
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The reason why is that they don't want to annoy anybody over there, they will get violent and start boarding planes to off themselves in American soil.
Personally I think pakistanis are dumb, all muslims are dumb at least the ones I know, there are a few exceptions, but that fanatic religion thing is in general dumb, like christian fanatics or hindu fanatics they are all dumb, except maybe for the Dalai Lama.
It is just unbelievable how true it is the fact that force is the only thing that matters today.
We like to think that we are civilized but that is not entirely true, we still resolve things not by agreement but mostly by force.
In politics we force others to comply, in society we force people to comply, in dealings with others if we have leverage we would force others to do something.
This forcing thing is sure to bring about conflict.
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Re: Re: F that ad at the top of the page
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The difference
The "outrage" at Wikileaks is not about "keeping the troops safe," or whatever excuse they're using this week. It's about Western governments keeping their own citizens ignorant and complacent.
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Re: F that ad at the top of the page
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Because...
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Re: scale
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Because...
Yeah, that Mega Maid, she's a real whore, she'll take in anyone. She's so bad, I hear she goes from suck to blow like the flip of a switch.
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Treatment...
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There won't be anything done to the journalists who parrot the other press, that is meaningless. Further, the individual was outed by Pakistan's own internal agency, which allowed the name to be placed on a civil lawsuit filed. It really isn't a reporter issue, it is a state outing.
Digging deeper tells more of the story, and once again shows that TD is off looking for ghosts and goblins rather than worrying about getting the story right.
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Re:
These journalists got their information from an inside source. Wikileaks got their information from an inside source. A lawsuit published this one initially. US news outlets already had access and published parts of what is on Wikileaks. In this case, someone was put at risk and needed to be recalled. In the Wikileaks case... well, no one was put at risk. So it's not a perfect metaphor, but damn close.
So again, why aren't these journalists being attacked and demonized by the US government?
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Re:
Moreover, this is the exact same thing that Assange is being condemned for. And there is little evidence that the US military have been actively harmed by the cables. Yes, Wikileaks has directly contributed to deaths (cf. Kenya corruption), but the cause is of openness, of transparency.
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Re:
True, the scope of the Wikileaks documents, as hum-drum and devoid of anything surprising as they may be, was far more embarrassing.
Lives, bah! We have face at stake here people!
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Re: Re: scale
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Re: F that ad at the top of the page
Do you know which ad it was? We're not supposed to have ads on the site like that. And, yes, we do try to not allow ads that piss off users. If you let me know which one it was, I can make sure it's blocked. Very sorry about that. We really do try to not let in such ads.
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Re:
This would be the same Guardian that actually broke the story of the details of the rape allegations against Assange that show that it's a lot more than "a broken condom" as people are saying?
Sorry, the Guardian is not at all supporting or apologizing for Assange. They're the only paper to show that he might actually be in serious trouble with these rape allegations.
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Valerie Plame
Because it would almost certainly invoke memories of the Valerie Plame affair. Not even US officials (Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage) or journalists (Robert Novak) that revealed the name of a CIA agent get punished. So why should Pakistani citizens?
Of course this also raises questions about the calls for trial/imprisonment/death for Assange and the actual imprisonment and torture of his alleged source Bradley Manning. No one was ever charged or spent a single day in jail for outing Valerie Plame (Libby was charged and convicted of obstruction of justice, false statements and perjury)! So apparently American politicians can leak whatever they want, while soldiers and foreign citizens cannot. Nice!
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Same as...
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pakileaks
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