There are many thousands of people imprisoned in Uzbekistan alone who should not be imprisoned and who suffer much worse conditions than even the genuine horrors of Wandsworth being visited on Julian Assange. But the Assange case has implications for ever deteriorating Western freedoms which should not be overlooked.
Then there are many war criminals who ought to be in jail and who are not. Most prominent of these are Bush, Blair, Cheney, Straw and their crew. A minor figurewho ought to be in jail is Anna Ardin. Here are two tweets she published after being “raped” by Julian Assange:
‘Julian wants to go to a crayfish party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb’
‘Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing! #fb’
She subsequently deleted and tried to expunge those. I doff my hat to Rixstep:
http://rixstep.com/1/20101001,01.shtml
For another avowed feminist trying to bring Assange down, analyse the use of language in this article by the Guardian’s useless Helen Piddle. For a worm like her to use words like bizarre and raggle-taggle in relation to John Pilger really defies rationality.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/08/julian-assange-celebrity-supporters
“Who said fuck off?”
Please, Miss, it wasn’t me.
Vronsky!?
Go stand in the corner!
On second thoughts, that was probably Mark. Anyway, ‘night all!
Speaking of sex…as the Saudi Royals might say – thank God I am not a religious person… ( read on to understand) – from the Guardian:-
WikiLeaks cables: Saudi princes throw parties boasting drink, drugs and sexRoyals flout puritanical laws to throw parties for young elite while religious police are forced to turn a blind eye
Share4205 Comments (344) Heather Brooke guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 December 2010 21.30 GMT Article history
These Saudi students at a prayer event in Riyadh conform to the puritanical image of the country, but worldly pleasures are available behind closed doors to the very rich, WikiLeaks cables show. Photograph: Fahad Shadeed/Reuters
In what may prove a particularly incendiary cable, US diplomats describe a world of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll behind the official pieties of Saudi Arabian royalty.
Jeddah consulate officials described an underground Halloween party, thrown last year by a member of the royal family, which broke all the country’s Islamic taboos. Liquor and prostitutes were present in abundance, according to leaked dispatches, behind the heavily-guarded villa gates.
The party was thrown by a wealthy prince from the large Al-Thunayan family. The diplomats said his identity should be kept secret. A US energy drinks company also put up some of the finance.
“Alcohol, though strictly prohibited by Saudi law and custom, was plentiful at the party’s well-stocked bar. The hired Filipino bartenders served a cocktail punch using sadiqi, a locally-made moonshine,” the cable said. “It was also learned through word-of-mouth that a number of the guests were in fact ‘working girls’, not uncommon for such parties.”
The dispatch from the US partygoers, signed off by the consul in Jeddah, Martin Quinn, added: “Though not witnessed directly at this event, cocaine and hashish use is common in these social circles.”
The underground party scene is “thriving and throbbing” in Saudi Arabia thanks to the protection of Saudi royalty, the dispatch said. But it is only available behind closed doors and for the very rich.
More than 150 Saudi men and women, most in their 20s and 30s, were at the party. The patronage of royalty meant the feared religious police kept a distance. Admission was controlled through a strict guest list. “The scene resembled a nightclub anywhere outside the kingdom: plentiful alcohol, young couples dancing, a DJ at the turntables and everyone in costume.”
The dispatch said the bar featured a top shelf of well-known brands of liquor, the original contents reportedly replaced with sadiqi. On the black market, they reported, a bottle of Smirnoff vodka can cost 1,500 riyals (£250) compared with 100 riyals (£16) for the locally-made vodka.
In a venture into Saudi sociology, the diplomats explained why they thought their host was so attached to Nigerian bodyguards, some of whom were working on the door. “Most of the prince’s security forces were young Nigerian men. It is common practice for Saudi princes to grow up with hired bodyguards from Nigeria or other African nations who are of similar age and who remain with the prince well into adulthood. The lifetime spent together creates an intense bond of loyalty”
The cable claimed it was easy for would-be partygoers to find a patron out of more than 10,000 princes in the kingdom. Some are “royal highnesses” with direct descent from King Abdul Aziz, while others are “highnesses” from less direct branches.
One young Saudi told the diplomat that big parties were a recent trend. Even a few years ago, he said, the only weekend activity was “dating” among small groups who met inside the homes of the rich. Some of the more opulent houses in Jeddah feature basement bars, discos and clubs. One high-society Saudi said: “The increased conservatism of our society over these past years has only moved social interaction to the inside of people’s homes.”
Qark: “the aim will be to have the jump on the Russians in the event of a conflict”.
yeah? but you said earlier the aim was to prepare defences against a possible Russian attack. goodnight dreoilin, night all.
@ Glenn
Dude your 8.29 pm post was one of the best things ive ever read on the net.Thank you so much.
@ quark..good to have you on board here,cheers!
@ Vronsky…nice one for your decent apols to Quark …good man!
So the Saudi elites are drugging,drinking and whoring themselves stupid eh?
Is anyone actually surprised??
Thought not.
“Craig understood exactly reiterating, ‘rather than the neocon side of that *unholy* alliance.’ – showing a broad mind with a touch of class.”
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2dy6syo
Alan and Eddie:
Hitchens’ piece was absolutely awful! A disgrace, in fact!
Just to show you what I mean.
Hitchens wrote:
“I ask myself: What if I had been able to get my hands on that report when it was first written? Not only would I have had a scoop to my name, but I could have argued that I was exposing a political mentality that?”not for the first time in the history of the British Foreign Office?”chose to drape tyranny in the language of cliche and euphemism.”
Yes, and clearly many of the diplomatic cables do exactly that, too (re:the Saudis etc…)
Hitchens wrote:
“But what else, aside from this high-minded ambition (or ambitious high-mindedness), ought I to have considered? A democratically elected British Parliament had enacted an Official Secrets Act, which I could be held to have broken. Would I bravely submit to prosecution for my principles?”
Later in the article he leads us to think that in an alternative reality, he would have done:
Hitchens wrote:
“If I had decided to shame the British authorities on Iraq in 1976, I would have accepted the challenge to see them in court or otherwise face the consequences. I couldn’t have expected to help myself to secret documents, make myself a private arbiter of foreign policy, and disappear or retire on the proceeds.”
Not only is it a phoney argument to use a hypothetical situation to demonstrate your own bravery, nobility and high moral standing, Hitchens betrays himself earlier in the article by saying:
“(I was later threatened with imprisonment for another breach of this repressive law, and it was one of the reasons I decided to emigrate to a country that had a First Amendment.)”
Oh, I see, so you urge Assange to turn himself in while your own response was to flee your country of birth to escape prosecution. Anyone spot the contradiction?
Strangely enough, Hitchens makes the argument that Assange should turn himself in over his revealing of the diplomatic cables and yet searches in vain for any kind of law that Assange is guilty of. So why should he turn himself in? Over the rape allegations? Even Hitchens in his piece believes these are trumped up.
How very odd that when right-wing Republicans are baying for this man’s blood and for him to be literally shot dead with no trial for doing in a less fastidious way what the New York Times has done, the man most vocal about supporting Salman Rushdie from the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa now turns a deaf ear to similarly hysterical calls and provides hypocritical advice like this.
And if you thought that was bad enough, and you should, the fact is that back in 1976, Hitchens wrote an article almost exactly similar in tone to those diplomatic cables he would otherwise have so bravely published and been damned for (an a parallel universe):
http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2007/07/iraq-arab-saddam-iran-hitchens
Hitchens in 1976 wrote:
“The Baghdad regime is the first oil-producing government to opt for 100-per-cent nationalisation, a process completed with the acquisition of foreign assets in Basrah last December. It was the first to call for the use of oil as a political weapon against Israel and her backers. It gives strong economic and political support to the ‘Rejection Front’ Palestinians who oppose Arafat’s conciliation and are currently trying to outface the Syrians in Beirut. And it has a leader ?” Saddam Hussain ?” who has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser.”
Also, before Hitchens corrected the error in his Slate piece, he had said that Saddam Hussein had purged the Baghdad Politburo and that is what his point about the “euphemistic” remarks of the British Diplomatic Corps was about as they had referred to his takeover as “smooth”. Of course, that incident didn’t happen until 1979 as every schoolboy knows, thereby perhaps letting Hitchens off the hook somewhat for his own rather enthusiastic greeting of Saddam Hussein, but rather buggering up his point about how he could have bravely exposed the British government’s cables in 1976.
All this and the fact that he begins his article, as ever more about him than the ostensible subject, with a link to the Amazon page of his “most recent book” (Please buy someone for Christmas!)
A thoroughly risible piece from Hitchens and I hope he soon feels shame over it once the utter hypocrisy and venality of it sinks in.
Qark: “The Japanese Navy were using their own planes, obviously.”
Yes, obviously.
“If you had followed the link to “that pompous bigot’s site” (nice bit of vituperation there) you would have seen that the engineering consisted in denying the Navy warning of the attack when Washington had evidence that the attack was imminent.”
Well, that isn’t much of an “engineering” job is it?
FDR gets a cable from the top brass saying that they have decoded cables saying that the Japanese will attack at Pearl Harbor and FDR says, “shhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone! With any luck the information we have is the complete extent of the Japanese plans, we’ll only get a bloody nose, get caught flat-footed and then Germany will declare war on us enabling us to fight total war in two theatres. How exciting!”
And the Japanese were just willing dupes presumably too dull-witted to know that this was FDR’s fiendish plan all along.
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angysoba at 3:46am, well done indeed – that was a brilliant demolition of Hitchens’s extremely pompous piece.
Very good parallel too with the ‘fatwa’.
Craig, I normally agree with you but you’re losing perspective here.
I respect Pilger as much as you do, but to have him and Jemima Khan singing from the same hymn-sheet is ‘bizarre’. Simple as that.
All in all, you’re just another prick in Whitehall…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5SXYqGg1g&feature=player_embedded
Looks like the Sun has a completely invented “Al Quaeda threat to Corrie” story today:
http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2010/12/police-rubbish-suns-claim-of-al-qaeda.html
———
Twitter has restored the account of ‘Operation Payback’ and said it was suspended in error.
——-
Meanwhile, Paypal has released Wikileaks funds after those DDOS attacks
https://emoney.allthingsd.com/20101208/paypal-releases-funds-to-wikileaks-as-supporters-strike-back/
————-
I’m tempted to ask …
There are those here who think Wikileaks is a set-up, and those who think it’s legit and that Assange has been falsely accused in an effort to get him into Swedish custody for nefarious purposes etc etc, but nobody seems to have any more facts than anyone else. So where has almost two threads-full of discussion got anyone?
Or should I say, got me. I’m as much on the fence as I ever was — despite vast quantities of info coming at me by the minute on Twitter.
From a previous thread:
Somebody,
Thanks for the link to Jim Corr + Ian Crane. I wasn’t aware of their series of ‘events’. Shame they’re charging 10 Euros per person, (given that they’re talking about “future generations being condemned to a lifetime tax debt”) but I suppose there are costs, like venues. I’m not so sure he’s “putting a successful music career on the line” — maybe he is, but his sister was on the Late Late Show recently and I gathered that the Corrs are not active. He’s right about RTE News though — regurgitated stuff from Reuters and AP, and little real journalism (outside of domestic, like, “Why is there not enough grit on the road between Tralee and Dingle”??)
Jon,
Whatever about Greenwald quoting Robert Gates, I thought the statement from the Pentagon was most interesting. Nobody in the US has named one single person whose life has been put at risk by Wikileaks.
—————-
G Greenwald said last night on Twitter: “The number of American politicians who stupidly think non-citizens can be charged with “treason” is revealing indeed.”
Indeed. No surprise though.
Thanks for taking Hitchens apart angry, I enjoyed that.
Thanks also to Quark for ‘seeing red’ and coming out with facts.
Hitchens, just as Richard North, is an opportunist who likes to push the stranger, harder views to make themselves printable, Richard North is not even brilliant at it. He is a product of his upbringing, always jostling with his bro’.
LOL
They took down the Swedish Government website overnight.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8190871/WikiLeaks-cyberwar-hackers-bring-down-Swedish-government-site.html
“A spokesman for Anonymous, calling himself Coldblood ?” he’s understood to be a 22-year-old computer programmer based in London ?” last night released this statement:
“Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets. As an organisation we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means. We feel that WikiLeaks has become more than just about leaking of documents, it has become a war ground, the people versus the government. The idea is not to wipe them off but to give the companies a wake-up call.”
http://www.thejournal.ie/supporters-launch-web-attacks-as-corporate-world-puts-squeeze-on-wikileaks-2010-12/
Dreoilin,
I own up to that one – like you recently I was unable to post because of a DDOS attack hence the duplicates. Interestingly after the ‘get lost’ my network was attacked:
08/12/2010 23:28:42 Unknown Denied: UDP from 61.142.12.86 to local port 1434
Mark, can you get any handle on who’s attacking you?
Dreoilin, Mark was attacked from IP address 61.142.12.86. I’ll look that up here:
http://www.domaintools.com/reverse-ip/
…
Thanks for the info Dreoilin. Agree that the Corr/Crane events should be FOC in view of the circumstances.
Did you hear this am that bonuses totalling €40m are being paid out to AIB executives, ie banksters/gangsters? They always win.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1209/aib.html
I agree with you on Wikileaks. How many million words have been written and yet none of us really know. But I am always on the side of persecuted underdogs, especially those persecuted by our vile fascist states, and assuming that it is a genuine arrest and locking up, I am on Assange’s side. The charges are nonsense.
I look at film of him and watched him at the Frontline Club. I think he possesses a calm presence and an honest face especially when you look at his eyes which are the tell all. He is definitely an unusual young man. a one off.
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT5nDekkIMQe8jLtKuYU8ZGJB-t4vilGN4GxTFLokf15M7vKKAn41sP4HpMaw
10 days ago I was fairly convinced that Assange was or had been a CIA and or Mossad asset. This was based on the initial propaganda that was very pro Israel and further demonising Iran, together with Assange’s 9/11 Denial.
But I started to change my view when I realised the damage done to US Diplomacy due to one of the rockets he let off that went straight up Hillary’s backside. She is quite clearly one of Israel’s most fervent fan girls, and a US/Israel Asset simply does not do that kind of thing.
Assange has basically change the entire game plan, and has turned the opinion of Millions of ordinary people across the entire World against US Dirty Tricks. Its actually woken people up.
Even if he is/was CIA/Mossad it doesn’t matter cos he has broken the crock of shit wide open – with all the filth and gore plain for all to see.
It may have been a massive backfire job, but that doesn’t really matter, because now everything has changed.
Personally, since last weekend I have come to the view that Assange is actually what Assange is claiming to be, and even if he isn’t it doesn’t matter.
I now think the initial pro-Isreal pro-neocon propaganda was not down to pre-selection of documents being released, but cherry picking of documents being reported by the media, whilst anything giving an opposite opinion was ignored. Israel effectively shot themselves in the foot by more or less coming out openly stating this was Great for Israel. Of course all the 9/11 fanboys had heard it all before and jumped to the same conclusions (including me).
But there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind on further information and analysis. In fact that is what learning is all about.
The entire world of every political persuasion is now pissing themselves laughing at the sheer lunacy of the rape accusations. Who will dare shag a Swedish girl ever again?
When something is so ludicrous, it makes both the Swedish and UK Authorities look like lapdogs to the very worst aspects of the extremes of the US Govt crazies.
The only way out for the UK Government not to look totally ridiculous is to release Assange at the earliest opportunity on the basis that the Swedish extradition request is without merit.
Assange has now got such broad support from almost the entire political spectrum, that he has even got Glenn Beck of Fox taking the piss.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/glenn_beck_and_his_blackboard_call_assange_a_player_20101208/
Whilst the Independent and the Telegraph are still trying to uphold the “rape” allegations, ALL the comments are ripping the farce to shreds, and its The Daily Mail of all papers that is looking sensible.
What people need to realise is that the US Government is a massive great monolith, that will be grossly inefficient, but that will employ human beings of all shades of opinion. The absurdities and the atrocities are being attacked from both within, but that its the “Independents” on the outside that are having the most effect. There is no co-ordination except a common focus to get to the truth and fight for freedom – both in the World of the Internet and the Real World in which we all live.
Its a battle for the future of the human race.
Tony
Reverse IP lookup on returns “We do not have any information for that IP/domain”, so 61.142.12.86 is not the IP address of any website. Most probably, it is an infected Windows PC responding to instructions from a botnet. IP geolocator:
http://www.ip2location.com/demo.aspx
says Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
Mark, what software uses port 1434?
Somebody,
Yes, I knew about AIB bonuses. After a lifetime of banking with them, I had recently withdrawn every last penny I had with them. I understand that they lied more than any of the others, to the Government here. (They had the *nerve* to ask me where I was putting it. I told them it was none of their business.)
“I look at film of him and watched him at the Frontline Club. I think he possesses a calm presence and an honest face …”
Do you do that too? Interesting … I do it all the time, watching faces and body language and evaluating people’s honesty that way. I’ve been told by my OH that I’m rarely wrong. If I had to put money on it, right this minute, I’d go with his legitimacy. Like you.
dreoilin said: “There are those here who think Wikileaks is a set-up, and those who think it’s legit”
At this moment in time I don’t think that question is the most pressing. The issue that is most important and is actually being fought over right now internet freedom. Regardless of whether WL is a front or not, the US and large corporations (PayPal, Amazon, Mastercard & Visa) are currently attempting to define what level of freedom they will allow users of the internet to have. As far as I am aware WL is the first ‘popular’ website to really push against the limits of political speech in the west. The people running WL have used the nature of the internet in a sophisticated manner to protect themselves and the site itself. Even so, WL has struggled to stay up, is constantly being harassed technically, politically and legally. If WL loses this fight, the US will have successfully defined just how much freedom we have (sweet fuck all). Front of not, we can’t allow what WL is doing to be made illegal, or the entire internet will become useless as a political tool.
“Personally since last weekend I have come to the view that Assange actually is…”
Phew. I bet he’s relieved at that.
Mark, Shields-up! answered my question. Port 1434 is used by ms-sql-m
Microsoft-SQL-Monitor. This looks like a similar attack to the one you suffered a few days ago.
GRC’s Shields-up!, a useful security site:
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
The DDOS attacks according to what I know have been organised to give force to the ‘Internet Kill-switch’ Bill –
http://www.defensenews.com/mobile/index.php?storyUrl=http://www.defensenews.com/story.php%3Fi%3D4985854%26c%3DPOL%26s%3DTOP
A ‘scam’ page has been set-up (crude) that suggests you can download a ‘voluntary botnet’ attack tool. It has many dead-links.
The domain is registered to ‘Dynadot’ and Todd Han is an expert on risk prediction tools and advises security services world-wide.
“We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
‘Who’ lyrics courtesy of elyrics.net
“The issue that is most important and is actually being fought over right now internet freedom.”
Absolutely. Many are recognising that. I’m thoroughly enjoying the fight, I must say. So far no entity has been taken offline permanently, and Wikileaks has something like 700 mirrors. I believe that ‘people-power’ on the internet needs to teach some of these companies a lesson. I’m very much in favour of these DDOS attacks. As a warning to them.
The DDOS attacks according to what I know have been organised to give force to the ‘Internet Kill-switch’ Bill –
http://www.defensenews.com/mobile/index.php?storyUrl=http://www.defensenews.com/story.php%3Fi%3D4985854%26c%3DPOL%26s%3DTOP
A ‘scam’ page has been set-up (crude) that suggests you can download a ‘voluntary botnet’ attack tool. It has many dead-links.
The domain is registered to ‘Dynadot’ and Todd Han is an expert on risk prediction tools and advises security services world-wide.
“We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
‘Who’ lyrics courtesy of elyrics.net