"Conservative party politicians lined up before the general election to promise that they would run a "pro-American regime" and buy more arms from the US if they came to power this year, the leaked American embassy cables show.[...]
The incoming Conservatives appear to have made some wide-ranging offers of political co-operation with the US. The cables detail a series of private meetings with Tory frontbenchers, many of whom are now in the cabinet.
Liam Fox, now the defence secretary, promised to buy American military equipment, while the current foreign secretary, William Hague, offered the ambassador a "pro-American" government. Hague also said the entire Conservative leadership were, like him, "staunchly Atlanticist" and "children of Thatcher"."
Read more
The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord
"Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.
The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial "Copenhagen accord", the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009."
Read more
Der Spiegel: "'Operation Scorched Earth': A US Hand in Yemen's Civil War"
"Yemen is becoming an important refuge for al-Qaida terrorists, but authorities in the country are more interested in pursuing its war against Shiite rebels in the north. American weapons are used in the fight -- and the US secretly pursues terrorists on their own.
His Excellency Ali Abdullah Saleh, the first and so far only president of the Republic of Yemen, ruler over 23 million inhabitants and 50 million firearms, is not a good man to have as an enemy -- but having him as a friend is even worse. In Yemen he is called "The Boss."
Since 2004, the boss has been fighting a ruthless war against the Houthi rebels in the north. They are Shiites -- and politically marginalized. In August 2009, this conflict entered a new phase when the Yemeni army launched a new offensive designed to wipe out all Houthi resistance. The president categorically rejects negotiations with the rebels: "The war will never stop no matter how much money or martyrs it costs," he said a year ago."
Read more
El Pais: The US executed a plan to create a law against downloads in Spain
"La Embajada de Estados Unidos en Madrid convirtió la lucha contra la piratería en Internet en una de las prioridades de su agenda en el periodo 2004-2010. Según se deduce de la lectura de más de 35 cables dedicados a la protección de los derechos de propiedad intelectual, las presiones empezaron a intensificarse a partir del año 2004, tras la llegada al Gobierno del socialista José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero y se vertebraron en torno a una lista negra, la Lista Especial 301 que elabora la oficina de Comercio estadounidense.
Ante la falta de resultados en esos primeros años, diseñaron en 2007 una minuciosa hoja de ruta que incluía encuentros con ministros, secretarios de Estado y mandos intermedios de los departamentos de Cultura e Industria."
Read more
Le Monde: WikiLeaks : les Etats-Unis en première ligne dans la lutte contre Al-Qaida au Yémen
"Qui mène la guerre contre Al-Qaida pour la péninsule arabique (AQPA), cette "filiale" créée au début de l'année 2009 et retranchée dans les confins du Yémen ? Officiellement, ce sont les forces de sécurité yéménites en coopération avec les Etats-Unis qui s'inquiètent depuis 2000 et l'attaque meurtrière à Aden contre un bâtiment de guerre de leur marine, le Cole, de la présence de djihadistes aguerris dans les camps afghans.
Le rôle américain est cependant bien plus important, comme en témoignent les notes diplomatiques obtenues par WikiLeaks et révélées par Le Monde, même s'il est tenu secret compte tenu de l'animosité que suscitent les Etats-Unis dans le pays."
Read more
The Guardian: Diplomatic cables: Gaddafi risked nuclear disaster after UN slight
"A potential "environmental disaster" was kept secret by the US last year when a large consignment of highly enriched uranium in Libya came close to cracking open and leaking radioactive material into the atmosphere.
The incident came after the mercurial Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, suddenly went back on a promise to dispose of the weapons-grade uranium, apparently out of pique at a diplomatic slight received in New York when he was barred from pitching a tent outside the UN."
Read more
Der Spiegel: America's 'Iran Watchers': A Coordinated Effort to Get Information about Tehran
"In 2006, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice realized that Washington needed to know a lot more about Iran. Since then, observation posts in surrounding countries have been supplying information, including rumors of a slap for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In no other country in the Middle East were US diplomats as well sourced as they were in Iran -- yet in no other country were they as off target. The fact that they didn't see the Islamic Revolution coming in 1979 -- that they didn't even see it as a possibility -- surely ranks among the biggest intelligence misjudgements in the history of US foreign policy. Even today, the painful effects of this failure can still be felt."
Read more
El Pais: Chavez buys loyalty inside the Bolivian government
"Venezuela ha creado una estructura de asesores y lealtades compradas en Bolivia que provoca los recelos de los círculos más fieles a Evo Morales. En el mismo sentido, algunos jefes del Ejército dudan de la verdadera lealtad de las tropas, según informan los diplomáticos estadounidenses en La Paz a Washington.
El principal punto de fricción viene de los intentos del Gobierno de emplear al Ejército como fuerza policial, algo a lo que los uniformados se oponen. En sus informaciones internas Washington cree posible que en el caso de que el Ejército recibiera una orden de Morales en este sentido, podría dividirse con una facción, que recibe pagos de Caracas, que no obedecería a sus mandos. "Aunque los bonus venezolanos han cimentado algunas lealtades, también han creado mucho resentimiento entre los rangos medios y bajos al costo significativo de legitimidad para el alto mando", subraya un texto."
Read more
The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Yemen offered US 'open door' to attack al-Qaida on its soil
"The president of Yemen secretly offered US forces unrestricted access to his territory to conduct unilateral strikes against al-Qaida terrorist targets, the leaked US embassy cables reveal.
In a move that risked outraging local and Arab opinion, Ali Abdullah Saleh told Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, John Brennan, in September 2009: "I have given you an open door on terrorism. so I am not responsible," according to a secret dispatch back to Washington
In reality, despite the offer of an "open door", Yemen has restricted access for US forces in order to avoid playing into the hands of Saleh's domestic critics."
Read more
El Pais: Van Rompuy: "Copenhagen was a disaster. The climate treaty won't work."
"La frustración por el fracaso de la Cumbre del Clima de Copenhague recorrió las Embajadas de toda Europa. Pese a que el discurso oficial de los delegados europeos era que el acuerdo alcanzado allí tenía elementos positivos, los cables confidenciales de la diplomacia de EE UU obtenidos por Wikileaks y analizados por este diario revelan lo contrario: decepción por el pacto, enfado con EE UU y con China y poca fe en que la negociación internacional contra el cambio climático en la ONU llegue algún día a buen puerto. El más claro es el presidente del Consejo Europeo, el belga Herman Van Rompuy. Este, según un cable confidencial de la Embajada de Bruselas a Washington fechado el pasado 4 de enero, confesó al embajador en Bruselas que Copenhague fue "un desastre increíble", y añadió: "Las cumbres multilaterales no funcionarán"."
Read more
Le Monde: WikiLeaks : la loi Hadopi intéresse au plus haut point Washington
"L'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Paris s'est intéressée de très près à la loi Hadopi (qui sanctionne les internautes coupables de téléchargements illicites), car en France, comme ailleurs, la majorité de la musique et des films piratés sont américains.
Les diplomates ont d'abord suivi les diverses péripéties parlementaires autour du projet de loi avec étonnement, qualifiant le comportement des députés français de "théâtre de l'absurde". Ils sont alors entrés en relation avec un conseiller juridique du ministre de la culture, qui leur racontait le cheminement du projet et tentait de les rassurer sur la victoire finale.
L'ambassade travaillait aussi en liaison constante avec les grandes associations de l'industrie américaine du show business, notamment la MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) et la RIA (Recording Industry Association). Le vote de la loi Hadopi était pour elles une "priorité très importante", d'autant qu'elle pourrait servir d'exemple aux autres pays européens."
Read more
2010-12-03: Cablegate: Censorship and freedom in unlikely places [Update 1]
Submitted by admin on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 17:57France: The French minister for industry, energy and digital economy, Eric Besson, wrote to CGIET, the body governing internet use, to ask that hosting for WikiLeaks in France be terminated, reports Libération. WikiLeaks has been partly hosted by French provider OVH since December 2nd, after Amazon cancelled its hosting service under political pressure from Sen. Lieberman's office.
Besson wrote that "The situation is unacceptable. France cannot host websites that violate diplomatic relations secrecy and endanger persons protected by diplomatic confidentiality. We cannot host sites that have been called criminal and rejected by other countries on the basis of harm to national rights." One would be tempted to ask Mr. Besson whether he is suggesting that Le Monde cannot be hosted in France either, seeing as how the paper has published exactly the same material as WikiLeaks.
OVH however did not bow to the pressure, responding in a letter that it will refer the issue of the legality of hosting WikiLeaks to a judge, and that "it was not up to the politicians or OVH to request or decide the closure of the site."
Pakistan: The Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking a ban on the Wikileaks website. The petition argued that "since Pakistan had good bilateral relations with a number of countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, the leakage of secret information would adversely affect these ties," reports Pakistan Dawn
High Court Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed dismissed the petition, calling it non-maintainable. "We must bear the truth, no matter how harmful it is," Justice Saeed was quoted as saying.
Russia: While the Washington Times prominently featured an op-ed by Jeffrey T. Kuhner titled "Assassinate Assange," Pravda's legal editor David R. Hoffman argues for transparency and a free press:
"And we see many right-wing commentators demanding that Assange be hunted down, with some even calling for his murder, on the grounds that he may have endangered lives by releasing confidential government documents.
Yet, for the right-wing, this apparently was not a concern when the late columnist Robert Novak "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame after her husband Joseph Wilson authored an OP-ED piece in The New York Times criticizing the motivations for waging war against Iraq. Even though there was evidence of involvement within the highest echelons of the Bush dictatorship, only one person, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted and convicted of "outing" Plame to Novak. And, despite the fact that this "outing" potentially endangered the lives of Plame's overseas contacts, Bush commuted Libby's thirty-month prison sentence, calling it "excessive."
Why the disparity? The answer is simple: The Plame "outing" served the interests of the military-industrial complex and helped to conceal the Bush dictatorship's lies, tortures and war crimes, while Wikileaks not only exposed such evils, but also revealed how Obama's administration, and Obama himself, are little more than "snake oil" merchants pontificating about government accountability while undermining it at every turn.[...]
And damn the right-wing outrage over the Wikileaks revelations. It is the American people who should be outraged that its government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.
So savor the Wikileaks documents while you can, because soon they'll be gone. And for the government criminals of the world, and for those who protect them, it will again be business as usual."
United States: We have already covered Amazon, Tableau and EveryDNS dropping WikiLeaks services, and at least the first two clearly linked to political pressure. It had been already reported that the State Department had prohibited its staff from accessing WikiLeaks, but now we learn that it went as far as to warn prospective student interns to "NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter."
And in an even more surprising development, Talking Points Memo reports that the Library of Congress has blocked access to the Wikileaks site on its staff computers and on the wireless network that visitors use.
If something looks wrong with this picture, it probably is.
Besson wrote that "The situation is unacceptable. France cannot host websites that violate diplomatic relations secrecy and endanger persons protected by diplomatic confidentiality. We cannot host sites that have been called criminal and rejected by other countries on the basis of harm to national rights." One would be tempted to ask Mr. Besson whether he is suggesting that Le Monde cannot be hosted in France either, seeing as how the paper has published exactly the same material as WikiLeaks.
OVH however did not bow to the pressure, responding in a letter that it will refer the issue of the legality of hosting WikiLeaks to a judge, and that "it was not up to the politicians or OVH to request or decide the closure of the site."
Pakistan: The Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking a ban on the Wikileaks website. The petition argued that "since Pakistan had good bilateral relations with a number of countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, the leakage of secret information would adversely affect these ties," reports Pakistan Dawn
High Court Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed dismissed the petition, calling it non-maintainable. "We must bear the truth, no matter how harmful it is," Justice Saeed was quoted as saying.
Russia: While the Washington Times prominently featured an op-ed by Jeffrey T. Kuhner titled "Assassinate Assange," Pravda's legal editor David R. Hoffman argues for transparency and a free press:
"And we see many right-wing commentators demanding that Assange be hunted down, with some even calling for his murder, on the grounds that he may have endangered lives by releasing confidential government documents.
Yet, for the right-wing, this apparently was not a concern when the late columnist Robert Novak "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame after her husband Joseph Wilson authored an OP-ED piece in The New York Times criticizing the motivations for waging war against Iraq. Even though there was evidence of involvement within the highest echelons of the Bush dictatorship, only one person, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted and convicted of "outing" Plame to Novak. And, despite the fact that this "outing" potentially endangered the lives of Plame's overseas contacts, Bush commuted Libby's thirty-month prison sentence, calling it "excessive."
Why the disparity? The answer is simple: The Plame "outing" served the interests of the military-industrial complex and helped to conceal the Bush dictatorship's lies, tortures and war crimes, while Wikileaks not only exposed such evils, but also revealed how Obama's administration, and Obama himself, are little more than "snake oil" merchants pontificating about government accountability while undermining it at every turn.[...]
And damn the right-wing outrage over the Wikileaks revelations. It is the American people who should be outraged that its government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.
So savor the Wikileaks documents while you can, because soon they'll be gone. And for the government criminals of the world, and for those who protect them, it will again be business as usual."
United States: We have already covered Amazon, Tableau and EveryDNS dropping WikiLeaks services, and at least the first two clearly linked to political pressure. It had been already reported that the State Department had prohibited its staff from accessing WikiLeaks, but now we learn that it went as far as to warn prospective student interns to "NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter."
And in an even more surprising development, Talking Points Memo reports that the Library of Congress has blocked access to the Wikileaks site on its staff computers and on the wireless network that visitors use.
If something looks wrong with this picture, it probably is.
2010-12-03: The Guardian: Live Q&A with Julian Assange, 13:00 GMT [Update 2]
Submitted by admin on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 11:40Via The Guardian and WikiLeaks:
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is at the centre of intense media speculation and a hate campaign against him in America, following the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.
He will be live online to answer Guardian readers' questions at 1pm today, subject to his access to an internet connection - which is very much a live issue. His online interview comes at the end of a week of shocking revelations from the cables and on a day when WikiLeaks has been fighting US attempts to take its website down.
Assange will answer your questions in the comments section below. From 1pm you will need to navigate to the latest comments for his replies."
The Guardian page is here.
Update 1: The Q&A page proved so popular that it crashed the Guardian website. "...please be patient: the Guardian site is under *huge* load because of the #Wikileaks Julian Assange Q+A," tweeted @guardiantech.
Update 2: The Guardian has posted Julian Assange's answers here:
"The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archive is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you."
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is at the centre of intense media speculation and a hate campaign against him in America, following the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.
He will be live online to answer Guardian readers' questions at 1pm today, subject to his access to an internet connection - which is very much a live issue. His online interview comes at the end of a week of shocking revelations from the cables and on a day when WikiLeaks has been fighting US attempts to take its website down.
Assange will answer your questions in the comments section below. From 1pm you will need to navigate to the latest comments for his replies."
The Guardian page is here.
Update 1: The Q&A page proved so popular that it crashed the Guardian website. "...please be patient: the Guardian site is under *huge* load because of the #Wikileaks Julian Assange Q+A," tweeted @guardiantech.
Update 2: The Guardian has posted Julian Assange's answers here:
"The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archive is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you."
2010-12-03: Daniel Ellsberg calls for Amazon boycott
Submitted by admin on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 07:25Daniel Ellsberg has posted an open letter to Amazon at Antiwar.com:
"I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating today its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.[...]
I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better. I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business."
Read more
"I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating today its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.[...]
I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better. I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business."
Read more
2010-12-03: WikiLeaks domain dropped by EveryDNS [Update 2: New domain up]
Submitted by admin on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 06:36DNS provider EveryDNS.net has dropped the wikileaks.org domain, apparently after DDoS attacks, WikiLeaks has said on Twitter.
EveryDNS explained its decision: "The interference at issue arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites."
You can still reach WikiLeaks via http://46.59.1.2/, http://213.251.145.96/ or at http://collateralmurder.com/ as of the time of this update.
You can support WikiLeaks via http://46.59.1.2/support.html , http://213.251.145.96/support.html , https://donations.datacell.com/ or http://collateralmurder.com/en/support.html
Cablegate releases are reachable at http://statelogs.owni.fr/ or via torrent search.
Update: WikiLeaks is now accessible at http://wikileaks.ch/
EveryDNS explained its decision: "The interference at issue arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites."
You can still reach WikiLeaks via http://46.59.1.2/, http://213.251.145.96/ or at http://collateralmurder.com/ as of the time of this update.
You can support WikiLeaks via http://46.59.1.2/support.html , http://213.251.145.96/support.
Cablegate releases are reachable at http://statelogs.owni.fr/ or via torrent search.
Update: WikiLeaks is now accessible at http://wikileaks.ch/
2010-12-02: ARTICLE 19 statement: Wikileaks and the US Embassy Cables
Submitted by admin on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 02:05
(A PDF version of this statement is available here. The Spanish version is available here.)
The controversy over the latest release of documents by Wikileaks and major
newspapers should not be used by nations as an excuse to limit citizens' rights to access information. ARTICLE 19 calls on governments around the world to fulfil their obligations to transparency and the public's right to know, including the obligation to give full effect to principles of proactive and mandatory disclosure of information.
"Information is the oxygen of democracy," says Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. "Rather than passing more secrecy laws and threatening to prosecute journalists and whistleblowers, governments should focus on making more information available and only protecting that which can cause substantive harm. At the same time, journalists have an obligation to exercise caution when revealing possibly sensitive information."
As ARTICLE 19 highlighted previously, respect for international standards on freedom of information and protection of whistleblowers are paramount to the debates on issues raised by latest releases. ARTICLE 19 maintains that under these standards, any restrictions on access to information must fall within the scope of the limited regime of exceptions. It is public bodies who are obliged to show that disclosure of the information would cause substantial harm and information should still be disclosed if the benefits of disclosure outweigh such harm. States should also adopt and implement a legal and policy framework that protects whistleblowers from
prosecution, and allow for public interest exemptions for revealing information such as corruption or human rights abuses.
ARTICLE 19 notes that much of the information contained in the cables appears to be already available in the public domain. None of the released documents were classified as top secret and most of the information in those six per cent classified as secret was also publically known. Further, these documents would likely be released anyway in the course of requests under the US Freedom of Information Act.
ARTICLE 19 is concerned about efforts by the US Government and other countries to prosecute a Wikileaks representative for violating the Espionage Act or other national Officials Secrets Acts. It is an obligation of governments - not of media and private individuals - to protect the confidentiality of official information if necessary under legitimate interests. We also urge the media, government officials, academics, and others to condemn calls for violence against Wikileaks staff and whistleblowers.
ARTICLE 19 also rejects calls and demands to maintain or expand secrecy legislation rather than adopt a comprehensive right to information framework, including the obligation of proactive disclosure. Nations without freedom of information laws such as Singapore have used the Wikileaks revelations as an excuse to justify their current restrictive regimes, while China has blocked internet access to the site. We call on all governments to respect of the right to information and its importance in democratic processes.
ARTICLE 19 does not believe that the leaks are likely to chill the speech of officials and rejects any policy changes that would impact on the free flow of information in this area. Studies of the effects of right to information legislation in numerous countries have found that there has been little impact on the amount of information that is recorded or that opinions are blunted following an increase in transparency. In fact, in some cases, they have found that the quality of documents has improved with the knowledge that it will become public some day, and focus on provision of real political analysis. Officials have a duty to pass on important information and that is not lifted because of fears that it one day may become public. The US FOIA has been in effect for over 40 years so several generations of officials have learned to live with it.
ARTICLE 19 welcomes the apparently extensive efforts by the newspapers involved in the release of the embassy cables to review the documents, place them in context and ensure that the release of the information did not cause serious harm. Most of the analysis has been serious and has shone an important light on relations between nations. We also commend the fact that it was the combination and collaboration of electronic and mainstream media that gave strength to the latest release.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
For more information please contact: David Banisar, Senior Legal Counsel,
ARTICLE 19, banisar@article19.org +44 20 7324 2500;
ARTICLE 19's previous statement on WikiLeaks is available at:
http://www.article19.org/pdfs/
ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works globally to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech. For more information on ARTICLE 19 please visit http://www.article19.org/.
2010-12-02: Cablegate: Journalists in defence of WikiLeaks, part 5 [Update 1]
Submitted by admin on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 01:39(Please also see parts one, two, and three, and four in this series.)
Richard Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald: WikiLeaks opens the door to a new enlightenment
"The carefully concocted versions of events that we used to swallow are now no longer swallowable.[...]
What is of lasting significance is that politicians and captains of industry and even the courts have lost the power to control the way information is drip-fed in their self-interest. That was the way it was done in the old world. Journalists grasped at snippets and morsels to assist the insider in some undeclared agenda. This new world represents as big a change for journalism as it does for the rest of the established order.[...]
What precisely is so damaging if citizens know some of the truth? If they know that there was a secret arrangement between US and British officials to subvert the plan to ban cluster bombs. If they know that the British government restricted the investigation of the Chilcott inquiry into the Iraq war to minimise embarrassment for the US. To know that China might be willing to accept the reunification of North and South Korea. To know if the governor of the Bank of England had doubts about the economic credentials of Prime Minister David Cameron. To know that their governments undermine international treaties.
No lasting damage to the US or anyone else's national interest will flow from that, just as there was no damage to the US national interest from the Pentagon Papers. Embarrassment, certainly, accompanied by a lot of posturing, but life in a more informed way went on. The New Enlightenment has arrived and there's nothing anyone can do about it - thank god."
Read more
Guy Rundle, Crikey: The GFC, Wikileaks collide - and the world just shifted
"You can feel the change in the air, read it in every report. The more that the fused political-media-administrative elite try to write it off as 'entertaining anecdote' while at the same time mobilising state power to destroy the organisation, the more they reveal that something has happened. The old process of leaks - a document here and there - only served to reinforce the idea that the state had an unquestionable right to control information, and that there could be no other way to organise society or create law.
That legitimacy has had a fatal crack put it in. The whole question of who should know what has been put into play. There will be reversals, but we're used to those. As I may have mentioned, something is happening."
Read more
Tom Hayden, The Nation: WikiLeaks vs. The Empire
"Why is this drama important? Not because of "life-threatening" leaks, as claimed by the establishment, but because the closed doors of power need to be open to public review. We live increasingly in an Age of Secrecy, as described by Garry Wills in Bomb Power, among recent books. It has become the American Way of War, and increasingly draws the curtains over American democracy itself. The wars in Pakistan and Yemen are secret wars. The war in Afghanistan is dominated by secret US Special Operations raids and killings. The CIA has its own secret army in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's entire record in Iraq was classified. And so on, ad nauseam.
And what is the purpose of all the secrecy? As Howard Zinn always emphasized, the official fear was that the American people might revolt if we knew the secrets being kept from us. In Rolling Stone's expose of McChrystal's war this year, one top military adviser said that "if Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular." McChrystal himself joked about sending out Special Forces units to kill at night then having to "scold" them in the morning.
And revolt we should, against those who would keep the affairs of empire shrouded. We should not be distracted by the juicy tidbits that may or may not be better left unreported. The focus of Congressional hearings and journalistic investigation should be on matters of public policy in which the American people are being lied to."
Read more
Alexander Cockburn, The First Post/Counterpunch: Julian Assange: wanted by the Empire, dead or alive
"The American airwaves quiver with the screams of parlour assassins howling for Julian Assange's head. Jonah Goldberg, contributor to the National Review, asks in his syndicated column, "Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?" Sarah Palin wants him hunted down and brought to justice, saying: "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."
Assange can survive these theatrical blusters. A tougher question is how he will fare at the hands of the US government, which is hopping mad. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, announced on Monday that the Justice Department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the latest Assange-facilitated leak under Washington's Espionage Act. Asked how the US could prosecute Assange, a non-US citizen, Holder said, "Let me be clear. This is not sabre-rattling," and vowed "to swiftly close the gaps in current US legislation…"
In other words the espionage statute is being rewritten to target Assange, and in short order, if not already, President Obama – who as a candidate pledged "transparency" in government - will sign an order okaying the seizing of Assange and his transport into the US jurisdiction. Render first, fight the habeas corpus lawsuits later.[...]
It's certainly not conspiracism to suspect that the CIA has been at work in fomenting these Swedish accusations. As Shamir reports, "The moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service."
The CIA has no doubt also pondered the possibility of pushing Assange off a bridge or through a high window (a mode of assassination favoured by the Agency from the earliest days*) and has sadly concluded that it's too late for this sort of executive solution."
Read more
Jonathan Weiler, Huffington Post: Let Us Now Praise Wikileaks
"We love to tout the liberating powers of technology and the information age, and yet the knee-jerk reaction from many of our news arbiters has been to heap scorn on the entity that is, at the present moment, doing the most to ensure that citizens actually have the tools -- information -- to realize the potential of the information age for human freedom. WikiLeaks, whatever its flaws might be, is filling a dangerous vacuum in our information environment, one created by the dereliction of duty by those entities whose constitutional prerogatives were designed to ensure that they would challenge, not protect, government secrecy and abuse. For that, WikiLeaks deserves our thanks."
Read more
Thomas Knapp, Antiwar: If This Be Treason...
"Forced to choose between truth and power, the Bolsheviks chose power. Their regime and its spinoffs became (pardon the pun) the gold standard for secretive government.
The strength of Wikileaks is that it faces no similar choice. It’s not a state, nor do its principals evince any intention of making it one. Truth is its entire portfolio, and this drives the Hillary Clintons of the world insane. It threatens their aspirations to unquestioned power. It forces them to explain themselves to the rest of us: To the serfs who, as the politicians see things, exist for the sole purpose of footing the bill — in money and in blood — for those aspirations.
Which is exactly how it should be. "Treason" to and "betrayal" of the state is service to humanity. Wikileaks is your friend. Hillary Clinton is your enemy. Never forget that."
Read more
Sunny Hundal, Liberal Conspiracy: The assault on WikiLeaks threatens free speech and democracy itself
"Let’s be clear about one simple fact: WikiLeaks is a media organisation.[...] This leads me to one simple conclusion: the attack on WikiLeaks now is not only an attack on free speech itself, but shows how craven and self-serving the traditional media has become.[...]
The traditional media has been cravenly quick to swallow the line that WikiLeaks threatens national security interests and therefor n offensive on Julian Assange is somehow OK. Perhaps they are miffed that WikiLeaks published information they would rather have leaked themselves. It’s a new form of competition and they don’t seem to like it one bit.
WikiLeaks isn’t democratically accountable but neither is the Daily Mail. It isn’t transparent but neither do we know how The Sun gets it’s scoops. These are fatuous arguments to make against the website unless one is also going to argue that most of the media industry be shut down.
You’re either for the right of websites to publish information that national authorities might not like – or you are not. It really is that straightforward.
And with the very existence of WikiLeaks now under serious threat, it is time to unambiguously stand up for its right to publish and be damned."
Read more
Richard Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald: WikiLeaks opens the door to a new enlightenment
"The carefully concocted versions of events that we used to swallow are now no longer swallowable.[...]
What is of lasting significance is that politicians and captains of industry and even the courts have lost the power to control the way information is drip-fed in their self-interest. That was the way it was done in the old world. Journalists grasped at snippets and morsels to assist the insider in some undeclared agenda. This new world represents as big a change for journalism as it does for the rest of the established order.[...]
What precisely is so damaging if citizens know some of the truth? If they know that there was a secret arrangement between US and British officials to subvert the plan to ban cluster bombs. If they know that the British government restricted the investigation of the Chilcott inquiry into the Iraq war to minimise embarrassment for the US. To know that China might be willing to accept the reunification of North and South Korea. To know if the governor of the Bank of England had doubts about the economic credentials of Prime Minister David Cameron. To know that their governments undermine international treaties.
No lasting damage to the US or anyone else's national interest will flow from that, just as there was no damage to the US national interest from the Pentagon Papers. Embarrassment, certainly, accompanied by a lot of posturing, but life in a more informed way went on. The New Enlightenment has arrived and there's nothing anyone can do about it - thank god."
Read more
Guy Rundle, Crikey: The GFC, Wikileaks collide - and the world just shifted
"You can feel the change in the air, read it in every report. The more that the fused political-media-administrative elite try to write it off as 'entertaining anecdote' while at the same time mobilising state power to destroy the organisation, the more they reveal that something has happened. The old process of leaks - a document here and there - only served to reinforce the idea that the state had an unquestionable right to control information, and that there could be no other way to organise society or create law.
That legitimacy has had a fatal crack put it in. The whole question of who should know what has been put into play. There will be reversals, but we're used to those. As I may have mentioned, something is happening."
Read more
Tom Hayden, The Nation: WikiLeaks vs. The Empire
"Why is this drama important? Not because of "life-threatening" leaks, as claimed by the establishment, but because the closed doors of power need to be open to public review. We live increasingly in an Age of Secrecy, as described by Garry Wills in Bomb Power, among recent books. It has become the American Way of War, and increasingly draws the curtains over American democracy itself. The wars in Pakistan and Yemen are secret wars. The war in Afghanistan is dominated by secret US Special Operations raids and killings. The CIA has its own secret army in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's entire record in Iraq was classified. And so on, ad nauseam.
And what is the purpose of all the secrecy? As Howard Zinn always emphasized, the official fear was that the American people might revolt if we knew the secrets being kept from us. In Rolling Stone's expose of McChrystal's war this year, one top military adviser said that "if Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular." McChrystal himself joked about sending out Special Forces units to kill at night then having to "scold" them in the morning.
And revolt we should, against those who would keep the affairs of empire shrouded. We should not be distracted by the juicy tidbits that may or may not be better left unreported. The focus of Congressional hearings and journalistic investigation should be on matters of public policy in which the American people are being lied to."
Read more
Alexander Cockburn, The First Post/Counterpunch: Julian Assange: wanted by the Empire, dead or alive
"The American airwaves quiver with the screams of parlour assassins howling for Julian Assange's head. Jonah Goldberg, contributor to the National Review, asks in his syndicated column, "Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?" Sarah Palin wants him hunted down and brought to justice, saying: "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."
Assange can survive these theatrical blusters. A tougher question is how he will fare at the hands of the US government, which is hopping mad. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, announced on Monday that the Justice Department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the latest Assange-facilitated leak under Washington's Espionage Act. Asked how the US could prosecute Assange, a non-US citizen, Holder said, "Let me be clear. This is not sabre-rattling," and vowed "to swiftly close the gaps in current US legislation…"
In other words the espionage statute is being rewritten to target Assange, and in short order, if not already, President Obama – who as a candidate pledged "transparency" in government - will sign an order okaying the seizing of Assange and his transport into the US jurisdiction. Render first, fight the habeas corpus lawsuits later.[...]
It's certainly not conspiracism to suspect that the CIA has been at work in fomenting these Swedish accusations. As Shamir reports, "The moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service."
The CIA has no doubt also pondered the possibility of pushing Assange off a bridge or through a high window (a mode of assassination favoured by the Agency from the earliest days*) and has sadly concluded that it's too late for this sort of executive solution."
Read more
Jonathan Weiler, Huffington Post: Let Us Now Praise Wikileaks
"We love to tout the liberating powers of technology and the information age, and yet the knee-jerk reaction from many of our news arbiters has been to heap scorn on the entity that is, at the present moment, doing the most to ensure that citizens actually have the tools -- information -- to realize the potential of the information age for human freedom. WikiLeaks, whatever its flaws might be, is filling a dangerous vacuum in our information environment, one created by the dereliction of duty by those entities whose constitutional prerogatives were designed to ensure that they would challenge, not protect, government secrecy and abuse. For that, WikiLeaks deserves our thanks."
Read more
Thomas Knapp, Antiwar: If This Be Treason...
"Forced to choose between truth and power, the Bolsheviks chose power. Their regime and its spinoffs became (pardon the pun) the gold standard for secretive government.
The strength of Wikileaks is that it faces no similar choice. It’s not a state, nor do its principals evince any intention of making it one. Truth is its entire portfolio, and this drives the Hillary Clintons of the world insane. It threatens their aspirations to unquestioned power. It forces them to explain themselves to the rest of us: To the serfs who, as the politicians see things, exist for the sole purpose of footing the bill — in money and in blood — for those aspirations.
Which is exactly how it should be. "Treason" to and "betrayal" of the state is service to humanity. Wikileaks is your friend. Hillary Clinton is your enemy. Never forget that."
Read more
Sunny Hundal, Liberal Conspiracy: The assault on WikiLeaks threatens free speech and democracy itself
"Let’s be clear about one simple fact: WikiLeaks is a media organisation.[...] This leads me to one simple conclusion: the attack on WikiLeaks now is not only an attack on free speech itself, but shows how craven and self-serving the traditional media has become.[...]
The traditional media has been cravenly quick to swallow the line that WikiLeaks threatens national security interests and therefor n offensive on Julian Assange is somehow OK. Perhaps they are miffed that WikiLeaks published information they would rather have leaked themselves. It’s a new form of competition and they don’t seem to like it one bit.
WikiLeaks isn’t democratically accountable but neither is the Daily Mail. It isn’t transparent but neither do we know how The Sun gets it’s scoops. These are fatuous arguments to make against the website unless one is also going to argue that most of the media industry be shut down.
You’re either for the right of websites to publish information that national authorities might not like – or you are not. It really is that straightforward.
And with the very existence of WikiLeaks now under serious threat, it is time to unambiguously stand up for its right to publish and be damned."
Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment