Why is it taking Wikileaks so long to release the diplomatic cables?

Turkana

I'm not really sure where to post about Wikileaks. Hopefully this is the right place. (Please don't put this in Conspiracy Theories)

So, does anyone know why the release of the embassy cables is taking so bloody long? I'm really interested in one country in particular but only 3% of it's cables are available to the public (about the same as Ireland) since cablegate's inception around November last year. An average of 8 per month have been released since November, out of a total of 1,821. If they keep on releasing them at this pace, it will take about 19 years until they're all available.

Does anybody know what the hell is going on? Some embassies actually have no cables released.

Victor

I understand they are being deliberately drip-fed to the media.

nesf

Publicity stunt/manipulation would be my guess.

Cork boy 55

This is what is says on their website

Not do material justice WTF does that mean?, very vague.

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next year. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

http://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html

Knight990

There's always a plan with these guys. If the files they hold haven't been released en masse yet, i'd say there's a very good reason why. These lads don't do random.

They're probably building up to something - a certain date perhaps.

weldoninhio

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

This is what is says on their website

Not do material justice WTF does that mean?, very vague.

http://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html

It means that if they released everything together, some important stuff would be buried with the bigger news stories.

Turkana

weldoninhio wrote: »

It means that if they released everything together, some important stuff would be buried with the bigger news stories.

The embassy I'm interested in, Nairobi, had two maybe three cables released in the last three months. Do they think that I'm overloaded by three cables worth of information in like 60 days? Compare it to New Zealand where 100% of the 1504 cables have been released. It doesn't make sense.

What about the embassies that still have no cables released? Can they not even give us one cable for fear of overloading the country with information?

Wikileaks really seems to have fizzled into to a petering little fart! Look at this graph that shows all the embassies and their releases. There is a lot left to do.

http://www.cablegatesearch.net/overview.php


Smells fishy. Is it possible that Assange may use these as leverage for his upcoming trials and possible extradition to USA?

Knight990

Turkana wrote: »

Smells fishy. Is it possible that Assange may use these as leverage for his upcoming trials and possible extradition to USA?

I think that's entirely possible. The whole thing is his weapon, so to speak. It makes him a very powerful person if he isn't pleased with the situation he is in. As he had said before (I can't remember/find the particular news story), if he is ever incapacitated or worse, he has a release primed that would apparently cause a very large amount of damage to a certain Government (has to be the USA in my opinion).

the bolt

Turkana wrote: »

The embassy I'm interested in, Nairobi, had two maybe three cables released in the last three months. Do they think that I'm overloaded by three cables worth of information in like 60 days? Compare it to New Zealand where 100% of the 1504 cables have been released. It doesn't make sense.

What about the embassies that still have no cables released? Can they not even give us one cable for fear of overloading the country with information?

Wikileaks really seems to have fizzled into to a petering little fart! Look at this graph that shows all the embassies and their releases. There is a lot left to do.

http://www.cablegatesearch.net/overview.php


Smells fishy. Is it possible that Assange may use these as leverage for his upcoming trials and possible extradition to USA?

i would imagine thats a fairly good guess

Nodin

Knight990 wrote: »

I think that's entirely possible. The whole thing is his weapon, so to speak. It makes him a very powerful person if he isn't pleased with the situation he is in. As he had said before (I can't remember/find the particular news story), if he is ever incapacitated or worse, he has a release primed that would apparently cause a very large amount of damage to a certain Government (has to be the USA in my opinion).

And, whatever one might think of the wikileaks idea, the man himself is somewhat 'difficult' and controlling.

Turkana

He is a bit of a weirdo alright.

Well Wikileaks is no longer cool, seems to be quite the pussy in fact. Are you reading ASSANGE? Give us the cables.

Knight990

Nodin wrote: »

And, whatever one might think of the wikileaks idea, the man himself is somewhat 'difficult' and controlling.

You're dead right there. Assange is one of the most self-obsessed, arrogant-pain-in-the-ass people on the planet, but I think people just kinda tolerate him because he's at the helm of something bigger than himself.

expectationlost

because they are depending on old media to do it, a mistake

Nodin

Turkana wrote: »

He is a bit of a weirdo alright.

Well Wikileaks is no longer cool, seems to be quite the pussy in fact. Are you reading ASSANGE? Give us the cables.

In fairness, while they've been interesting, they've been far from devastating for anyone. I'd like to see more come out, obviously, but I don't expect anything earth shattering to be revealed.

Mr.Micro

Nodin wrote: »

In fairness, while they've been interesting, they've been far from devastating for anyone. I'd like to see more come out, obviously, but I don't expect anything earth shattering to be revealed.

Very tame really, a bit of bitching by diplomats about other countries and that was the sum of it, so far at least. Of course Uncle Sam, land of the free got his knickers all in a bunch about them.

Turkana

Very tame really, a bit of bitching by diplomats about other countries and that was the sum of it, so far at least. Of course Uncle Sam, land of the free got his knickers all in a bunch about them.

I'm sure the Irish ones are pretty tame but in the developing world it's far more than a bit of bitching.

I was living in Nairobi when the cables came out, and some high level politicians were named as narcotics trafficers who control the flow of cocaine in and out of the country. One of the accused politicians was singled out in particular as he actually owns a major shipping & logistics company at the countries main sea port, where over a ton of cocaine was found and the container it was in was skipped during the inspection process.... suspicious eh? The cable claimed that when a CID officer (Criminal Investigations Department) went to investigate allegations of drug smuggling in the port, he was shot dead. Nobody has been charged for the murder, as the courts have been bought out. The cocaine was seized and kept for years by the police, with one chemical test carried out by the police, away from the media or any foreign officials. Some of the circumstances surrounding the seizure of cocaine are like something out of a movie, like this one:

One of the only three police officers said to have keys to the storage facility was murdered this year under highly suspicious circumstances; several of his immediate family members have since also been killed.

The ambassador writing the cable, the UK ambassador, and the Dutch ambassador, believed that the coke was being whittled away and replaced with flour. Eventually the ton of coke was incinerated hastily without any independently verified tests.

Now this politician, John Mwau, has just last month been placed on a list of top drug kingpins by the United States. His assets in the states have been frozen and any American caught doing business with him is liable to a fine and imprisonment. This guy is up there with the Mexican and Colombian bad boys. Of course the Kenyan police have since cleared John Mwau of any links to the drugs trade. He's a pure saint so he is. But he is worth an alleged 700million US Dollars, and he obviously bought that status. Witness in Kenya are not just intimidated, they also have a tendency to disappear. Nowadays he's claiming that Obama wants to assassinate him so the USA can have all his assets. It's getting more and more ridiculous by the day.

That is the tiniest sample of the ridiculous corruption that goes on in Kenyan, and the USA knows it all. They feckin' know everything. I'm sure they have so much more juicy info in the cables. I'm dying to know more. On the ground in Kenya it was quite exciting to have an MP officially named as a drug kingpin and all this madness being reported in the media. Imagine finding out that Luke Ming Flanagan is a mad cannabis deale... oh wait.

Anyways, I've flicked through the Irish ones and I'm not surprised at your lack of anticipation. It's pure Ireland's Own, granny with a cup of tea stuff, not really exciting at all.

If any of ye are interested in the story have a read of their local newspapers website.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/US+targeted+Mwau+over+Sh6b+drugs+/-/1056/1190838/-/52jok5z/-/index.html

As many as 10 United States government agencies have been watching Kilome MP John Harun Mwau for years and have built a “foolproof” case against him, a US official said on Tuesday.

Mr Adam Szubin, the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) in the US Department of Treasury, said his government slapped sanctions on Mr Mwau because of a container of cocaine found at Pepe container depot in 2004.

The US government believes both the depot and the container belong to Mr Mwau.

The administration of President Barack Obama listed Mr Mwau and Naima Mohamed, also known as Mama Leila, as drug kingpins, seizing their property in the US and slapping a range of sanctions against them.

Mr Szubin added that the US is aware of what it called Mr Mwau’s “longstanding reputation” in the trafficking of drugs.

“We view him as among the more powerful and active narcotics traffickers in the region,” he told journalists.

Turkana

expectationlost wrote: »

because they are depending on old media to do it, a mistake

Can you expand on this?

thebman

I think by keeping the bigger stuff, they can release little embarrassing cables without governments really going after them for fear they release bigger stuff.

Either that or they have nothing important and are bluffing.

Manic Moran

thebman wrote: »

I think by keeping the bigger stuff, they can release little embarrassing cables without governments really going after them for fear they release bigger stuff.

Either that or they have nothing important and are bluffing.

1) They can't assume he is bluffing, they have to assume that he has the information if they have no way of confirming/denying it.
2) If he has the information, then it's effectively leaked already. Either when he gets tired of just the small leaks, or as part of his 'doomsday' plot. Might as well just get it over with, see if he has a hand to play, and deal with it. If reliance on the information is his game, it's a very dangerous one.
3) The trial he's up for right now is in Sweden. I don't think the courts much care what information he has against the local politicians, so releasing it isn't much of a leverage against the courts anyway. The US courts wouldn't either, but then he's not had a warrant for extradition served upon him yet.

The bank internal emails that they leaked amidst much anticipation and fanfare fizzled out so poorly, I missed it when it happened.

Of course Uncle Sam, land of the free got his knickers all in a bunch about them.

With good reason. Damaged relationships with the locals, and for what? As you point out, "Very tame really, a bit of bitching by diplomats." That was worth damaging the US's reputation, no? Great scandal well worth the breach of confidentiality. Right.

NTM

Turkana

So nobody knows what's going on? We're all just speculating here.

Somebody here mentioned that the press is in possession of all the cables. So forget my original question about Assange holding the info back.

Why has the Irish media only released 3% of the cables so far?

Victor

Turkana wrote: »

So nobody knows what's going on? We're all just speculating here.

Somebody here mentioned that the press is in possession of all the cables. So forget my original question about Assange holding the info back.

Why has the Irish media only released 3% of the cables so far?

If you are referring to my post, I only know that Wikileaks had some release schedule with media organisations. I know nothing of the details and for all I know Wikileaks and/or individual researchers/journalists hold the information, not the media organisations.

Turkana

Right I think I'll fire off an email or two to the newspapers.

SamHarris

It also allows wikileaks far greater control of the way the information is presented, with the Afghan files the New York Times focused on pieces of information that wikileaks deamed unimportant and wrote an unflattering bio of Jullian - they were then not allowed early access to newer dumps.

If a newspaper thinks more "scoops" will come from being "Wikileaks freindly" they will do it - much less likely to if they dont see more coming any time soon.

SamHarris

Turkana wrote: »

I'm sure the Irish ones are pretty tame but in the developing world it's far more than a bit of bitching.

I was living in Nairobi when the cables came out, and some high level politicians were named as narcotics trafficers who control the flow of cocaine in and out of the country. One of the accused politicians was singled out in particular as he actually owns a major shipping & logistics company at the countries main sea port, where over a ton of cocaine was found and the container it was in was skipped during the inspection process.... suspicious eh? The cable claimed that when a CID officer (Criminal Investigations Department) went to investigate allegations of drug smuggling in the port, he was shot dead. Nobody has been charged for the murder, as the courts have been bought out. The cocaine was seized and kept for years by the police, with one chemical test carried out by the police, away from the media or any foreign officials. Some of the circumstances surrounding the seizure of cocaine are like something out of a movie, like this one:



The ambassador writing the cable, the UK ambassador, and the Dutch ambassador, believed that the coke was being whittled away and replaced with flour. Eventually the ton of coke was incinerated hastily without any independently verified tests.

Now this politician, John Mwau, has just last month been placed on a list of top drug kingpins by the United States. His assets in the states have been frozen and any American caught doing business with him is liable to a fine and imprisonment. This guy is up there with the Mexican and Colombian bad boys. Of course the Kenyan police have since cleared John Mwau of any links to the drugs trade. He's a pure saint so he is. But he is worth an alleged 700million US Dollars, and he obviously bought that status. Witness in Kenya are not just intimidated, they also have a tendency to disappear. Nowadays he's claiming that Obama wants to assassinate him so the USA can have all his assets. It's getting more and more ridiculous by the day.

That is the tiniest sample of the ridiculous corruption that goes on in Kenyan, and the USA knows it all. They feckin' know everything. I'm sure they have so much more juicy info in the cables. I'm dying to know more. On the ground in Kenya it was quite exciting to have an MP officially named as a drug kingpin and all this madness being reported in the media. Imagine finding out that Luke Ming Flanagan is a mad cannabis deale... oh wait.

Anyways, I've flicked through the Irish ones and I'm not surprised at your lack of anticipation. It's pure Ireland's Own, granny with a cup of tea stuff, not really exciting at all.

If any of ye are interested in the story have a read of their local newspapers website.

Interesting stuff, thanks alot for taking the time to write it.

Does anyone else know any other real news that has come from the leaks, anywhere in the world? Maybe that should be a new thread in fairness.