Wikileaks

Is Whaleoil Citizen A?

Citizen A – 7pm tonight Triangle TV, replayed 8pm Sunday Sky 89 & Freeview 21

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

THIS WEEK: Selwyn Manning and Cameron Slater…

Issue one: Official Information Act emails between Peter Jackson and Gerry Brownlee clearly state the Actor’s boycott wasn’t the reason Warners Bros were threatening removal of The Hobbit. How easily lead are people by a manufactured crises?

Issue two: Wikileaks Orama – did we go to war for Fonterra? Did Murray McCully lie to Parliament over meeting the Dalai Lama and how good is the free trade deal with America that John Key claimed would be worth billions?

Issue three tonight: Len Brown and his anonymous donors. Is Len looking after Auckland’s interests or wealthy Aucklander’s interests? And why can’t Auckland save historic sites??

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from Boing Boing

The revelation that Labour sent troops to Iraq to protect Fonterra’s valuable milk contracts to the UN has been out there for a few days. There had, until Helen Clark squawked, not a word from anyone in labour. The moment she squealed and took umbrage we hear from Phil Goff.

Mr Goff yesterday said the allegation was ridiculous.

“No such trade-off was ever suggested and if it ever had been, it would have been rejected out-of-hand. We do not trade putting the lives of our military personnel at risk for commercial deals. It is a completely false claim.”

Hmmm is this the same Phil Goff who is quoted in other leaked cables as expressing a closeness to the US Army? (page 263)

5. c. Defense Minister Phil Goff discussed many of the same issues with the General. Goff mentioned to the General (as he does with virtually all U.S. officials) that he had two nephews that were West Point graduates and felt a closeness to the U.S. Army. Goff told the General that he could expect a positive outcome on redeploying the PRT past Sept 2006 and was reasonably assured the SAS (Special Forces) would deploy again after regeneration.
Is that the same closeness to the US Army as when he flew the Viet Cong flag from the cenotaph in Auckland in 1975 at the fall of Saigon?

But back to Phil Goff and his comments about when and where we send troops. It is abundantly clear from the Wikileaks cables that Phil Goff is a warrior in private to US Generals and a mouse in public, much like his former leader. Just do a search on SAS and have a look at the number of commitments Phil Goff made to send troops. Now again, don’t get me wrong, I beleive that our troops should be in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I am simply pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of Labour pretending domestically to be against such things and privately to US Generals and diplomats telling a completely different story. Phil Goff was even suggesting that NZ send troops as a PRT into Iraq off of the back of the success in Afghanistan of the NZ deployment to Bamiyan (page 226)

c. Defense Minister Phil Goff kicked off thepolitical-level meetings, welcoming the Admiral, stressing the importance of the bilateral defense relationship and pointing to New Zealand’s contributions to the War on Terror,including NZDF deployments to Afghanistan and support for theProliferation Security Inititiative (PSI). Admiral Fallon expressed U.S. appreciation for those contributions, noting that the NZDF’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamiyan provided a good general model for future PRTs and its SAS contingent had worked extremely well with U.S. counterparts. Goff said the Cabinet would decide by the end of February whether to extend the PRT beyond September 2006; he did not comment on further SAS deployments. Goff noted Senator McCain’s comment that New Zealand should think about replicating its success in Bamiyan by heading a PRT in Iraq.The Minister said he told McCain that New Zealand was not averse to doing so once the security situation had stabilized.

Of course it failed to escape the US that NZ is physically incapable of deploying to both Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, but that didn’t stop Goff suggesting we weren’t averse to doing it.

Helen Clark is back and is accusing others of deceit. It is an interesting claim by Helen Clark.  No one but no one in the world has questione the veracity of the Wikileaks documents, not her former Labour colleagues, not even Sarah Palin, yet Helen Clark has decided to run the line that the story is false.

If the story is as false as she has made out then why has not a single member of Labour denounced it including Phil Goff?

However, since Helen Clark is talking about deceit what this blogger wants to know if there is any journalist who is going to give up the hagiography of St Helen and ask her the simple question:

“Did you send our NZSAS into combat in Iraq by seconding them to the British SAS?”

Lets get her on record, and then cross reference it with NZDF documentation. The we will see if there is any deceit.

I’ve been going through Bryce Edwards posting of Wikileaks NZ documents. There is an amazing amount of information and some real gems. I particularly like this one though from 23 April 2009. There is a good summary about why Labour is rooted, but the kicker is in the tail. I have posted the hear to make searching the pdf easier…and just section 9 of the cable. Emphasis added is mine.

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2024

TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, NZ

SUBJECT: LABOUR DOOMED TO WANDER NEW ZEALAND’S POLITICAL

WILDERNESS?

Classified By: Acting DCM Margaret McKean; Reason 1.4 (b) and (d)….

9. (C) Even in defeat, Helen Clark continued to cast a long shadow over the future of the Labour Party, despite her generally low profile after tranferring the leadership to Phil Goff. With her departure for New York, effective rebuilding can begin, but is likely to be done slowly and without fanfare for fear of endangering the Clark legacy, which many in Labour will find difficult to let go. Most analysts agree that Labour needs an influx of new blood; however, simply promoting younger Labour Party personalities may not be enough to change voting patterns without a fundamental rethink of how some of Labour’s policies were rejected by the electorate and that a more centrist approach to governance (as National has done) may be needed. The Labour Party also tends to attract its membership from the ranks of academics, unions and government workers. National’s younger candidates, in contrast, typified the cross section of younger New Zealand professionals and middle class families — and were candidates who attracted important swing voters in urban centers where Labour traditionally had strong support. Whether Labour can field a similar broad range of younger candidates among its traditional left-of-center pockets of support is in question. The party will also need to revamp its current parliamentary list, which is replete with tried, tested, and largely defeated Labour Party stalwarts. End Comment.

The last One News poll for the year came out tonight.

Christmas has come early for National, which ends the year polling more than 20 points ahead of Labour.

But there’s no sign of cheer for Phil Goff with the latest ONE News Colmar Brunton poll showing him nearly 50 points behind John Key in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.

Labour will now be seriously looking for alteratives, but with their talent pool as shallow as a bird bath there are slim pickings. More telling though is the slow demise of the Greens.

The Wikileaks dribble isn’t doing Labour or Goff any favours either, though am I the only person wondering where all the juicy stuff is?

John Key will go off on holiday well pleased and can look forward to election year well placed, even if his own supporters are disappointed with the lack of progress. Labour though will be more disappointed and they know that even though National has done SFA on the economy, all of their solutions would have tanked the economy a whole lot faster.

Bruce Simpson at Aardvark has stumbled on the ultimate solution for stopping Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

The US government has a problem, a big problem.

Some little Aussie upstart by the name of Julian is telling all their secrets to an eager world.

He’s dumped hundreds of thousands of supposedly confidential communiques onto the internet and the US administration seem powerless to stop him.

Sure, they’ve exerted pressure on the likes of PayPal and MasterCard in an attempt to choke off the supply of money. They’ve recruited the patriotic support of Amazon to throw him out of their cloud, and they’ve even managed to coerce the English and Swedish authorities into arresting him on some allegations of sexual offending.

But so far, all this has proven is that the US government is completely incapable of reigning in the actions of Mr Assange and the Wikileaks organisation.

I think it’s time they called in the big guns.

And, when you consider how many people have been hung, drawn and quartered by the US justice system for allegedly downloading the occasional $1 music track, I think we know exactly who to call.

Heh…I can see where this is going.

The RIAA/MPAA consortium has been able to achieve things that nobody else in the world has.

They’ve been able to accuse people of crimes and then, with little more than anecdotal evidence, have those people hit with astoundingly high fines and penalties which far exceed the seriousness of their alleged crimes.

Surely, if they put the RIAA/MPAA in charge of handling the thorny issue of Assange, he’d already be rendered powerless and enjoying a little waterboarding in an off-shore US prison somewhere.

I mean, just look at this case and you’ll see what I mean.

The recording and movie industry has managed to extract such incredible protection from the US government that it is surely now the most powerful “anti-evil” force in the land and thus, the perfect group to scuttle Assange’s attempts to release material that must surely be *copyrighted*, by dint of having already been published to a select few within government.

Ironic isn’t it. For exactly the same reasons as the recording industry can’t stop file sharing Wikileaks is destined to continue. Simon Power should take note in his bizarre attempts to control the internet.

Citizen A –  8pm Sunday Sky 89 & Freeview 21

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

THIS WEEK: Selwyn Maning from Scoop.co.nz and Cameron Slater from gotcha.co.nz join the panel to discuss…

Issue one: Sarah Palin says Wikileaks should be pursued like Al Queda, does the public have a right to know what is being done in their name or is Julian Assange really Osama Bin Laden without the beard and what do the leaks really tell us about the world?

Issue two: John Key holds a digital interview on Stuff and releases policy for the 2011 election on bennie bashing and state asset sales – why does it seem that Facebook is suddenly the preferred vehicle for policy release now and why is Don Brash attacking John Key by claiming Maaaaaaaaori still get too much?

Issue three: Why does the Minister of Transport Stephen Joyce hate rail so badly, was he attacked by Thomas the Tank engine as a child. Paul Henry and Len Brown pushes to bypass opposition to building a private prison in Wiri? Why is Len channeling John Banks?

I’ve created a playlist to make viewing easier. I’m on Citizen A again this week.

Citizen A – 7pm tonight Triangle TV, replayed 8pm Sunday Sky 89 & Freeview 21

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

THIS WEEK: Who will win the SuperCity, What would a Laws and Peters NZ First look like and wikileaks – what are we doing in Afghanistan again?

And me of course with Tim Selwyn….so I guess you could call it the beardy weirdy show.