Wikileaks hacked ahead of new document release

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I do believe it has been released:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11858895

Some highlights:

• Corruption within the Afghan government, with concerns heightened when a senior official was found to be carrying more than $50m in cash on a foreign trip
• Bargaining to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison camp - including Slovenian diplomats being told to take in a freed prisoner if they wanted to secure a meeting with President Barack Obama
• The extraordinarily close relationship between Russian PM Vladimir Putin and his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi
• Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime
• American and South Korean officials' discussions about the prospects for a unified Korea should North Korea collapse as a viable state
• Sharply critical accounts of UK military operations in Afghanistan

EDIT: Turns out they've released parts of it to the Press to get around the DDOS attack.

On Germany:

* In particular, the new Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, leader of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), is seen in a negative light. The secret reports describe him as incompetent, vain and critical of America. The US diplomats report that they face a challenge in dealing with a politician who is considered an "enigma," who has little foreign policy experience and "remains skeptical about the US." An embassy cable from Berlin from Sept. 22, 2009 describes Westerwelle as having an "exuberant personality." That is why he finds it difficult to take a backseat when it comes to any matters of dispute with Chancellor Angela Merkel," the cable says.

* The Americans considered the chancellor to be the better contact person, when it came to foreign policy issues, the documents make clear. In comparison to Westerwelle, Merkel was seen as having "more government and foreign policy experience." However, the US diplomats also had reservations about the chancellor. She was referred to several times in the reports as Angela "Teflon" Merkel, because so little sticks to her. "She is risk averse and rarely creative" noted one report from March 24, 2009. The Americans argue that the chancellor views international diplomacy above all from the perspective of how she can profit from it domestically. Merkel had "cast off the yoke of the Grand Coalition only now to be encumbered with a new FDP-CSU double yoke," a cable from February 2010 reported

* Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg tattled on his colleague German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, telling the US ambassador that Westerwelle was the real barrier to the Americans' request for an increase in the number of German troops in Afghanistan.

Little I would disagree with. They are just speaking out the obvious.

On Turkey:

* Viewed through the eyes of the US diplomats, entire states -- Kenya for example -- appear as mires of corruption. If one were to believe the gloomy reports from the embassy in Ankara, Turkey is on a slippery slope to volatile Islamism, spurred on by the narrow-minded government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

All quoted by various articles of International Der Spiegel.

It will become difficult for Washington to promote Turkey's EU access anymore as a win for stability, progress and democracy, if it now is shown that in reality they judge it to fall back into the rule of Islamic fundamentalism.

It seems, by the quick summary of the first articles giving general overviews, that a whole lot of cables from the ME countries shows how stunningly weak US position there is, that the US gets instrumentalised by local power factions who abuse its naivety and lacking insight, and that the internal assessment of conditions in these countries is far more negative then publicly claimed by the US government. Which let's US foreign policies appear even more self-contradicting and lacking strategic orientation than even I have alwys claimed they are.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Skybird

On Turkey:

* Viewed through the eyes of the US diplomats, entire states -- Kenya for example -- appear as mires of corruption. If one were to believe the gloomy reports from the embassy in Ankara, Turkey is on a slippery slope to volatile Islamism, spurred on by the narrow-minded government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

All quoted by various articles of International Der Spiegel.

It will become difficult for Washington to promote Turkey's EU access anymore as a win for stability, progress and democracy, if it now is shown that in reality they judge it to fall back into the rule of Islamic fundamentalism.

It seems, by the quick summary of the first articles giving general overviews, that a whole lot of cables from the ME countries shows how stunningly weak US position there is, that the US gets instrumentalised by local power factions who abuse its naivety and lacking insight, and that the internal assessment of conditions in these countries is far more negative then publicly claimed by the US government. Which let's US foreign policies appear even more self-contradicting and lacking strategic orientation than even I have alwys claimed they are.

If only the EU had a pair of @@ not only to stop Turkey for even thinking about EU membership but also tell the US to mind their business.
Don't they have 2 wars to wage, and maybe a third one with Iran ?
Maybe we should start by tearing down NATO and US presence in europe. The cold war is no more, we don't need americans medling in european affairs.

As for Italy, all I can say is have a good laugh, criminals always come together