They PUBLISHED atomic secrets.....in ARABIC

[Oilwellian]

Wrap your brain around that one. And they've been posted since March 18th.

(snip)

When the US government on Thursday began publishing captured Iraqi government documents on the Internet, Shahda eagerly began to translate the files into English and publish them on a conservative website.

''I feel a sense of duty," said Shahda, a native of Lebanon who supports President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. ''I think it's a duty for people who know Arabic to translate the documents."

US officials hope that thousands of other Arabic speakers feel the same. Goaded by Congress, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has begun to release millions of pages of captured files online in an unprecedented effort to harness the Internet to disseminate raw intelligence material. There, anybody with a knowledge of Arabic can download the files and translate them for the world.

It's the same ''open source" principle that drove the successful development of the Internet and of powerful free software like the Linux operating system. Instead of hiring a team of brilliant professionals to analyze Iraqi documents in secret, the open source systems will use hundreds of clever amateurs, who'll publish their work for anyone to analyze and improve upon.

''Workers control the means of production, but without all that tedious communism," said Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and author of ''An Army of Davids," a book that shows how the Internet encourages public activism.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/03/18/us_puts_iraqi_documents_on_the_web/

PS: I would bet the "conservative website" is Freeperville. They even have a permalink to their document interpretations.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=prewardocs

[Richard Steele]

1. OK, we have a winner. BEST FRAMING FOR THIS STORY!!!!!!

There's a lot of threads about this.

But you just boiled the whole thing down to SIX WORDS
that say it all to the average TV-viewer:

They posted Atomic secrets...in ARABIC!

Nicely summed up! Scary shit.

I only regret that I have but one recommendation to give to this thread.

[Oilwellian]

4. It IS rather stunning

I think I'll change "posted" to "published" as well. Thanks for the recommend. :hi:

[Richard Steele]

7. I _WAS_ about to go to bed....

But now I have to go post on every other thread related to this issue,
to direct folks to this one!

Those six little words are the kind of thing that might actually
make FREEPERS sit back and take notice!

"POWERFUL" doesn't even begin to describe it!

[Oilwellian]

9. Well my goodness

Thanks for the redirects. After reading the NYT's article, that was all I could think of. The stupidity of it all is horrifying. I can't wait to see what happens to Roberts & Hoekstra.

[Richard Steele]

10. Oh, please don't use the phrase "my goodness". It reminds me of THIS guy:

But I really do think it's worthwhile to redirect folks here,
so no thanks are necesary. It's not very often that such a clear,
powerful phrase comes along to sum up such a major issue, and
we gotta make hay while the sun shines, y'know?

[rodeodance]

42. k

[Stockholm]

6. Ding ding ding

These people are stupid beyond belief. Even if they have built in errors as they did the last time they give far to much away to those who starts from scratch.

Could this finally mean the end of Death Squad Negroponte?

[Politicub]

29. How nice of the Bush admin to save terrorits the trouble...

of translating the information themselves!

[maddezmom]

2. K&R

[sandnsea]

3. rotflmao

I know that's not funny - but oh my god can they really be any stupider??? There's just no words. I had to check the article 3 times to make sure it wasn't the onion.

There's our cheap labor conservatives in action!!

[Oilwellian]

5. If you read the orignal Boston Globe article I linked to...

Glen Reynolds is quoted as saying it would be communistic to HIRE someone to interpret the documents when you can use the internet for free. Weeeeeee!

[Bluebear]

8. kick!

[CarbonDate]

11. What? No.

That's bullshit. The article says no such thing.

Honestly, people just see what they want to see.

[sandnsea]

13. If you read the NYTimes article

and put the two together - yes it does. These files had nuclear weapon secrets in them, which was just published today. If you put today's story together with the original story about the files, then the conclusion is that this administration published atomic secrets in Arabic.

[Richard Steele]

16. The article hands you a pair of "2"s. Your inability to make a "4" from them...

...strikes me as DELIBERATELY disingenuous.

Thanks for playing. Your CONCERN is duly noted.

[BelgianMadCow]

27. All that concern and user profile disabled

mmmmmm

[blogslut]

17. True, that article doesn't say it explicity

But the article in the NYT does:

"The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who said that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents — most of them in Arabic — would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence..."

subscription link here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/middleeast/03documents.html?hp&ex=1162530000&en=1511d6b3da302d4f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Oilwellian]

33. What part of this paragraph don't you understand?

The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who said that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents — most of them in Arabic — would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence.

[w4rma]

12. Republicans are insane. (nt)

[Emit]

14. Here's Something Ironic

I posted this on a related DU thread, but it fits here because of your reference to the freepers -- it's so damned ironic:

Back when this began, in March, the Bushbots on another discussion board I frequent were ranting and raving about this news, going on about how these docs "proved" Saddam had WMD and connections with Russia, Saddam's al-Qa'ida connections, etc. etc. Now what do we find? Ha! -- oops.

Here are some posts about it back then:

SADDAM / AL QUAEDA, IN BED TOGETHER:
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?topic_view=threads&p=362520&t=51036

From that thread, I wrote at that time:

~snip~

Yes, this is an interesting development. I'm particularly leery of these parts of that story:

Quote:

The documents have been posted on the internet as part of a rolling program by the US Government to make public the contents of 48,000 boxes of untranslated papers and tapes relating to the workings of Saddam Hussein's regime. Saddam is said to have routinely taped talks with cabinet members and intelligence chiefs.

US director of national intelligence John Negroponte was ordered by President George W. Bush to release the material. Hundreds of thousands of previously unseen documents and hundreds of hours of tapes will be placed on the web in the coming weeks.

Also noted, in the post jon smith made yesterday about this are the editor's notes, such as:

On "Osama bin Laden and the Taliban" :

Quote:

(Editor's Note: The controversial claim that Osama bin Laden was cooperating with Saddam Hussein is an ongoing matter of intense debate. While the assertions contained in this document clearly support the claim, the sourcing is questionable — i.e. an unnamed Afghan "informant" reporting on a conversation with another Afghan "consul." The date of the document — four days after 9/11 — is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value.)

or this one on "Al Qaeda Presence in Iraq":

Quote:

(Editor's note: This document indicates that the Iraqis were aware of and interested in reports that members of al Qaeda were present in Iraq in 2002. The document does not support allegations that Iraq was colluding with al Qaeda.)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1734490&page=1

You can see the documents yourself here:

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm

Here's one that is described as follows: Synopsis: 2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names.


http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents-docex/Iraq/ISGZ-2004-019920.pdf

Can you tell me what it actually says?

More threads from that time:
RUSSIA SPIES IN USA FED SADDAM INVASION TROOP MOVEMENTS:
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=51477&highlight=abc+investigative+units+saddam+husseins

My comment on this thread:

No time to chat now, but this looks awfully familiar. Doesn't this story stem from this abc news story the other day on that other thread?:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1734490&page=1

You know, the one that MSNBC said it was suspicious that those documents found their way into the hands of the neocons who are gearing up for their Intelligence Summit in April?

I'll check this out later.

Saddam Archives-Documents discuss WMD's and Bin Laden!
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=50852&postdays=0&postorder=asc&topic_view=&start=0

More Proof of Osama/Saddam Strong Pre-War Connection!
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=51436&highlight=saddam+abc
_________________

[texasleo]

36. k+r

[texasleo]

15. They speak Arabic in eye-ran?

:wtf:

[blogslut]

19. According to the CIA World Fact Book

One percent of the 68,688,433 people that live in Iran do speak Arabic.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html

[Window]

18. K/R

.

[0rganism]

20. "an unprecedented effort to harness the Internet to disseminate raw intelligence material"

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the same band of bumblefucks who believed their own elaborately-constructed lies about Iraq's weapons stockpiles would somehow think this is a good idea, too.

Yet I am. Continually. Amazed. :nuke: :wow: :nuke:

[bklyncowgirl]

23. I wonder if they got a nice thank you video from Bin Laden

What a bunch of morons. I wonder what the excuse will be. "Gee the stuff was in Arabic" or "We're Republicans, we're not too good at that science stuff."

[malaise]

21. CNN just said they shut down the

web site which means the story is true.

[annabanana]

22. Sweet Jumping Jesus!!

That has to be the most bone-headed thing they've done. Talk about compromising national security!!

[AntiFascist]

24. There seems to be method to this dumbness...

they seem to be doing everything in their power to start the world war ball rolling: pissing off Iraqis to the point of civil war, taking photos of deeply humiliated and tortured Muslims, leaving ports and borders unchecked in case something massively destructive should happen to cross...giving out instructions for creating a nuke in as plain and simple of language as possible seems par for the course!

Dobbs should cover this for the teevee viewers, he loves to rail on about the Administration's ineptitude.

[MadHound]

25. Again, this is information that has been freely available for decades now

As I've stated in the other hyperventilating threads on this topic, any halfway competent person can gather the knowledge on how to make a bomb from any decent size library and other such open sources of information. A kid in Ohio did just that back in the seventies as a high school project, and his model was so good, all it needed was plutonium in order to make it go boom.

This is the price we pay for living in a society of free flowing information with the nuclear genie let out of the bottle. You would have to wipe out all public knowledge of nuclear physics in order to prevent this, and frankly I find that abhorent is what is still nominally a free society.

[walldude]

28. According to the article what was posted

goes beyond what is already available. If this wasn't a "problem" then why did they take down the site?
on edit: Also why would the IAEA have complained about it?

[MadHound]

31. Goes beyond what is already available? What,

It shows people how to make a bigger, better bomb:eyes:

The reason it was taken down was more due to the fact that it was becoming a political liability rather than a political asset. And frankly, the IAEA is in the business of reducing proliferation, so it isn't any stretch to see why they would complain.

Face it, we live in a society where information is pretty free flowing, in an era where we've let the nuclear genie out of the bottle. Information on how to make the bomb is readily available in nearly every campus across the country, mouldering in the stacks and reserves of the universtiy library. It is sitting there, waiting for somebody with the interest and know-how to come along and use it. This has been the case for decades now, and frankly my opinion is that this latest broo-ha-ha is a ginned up political gimmick to score political points right before an election. It's intended effect is to spread faux fear thorughout the land, and frankly after having suffered under such fearmongering from the Bush administration over the past six years, it sickens me to see the Dems stoop to this level.

Meanwhile, it detracts from more important issues like voter theft that is occuring right now. Frankly I think the threat of another stolen election, public apathy regarding it, and two more years of Republican mob rule in this country is a hell of lot more scary than some retread documents showing how to make a bomb.

[0rganism]

38. except you don't know what information was in those docs

and more importantly, the people who put them there don't even claim to know: "US intelligence officials say nearly all the documents released have been given at least a cursory reading by Arabic experts."

The implication is pretty clear on that one.
:shrug:

[WinkyDink]

46. Not so, says David Kay.

[Cobalt Violet]

26. K & R.

:kick::nuke::kick:

[berni_mccoy]

30. K&R! Bush and his FREEPER CABAL WOULD LOVE TO SEE A NUKE GO OFF in the U.S.

Martial Law would take place and Bush would disband Congress, becoming a military dictator.

[Generator]

32. As Bill Maher said last year, it makes you wonder

which side Bush is working for.

[Rocknrule]

34. So teaching our enemies to build nukes isn't treason

But criticizing the president who did this is?
:banghead:

[Gregorian]

35. And they outted a CIA agent for the same reasoning.

Not innocent until proven guilty. It's post 911. (said with some sarcasm).

[SammyWinstonJack]

37. knr

[MasonJar]

39. It is time to coin a new word; incompetence just does NOT cover

the imbecility anymore. Help me out here! Incompebush? Shrubcompetence? Wcompetence? Any and all etcs.

[Cobalt-60]

40. It's a Bushco pattern

In the early days of the Iraq conquest, a vast dump of captured Iraqi weapons was left unguarded for weeks.
Given the fact that our dimmest dog face could destroy any ammunition dump with a pack of matches, the only possible reason for this was to ensure that the insurgents had something to fight with.
After all, you can't keep a war going forever if the insurgents run out of RPGs.
And that's their goal for Iraq: endless war. Anything to keep the treasury hemorrhaging eternally into Bushco's accounts.
The terrorists have disappointed their republican benefactors by not going nuclear. Bushco thought maybe a little good old "know how" was needed- so they provided it. (Perhaps a W-74 with a fresh initiator and activation code will arrive by Fed Ex at Bin Ladens cave.)
They want to maintain one party rule here in the United States, but can't make it unless the terra ists hold up their end.
Or perhaps they miscalculated.
Terrorism is about communication. Any terrorist is asking " How many of you do I have to kill to get you to do things our way?"
Nuclear weapons are about extermination. And they aren't the only suitable tools.
There are many methods already in easy reach of any hypothetical terra ist that could promptly slaughter over 100,000 Americans a day, every day they used them. (I won't elaborate. But they're out there)
If they wanted us all dead, they would have already gotten to it.
I don't think this treasonous action by Bushco will raise any mushroom clouds soon.
So fear not and focus upon the election.

[leesa]

47. That is correct. They are stealing our treasury and the world's resources

They are going for the gold ring...that's why 3000 dead Americans meant nothing to them on 9-11. A small price to pay for what they are potentially getting.

[texpatriot2004]

41. No brain, no headache - friggin' idiots or worse actually because

they did it on purpose and probably sent a note to a friend over there to tip them off to it.

[JerseygirlCT]

43. Right. And had any Democrat done the same, they'd be

screaming TREASON!!!!

[leftchick]

44. ..

:kick:

[Mr_Spock]

45. Fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking ASS holes

These FOOLS are making our country into a LAUGHING STOCK.

I am SO sick of these fools.

[gardenista]

48. Hastening the Rapture

Those freaks need to be stopped NOW