Raise A Glass to Wikileaks

Rather than dumping all the material in the public domain and letting anyone sift through and blog / tweet / whatever the results of what can be found, Wikileaks has allowed a select number of corporate media outlets filter and "redact" and totally manage the release the material:

"It's the media outlets who are analysing and reporting on the documents. In that they might play up certain revelations, while playing down others."

"So for example, at the moment the story that seems to have been given most prominence is that of Iran being seen as a threat by some middle-eastern states. That does basically fit into a power friendly narrative of Iran as dangerous menace."

"While the revelation that the U.S. and Yemen deliberately lied to cover up civilian killing U.S. cruise missile strikes in Yemen doesn't seem to have gotten anywhere near as much prominence. I've yet to see it on any news website front page, for example. Perhaps because it's embarrassing to the U.S.."

"And because a lot of people won't have the time and/or inclination to go and read/search the cables for themselves, which story will they come away remembering the most if relying in British/U.S. media outlets for their info? Iran as a menace, or the U.S. as a dishonest civilian killer? My guess is it'll be the former. "

 http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1291036747.html

This, combined with Craig Murray's observation above:

"Web commenters have noted that the diplomatic cables now released reflect the USA's political agenda, and there is even a substantial wedge of the blogosphere which suggests that Wikileaks are therefore a CIA front. This is nonsense. Of course the documents reflect the US view – they are official US government communications. What they show is something I witnessed personally, that diplomats as a class very seldom tell unpalatable truths to politicians, but rather report and reinforce what their masters want to hear, in the hope of receiving preferment."

Appears to explain why these leaks don't, so far, appear to threaten in a serious way, the current US Imperial Agenda.

Hear Hear!

In an age where corporate media is owned by a handful of CEOs who tightly control what is published, we need sites like Wikileaks even more to ensure that democratic discourse continues to take place, and to ensure that those in power are still being held accountable for their decisions, and don't get away with brushing everything under the proverbial rug of offical secrets laws, which more and more seem to be a way of governments (especially) keeping everything to themselves, regardless of whether it truly is of 'strategic' importance.

In other words, governments (and in some cases corporations) across the world are attempting to use the law to make themselves unaccountable and hide the truth of their intentions and actions from us.

Democratic discourse is all about getting under peoples' skins, of being a nuisance, of asking awkward questions.

If this doesn't happen, we don't have democracy any more, we have autocracy.

The day that all the media (including internet content) is loved by the powers that be is the day that democracy truly dies, because it means that we will no longer have the freedom to ask all those awkward questions that should be asked.

from Pakistan Daily ..
[WMR has learned from Asian intelligence sources that there is a strong belief in some Asian countries, particularly China and Thailand, that the website Wikileaks, which purports to publish classified and sensitive documents while guaranteeing anonymity to the providers, is linked to U.S. cyber-warfare and computer espionage operations, as well as to Mossad’s own cyber-warfare activities. Wikileaks claims to have decrypted video footage of a U.S. Predator air strike on civilians in Afghanistan and that covert U.S. State Department agents followed Wikileaks’s editor from Iceland to Norway in a surveillance operation conducted jointly by the United States and Iceland. Iceland’s financially-strapped government recently announced a policy of becoming a haven for websites that fear political oppression and censorship in their home countries. However, in the case of Wikileaks, countries like China and Thailand are suspicious of the websites’ actual “ownership.”Wikileaks says it intends to show its video at an April 5 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC but that its presenters may be detained or arrested before that time. WMR’s sources believe the Wikileaks “militancy” in the face of supposed surveillance appears fake. Our Asian intelligence sources report the following: “Wikileaks is running a disinformation campaign, crying persecution by U.S. intelligence- when it is U.S. intelligence itself. Its [Wikileaks'] activities in Iceland are totally suspect.” Wikileaks claims it is the victim of a new COINTELPRO [Counter Intelligence Program] operation directed by the Pentagon and various U.S. intelligence agencies. WMR’s sources believe that it is Wikileaks that is part and parcel of a cyber-COINTELPRO campaign, such as that proposed by President Obama’s “information czar,” Dr. Cass Sunstein.
In January 2007, John Young, who runs Cryptome, a site that publishes a wealth of sensitive and classified information, left Wikileaks, claiming the operation was a CIA front. Young also published some 150 email messages sent by Wikileaks activists on cryptome. They include a disparaging comment about this editor by Wikileaks co-founder Dr. Julian Assange of Australia. Assange lists as one of his professions “hacker.” His German co-founder of Wikileaks uses a pseudonym, “Daniel Schmitt.”
Wikileaks claims it is “a multi-jurisdictional organization to protect internal dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists and bloggers who face legal or other threats related to publishing” [whose] primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we are of assistance to people of all nations who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.”
In China, Wikileaks is suspected of having Mossad connections. It is pointed out that its first “leak” was from an Al Shabbab “insider” in Somalia. Al Shabbab is the Muslim insurgent group that the neocons have linked to “Al Qaeda.”
Asian intelligence sources also point out that Assange’s “PhD” is from Moffett University, an on-line diploma mill and that while he is said to hail from Nairobi, Kenya, he actually in from Australia where his exploits have included computer hacking and software piracy.
WMR has confirmed Young’s contention that Wikileaks is a CIA front operation. Wikileaks is intimately involved in a $20 million CIA operation that U.S.-based Chinese dissidents that hack into computers in China. Some of the Chinese hackers route special hacking program through Chinese computers that then target U.S. government and military computer systems. After this hacking is accomplished, the U.S. government announces through friendly media outlets that U.S. computers have been subjected to a Chinese cyber-attack. The “threat” increases an already-bloated cyber-defense and offense budget and plays into the fears of the American public and businesses that heavily rely on information technology.
It is also pointed out that on Wikileaks advisory board is Ben Laurie, a one-time programmer and Internet security expert for Google, which recently signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and has been charged by China with being part of a U.S. cyber-espionage campaign against China. Other Wikileaks advisory members are leading Chinese dissidents, including Wan Dan, who won the 1998 National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Democracy Award; Wang Youcai, founder of the Chinese Democracy Party; Xiao Qiang, the director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley, member of the advisory board of the International Campaign for Tibet, and commentator on the George Soros-affiliated Radio Free Asia; and Tibetan exile and activist Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang.
Our sources in Asia believe that Wikileaks ran afoul of their CIA paymasters after it was discovered that some of Wikileaks’s “take” was being diverted to Mossad instead of to their benefactors at Langley. After a CIA cur-off in funding, “Daniel Schmitt” took over and moved the Wikileaks operation to Belgium and Sweden with hopes of making a more secure base in Iceland.
There are strong suspicions that Wikileaks is yet another Soros-funded “false flag” operation on the left side of the political spectrum. WMR has learned that after former Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) decided to oppose Soros’s choice of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s deputy Mark Malloch Brown as President of the World Bank, succeeding the disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, Soros put the Wikileaks operation into high gear. “Daniel Schmitt” hacked into Coleman’s supporters list, stealing credit card info, addresses, and publishing the “take” on Wikileaks. Democrat Al Franken, who was strongly backed by Soros, defeated Coleman in a legally-contested and very close election. It is also believed by informed sources that Soros is behind the operation to move Wikileaks to Iceland. By becoming a power in Iceland, Soros can prevent Icelanders from paying back the British and Dutch investors in Icelandic online Ponzi scheme banking and continue his all-out war against British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has, in turn, targeted Soros for betting against pound sterling.
Iceland is classic prey for Soros. The Icelandic krona has been decimated as a currency and has no where to go but up in value, especially if the British pound and the euro depreciate. Soros is currently talking down the euro, planning its fall and shorting it, just like he did versus the pound in London in the 1980s. After the UK’s and Europe’s currencies are devalued, Soros will buy every Euro note in sight, thus making trillions.
Soros and his Wikileaks friends have in Iceland a practically unregulated banking system desperate for an influx of capital — money that will come from the exiled Russian tycoons in Israel, London and the United States. Israeli investors like Bank Leumi, and awash in siphoned-off Bernard Madoff cash, will do their bit for this smash-and-grab operation by Soros’s Quantum-linked hedge funds. With Wikileaks firmly ensconced in Iceland, the “brave” and much-heralded information leakers will run an international blackmail operation against Soros’s foes and launch computer break-ins against Soros’s business rivals and non-Quantum banks. Wikileaks will be used as the info-hitmen against President Obama’s and Rahm Emanuel’s enemies in the 2012 re-election campaign.
From Iceland, Soros will be well-positioned to gain control over the massive mineral resources under the melting ice sheet of Greenland. Under the ice are the only major rare-earth deposits outside of China and with such minerals at his disposal, Soros can control the world’s electronics industries. This past week’s volcanic activity in Iceland could, however, disrupt or destroy Soros’s plans to establish and control a North American-European gateway in Iceland.]

I certainly welcome Wikileaks revelations, but I wish I knew where they really get their funding from. Julian Assange appears to have a jet set life style, very different from the activists I know and of course there are many others involved and some considerable resources being used. Who's footing the bill and what strings are attached?

What is also rather disconcerting is the huge amount of bluster being aimed at Wikileaks. If they really wanted to silence the website, surely they would adopt a more serious approach.

Actually, not a lot has come out of the revelations. As far as I can see people are not tearing each other to bits over them. Just lots of posturing.

So are the revelations deliberately anodyne compared with some which could be released?

Are they being steered by some malignant agency?

Perhaps, just my suspicious mind.

I like the idea that the whole thing is a CIA conspiracy. It shows the low level of thought of conspiracy theorists.

Most of its info is no doubt leaked genuinely by whistle blowers, some not,

Alex Jones & Co are great except when they get too paranoid & start making Bob Fossil off mighty boosh look sane