tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post167744065419213599..comments2024-03-25T20:06:39.794-05:00Comments on Grits for Breakfast: Wikileaks on Mexico: Why is this stuff secret?Gritsforbreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-87372481874813578072010-12-07T22:24:43.716-06:002010-12-07T22:24:43.716-06:00The architect term Baptist bar is used to describe...The architect term Baptist bar is used to describe a bar that is hidden in ones house. In public a person can be all that in his Kerch while judging, condemning, and stigmatizing others who drink. Then run home, hide, and drown their miserable judgmental life in a bottle. A Baptist bar, ingenious devise for the hypocrite on your Saturnalia list this season.<br /><br />The following statement “As long as we keep buying their dope, that mess in Mexico will continue” is light in what should otherwise be dribble of darkness.<br />The wisdom, Buy American. Its better quality, supports American ingenuity, and it will go a long way to stopping the flow of bad product from the south. <br /><br />There will always be the ignorant, today they are the ones who think the war on drugs is really a war on drugs. What this state needs is a coming out of the dark ages party, and Burleson should host it. That could go a long way in redeeming that town from the blood of racism and the rash from the dildo lady.<br />SheldonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-78578529265181550112010-12-06T23:08:16.414-06:002010-12-06T23:08:16.414-06:00People don't use drugs, a person does. If you ...People don't use drugs, a person does. If you glorify, without thinking, the drugged state then you as a person can re-examine your belief in light of rational facts and larger implications. Is the drug you are partying with addicting? What do you tell yourself to avoid realizing that? If you, despite warnings, willfully keep moving in this direction and make yourself addicted will you expect me to help pay for your treatment?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-52085825215604686892010-12-06T19:29:11.219-06:002010-12-06T19:29:11.219-06:00" why not put your pipe down and see if you c..." why not put your pipe down and see if you can tolerate life without having your mind in a fog. By itself, your political beliefs will give you all the befuddlement you need."<br /><br />I wonder if alcohol prohibitionists were making the same argument. "Why not put your bottle down and see if you can tolerate life without having your mind in a fog". I'm sure many were, and it is just as flawed a line of thought now as it was then.<br /><br />Not that it justifies outright legalization of drugs, but it's an absurd train of thought that is nothing other than wishful thinking. We should abandon that wishful thinking and craft policy on realism and the premise that people will continue to use drugs, as they always have throughout human history.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-85043435782237883032010-12-06T17:05:29.277-06:002010-12-06T17:05:29.277-06:00DemocracyNow! asks:
Is WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange a...DemocracyNow! asks:<br />Is WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange a Hero? <br />Check it out!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-14494376538678495392010-12-05T12:55:47.714-06:002010-12-05T12:55:47.714-06:008:33, shouldn't you reserve stupid comments li...8:33, shouldn't you reserve stupid comments like that for your pals on the TDCAA boards? That's the only place where they'll receive anything other than withering, contemptuous scorn. Linking the abysmally ignorant 'war on drugs' to child pornography is a sophomoric and unworthy mechanism utilized far too often by dim witted public (ha) servants. Such as I judge you to be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-10406486494244274852010-12-05T08:33:43.040-06:002010-12-05T08:33:43.040-06:00Last poster, this is the wrong audience to taunt. ...Last poster, this is the wrong audience to taunt. They would love for heroin, crack and marijuana to be legal right up there with child pornography.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-28764472472009211422010-12-04T19:53:40.165-06:002010-12-04T19:53:40.165-06:004:41
Can't contemplate life without your pipe?...4:41<br />Can't contemplate life without your pipe?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-39980739364778865042010-12-04T16:41:11.049-06:002010-12-04T16:41:11.049-06:0012:52, if all the people smoking the "pipe&qu...12:52, if all the people smoking the "pipe" were pushing for reform, drugs would be legal by now and the mess in Mexico would be a distant memory.Get Realnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-82606166071254520652010-12-04T13:42:25.344-06:002010-12-04T13:42:25.344-06:00Grits,
Though I have little interest in defending...Grits,<br /><br />Though I have little interest in defending the use or misuse of classification protocol (being aware of its abuses personally), I believe I do understand the reasons for those cables being classified. Knowing numerous associates that have served overseas, <br /><br />I’ll attempt a simple example. If an honest appraisal of a military or police unit is forwarded to Washington and then gets released to the local media due to a security lapse, that very statement may not only cause “someone to take offense” as you remark, but it may also cause them to deny supporting those operations, policies or “suggestions” that we believe would better address the problem in question. Human nature being what it is I’m afraid people take affronts personally, whatever may be in a nation’s self-interest. <br /><br />Mexico allows numerous U.S. law enforcement agencies to operate in support of both Mexican & U.S. self-interest within Mexico. Yet if that very knowledge is widely disseminated, the permission granted to the U.S. would evaporate to avoid confrontations with the opposing parties so neither the U.S. nor Mexico advertises them. Not because of operational concerns or to protect the government agents but to prevent having to dedicate untold man-hours addressing the political repercussions by those looking to put themselves in power – including those in the pay of the drug gangs in this case. Much easier and more effective to simply allow the operations without having all of them become front page news.<br /><br />Pointing out in a cable that a specific person is corrupt is also something that the government might not want to have to deal with publicly if the person’s support is critical to achieving a short-term or immediate U.S./Mexican objective and the person, at that time, is protected enough to be retained in their position. Locally, it’s kind of like calling a politician corrupt in public (think county commissioners) and then having to go to him for support the next day to get their vote on an unrelated issue. Just doesn’t work well. <br />You are correct that they need to address the violence, but when it comes to a specific military commander it might very well be his position that he is doing some favor for us. <br /><br />Sometimes it is a legitimate justification for secrecy that someone might take offense, especially if we are trying to sign a nuclear treaty with them, for example. As for keeping secrets from citizens for the political benefit of foreign allies, to take it to the extreme, what if it means the democratically elected allies would otherwise be replaced by a fascist dictatorship opposed ot U.S. interests? But that’s for another site! As always, thanks for a great blog. :~)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-15065389011059063812010-12-04T12:52:44.271-06:002010-12-04T12:52:44.271-06:00As long as we keep buying their dope, that mess in...As long as we keep buying their dope, that mess in Mexico will continue.<br /><br />All you out there who are pushing for reform: why not put your pipe down and see if you can tolerate life without having your mind in a fog. By itself, your political beliefs will give you all the befuddlement you need.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-79018768017561585532010-12-04T09:42:13.730-06:002010-12-04T09:42:13.730-06:00This stuff is secret, grits, because keeping what ...This stuff is secret, grits, because keeping what they do secret is what government bureaucrats do all the time. Generally, they don't get caught at it.<br /><br /> Actually, I'm not sure that what has come out had been designated "secret." It is my understanding that what was leaked was chitter-chatter amongst government employees on a system explicitly designed to encourage communications between people in different branches of government. This system is alleged to have been put into effect following 9-11, to break down the compartmentalization of government which may have contributed to the intelligence and security failures which made the Twin Towers attacks possible.<br /><br />Wikileaks is like having a Freedom Of Information Act which really, really works well. In my opinion, a series of gold coins should be struck and issued, and a series of postage stamps issued, to honor the people who lifted the 250,000 plus documents and provided them to Wikileaks, and the people at Wikileaks who are risking their lives to disclose those documents. <br /><br />May a thousand wikileaks bloom!!!dorannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-45891090600607497492010-12-04T08:29:52.705-06:002010-12-04T08:29:52.705-06:00Thanks for the post. DemocracyNow! has also given ...Thanks for the post. DemocracyNow! has also given excellent coverage this past week. <br />One thing that has emerged from this latest batch from Wikileaks is just how much the U.S. has dominated in other country's business. This is revelation not just for us but for those in other countries as well. <br />When you keep stuff secret the public doesn't know what's going on, just what is presented to us via the corporate media/politicians/talking-head pundits. Hence the controversy - Wikileaks as terrorist organization? - not the content. If we don't know what our officials are doing it makes it harder to hold them accountable.<br />The Preamble to Texas' Public Information Act is great, I wonder what the federal equivalent is. Unless we clean up our government we're going down.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-35990714235546588412010-12-04T07:08:26.570-06:002010-12-04T07:08:26.570-06:008:28, quite honestly the Mexican military's re...8:28, quite honestly the Mexican military's record doesn't justify pussyfooting around their shortcomings. And Calderon's party lost the elections anyway, neutering his clout in exactly the way you describe. It's not as though US secrecy achieved the aims you lay out for it in Mexico.<br /><br />I've traveled quite a bit in Mexico and I agree there's a latent, anti-imperialist holdover attitude that deters better relations with the US. But that's because of real-world history that isn't going away just because some diplomat pretends the naked emperor is actually clothed. Anyway, Mexico needs to confront cartel violence out of its own self-interest, it's not some favor their doing for us.<br /><br />IMO it's never a legitimate justification for government secrecy that someone might take offense, and especially not justified to keep secrets from citizens for the political benefit of foreign allies. As it says in the Preamble to Texas' Public Information Act:<br /><br />"Under the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government that adheres to the principle that government is the servant and not the master of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created."Gritsforbreakfasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-56870845149571042022010-12-03T20:28:22.110-06:002010-12-03T20:28:22.110-06:00The biggest reason it is classified is to prevent ...The biggest reason it is classified is to prevent problems with the government of Mexico. Many already have a problem with the U.S. (dating from our invasion during the Mexican-American War followed by our mercenaries serving and our gun-running to various factions in the civil war) and this kind of cable traffic creates problems in future dealings with them - when you criticize the Army publicly, they are less likely to play with you the next day. When a negative comment is attributed to an NGO or independent group, it can be blown off but when it is from the ambassador on Embassy stationary, it is taken by some as a personal insult as well as causing major problems for whoever is in power with their political opposition not to mention the opposition in the U.S. :~)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-20635221843093321552010-12-03T16:37:09.935-06:002010-12-03T16:37:09.935-06:00This is an overly simplified comment but a lot of ...This is an overly simplified comment but a lot of what I read sounds a hell'uva lot like the Afghan war. Same strategic errors, use of resources not designed to deal with the local criminal network, etc.<br /><br />Great presentation Scott.Scott in South Austinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-38302219727604887282010-12-03T14:07:06.132-06:002010-12-03T14:07:06.132-06:00YAY FOR WIKILEAKS!YAY FOR WIKILEAKS!Hook Em Hornshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04660612847019528535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-10559808554397824322010-12-03T12:22:17.582-06:002010-12-03T12:22:17.582-06:00Good for Wikileaks. The government doesn't nee...Good for Wikileaks. The government doesn't need to keep secrets.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-61819867555532707702010-12-03T10:34:26.223-06:002010-12-03T10:34:26.223-06:00Great point, I really couldn't agree more.
...Great point, I really couldn't agree more.<br /><br /> The war on drugs in Mexico is failing. So is the one here, in my opinion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com