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Wikileaks: Play the ball, not the man – and check who’s kicking it

Julie Webb-Pullman | 21.12.2010 10:12 | Anti-militarism | Other Press | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

With few exceptions the majority of the public, but more worryingly, many supposed investigative and/or independent journalists, have dismally failed to exercise even the most minimum capacity for critical assessment, either talking-up the revelations (many of which were already common knowledge, or should have been to journalists doing their job properly) and/or participating in the indecent stampede to lionise Assange as some great champion of freedom of information and open government - or both.





Wikileaks: Play the ball, not the man – and check who’s kicking it

by Julie Webb-Pullman, 20 December 2010


‘When people write political commentary on blogs or other social media, it is my experience that it is not — with some exceptions — their goal to expose the truth. Rather, it is their goal to position themselves among their peers on whatever the issue of the day is. The most effective, the most economical way to do that is simply to take the story that's going around — it has already created a marketable audience for itself — and say whether they're in favor of that interpretation or not.’[1]

So said Julian Assange in an interview with Time magazine on 30 November, presumably to justify why he chose to release Cablegate through the very mainstream media whose ineptitude, bias, and lack of courage purportedly necessitated the formation of Wikileaks in the first place.

Speak for yourself, Julian.

But even that description does not quite do him justice. Assange has gone further than providing the story –or selected excerpts at least – he has also created the market, through deals with major media players and hidden financial backers,[2] and intends it to be played out for some time through protracted releases.

With few exceptions the majority of the public, but more worryingly, many supposed investigative and/or independent journalists, have dismally failed to exercise even the most minimum capacity for critical assessment, either talking-up the revelations (many of which were already common knowledge, or should have been to journalists doing their job properly) and/or participating in the indecent stampede to lionise Assange as some great champion of freedom of information and open government - or both.

This, like the cables themselves, conveniently deflects attention from the real issues - the right to information, the desirability of open government, the protection of whistle-blowing, and the protection for individuals from state abuses of the judiciary for political purposes. Moreover it achieves this deflection not by presenting all of the information in its original form, which might conceivably pass as a search for truth, but by presenting selected and redacted information, ie spin, which does not pass as a search for truth. The protracted nature of the releases suggests an eye on income, as well as keeping the world’s attention distracted from any and everything else, like, perhaps, the next Operation Cast Lead.

It has, however, nicely positioned Assange amongst his peers.

On 30 November I sent an email to a friend in Mexico, with several concerns I had about the cables, relating to three ‘who’s – who they were being released through, who was not mentioned (Israel) and who would suffer most through the releases. My friend responded that there was no point in further communicating with me. It seemed the mere suggestion that Julian Assange might not be the Che Guevara of information liberation was reason enough for my immediate exile!

But even before Cablegate, people were questioning who was behind Wikileaks.[3] Many experienced Wikileaks people themselves were becoming increasingly disturbed with its manner of operation,[4] and have since bailed out.[5]

So what's Assange’s game?

According to him, keeping governments open by disseminating ‘public interest’ information through selected media outlets. Since beginning this piece, SCOOP has published an article by Michel Chossudovsky that makes many of the points I did about the media selected to edit the material, so I won’t repeat them – you can read them for yourself here.[6] However, I do make a couple of additional points:

1. In releasing the information to these ‘architects of media disinformation’ as Chossudovsky describes them, Assange is implicitly saying that we the public are too stupid, moronic, or ignorant to be able to assess and analyse the contents for ourselves, and/or

2. these ‘architects of media disinformation’ must be given the opportunity to put their spin on it because God forbid we might come to our own, possibly different, conclusions, and

3. this spin includes presenting the cables as if everything they contain is the truth, ie that what some US staffer said that a particular person in Iran or Turkey or Australia thinks/said/did is actually what that person thinks/said/did. (How many journalists have bothered to go to the supposed source, let alone subject, of any of these cables to verify the accuracy of the contents?)

One thing that tends to annoy people as much as being lied to by their governments, is being patronised. (Now that’s a thought for the lionisers – make Assange the patron saint of disinformation.... you can spin that either way)

As for the claim that Assange/Wikileaks has revolutionised information-sharing, yes, we do now have available a plethora of information, some of which is very important, but most of which is nothing new, or even particularly interesting. Worse, we also have yet another player in the spoon-feeding frenzy that passes for mainstream journalism – that is, instead of vested interests and States spooning it to a lap-dog media who then spoon it to us, we now have Assange/Wikileaks forking it to the media, who are forking us – business as usual. And for some inexplicable reason we are expected to hail Assange as the objective, independent champion of freedom of information and the truth. Why? Because he says he is.

Assange’s record on these fronts is not too great. Compare his operational procedures to those of Openleaks and note the difference between ‘limitless sharing’ and selective release. Look also at objectivity and independence. Chossudovsky quotes Assange as stating that Wikileaks’ primary focus is on ‘oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.’ Which country out of all in these areas has the most United Nations Resolutions against it for breaches of international law and human rights abuses? Israel. Which country is not only almost completely absent from Cablegate, but whose Prime Minister also comes in for some flattery from Assange in the 30 November Time interview? Israel. Whose Prime Minister said the leaks were good for Israel? Israel’s! Netanyahu went so far as to say that ‘Israel had worked in advance to limit any damage from leaks’ [7] Reports of deals struck with Israel in Geneva [8] don’t sound so far-fetched after all. So much for independence.

As a champion of freedom of information and open government he might have been expected to fare somewhat better. But hasn’t he just succeeded in doing the very opposite? Assange said in the Time interview that ‘If their behavior is revealed to the public, they have one of two choices: one is to reform in such a way that they can be proud of their endeavors, and proud to display them to the public. Or the other is to lock down internally and to balkanize, and as a result, of course, cease to be as efficient as they were.’[9]

What does he mean by ‘less efficient’... internal lockdown and balkanization is probably the most efficient method of keeping information from the public – and is exactly what we are seeing in the aftermath of the latest releases. As a strategy to increase openness, it is achieving the opposite.

And why is he so selective in which governments he keeps ‘open’? According to his ex-deputy, Assange is the only one to have the key, or password, to the Tel Aviv embassy cables relating to the 2006 Lebanon assault and the 2008-9 Gaza invasion. In fact, of some 4000 cables from the Tel Aviv embassy only 22 have seen the light of day.[10] As Chossudovsky also noticed, Assange’s target countries could well pass for a summary of US foreign policy interests. The best indication of who or what is behind this selectivity is the omissions – they are far more telling than anything in the cables. Which is the only country to come out of Wikileaks smelling like roses? Yes, Israel.

Which leaves only the truth, and I fear we are yet to hear it.

Whether all the activists and supporters demonstrating outside courtrooms and various other localities around the world are victims of ‘sophisticated counterintelligence tactics designed to manipulate the unwitting’[11] is in some senses irrelevant. If they are demonstrating against the suppression of information, against governments lying to their citizens, against the persecution of whistleblowers, and against the abuse of judicial processes for political purposes they are making valid and justified demands, and laudable goals for Wikileaks.

If they are claiming that Julian Assange is an uncorrupted example of these that is quite another - possibly very erroneous - matter.

We would all do well to keep this distinction centre-table.

It would be far easier to fully support Julian Assange if he weren’t suppressing information himself, and was demanding openness from every government, not just those he doesn’t like. It would be not only easier, but essential, to give him our total support if it were clear that he was a genuine whistleblower, and not Israel’s stooge – or even a bit of both.

Unless and until the Tel Aviv cables are released, we will not know. Unless and until Wikileak’s funding sources are as open and transparent as we demand Governments to be, we will not know.

About the only thing the evidence suggests Assange deserves unequivocal support for is as a victim of a rendition attempt by the United States, aided and abetted by Sweden.

But you don’t need me to tell you - read the footnotes below and their footnotes, and anything else you can get your hands on - and take a stab at coming to your own conclusions – it beats being spoon-fed, or forked over.

_________________________


References:

[1]  http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2034040,00.html

[2]  https://p10.securehostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/2010/08/wall-street-journal-how-wikileaks-keeps-its-funding-secret.html ;  http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/155482.html ;  http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-audit.htm

[3]  http://zameer36.newsvine.com/_news/2010/11/10/5446685-wikileaks-is-zionist-
disinformation-by-jonathan-azaziah;  http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/11/27/gordon-duff-wikileak-predictions-sticking-my-neck-out-2/

[4]  http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,719619,00.html

[5]  http://aomid.com/wikileaks-rival-openleaks-trying-to-protect-source-self-publisher/224788/

[6]  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1012/S00156/who-is-behind-wikileaks.htm

[7]  http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-wikileaks-revelations-were-good-for-israel-1.327773

[8]  http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/07/18665978.php ;  http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/154598.html;

[9]  http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2034040,00.html

[10]  http://newamericamedia.org/2010/12/arab-media-wonders-where-are-the-wikileaks-cables-critical-of-israel.php

[11]  http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/10/gordon-duff-wikileaks-we-thought-we-had-seen-it-all/

_________________________


* Julie Webb-Pullman (click to view previous articles) is a New Zealand based freelance writer who has reported for Scoop since 2003. She was selected to be part of the Kiwi contingent on the Viva Palestina Convoy - a.k.a. Kia Ora Gaza.

_________________________

Julie Webb-Pullman
- e-mail: julie@scoop.co.nz
- Homepage: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1012/S00179/wikileaks-play-ball-not-man-and-check-whos-kicking-it.htm

Comments

Hide the following 19 comments

soounds like a wanker

21.12.2010 10:58

>> With few exceptions the majority of the public, but more worryingly, many supposed investigative and/or independent journalists, have dismally failed to exercise even the most minimum capacity for critical assessment, either talking-up the revelations (many of which were already common knowledge, or should have been to journalists doing their job properly) and/or participating in the indecent stampede to lionise Assange as some great champion of freedom of information and open government - or both.

You smug cock. So you are basically saying you are sooooo much more intelligent than everyone else is that it? Well, mr.smarty pants, perhaps people simple dont hold your viewpoint and given that most people dont maybe you are fucking wrong.... ever thought of that?

No one likes a self smug wise guy.

school leaver


seconded

21.12.2010 13:06

I agree with school leaver. This article is so superior it's barely worth reading.

Equating the need for secrecy in private life with the need for transparency in democratic governments is a non sequitur in my eyes. As is the need for transparency in funding for an organisation which regularly attracts the ire of authorities and powers around the world.

How about getting off your pedestal, and thinking about how things actually work, on the ground so to speak. And I don't care if you have been selected to travel to Palestine with other journalists, that's not an excuse for high-minded and unconceited opinion pieces.

Krop


Wrong

21.12.2010 13:08


“this spin includes presenting the cables as if everything they contain is the truth, ie that what some US staffer said that a particular person in Iran or Turkey or Australia thinks/said/did is actually what that person thinks/said/did.”

No – you’re the one being patronising here. The whole point of the cables is that they are what is being reported internally, which is, of course, the US perspective. It’s incredibly patronising to suggest that newspaper readers can’t understand that (funnily enough, the only place I’ve seen people get confused about this is on Indymedia).


“Which is the only country to come out of Wikileaks smelling like roses? Yes, Israel.”

No, it hasn’t. The last time I checked there were more Wikileaks cables on Israel than there are on either France or Spain. And some of them are deeply embarrassing, including reports on meetings with the head of Mossad.

Funnily enough, I’ve just googled “Israel wikileaks guardian” to see what happens. The first story to pop up was one from only a few hours ago.

“WikiLeaks cables: Syria believed Israel was behind sniper killing”

“It was late in the evening of 1 August 2008 in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous when the sniper fired the fatal shot. The target was General Muhammad Suleiman, President Bashar al-Assad's top security aide. Israelis, the US embassy in Damascus reported, were "the most obvious suspects" in the assassination.”

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/20/wikileaks-cables-syria-sniper-killing

By your logic, everyone will now assume that Israel must have carried out the assassination. How's that "smelling of roses?"

Norvello


^^^^^^^The commenteers who didn't understand the title ^^^^^^^

21.12.2010 13:46

"No one likes a self smug wise guy" - is that Assange or ms. Webb-Pullman that you are referring to?

???


She doesn't understand her own title

21.12.2010 15:06

The poster above has had a go at “The commenteers who didn't understand the title”.

Er.. no. It’s the author of the piece who seems not to understand her own title. She headlines it “Wikileaks: Play the ball, not the man[...]” then concludes by calling Assange “Israel’s stooge”. Oops.

Her metaphor’s all over the place as well – if you “play the ball, not the man”, then you don’t spend your time “checking who’s kicking it” as that is, by definition, “the man”. That's how coherent her piece is.

Norvello


In favor of that interpretation- or not?

21.12.2010 21:44

I think this article is a case of bad writing compounded by bad editing, rather than a part of the smear campaign, but the difference between cock-up and conspiracy is almost indistinguishable to the casual reader, and I know from personal experience that it will certainly seem black and white to Assange at this point. I think everyone who is interested enough to have read this commentary should read the original Time interview because Assange's answers are more informative and pertinent than the commentary.

Scoop is unsurprisingly better at publishing scoops than editorials. Many of 'their' scoops are actually other peoples stories that are under-reported or about to break, and they published some stories critical of the wars when British media outlets were sitting on them. I am currently writing about coverage of wikileaks, and interviewing ordinary peoples impressions of the coverage.I have a special interest in Indymedia UK coverage of this story because I introduced Wikileaks here:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359870.html?c=all

Julie doesn't seem to have grasped the basics of the cablegate issues here yet. She writes as if all the cables have been released when only a fraction have so far, and yet she infers complicity with Israeli intelligence because cables critical of Israel haven't appeared in the fraction that she has read so far. To denounce any group, but especially one as high-profile and potentially vital as Wikileaks as complicit with the Israeli state is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, and yet Julie bases this accusation on less than 1% of the cables. It's like the blind man who clasped an elephants tail and thus assumed elephants are similar to snakes. It's not just poor journalism, it's poor thinking. I wouldn't even expect much criticism of Israel in future releases since US state officials generally aren't critical of their 'Captain Israel' even in private, but I do hope for more revelations of new information. And don't be confused, there have been important secrets revealed, if you can't see the importance then maybe you should be reading the cables not the commentary.

The article opens with an Assange quote lifted from a Time magazine interview, and Julie starts by making a bizarre and hostile intepretation of the quote. She claims it is presumably Assange justifying releasing the cables through the mainstream media. The interviewer specifically asked 'I want to ask you a broader question, about the role of technology and the burgeoning world of social media'. My first published piece of mainstream journalism attributed to me was mainly the work of the editor. I'd done all the work, and written a lengthy polemic, but the actual article was more like the editors summary of my text. Now, I assume Julie's editor cut her use of the Times interview quote, because the quote of Assange she starts her article with doesn't merit her claim that it is a justification of publishing through the mainstream, but the rest of the quote would. What Assange says to Time is not only true in broad terms, it should carry some extra resonance for Indymedia:

"When we first started, we thought we would have the analytical work done by bloggers and people who wrote Wikipedia articles and so on. And we thought that was a natural, given that we had lots of quality, important content....But actually it turns out that that is not at all true. The bulk of the heavy lifting — heavy analytical lifting — that is done with our materials is done by us, and is done by professional journalists we work with and by professional human-rights activists. It is not done by the broader community...So when I saw this problem early on in our first year, that the analytical effort which we thought would be supplied by Internet citizens around the world was not, I saw that, well, actually, in terms of articles, form tends to follow the funding. You can't expect to get news-style articles out of people that are not funded after a career structure in the same way that news organizations are. You will get a different sort of form, and that form may be commentary, which sometimes is very good and sometimes there are very senior people providing commentary that is within their media experience, or we get sources who hand over material, because once again, within their media experience, it is an important issue to them. But what we don't get from the [inaudible] community is people writing articles about an issue that they didn't have an intimate involvement with in the first place. And of course, if you think about it, that's natural — why would they be? The incentive's not there. When people write political commentary on blogs or other social media, it is my experience that it is not — with some exceptions — their goal to expose the truth. Rather, it is their goal to position themselves among their peers on whatever the issue of the day is. The most effective, the most economical way to do that is simply to take the story that's going around — it has already created a marketable audience for itself — and say whether they're in favor of that interpretation or not."

So far that is fair and true summary of the Indymedia commentary I've seen on Wikileaks in the past few weeks, little more than you'd expect from Facebook journalism but at least more rational and diverse than the state or corporate news agencies.

Danny


Great post, Danny.

22.12.2010 11:21

I'm not always a fan of your writing, Danny, but found that a really interesting post - particularly seeing the full Assange quote. I'm now looking forward to reading your commentary on Wikileaks, and hope it's up soon.

The only part I'd disagree with is that final line about the Indymedia pieces being more "rational" than the mainstream interpretations. The raw material is now out there on Wikileaks - or at least the small fraction of it released at this stage. So far I think The Guardian's done a good job of sifting through it and finding stories. So far I've been disappointed that citizen journalists haven't. They've had access to the same cables, straight after the Guardian and co have published their versions. You'd have thought they'd have unearthed some brilliant stuff in them that the mainstream media has missed (deliberately, or otherwise). Instead the postings on Indymedia have either been ones lionising Assange or, like the one above, accusing him of being an Israeli or CIA asset. The latter accusation suggests they've not really been bothered to read many of the cables, but have just automatically leapt for conspiracies. The opposite of rational, then.

So Wikileaks is a triumph for the web. It's provided a service that could never have been offered by traditional media. But it's empatically not a triumph for citizen journalism, which has come out of this looking derivative and kooky.

Norvello


Revealing Hierarchy!

22.12.2010 13:33

"So Wikileaks is a triumph for the web. It's provided a service that could never have been offered by traditional media. But it's empatically not a triumph for citizen journalism, which has come out of this looking derivative and kooky."

As per your pre-conceived expectations of course!

I have spent several weeks going through the cables, and having been involved with a number of stories that the cables deal with, find them little more than diplomatic trivia and on occasion badly written gossip!

There is nothing there so far that wasn't known at the time.

Interestingly, when the reporting took place at the time, many stories that were reported were dismissed by you and others Norvello as being without evidence and therefore not to be believed!

And yet here, only now, we have the truth which, only now, will you believe! Only because it has the formality of Government behind it and is, according to you, to be believed without question.

Norvello, you are an utter fraud.

Knot eyed Jaguar.


bollocks

22.12.2010 17:48

"There is nothing there so far that wasn't known at the time. "

Anyone who says this is so full of shit I'm surprised they can still use a keyboard. Sure, the contents of the cables was known by the people who wrote and read them, but not many others.

Lots has been revealed, and lots of things have been confirmed. And much will continue to be revealed and confirmed. And this despite the best attempts of various governments and media empires to pretend otherwise.

Krop


No - you're a fraud

22.12.2010 22:19

"Interestingly, when the reporting took place at the time, many stories that were reported were dismissed by you and others Norvello as being without evidence and therefore not to be believed!"

Hmm. The only things I recall dismissing on Indymedia as total rubbish were the conspiracy theories about 9/11, 7/7, swine flu and Assange being a CIA / Mossad asset. So far I've not been proven wrong by any of the cables. What are you on about?

Norvello


!!!!!!

23.12.2010 03:09

"Anyone who says this is so full of shit I'm surprised they can still use a keyboard. Sure, the contents of the cables was known by the people who wrote and read them, but not many others."

You have got to be fucking kidding me!!!!!

The quality of the Indymedia readership plumbs new depths.

anon


pull the other one

23.12.2010 12:12

If plumbing new depths means plumbing deeper for the real significance of the cables and leaks than the corporate media and head-in-the-sand'ers - then I am glad to be a part of this. I would then be in the company of John Pilger, Ken Loach, The Financial Times, Human Rights Watch, Veterans for Peace, Daniel Ellsberg, Ron Paul, The Atlantic, Noam Chomsky.... plus the 1.5 million on Facebook and 700,000 on Avaaz.org...

But it's not a numbers game so I'll stop.

For those disinclined to believe the Alex Jones' of this world (who claim the whole 250,000 cables are a fabrication) or The Independent (which seems to think the cables are all about gender issues and sex crimes) I suggest doing a search of the Cables:

 http://cablesearch.org/

or visiting the site yourself:

 http://www.wikileaks.ch/

Get plumbing and to take Indymedia and WikiLeaks together: "don't hate the media, be the media".

Krop


Try and get Assange to talk on IM

23.12.2010 14:01

Unlike the 'know it all's I've learned some stuff from the cables about the way the US sees the world. Some of which I believed anyway, like the US still spies at the UN, but now I have a source to quote in argument. Some of it is personally useful, like the list of UK companies that the US considers vital to it's interests. For instance, we knew MacTaggart Scott was a dodgy company through it's DSEI and CAAT exposure, but nobody I knew prioritised it.

My initial summary of Wikileaks was that "rather than being a competitor to IM it may be a useful and specialised companion", and I that holds true. Many of the criticisms of Wikileaks focus on issues relating to the recent diplomatic cable releases, ignoring the Iraq and Afghanistan releases or the other previous Wikileaks that have aided activists. For example, Wikileaks became the one stable source of the BNP membership when individual blogs were targetted by lawyers. Wikileaks publishing the BNP list was complimentary to the IM posts which quoted it, but also an example to IM about the advantages of 'bullet-proofing' the site ( and a weakness of blogging) that I hope was learned from.

I didn't provide the full Assange answer from the Time interview like Norvello thanked me for, actually I cut Assange saying how social media still played a positive role for Wikileaks, despite not getting involved in the journalism. He said (as you'd all know if you read the friggin interview) "However, once the initial lifting is done, once a story becomes a story, becomes a news article, then we start to see community involvement, which digs deeper and provides more perspective. So the social networks tend to be, for us, an amplifier of what we are doing. And also a supply of sources for us". My view of Indymedia is that is half-way between social networks and citizen journalism, I'd be interested in Assange's assessment of IM, but the fact he chose the Guardian as a partner rather than IM indicates IM has some work to do. The more people here uncover items from Wikileaks or other sources the closer it becomes to being journalism.

Non-techies should know that Assange really is a respectable coder, that's not hype. He distributed a decent port scanner he wrote in the early nineties, when it was difficult even to source similar test software from your suppliers support, you had to write it yourself. He is the intellectual and moral opposite of the other supposed 'hacker' in this story, Adrian Lamo, the mentally-ill faker who had Bradley Manning arrested. Lamo was never a coder, he 'pwnd' himself out for fame like the Mark Chapman tribute act he is. Most autistic sys admins love Wired magazine for it's quality geek news but it has always been dodgy politically and this affair exposes it as propaganda.

I am not intending posting my analysis of the Wikileaks coverage here, I'll blog it or publish it elsewhere since it's commentary and not news. I am interested in trying to interview Assange though, and that would be better on IM. I'll try to contact him to ask him to answer questions posted here at a set time. Think what you'd like to ask him and I'll post if I can contact him and if he agrees.

Danny


thanks Danny

23.12.2010 15:22

I've been a regular from time to time on IMCUK since it started - I guess that is more than ten years ago now.

At the time there was a lot of excitement about the effects that IMCs across the world might have on the activist scene - and a lot of conjecture too. There have also been various attempts by various policy and government agencies to take offline certain posts and an explosion in the number of sites across the world.... but nothing on the scale of WikiLeaks. As you say, now we have sources to quote - from the inside - and this is much more powerful than any analysis based on the information that was often available previously. I wonder if a certain raid on the servers hosting UK IMC (back in 2005 or 2006) might be covered in some of the cables eventually. It certainly would be interesting to compare the UK government's responses to the raids and the US version...

Regardless, it would be very interesting to have an external assessment of the IMC model. Technology has moved on in ten years, and as you say, we now have blogs and other tools at our disposal. If you do get the chance to interview Assange, please do post up your findings.

Krop


Thanks Krop

23.12.2010 17:24

If you are an IMCista then you should petition Assange for an open interview yourself too, it's more likely to happen the more people request it directly, and it could lead to a closer relationship with Wikileaks for you. In case I do get the chance to interview Assange without warning, what questions would you ask him about apart from an external critique of IM? Me, if everyone else is asking him about media and world events, then I'd ask him techie stuff. Otherwise if if is just a few of us asking questions then I'd start by asking him wider questions about activism.

I'd also like to interview Vaughan Smith who is hosting Assange via the Fronline Club. I think IM would be better if it could learn something from a mainstream media club whose by-line is "Championing Independent Journalism". I don't mean replicate from existing journalists, but certainly learn from their successes instead of just criticising their failures.

Danny


Better the devil you blow!

23.12.2010 21:05

"If plumbing new depths means plumbing deeper for the real significance of the cables and leaks than the corporate media and head-in-the-sand'ers - then I am glad to be a part of this. I would then be in the company of John Pilger, Ken Loach, The Financial Times, Human Rights Watch, Veterans for Peace, Daniel Ellsberg, Ron Paul, The Atlantic, Noam Chomsky.... plus the 1.5 million on Facebook and 700,000 on Avaaz.org..."

The real significance of the cables lies in the very comments you are making!

"Unlike the 'know it all's I've learned some stuff from the cables about the way the US sees the world. Some of which I believed anyway, like the US still spies at the UN, but now I have a source to quote in argument. Some of it is personally useful, like the list of UK companies that the US considers vital to it's interests. For instance, we knew MacTaggart Scott was a dodgy company through it's DSEI and CAAT exposure, but nobody I knew prioritised it."

Please illustrate for me, how overtly supporting US foreign policy is a statement against the rule of hierarchy? Do you think the Whitehouse is in front of this, or behind it? Please explain to me and the readers here what the US Whitehouse strategy is given its political makeup at present and domestic difficulties, and how Mr Assange might "fit in" to that.

Where do you see yourself in the next five years? Where were you five years ago?

Have you committed yourself to a quest for the truth, or condemned yourself to blindly following a new narrative over which you have little or no control?

Above all, and this really is the important bit, why interview Julian Assange, when the content of the cables is "so significant" and so rich in compelling material? Why haven't you yourselves come up with the very stories you complain have not been written by anybody else?

What is it in the cables that is not worthy of your attention? given your clearly stated interest!

anon


@anon

24.12.2010 01:44

"The real significance of the cables lies in the very comments you are making!"

Please tell me what this is then. Are you saying all of those people quoted are stooges of the NWO? Or something else?

Krop


BJ's for beelzebub

24.12.2010 03:06

>Please illustrate for me, how overtly supporting US foreign policy is a statement against the rule of hierarchy?

I can't even guess what that question means in this context.

>Do you think the Whitehouse is in front of this, or behind it?

Well, they are US cables to the US state so I guess the Whitehouse is in the thick of it.

>Please explain to me and the readers here what the US Whitehouse strategy is given its political makeup at present and domestic difficulties, and how Mr Assange might "fit in" to that.

I don't think it is ever worth analysing the Whitehouse in terms of present political makeup, not on threads like this at least. In foreign policy this presidency seems much like the last, and that is always true of any dominant empire, foreign policy is not the least affected by political rhetoric.

>Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
On the dole, posting dry, straight answers to weird questions.

>Where were you five years ago?
Same answer. I'm an unkempt recidivist.

>Have you committed yourself to a quest for the truth, or condemned yourself to blindly following a new narrative over which you have little or no control?

The Jehovah's just gave me a little book called 'Mankinds Search For God', they talked like you write. I don't think they'll mind if I burn it to keep warm on Christmas day. I can control my narrative in the form of lucid dreaming, and I could teach you that too, but as for controlling life's narrative, like whether it is going to rain on me or whether total war is inevitable, well, I don't control that and I only partially control how it affects me.

>Above all, and this really is the important bit, why interview Julian Assange, when the content of the cables is "so significant" and so rich in compelling material?

Julian Assange is an interesting guy in his own right, as he was even before he came up with Wikileaks. He is especially interesting now because he has first hand experience of other media and security services. Plus there is both serious criticism of him and of Wikileaks, during an obvious smear and hate campaign, so his recent experiences and changes would be interesting. That doesn't mean his interview would be more important or interesting than the cables, just that it could be useful third party advice for this site.

>Why haven't you yourselves come up with the very stories you complain have not been written by anybody else?
You mean, why haven't we told you them? We didn't think you'd be interested so we blogged them.

Danny


Just another star spangled jammer

29.12.2010 15:57

"Please tell me what this is then. Are you saying all of those people quoted are stooges of the NWO? Or something else? "

The significance of the comments the previous poster has made is qualification enough that the cables are significant. The release of the cables is designed to have an affect. The comments qualify and confirm that the effect is what it is, a natural public reaction with a heavy emphasis on "reaction". Wikileaks has not leaked anything that wasn't known at the time, nor could not have been guessed at.


"I can't even guess what that question means in this context."

The context is Indymedia. That is where this debate is taking place. We are all discussing the impact of the release of fairly innocuous diplomatic material released by a man with a website few people have not the slightest idea about. Mr Assange may be many things to activists but he is also the man who is facilitating the "end of the war" from the Whitehouses POV. This war had to end sometime and when it did end, the Whitehouse need to take ownership of it in order to facilitate its own defence of those who have been involved in serial human rights abuses. It is called "total war" and Mr Assange, despite his "beginnings" is now party to the leaking of material which ultimately will provide the Whitehouse with a get out of jail card for free.

As a direct result of feeding the Whitehouse machine, we now live in a world in which the US empire is able to commit the very same crimes it is committed to preventing and has built a reputation for stopping. That does not bode well for the future and we will almost certainly see other wars in the immediate future as a result of the appalling inaction in the face of these crimes. In the US, the Republican party will put in an appearance soon enough and when they do, they will no doubt look to the Democrats to help them along by organising and taking ownership of the public reaction. Just as they have successfully done here.

For the United States, it is immaterial whether it is seen by the world to have lost or won its wars...all that matters to it is that it completes these wars with ownership of the resources it went to war to control. For the Americans, control of resources is all that matters, not the petty minded romance of winners and losers. There is nothing at all in these cables which in any way undermines, or challenges the United States to account for itself. Nothing at all will come from these cables bar a petty public moral superiority that it was "right all along".

Not good enough!

I'm sure this isn't what Mr Assange meant when he formed Wikileaks, but that is how it will end. Mr Assange is now part of the empire he supposedly is avowed to oppose as are those who have fallen for "his" narrative.

The US, has got scot-free away with it again...and because of this, will stop at nothing in doing it again.

I can't quite figure out which is worse, the human rights abusing US, or those who claim to oppose it!

anon