While the matter is a burning issue for the Govt in USA and other countries as well, what possible impacts it could has on our pakistani politics?
Re: Wiki leaks… possible impact on pakistani politics ?
** WikiLeaks Claim: ‘We’re Under Cyber Attack’ **
Thousands of potentially embarrassing US documents are due to be published by whistleblower website WikiLeaks - but the organisation says it is under cyber attack.
The secret files - believed to be the first batch of up to 2.7 million documents to be published - are expected to be released this evening.
But Wikileaks has written on Twitter: “We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack.”
Sky News has been able to access the whistleblower website and news outlets that have already seen the documents insist they will go ahead in publishing the contents.
The papers are said to include communications between Washington and US embassies around the world.
President Barack Obama](http://indepth.news.sky.com/InDepth/topic/Barack_Obama)'s government has said the move will put countless lives at risk, threaten global counter-terrorism operations and jeopardise US relations with its allies.
The US State Department](http://indepth.news.sky.com/InDepth/topic/US_State_Department)'s top lawyer has warned WikiLeaks](http://wikileaks.org/) founder Julian Assange to stop the “illegal” publication.
The letter was sent as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top American officials reached out to numerous world leaders about the imminent release.
The confidential cables are thought to include candid assessments of foreign leaders and their policies, and could erode trust in the US as a diplomatic partner.
US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton](http://indepth.news.sky.com/InDepth/topic/Hillary%20Clinton) has spoken to leaders in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and China.
Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland have also been warned.
Sky News’ foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall](http://blogs.news.sky.com/foreignmatters) said: "Potentially this is diplomatic dynamite.
"We think that three leaders might be in the firing line, because we know the Americans have criticised (Afghan president) Hamid Karzai, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of Russia.
“Those are just three names that we’re hearing that may be criticised. There are many, many more and it is very embarrassing for the Americans.”
Reports suggest the files will reveal an unflattering assessment of Prime Minister David Cameron](http://indepth.news.sky.com/InDepth/topic/David%20Cameron) and former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Guardian journalist Simon Hoggart said: “There is going to be some embarrassment certainly for Gordon Brown but even more so for David Cameron who was not very highly regarded by the Obama administration or by the US ambassador here.”
Meanwhile, there are reports of UK Government fears about the impact of “anti-Islamic” views that could be expressed in the documents.
Sky News’ political correspondent Peter Spencer said: "The greatest anxiety is that these leaks will reveal remarks of a hostile nature towards various Islamic leaders and Islamic state policies.
“The danger, of course, is that Brits living in some Islamic states could find themselves the victims of a backlash - that is a genuine concern.”
WikiLeaks said its latest release of files, thought to date between January 2006 and June 2010, will be seven times the size of its October leak of 400,000 Iraq war documents.
The US has said it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables, but no one has been charged with passing them to the website.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
I couldn't find the documents on wikileaks . Can please someone post the link to it ? Thanks .
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
^ The documents will be released later on today.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
Looks like a Pandora box is just going to be opened soon which may have dire consequences internationally... :D
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
These kinds of classified documents should not be released. If you guys support these leaks then why not release Pakistani classifed documents for Pakistani diplomats.
Lets see how Pakis react to that.
But I think serves another purpose, that the supposed conspiracy nonsense that the entire Islamic World fuels it self on has been destroyed that the famed CIA cant even hack into wikileaks and remove these files...ha
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
Please tell me how many people in US have been prosecuted for leaking these documents?
IMHO this is all a bull**** perpetrated by US itself. The leaks always appear to damaging to allies rather than US.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
/\lol...by prosecuting a few people you don't get the leak back... :D
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
Please tell me how many people in US have been prosecuted for leaking these documents?
IMHO this is all a bull**** perpetrated by US itself. The leaks always appear to damaging to allies rather than US.
Do I detect another Conspiracy?
Maybe Julain Assange is a deep cover CIA operative who is releasing these information so that US allies can be implicated and US it self vindicated?
LOL.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
IMHO this is all a bull**** perpetrated by US itself. The leaks always appear to damaging to allies rather than US.
My question is how in the first place was Wikileaks able to obtain thousands of 'secret' documents which CIA or other world agencies didn't want world to see? We are not talking about one or two sets of documents here.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
^ Exactly.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind reading em...should be intriguing.
Re: Wiki leaks… possible impact on pakistani politics ?
Saudi King Abdullah called President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to Pakistan’s progress, according to an online report of New York Times that quoted Wikileaks as saying.
Re: Wiki leaks… possible impact on pakistani politics ?
^^ That is not the whole story but part story, and part story is always misleading. …
[Jews use to do same with revelation of Allah, that is part quote and hide other part (when quoting Taurah) and Allah rebuked them in Quran for doing that … now Pakistani media is doing the same what Jews used to do, quote part story to spread misinformation.
How surprising that part story makes Zardari a villain and whole story makes Zardari a hero and Snake Abdullah of Saud’s Arabia a snake and villain].
What it is reported is very shocking. It seems initially it was Mushrraf (2007 to mid-2008) and now Zardari (since mid 2008) is obstacle between America trying to remove enriched uranium from Pakistan and Pakistan keeping their enriched uranium (hence staying nuclear capable). More shocking is that King of Devils (Snake Abdullah of Saud’s Arabia) is part of this secret American effort and is now frustrated with Zardari in his safeguarding Pakistan nuclear assets. *.
Though shocking is also that King Snake Abdullah of Saud’s Arabia and his army of little snakes in Egypt and UAE also wants America to attack Iran so to stop them becoming nuclear, worse is that they urged America vigorously to attack Iran.
These are the two excerpts from ‘The Telegraph’ (quoted above by Al Khalid) I am talking about:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/…tic-crisis.html
One of the most damaging allegations was that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeatedly urged America to attack Iran.
The Saudi leader was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”.
The leak said he told the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” at a meeting in 2008. The leaks also disclose how leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil” and a power that “is going to take us to war”.
Later in the news article:
Other findings include how since 2007, America had mounted a highly secret effort to remove from a Pakistani research reactor enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. **Frustrations with Pakistan were reflected in reported comments by King Abdullah **who called President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to progress, adding: “When the head is rotten, it affects the whole body.”
The Telegraph (link and news article):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/…tic-crisis.html
WikiLeaks sparks worldwide diplomatic crisis
The King of Saudi Arabia privately urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear weapons programme, according to diplomatic cables leaked by the whistl-blowing website, WikiLeaks.
The first tranche of more than 250,000 classified cables released by the WikiLeaks site says American officials were also told to spy on the United Nations’ leadership and get biometric information on its secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
The cables detail claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the Royal family and criticism of Britain’s military operations in Afghanistan and David Cameron.
The cables include requests for “specific intelligence” about British MPs. The communiques last night threatened a global diplomatic crisis and put America’s relations with Europe and the Middle East under a cloud.
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The leaked memos also disclose how American diplomats compared Iran’s President Ahmedinejad with Adolf Hitler and labelled France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy as the “emperor with no clothes”.
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was depicted as “risk aversive”, while the Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin was an “alpha dog”. Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai was “driven by paranoia”. The unguarded comments were contained in the classified cables from US embassies, details of which were published by several newspapers on the internet last night. Some of the cables were sent as recently as last February.
The first package of memos published by The Guardian, the New York Times and Germany’s Der Spiegel failed to name the British Royal or the behaviour. The cables are being released over the coming fortnight, rather than all at once, putting America’s foreign relations under unprecedented pressure.
**One of the most damaging allegations was that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah repeatedly urged America to attack Iran.
The Saudi leader was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”.
The leak said he told the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” at a meeting in 2008. The leaks also disclose how leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil” and a power that “is going to take us to war”.**
The papers also claimed that the US Government was running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at Mr Ban and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK. They alleged that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, called for biometric information on the UN secretary general.
A classified directive was issued to US diplomats under the name of the secretary of state in July last year, asking for forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.
American diplomats were also asked to compile a profile of Alan Duncan, the homosexual former oil trader who is now the international development minister.
The Americans particularly asked for information on the relationship between Mr Duncan and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, with whom he used to share a flat, and also Mr Cameron.
The US administration also wanted information “on key UN officials, to include under-secretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers” as well as intelligence on Mr Ban’s “management and decision-making style”.
Washington asked for credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and “biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives”. The secret “national human intelligence collection directive” was sent to US missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome as well as 33 embassies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and Moscow.
Some of the cables offered personal and highly embarrassing descriptions of other world leaders. Kim Jong-il, of North Korea, was said to suffer from epileptic fits, while President Medvedev of Russia was “hesitant”.
The documents also claimed that Italy’s president, Silvio Berlusconi, was known for his “wild parties” while Libya’s president Muammar Gaddafi had a “sumptuous blonde as a nursing sister”.
Barack Obama was reported to want to “look East rather than West” while feeling no emotional connection towards Europe.
Washington tended to view the world in terms of two super powers with the European Union playing a secondary role, the cables said.
According to a review of the WikiLeaks documents published in the New York Times, Saudi donors were chief financiers of militant groups such as al-Qaeda and Chinese government operatives had waged a campaign of computer sabotage targeting the United States and its allies.
The WikiLeaks website suffered its own “cyber attack” hours before the release of the documents, with unknown hackers trying to stop the publication.
The White House last night condemned the “reckless and dangerous action” in releasing the classified US diplomatic cables, saying it could endanger lives and risk relations with friendly countries.
Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said: “When the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only US foreign policy interests, but those of our allies around the world.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK.
“We have a very strong relationship with the US government. That will continue”.
Buckingham Palace said it had no information about any allegations of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the Royal family.
It is not known who was the source of the leak, however there has been speculation that it could have come from Bradley Manning, a US Army soldier, who has been accused of leaking and transmitting national security information.
He was charged in July.
It also emerged that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had been rebuffed by the US government after he sought information “regarding individuals who may be 'at significant risk of harm’ because of” his planned release of classified documents.
His unusual move to open an 11th-hour dialogue about the documents came after a Swedish appeals court last week upheld an arrest warrant on rape charges for Mr Assange, validating an international warrant.
Mr Assange, who denies he has committed any crime, was believed to have recently spent time in London but his whereabouts yesterday were unknown. He had been under investigation in Sweden since August over rape.
One report said that Wikileaks had 251,287 cables from 270 US embassies and consulates from a single computer server.
The leaked documents went on to make further allegations. They claimed that Iran had obtained missiles from North Korea to give it the capacity to launch strikes on capitals in Western Europe for the first time.
According to a cable dated last Feb 24, North Korea sent to Iran 19 of the missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Intelligence agencies believe Tehran is some way from developing a nuclear warhead. The officials said the deal had significantly advanced Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Other findings include how since 2007, America had mounted a highly secret effort to remove from a Pakistani research reactor enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. Frustrations with Pakistan were reflected in reported comments by King Abdullah who called President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to progress, adding: “When the head is rotten, it affects the whole body.”
The cables reveal the desperate attempts by the US administration to find homes for former Guantánamo Bay detainees.
In one instance Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama. In another accepting prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe”.
The cables also detailed suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government after the vice-president was caught with $52 million (£33 million) in cash on a visit to the United Arab Emirates last year.
They also detailed how one state department communiqué had named Saudi donors as the chief financiers of al-Qaeda, while China was engaged in a global effort to hack into Google’s computers.*
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
^ sorry I am not getting it, how does "whole story" make Zardari a hero? From your highlighted parts its not clear whether Abdullah called Zardari greatest obstacle in direct relation with removing enriched uranium from Pakistan.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
^ sorry I am not getting it, how does "whole story" make Zardari a hero? From your highlighted parts its not clear whether Abdullah called Zardari greatest obstacle in direct relation with removing enriched uranium from Pakistan.
When something is mentioned in one paragraph than they are linked to each other, else they have to be in two different paragraphs.
So ... if above two sentences are in one paragraph (as in Telegraph) regarding American actions since 2007 on depriving Pakistan of enriched uranium, and regarding Abdullah’s comment on Zardari, then they are linked. In that case, Zardari is called obstacle by Abdullah due to him becoming an obstacle in American and Kingdom of Saud’s desire to deprive Pakistan of nuclear assets. In that case, Zardari is called Obstacle because he is saving Pakistan nuclear assets, and thus is 'hero' for Pakistan.
On the other hand, if both sentences are independent of each other, they should have been in two different paragraphs. If that would have been the case than they were not linked to each other, and in that case it was fine to say that Abdullah saying bad about Zardari was nothing to do with becoming obstacle to American actions of trying to deprive Pakistan with its enriched uranium asset. In that case, Geo news report would be justified and telegraph report would be considered as causing or spreading misinformation.
I took Telegraph reporting and usage of ‘English’ syntax as reliable presentation of what is leaked, though I might be wrong.
Note: According to Telegraph report, the comment on Zardari by 'King of Saud's Arabia' reflects the 'frustrations with Pakistan' and that frustration is directly after American desire to deprive Pakistan off their nuclear assets (that is still unsuccessful, hence cause of frustration), hence it further shows that both sentences are linked (and should be read together, specially Abdullah's comment should be read along with preceding sentence in the report), shows that Abdullah’s comments are reflection of frustration in not managing to deprive Pakistan off their nuclear assets.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
My question is how in the first place was Wikileaks able to obtain thousands of 'secret' documents which CIA or other world agencies didn't want world to see? We are not talking about one or two sets of documents here.
Well thats very easy.
Most of these documents are not Top Secret.
They were downloaded by a US Soldier Bradley Manning who accessed US Military Network and downloaded 1.4 Terabytes of data in February 2010 and gave it to Wikileaks
Wikileaks sorted through all that data and published it 3 volumes.
The Iraq War Diaries, the Afghan War Diaries and US State Department Correspondence.
Does that answer your question?
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
When something is mentioned in one paragraph than they are linked to each other, else they have to be in two different paragraphs.
So ... if above two sentences are in one paragraph (as in Telegraph) regarding American actions since 2007 on depriving Pakistan of enriched uranium, and regarding Abdullah’s comment on Zardari, then they are linked. In that case, Zardari is called obstacle by Abdullah due to him becoming an obstacle in American and Kingdom of Saud’s desire to deprive Pakistan of nuclear assets. In that case, Zardari is called Obstacle because he is saving Pakistan nuclear assets, and thus is 'hero' for Pakistan.
On the other hand, if both sentences are independent of each other, they should have been in two different paragraphs. If that would have been the case than they were not linked to each other, and in that case it was fine to say that Abdullah saying bad about Zardari was nothing to do with becoming obstacle to American actions of trying to deprive Pakistan with its enriched uranium asset. In that case, Geo news report would be justified and telegraph report would be considered as causing or spreading misinformation.
I took Telegraph reporting and usage of ‘English’ syntax as reliable presentation of what is leaked, though I might be wrong.
Note: According to Telegraph report, the comment on Zardari by 'King of Saud's Arabia' reflects the 'frustrations with Pakistan' and that frustration is directly after American desire to deprive Pakistan off their nuclear assets (that is still unsuccessful, hence cause of frustration), hence it further shows that both sentences are linked (and should be read together, specially Abdullah's comment should be read along with preceding sentence in the report), shows that Abdullah’s comments are reflection of frustration in not managing to deprive Pakistan off their nuclear assets.
You could be right but I am not totally convinced that Saudis wanted Zardari to cooperate when US wanted to remove enriched uranium from Pakistan's facilities. From what I see, as arabs wanted US to 'attack' Iran and de-nuke it, they must have wanted Pakistan to provide info to US to convince to the world that Iran is making nukes and hence needed the attack.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
Well thats very easy.
Most of these documents are not Top Secret.
They were downloaded by a US Soldier Bradley Manning who accessed US Military Network and downloaded 1.4 Terabytes of data in February 2010 and gave it to Wikileaks
Wikileaks sorted through all that data and published it 3 volumes.
The Iraq War Diaries, the Afghan War Diaries and US State Department Correspondence.
Does that answer your question?
It sort of does answer the question, but still leaves wide array of questions. In the company I work, not all info is available to everyone. Everybody has access to the info required for their job. How can a soldier have access to the communication between different diplomats, what Saudi king thought of Pakistan's president and all that sh!t? I still don't buy it, there has to be some deliberate operation to allow that to happen. We are talking about US military here, not Pakistan's police force who probably rely on local companies to run their network (if any exists).
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
approx. 3 million US soldiers and officials had access to the data that was leaked. We'll soon know who it was though.
Re: Wiki leaks........... possible impact on pakistani politics ?
Well done, guys. You managed to see conspiracy-theories even in this case.
Is there people from any other country calling these wiki-leaks "conspiracy"? Or is it just Pakistanis?