1. Write your journal. You can write it about anything that you would like.
2. From pg 520 and 521-522, Draw, or make a graphic organizer, about how to appeal to the Supreme Court, AND How The Court Operates.
3. Read the following and answer the following questions:
Key figures:
• 15, 652 secret
• 101,748 confidential
• 133,887 unclassified
• Iraq most discussed country – 15,365 (Cables coming from Iraq – 6,677)
• Ankara, Turkey had most cables coming from it – 7,918
• From Secretary of State office - 8,017
According to the US State Departments labeling system, the most frequent subjects discussed are:
• External political relations – 145,451
• Internal government affairs – 122,896
• Human rights – 55,211
• Economic Conditions – 49,044
• Terrorists and terrorism – 28,801
UN security council – 6,532
1. Thinking about an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.
2. Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
3. An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.
4. In a 2006 account, a wide-eyed American diplomat describes the lavish wedding of a well-connected couple in Dagestan, in Russia’s Caucasus, where one guest is the strongman who runs the war-ravaged Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.The diplomat tells of drunken guests throwing $100 bills at child dancers, and nighttime water-scooter jaunts on the Caspian Sea. “The dancers probably picked upwards of USD 5000 off the cobblestones,” the diplomat wrote. The host later tells him that Ramzan Kadyrov “had brought the happy couple ‘a five-kilo lump of gold’ as his wedding present.” “After the dancing and a quick tour of the premises, Ramzan and his army drove off back to Chechnya,” the diplomat reported to Washington. “We asked why Ramzan did not spend the night in Makhachkala, and were told, ‘Ramzan never spends the night anywhere.’ ”
5. Sunday's release of diplomatic cables include what seems to be an order from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to American diplomats to engage in intelligence gathering, directing her envoys at embassies around the world to collect information ranging from basic biographical data on diplomats to their frequent flier and credit card numbers.
6. Among the questions put to the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was a series about President Fernandez de Kirchner's mental state and health: how she managed her nerves and anxiety, how stress affected her behavior toward advisers and decision-making, whether she was on medications, and how she calmed down when distressed.
The cable also asked about President Fernandez de Kirchner's approach to dealing with problems, and whether she shared her husband's "adversarial view of politics." It also asked about how the Argentine first couple divided up their day and on what issues each of them took the lead or deferred to the other.
7. As the United States negotiated with countries around the world to find new homes for the remaining detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Kuwait's minister of interior had a solution for the four Kuwaiti citizens left in the prison.
"You picked them up in Afghanistan; you should drop them off in Afghanistan," Shaikh Jaber Al-Khalid Al-Sabah is quoted as saying, "in the middle of the war zone," where the detainees could be killed in combat.
The 2009 cable titled "The Interior Minister's remedy for terrorists: Let them die," is among the diplomatic documents posted online by WikiLeaks.
8. Some cables reveal decidedly less than diplomatic opinions of foreign leaders. Putin is said to be an "alpha-dog" and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to be "driven by paranoia." German Chancellor Angela Merkel "avoids risk and is rarely creative." Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi travels with a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.
9. The Obama administration offered sweeteners to try to get other countries to take Guantanamo detainees, as part of its (as yet unsuccessful) effort to close the prison. Slovenia, for instance, was offered a meeting with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions.
10. Many Middle Eastern nations are far more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they've publicly admitted. According to one cable, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly asked the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" -- meaning, it appears, to bomb Iran's nuclear program. Leaders of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern nations expressed similar views.
11. The U.S. ambassador to Seoul told Washington in February that the right business deals might get China to acquiesce to a reunified Korea, if the newly unified power were allied with the United States. American and South Korean officials have discussed such a reunification in the event that North Korea collapses under the weight of its economic and political problems.
Questions to Answer
1. Do you think this information is damaging to The United States’ credibility? Why or why not?
2. Which example do you feel is the most damaging and why?
3. Which example do you feel is the least damaging and why?
4. How should the countries mentioned respond to these messages?
5. What should the United States do to the countries mentioned?
6. The United States of America is the most powerful country in the world, shouldn’t they be able to say and do whatever they want? Why or why not?
7. What should happen to the person, or people, who leaked this information?
8. Do these leaks change your perception of the government? Why or why not?
9. What do you think other countries say about President Obama?
10. Do you think the government should be able to keep secrets? Why or why not?
