Redefining The Enemy

While most of us are looking at the WikiLeaks document dumps as nothing more than affirmations of what we already thought, conservatives are using them to create a new definition of who our enemy is.

Enter Newt.



It's a rather difficult situation to deal with, on a variety of levels. While Newt, and many like him, think that the Obama administration should easily be able to shut down WikiLeaks, they showcase their complete ignorance of not only the internet - something that they have been doing a great deal of - but of how Americans can legally go after people that distribute leaked information in favor of going after those that actually leaked the information.

So if conservative swallow whole this new narrative that Assange is an "enemy combatant" ( read: terrorist ) then does that mean that Sweden is now a haven for terrorists, as PRQ - an internet company based there - is the current host of the website? What of the others within WikiLeaks ranks? After all, Assange is simply a spokesperson. Are conservative more concerned with making an example of a single person or are they truly wanting to shut WikiLeaks down for good? But that begs the question, is there something they fear will come to light that will hurt their image?

Holiday Breaks And Monday Morning Revelations

I did a couple of brief pieces over the long holiday weekend and did my best to stay away from as many news sources as possible. It's a drying out period that I think was long overdue.

However, I did spend quite a bit of time reflecting on all that has happened this year - and not just in politics. What I came away with is a sense that America, by and large, is even more divided now than the day after Obama was elected. From my perspective, this is due in no small part because of most American's laziness to research.

I've thought this way for a long time, yet I didn't realize the intensity of the sloth-like behavior of those that constitute some of the loudest and more extreme voices on both the left and right. The sad part of all of this is that those on the right are the ones that seems to have the upper hand in controlling the message.

This isn't just an "ignore them and they'll go away" issue, nor is it a "if you talk about them you're just legitimizing them" issue either. The problem the left - both liberals and progressives alike - has is that we tend to play too much defense rather than focusing on an offensive strategy. To put it into more simplistic terms, we can't seem to be focused enough on our goals because we feel the need to debunk any and everything coming from the conservative noise machine.

More on that later on though.

Here's what has been gracing my computer screen since I awoke this morning:

- WikiLeaks has dropped more documents that reveal some interesting, if not ultimately predictable, information about American diplomatic practices. I'm still on the fence in regards to this type of distribution of information, as it can cut both ways. That aside, it is reported over at Crooks And Liars that Fox"News" is formulating the narrative that WikiLeaks should be classified as a terrorist organization:

This makes one wonder if they have some dirt on Republicans that they are nervous is about to come out.

The Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian have had these docs for several weeks, so I'm curious as to how the vetting process was conducted and who was deciding what pages to reveal to the public. Certainly there's more in there than what will appear in your media outlet of choice. You can sift through the entire document dump here.

- When the former director of the OMB under Ronald Reagan, David Stockton, says the the modern GOP has abandoned fiscal responsibility in favor of deifying the Bush Tax Cuts, I'm wondering how deafening the silence will be from the right.

It's this sort of statement that will likely be ignored in favor of cranking up the volume on the "highest tax increase ever" meme. I'm immediately reminded of how so much of what the modern conservative movement is against, their sainted Ronnie actually accomplished during his tenure as President.

- The rhetoric from war hawks like Liz Cheney is going to get exponentially louder since North Korea launched artillery shells onto a disputed piece of land largely considered to belong to South Korea.

It's people like Cheney, Palin, McCain - and their media masters at Fox"News" - just aren't going to be happy until we launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, or Iran, or maybe even both at once. And considering they have been declaring "victory" in Iraq after the draw down of soldiers there, one has to wonder what they would consider "victory" in those countries should America actually use military force.

It certainly wouldn't be like fighting in the desert, that's for sure. This is something that conservatives simply aren't considering - the implications of attacking countries far more developed than Iraq and Afghanistan.

And Monday's just started.

Liz's Attack Plan

I'm still considering the potential damage, or non-damage, of what Wikileaks has done. That will be for another post later on. But check out what Darth Vader's Apprentice thinks Obama should do.



First conservatives are against the Obama administration having any sort of "control" over the internet and NOW Liz Cheney is calling on Obama to forcefully shut down Wikileaks? Does she expect us to send in the military or something?

Yeah, let's call up Reykjavik and tell them if they don't shut down Wikileaks that we aren't buying any more Bjork CDs.

Who Will Follow Up On This?

Granted, the bulk of the documents that Wikileaks has obtained are largely speculative and need further investigation, one segment that Wired is reporting on merits some follow-up.

according to one of the WikiLeaks logs, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security got a tip about the man at the very top of the most wanted list: Osama Bin Laden himself. The informant said that Bin Laden “had been transported to Peshawar hospital in Pakistan for treatment, where he has died.”

“NDS stressed that this was a single source report and had not been verified,” the log added. No other document in the WikiLeaks trove appears to corroborate this. So it looks like just another piece of RUMINT in a war full of it.

RUMINT is short for "rumored intelligence". But even rumors of this sort need to be looked into, especially considering that Benazir Bhutto, a woman with intimate knowledge of the happenings in her region, stated back in 2007 that Bin Laden had been murdered.

Let's postulate on why this piece of intel wasn't seriously researched. Firstly, it would put a massive dent into the Bush administration's desire to continue fighting in Afghanistan, even though his tenure would end less than 2 years later. Secondly, and more than likely most importantly, the Bush administration couldn't possibly admit that a foreign country had accomplished something that he had loudly and all too often boasted about American forces doing.

There have been theories and rumors that Bin Laden had died much earlier than 2007, but none had been substantiated by anyone of prominence like Benazir Bhutto. All previous speculations were framed in the context of tin-foil hat nutjob nonsense. As for me, this needs to be seriously reviewed and have proper context be revealed to the American public. After all, this is the most wanted man in the world we are talking about. But considering how this has been completely ignored since 2007, there's going to have to be a great deal of explaining why so many have been so silent.