Alexa O’Brien has just published six videos used by the defence in Chelsea’s court martial and obtained by her via FOIA – Freedom of Information Act – applications. The first five contain short statements which demonstrate that Chelsea’s actions were not believed to be harmful by those who assessed them, the last is an extract from a film on release in which, inappropriately, the prosecution witness for the charge of ‘aiding the enemy’ is featured discussing Chelsea.
Watch them and get more info at: http://alexaobrien.com/archives/2883
Below are transcripts.
Chelsea Court Martial Defence Video Exhibits.
From the testimony of Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management, Statement before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Hearing on Information Sharing in the Era of Wikileaks on March 10, 2011:
1.Patrick Kennedy on 10th Mar 2011
I think the State Dept, though, has avoided the chilling effect that you are/were directly addressing. For example, if I might – during the period of time we had posted, as you all mention, some 250,000 cables to this database –posted to the DoD SIPRnet.
During that same period of time we disseminated 2.4m cables – 10 times as many – through other systems to 65 other US govt agencies. So therefore, while we stopped disseminating on SIPRnet for the reasons my DoD colleagues have outlined, we have continued to disseminate to the intelligence community system – the JWIC system – and we’ve continued to disseminate the same volume of material to these same other agencies based on their need for that information. We do not hold anything back.
This unfortunate event has not caused us to hold anything back – we continue to share at the same rate as we were sharing before
2.Patrick Kennedy on 10th Mar 2011
I can assure you that we at State remain committed to fully sharing our diplomatic reporting within the interagency with safeguards that are reasonable, pragmatic and responsible.
3.Alec Ross – Sen. Adviser for Innovation at State Dept on 23rd Jan 2012
Interviewer:
The WikiLeaks affair? Is the State Dept still recovering from Cablegate?
Ross:
Y’know – here is the big headline from WikiLeaks: WikiLeaks revealed massive right doing by American diplomats.
I think what WikiLeaks demonstrated is that our diplomats are very good at their job – that what we’re doing privately is what we say we’re doing publicly. So I don’t think that there’s much to recover from. I think the US has nothing but pride in the work that our diplomats have done, and I don’t think there’s anything that has been revealed that should contradict that.
4.Robert Gates (Sec of Defense) on 30th Nov 2010
Now I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a melt-down; as a game changer and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought.
The fact is govts deal with the US because it’s in their interest – not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Some govts deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially the indispensable nation, so other nations will continue to deal with us, they will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another other.
Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is this awkward? Yes. Consequences for US foreign policy? I think fairly modest.
5.Hillary Clinton (Sec of State) to the BBC on 3rd Dec 2010
Diplomatic Cables are not policy; they are meant to inform – they are not always accurate – they are passing on information for whatever it’s worth and I think most leaders understand that – and I have found no hesitancy and in fact I’ve had intense and very detailed conversations in the four stops that I’ve made on this trip.
6.Specialist Jihrleah Showman, S2 Section, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division in ‘We Steal Secrets’ – first shown Dec 2012
I was off shift and I had to come in to find something that he should have been able to find, and he was pacing back and forth saying smart comments to me, and I blatantly said: “Manning, how about you fix your shit before you fix mine?”
And he screamed and punched me in the face – while I was sitting down. My adrenalin immediately hit overload – I stood up, pushed my chair back – he continued to try to fight me, but I put him in what UFC would call a guillotine, and pulled him on the floor, and lay on top of him and pinned his arms beside his head. At that time I can’t believe he messed with me; I literally had 15” biceps – I was the last person he probably should have punched.
RSS - Posts