WikiLeaks operating from fortified bunker in Sweden after being booted from Amazon

Later the US complain about China! :D

I'd say Iran probably didn't know "or strongly suspected" their Arab neighbors were secretly supporting an "intervention" in regards to their nuclear program.

Arabian neighbors have since long time been the most nervous of Iran's military capabilities and this has increased even more since the start of the nuclear program. No, there is no surprise here that some Arabian politician suggests an intervention of the US and I'm sure Iran didn't delude itself of their neighbor's attitude.

In the end, as far America goes, one of the effects of these leaks made by this Assange guy will be to further strengthen the Tea Party Movement and rid us of Democrats in government.

The latest wikileaks revelations show the Obama administration siding with Pakistan against our ally India. The Times of India has reported that the Obama Administration defended Pakistan and shielded Pakistan’s security chief following the Mumbai terror attacks that killed at least 175 people and wounded at least 308. This is intolerable.

Now stop babbling on about the USA and address the point of what purpose and why was it necessary to publish what the Chinese told the USA in confidence about Japan and NK... Please if you cannot give a reason why it was important to release these non criminal non cover up confidential documents other than to just embarrass people then please admit it.

right on.

I know. Its not like he as wanted as say, Elian Gonzolazes,

What are you talking about??? first, get Elian's name right. Then, try and figure out what that has to do with anything.

“The company’s decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material,”

like the NY Times

hottomales:"Oh, but that would be assuming it actually bothers you a little that the U.S. gov has no care in the world how much it lies and hide things from you."

I am not American so don't care what the USA does but what you and yours seem to either forget or just want to ignore the diplomatic documents do not just concern the USA.

Now stop babbling on about the USA and address the point of what purpose and why was it necessary to publish what the Chinese told the USA in confidence about Japan and NK.

Please if you cannot give a reason why it was important to release these non criminal non cover up confidential documents other than to just embarrass people then please admit it.

NB: Seeing you seem to have a hard time figuring out what I mean this entire comment is about the diplomatic conversations and correspondence about how people and governments feel about certain people and governments not any of the war or terrorist related documents.

If you have a real reason then by all means let us know.

Assange and other like yourself are so hell bent on getting the USA that you can't see past your noses.

Get out of your Utopian mindset, the world and politics will not change and has not changed for thousands of years and these leaks will not change much, other than it will make things longer in negotiating treaties and ending wars because all sides will be afraid for some time to say anything other than the official line.

The relevance is that if you are wanted and don't want tear gas and guns in your face...you set up in a fortified bunker!

Sweden, dear old progressive wise and socialist Sweden is going to tear gas your hero Assange?

The relevance is that if you are wanted and don't want tear gas and guns in your face...you set up in a fortified bunker! That goes double if you got hard drives that CIA thugs would love to smash! What have you got at home? You lock your doors? Drama queen!

Its not like he as wanted as say, Elian Gonzolazes, is it?

Illegal aliens ? No relevance here. Try again?

LOL. "A fortified bunker!" What a drama queen.

I know. Its not like he as wanted as say, Elian Gonzolazes, is it? Its not like anyone would use tear gas, or stick a gun in the face of Assange like they did Elian! Its all not like anyone would try to destroy some HDs if they had the chance either.

limbo, it all goes back to the fact that no one would leak anything if all the secrets were reasonable. I don't know how you get by day to day with this idea of putting the cart before the horse. Assange is not on your payroll. He is not going to release data as you would like him to. Maybe instead of whining, you could go join him and help him release only the data the U.S. gov should have released on its own? Or maybe you could mail him a dollar or two, and buy the legs to stand on to make a complaint?

Oh, but that would be assuming it actually bothers you a little that the U.S. gov has no care in the world how much it lies and hide things from you.

LOL. "A fortified bunker!" What a drama queen.

and we should care about this because....?

Maybe the USA should send one of their stealth bombers and test a "bunker buster" on it. Then Deny they did anything of the sort!

I'd say Iran probably didn't know "or strongly suspected" their Arab neighbors were secretly supporting an "intervention" in regards to their nuclear program. That's not the kind of thing that bodes goodwill, you think?

What a storm in a teacup. Honestly, have you found anything in this material which we haven't known or strongly suspected before? Some personal relations may suffer, yes, but in the end the world will move on as before. I'd rather say this is great entertainment...

Frankly Aunty, I think Superlib has done a fine bit of armchair phsycology.

I certainly don't think Assange is the sort of person I want making unilatteral decisions breaking just about every single diplomatic protocol since the year dot....

Assagne is driven by a sceptical attitude to authority and domination.

He recognises, unlike Superlib who somewhat comically thinks Assagne is attemtping to bring down the governments of the world (by the way, doesn't this sound like every other hasty and cheap attempt to smear Assagne by the USA?), that any form of conrol or hierachy has a burden of proof. They can't simply be self-justifying. It has to demostrate that it is legitimate, just as any use of force or coercion does. Therefore it deserves to be challenged. If it can't justify it self then it deserves to be dismantled.

There are ALWAYS going to need to be discusssions that are kept out of the public eye. If everything were subject to public dissemination, people wouldn't reveal ANYTHING. High-level meetings between countries would end up sounding like they all had scripts written by NK's propaganda department, even when talking "behind closed doors". If you thought nothing ever gets done in government now, just wait! Nobody will ever say anything of substance, nor share information with the U.S. for the forseeable future due to the fear of reading their comments in a newspaper next week. The truth does not set you free. Absolute truth leads to anarchy. This Wikileaks founder knows this and embraces the thought of being a "player" on the world stage. So what if he destroys decades of diplomacy? He's providing "the truth", even if most of that "truth" is individual opinions and not established policy.

limboinjapan: and the Bank info he claims to have will not hurt anyone at the top but if banks collapse it will be the little guys that will ultimately pay as they will if the worlds governments start keeping every thing to themselves and war breaks out through lack of confidence in the secrecy of the negotiation process.

That's the slight of hand. Assange is making it look like he's out to challenge the US, but he's actually hitting everything he can get his hands on. The trick is that it makes people believe that the damage can be somehow isolated to the United States. But I'll say it again....read every release so far and ask how it could possible be limited to one country. He's after everyone, and if he does serious damage to the global banking system more people will start to realize it as it might have a direct impact on their personal lives. You'll hear the loudest "Whoops, didn't think about that" said in unison in the history of mankind...heh.

Assnage is prepared to live out of a suitcase without the need of a functioning government. Are you? No one can deny that government abuses take place. No one can deny that there are secrets. But is attempting to dissolve worldwide government the solution you're looking for? People are confusing "fixing the problem" with "destroying the system." He's literally talking about "taking down a bank or two." He's talking about creating more structural damage than all the bankers combined if he's successful. Read my comments in the unemployment thread. I'm no friend to bankers or corporate America. But B of A is a company. It's a piece of paper. You don't destroy that, you destroy tens of thousands of jobs of people who weren't involved in anything illegal at all. That's your solution?

First off, there should be no secrets from the people, period. Government should be open and transparent. After all, it should be pretty clear to everyone by now that the people running most governments are incompetent asinine morons. Which would you rather have, incompetent asinine morons doing all kinds of things in secret, with your multi trillion dollar budgets, or out in the open? Come on. The more these guys get the magnifying glass shined on em the better, I say.

I agree. Whats more is that there will never be anyone honest to vote for if we the people allow this corruption to go on and on even as we know the truth.

hottomales at 11:32 PM JST - 2nd December

Try reading what people write and not just pick a line out of context!

The USA is not the only country affected I would go even further and say other countries will be hurt way more than the USA, try looking at some of what has been released and think what good does this do? What was the reason for releasing what China told the USA about how it feels about Japan or North Korea, or what one leader thinks about another what good comes from this?

Can you honestly say any of that has any positive consequences? How do you think a nut cases like NK's Kim are going to react when they read what the Chinese leadership actually feels about them, does that advance anything?

First off, there should be no secrets from the people, period. Government should be open and transparent.

After all, it should be pretty clear to everyone by now that the people running most governments are incompetent asinine morons. Which would you rather have, incompetent asinine morons doing all kinds of things in secret, with your multi trillion dollar budgets, or out in the open?

Come on.

The more these guys get the magnifying glass shined on em the better, I say.

At the end of the day these are of course routine embassy communications, not top secret dispatches. They do, though, open a window on global US diplomatic dealings, unlike the earlier Iraq and Afghanistan material, which shone a light on some pretty horrific war crimes.

But the revelations about the Gulf states and Iran, Clinton's orders to ordinary US diplomats to spy on the UN and others, the confirmation that US troops are now fighting in Pakistan and Yemen while agreeing with local political leaders to cover that up - among a mass of others, including those yet to be published - are serious and important enough to be getting on with.

It is incredible the way some of you continue to tear in to Assange in defense of a government that craps on you and our allies.

I agree and don't fully comprehend this either. Furthermore, those same outraged Americans need to step back and consider that support of Assagne/Wikileaks does not have to equal hatred for the US or any other state. Rather, it is opposition to imperial power - whether it's exercised by the US, Britain or anyone else.

bobbafett:"Its people like him that will lead those of us in the information age who are unwilling to live as slaves or with our head buried underground to a revolution against oppressive regimes that hide tyranny behind lost ideals of hope and freedom and extend thorns and daggers from their olive branch and open hand."

Are you serious! Can you even take your head out of wherever it is and think a moment.

What would happen if the present governments of the world collapse? just take a look at the former USSR and some of the now independent regimes that have taken it place, they make the Soviet Union look like paradise, What is it you expect that all man kind will rise up and put down the present governments and agree to share everything nicely.

You do know that the majority of the world's population has no access to a computer let alone the Internet you do realize that with the collapse of governments comes chaos the likes of Somalia with warlords controlling their little section.

Think just how many crazy groups would grab control of their little corner of the world in places like the USA, China Africa, Europe and think what will happen if on of those crazies gets its hands on the nukes left behind in the collapse!

We live in reality not the Cyber world of facebook and avatars this is the real world with guns, missiles and nukes and I think Assange his supporter and you seem to have forgotten that.

Learn a little history after the collapse of Rome, Egypt, Greece, Persia, etc.. nothing good came, only centuries of misery, death and Chaos, with collapse your precious "information age" would grind to a screeching halt.

Just a little comment from me, but what Assange has done is between doing a service and partaking in criminal espionage leading to sabotage. Just FYI all nations spy on each other (even if they're friendly on the surface) to attempt to get either advantage in negotiations, or eliminate any obstructions to their own national interests. There is a cute little rather simplistic non-fiction book called Ultimate Spy by H.Keith Melton that points out how spying functions. So after comprimising many nations by exposing their back hand deals, or perspectives on various matters Assange has obviously broken the law in many countries aside from the US by exposing documents that are not meant to be exposed publicly. Good news is in the US the citizens still want more truthful communications from our government after this event, and luckily we can get it if we pressure our government in the right way. Some other countries citizens are unfortunately not so lucky and Assange has effectively set them up for an even more miserable time. As much as people want to say the big bad ol' US is behind everything going wrong in the world, they're obviously forgetting that every country has its spies and rather unjust means of gathering intelligence on their friends and neighbors or showing completely different stances on how to deal with problems on a national and international level in their own back rooms.

You seem to have nailed it, he is just out to destroy for no apparent good reason

But the U.S. government is out to destroy for very good reason? It is incredible the way some of you continue to tear in to Assange in defense of a government that craps on you and our allies. Masochism is ok to a point, but could you guys at least put up a facade of self respect here?

So anyway, here Amazon goes again. They are all for principles, right up until they get pressured then they cave.

Laguna:"If those cables really did contain highly sensitive information, these few days would not have passed without requisite retribution."

I think you need to start looking at site and news sources other than JT, do a little research you will see that many things are now on hold many governments have issued statements along the lines of "we are now reevaluating things" Clinton isn't flying around the world right now for her health, she is out doing damage control with friends and non friends.

Every country that has ever said anything in confidence to the USA is now waiting to see what damage will be cause next, China is now faced with an even more distrusting NK as is the world, after what was released don't be surprised to find NK testing a few more nukes and missiles because it is clear that China will now no longer be viewed by NK as such a great friend thanks to Wikileaks.

Laguna:"And that is a whole lot healthier than the alternative."

What was the "alternative" negotiations where all side trusted that their positions and what they are ready to accept that is not the "official" public position will remain confidential until an agreement can be reached.

Or what we now have all sides closing their doors and refusing to do anything other than the "official" publicly stated position.

Its people like him that will lead those of us in the information age who are unwilling to live as slaves or with our head buried underground to a revolution against oppressive regimes that hide tyranny behind lost ideals of hope and freedom and extend thorns and daggers from their olive branch and open hand.

I prefer to actually vote for my elected leaders myself, you do seem content to not want to go through that trivial little ritual with this new found leader of yours.

He reminds me of a spoiled 13 year old who all of the sudden was handed a nuclear bomb and gosh he's going to play with it now and get that respect and attention he thinks he deserves. Because we all know at 13 we knew exactly how the world works, it those secret adults and there "secret" conversations out of earshot that stopped us from having all the fun and made us go to bed at 9:30 p.m.

what a bunch of ridiculous, nonsensical, diarrhoea. 13 year olds with Nukes? which 13 year old with nukes are you reminded by?

Assange is doing the world a favour. Its people like him that will lead those of us in the information age who are unwilling to live as slaves or with our head buried underground to a revolution against oppressive regimes that hide tyranny behind lost ideals of hope and freedom and extend thorns and daggers from their olive branch and open hand.

Regimes that have committed future generations to live by a corrupt debt based money system. Regimes controlled and manipulated by mega power banks and corporations. Bring on the corporate data Assange. I cannot wait to read it.

@sailwind,

You seem to have nailed it, he is just out to destroy for no apparent good reason, I could have maybe understood had he released only what might be considered criminal or cover ups but the diplomatic back room negotiations between the USA, China, SK, etc.. had no value but to destroy relations and create anarchy and the Bank info he claims to have will not hurt anyone at the top but if banks collapse it will be the little guys that will ultimately pay as they will if the worlds governments start keeping every thing to themselves and war breaks out through lack of confidence in the secrecy of the negotiation process.

C'mon, everybody, try to have a little perspective here. These links are the diplomatic equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield's fart in Caddyshack: "Whoa! - did somebody just step on a duck?!" Everybody does it, everybody knows that others do it, and letting it out in the open is really no more than airing a bit of dirty laundry. If those cables really did contain highly sensitive information, these few days would not have passed without requisite retribution. But they have, and the fuss is most likely over the precedent: that if we've got it, we'll share it, and you can't stop us.

And that is a whole lot healthier than the alternative.

Superlib, Limboinjapan,

Excellent posts and insights. Assange is brillaint and intelligent but in my opinion is someone who has no real conscious or grounding in morals or even the basic precepts that guide most of humanity. It is evident that his quest to open all information that was considered private and unleash in the public domain, damn the consequences bares this out. He has pronounced himself as the supreme arbitrator and gatekeeper of private information and as they say knowledge is power and he has tons of that power at his discretion to use as his whims see fit. There is no wisdom behind his actions. There is no basic thought given to how many lives he has ruined, how many relationships he has destroyed or how many lives he has put into danger by doing his messianic quest to "reveal the truth" by releasing all of this. He reminds me of a spoiled 13 year old who all of the sudden was handed a nuclear bomb and gosh he's going to play with it now and get that respect and attention he thinks he deserves. Because we all know at 13 we knew exactly how the world works, it those secret adults and there "secret" conversations out of earshot that stopped us from having all the fun and made us go to bed at 9:30 p.m. He's not the first like this its just his pathological gig is in hacking and using information bombs that destroy lives, lives he really could care less about. There is no remorse by Assange for the fact that Pvt Manning is going to spend the rest of life in prison all due to him. Assange mirrors another brilliant but pathological criminal the Uni-Bomber, Dr. Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski. Same internal make-up just different method of delivering his bombs to those he deemed were our technological masters and his war and mindless crusade against progress. Assange needs to be arrested put in jail and left there. The thought that someone who anointed himself as blessed to hack into someones most private conversations with-out permission or even thought of the violation of private personal space that all human beings surround themselves with so we can be ourselves is appalling, and in my opinion should be appalling to everyone no matter their political posturing on the matter.

My opinion on this "caring truth-crusader".

What is often said in public is not what is said in the back room and that has been the way of negotiations for millenniums and this is because otherwise hardliners would block everything.

...But seriously, folks, surely only in America could the Secretary of State order a secret intelligence operation against the principal figures in the United Nations, including the UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon and the permanent representatives on the security council - and yet call it negotiation!!

Please stop! My sides are hurting..!

The world is going to pay for this, all those talking about "transparency" are kidding themselves some of the information may have exposed some possible cover ups but on the whole what it has really done is set back international trust and cooperation by years.

If you think nuclear disarmament will proceed more smoothly after this you are living in dreamland by releasing confidentially made admissions by one country to another that is not what that country says publicly undermines the middle ground and lets the extreme left and right know what the more reasonable people are ready to give on.

Now all countries are going to act like North Korea that as we have found through these leaks even China has no idea what they really want. (just think now that the NK regime knows that China doesn't necessarily stand behind it the world has lost the little help China could have been)

What is often said in public is not what is said in the back room and that has been the way of negotiations for millenniums and this is because otherwise hardliners would block everything.

For now that off the record in confidence "we say this publicly" but "we are ready to settle for something else" is gone and now when trying to negotiate treaties and avoid wars will be that much more difficult as no one will be willing to say what they are really willing to accept and will just repeat the publicly stated stance.

And if you think that back room deals are not right then I would say you don't know anything about the world wether politics or business, no company just comes out and said exactly what they want when negotiating a merger or buy out back room hints and little confidence info is given to the other side so they know what direction to go in and in the world of politics now that is dead for the moment.

I still find it interesting that while the popular press is happy to run the story of his alleged sex crime, none of them have thought to print the full story, including naming the accusers and a little background.

My 2 cents....which includes no formal training in psychology....heh.

I think someone might have gotten it right when they said in a previous thread that Assange just might be an anarchist. From Wikipedia: "Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations."

I don't know if he started down the right path and deviated or always had a plan, but it looks like he's put himself into a position to cause harm to a lot of governments. If you check out his bio you'll see a 5-year stint where his mother took him into hiding and he's a guy who lives by shifting around through other people, so needless to say he's been prepared to live life on his own and "off the grid" so to speak. He doesn't really have any need for governments or organizations.

He's also a computer hacker. I work through the internet but I can't say that I have any formal training on hacking but I've been hacked and I've seen others get hacked. There's always a common theme, and that's attention. If you've been around it enough you've seen the pattern of hackers taking personal satisfaction in disrupting people's lives. Not all hackers are the same just like not all anarchists are the same, but there could be some truth to the position. Hackers generally take immense satisfaction knowing they are hacking and it fulfills a personal need that most people just don't have.

The documents released so far spread blame to pretty much everyone. Maybe he's trying to strip all governments of moral authority so in the end the people lose faith in them. I just saw an article on the BBC about US rendition flights going through Spain, and I had to ask myself: What could come of this? Who really would be in a position to prosecute? The US obviously did something. Europe was obviously involved. Shall we let the corrupt African nations put us on trail? Or how about Russia or China? Information is being released about them as we speak creating a virtual stalemate around the world. With no one being able to prosecute or hold anyone else accountable, the net effect is that people lose faith in government.

His next set of documents are supposed to be about the banking system. Can you think of a better #2 target for creating anarchy? He said that he has information that will put some banks out of business. But we've been through this already. Governments are pushed to the brink just to keep banks in business to keep the system functioning. Again, the net result and the probable intended result would have to be a loss of faith by the people in the banking system.

He can't really come out and say this. He can't say that he wants banks to fail or that he wants governments to fall so we can have anarchy. People won't support that. But they will support a manufactured position that he's taking on the big, bad US government. That will buy him support which in turn buys him time. I really couldn't figure out his comments after the first leak. I thought he was obsessed with the US. But now I'm not so sure. He might talk about the US but in reality he's releasing information about everyone. And he's still getting support by positioning himself as a champion of transparency as a thorn in the side of the US. If he loses that, he's finished.

Instead of looking at what he says look at what he does and ask yourself what the end result could possibly be. Do you honestly think this man is trying to put one government on trial, or do you think he's trying to harm every government in the world? By going through the US he got access to information about everyone. As I read more and more of the releases, like the Spanish letter saying Russia is tied to the mob, I keep coming back to the fact that the only result can be a loss of confidence in all governments. And the person releasing the documents would have to know that.

In the end, this guy might be bad news for us all, unless you don't mind living you life on friend's couches....

Bah maybe this country-wide search is just a ruse and somebody's already disposed of his cadaver.

He's pissed off a whole load of folks....

...And I still have to ask what good, if any, will come from the forced "transparency.

Heads should also roll in the US. How thell could they have been so careless with so much?

I'm kind of surprised Amazon would agree to host stolen state secrets in the first place....? Right or wrong it's a polarizing issue which any competent business person would step away from.

AuntyAmerican,

Went to your CounterPunch site and found the article you quoted from. I like the end of the article:

As for Julian Assange, we need him. We need our captain Neo, whether chaste or womanizer, in order to uncover the secret doings of our governments behind the Matrix. For our own sakes, we must all do our part to protect him from castrating feminists and secret services alike.

Ummm....You can have your 'Neo' as he fights those castrating feminists and they're evil secret service cohorts. I'd rather see the putz behind bars myself.

Still waiting on certain guests to appear, if they have the guts to...

I believe the United States will live to regret the persecution of Assange. He may well become the first super Jesus since the original.

@bobbafett: Thanks for thowing a bit more light on this and for including the name of the accuser. This is what I've just been able to find quoted from The Press Enterprise. This case gets more interesting:

'Asked how the US could prosecute Assange, a non-US citizen, Holder said, "Let me be clear. This is not sabre-rattling," and vowed "to swiftly close the gaps in current US legislation…"

In other words the espionage statute is being rewritten to target Assange, and in short order, if not already, President Obama – who as a candidate pledged "transparency" in government - will sign an order okaying the seizing of Assange and his transport into the US jurisdiction. Render first, fight the habeas corpus lawsuits later.

Interpol, the investigative arm of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, has issued a fugitive notice for Assange. He's wanted in Sweden for questioning in two alleged sexual assaults, one of which seems to boil down to a charge of unsafe sex and failure to phone his date the following day.

This prime accuser, Anna Ardin has, according to the journalist Israel Shamir, writing on the CounterPunch site, "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba…Note that Ardin was deported from Cuba for subversive activities.

It's certainly not conspiracism to suspect that the CIA has been at work in fomenting these Swedish accusations. As Shamir reports, "The moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service.'

How anyone could trust these allegations, which have the reek of CIA all over them, is beyond me.

Rape charges???????

Swedish bloggers uncovered the full story in a few hours. The complaint was lodged by a radical feminist Anna Ardin, 30, a one-time intern in the Swedish Foreign Service. She's spokeswoman for Broderskapsrörelsen, the liberation theology-like Christian organization affiliated with Sweden's Social Democratic Party. She had invited Julian Assange to a crayfish party, and they had enjoyed some quality time together. When Ardin discovered that Julian shared a similar experience with a 20-year-old woman a day or two later, she obtained the younger woman's cooperation in declaring before the police that changing partners in so rapid a manner constituted a sort of deceit. And deceit is a sort of rape.

Now we can see how far US democracy, freedom of expression, etc can be stretched.

Sadly this is how liberal societies operate. When push comes to shove, they are sometimes as bad as the dictatorships they ostensibly oppose.

All in in though I'm not surprised. Amazon must have been under immense pressure, though it may influence those seeking to use a cloud hosting provider in the future as they might like their web presence not to be subject to the US government's opinion on their right to operate.

More concerning is the right wing vitriol, particularly those calling for execution of either Assange or Manning. I can't see the Obama administration indulging these calls but it really does weaken any attempts to reason with states that use execution more routinely.