The Wikileaks Question

[Hammer of Los]

Is it a good thing that the release of these cables has soured many of America's diplomatic relationships, putting foreign policy and diplomatic efforts abroad in jeopardy?

Perhaps it is. It certainly strikes me as anti-american to think so. Having said that, the USA tends to have many foreign policy objectives and strategies of which I disapprove. But I do rather like to see diplomatic efforts succeed, when they are an alternative to more war.

I have more questions.

Why are unattributed, unverified leaks posted on the internet assumed by everyone to be 100% genuine? Why have I not heard a single voice questioning the authenticity of the leaked documents? Is Assange the most trusted source in the world? Why does everyone assume every last single cable is completely genuine? I'm not suggesting they are false. That is not my point.

And more.

Are the beeb, murdoch inc, and so on usually so keen to massively disseminate top secret information that enormously damages US and allied countries diplomatic relations?

Why do the beeb and murdoch inc insist on giving me hourly updates on this story, in a massive wave of concerted media coverage the likes of which I have not seen since 911? Is it simply so that they can control the spin and exercise damage limitation? Does this appear to be a successful strategy for them?

Ignoring the story entirely is their usual means of exercising damage limitation.

Instead we get this worldwide carnival show. Damn crazy.

But the biggest question I have is, why oh why is my spider sense tingling so hard my head feels like its coming off?

I just don't like the way this is panning out, you know.

[AlicetheKurious]

But the biggest question I have is, why oh why is my spider sense tingling so hard my head feels like its coming off?

FWIW (very little, to anybody else) that's how I feel, as well. It's like you're presented with this delicious-looking food and told to help yourself, but there's this horrible stench emanating from it. So you take a closer look and what you see doesn't reassure you at all; on the contrary. The closer you look, the less it looks like food at all. People around you are munching happily and telling you to go ahead! it's great! and you're not only grossed out, you're starting to get scared at how oblivious they seem. You look around and thank God that there are some who appear to be as disgusted as you feel. They've smelled it and seen what you saw too, and even noticed some things that you hadn't. You and they can't stop people from eating, you can only try to warn them. But if they don't smell what you smell and see what you see, it doesn't do any good.

[tazmic]

Sun 31 Dec 2006 : Doing the pentagon poker
All who spend time in the spy world soon come to the view that the rest of the population lives their life in a sea fog as a tiny piece of cork buffeted by a vast ocean of concealed truth. True enough, but economics and scientific progress still dominates the spy world as every black budget bureaucrat finds to their classified horror when budget time arrives and they 'do the Pentagon poker'.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org/

[stefano]

[the article by Andrew Gavin Marshall is] just a lot of blah-blah-blah: for a supposedly well-informed and savvy RI readership hardly "brilliant" unless your definition of brilliant is that it says what JackRiddler wants it to say. In contrast to the Marshall piece, for a truly informative and eye-opening look at Wikileaks and Assange, where they come from and their role within a larger pattern of sophisticated manipulation and misdirection techniques, invest a half-hour or so listening to [Alex Jones interviewing Webster Tarpley]

That looks pretty one-sided and hypocritical: you don't attempt to rebut anything in the Marshall article, and in response post a link to an interview and call it "informative" because it, erm, says want you want it to say.

I 'invested' half an hour listening to that, a bit of a waste. Alex Jones's loudness, gratuitous interjections like ""I love this Republic! I am fiercely patriotic!" and monomaniacal obsession with George Soros put me off him for life. Webster Tarpley, although I sometimes learn something from him when it comes to finance, is wrong on a few points here and very obviously showed the nationalism and anti-Briddish paranoia that informs a lot of his analysis. A lot of the important stuff is unsubstantiated, especially "we know Cass Sunstein is hooked in with Soros, which Jones says it twice, but of course there's no evidence of this. Maybe, Alice, you can tell me why George Soros is so important and how you know he's linked to WikiLeaks? As you know I'm definitely not one who smells anti-Semitism everywhere but when a flag-wrapped gun-happy Texan imbecile blames all the world's ills on a Jewish banker... I'm not going to assume there's none.

[Assange] is a product of MK Ultra, a zombie, an operative created by a sex-brainwashing psycho-pharmaca LSD cult.

Basically this entire show hinges on this assertion, which is repeated a few times, based on that cult Assange's mother was in. So Jones and Tarpley think that Assange received the instructions thirty years ago to do what he's doing right now? Right.

going after certain banks and brokerages... George Soros has been convicted in two countries for this

Bullshit. He was convicted of insider trading in France in 1988 and fined $2m, the amount he'd made on the deal. The trial took 14 years, so it's fair to think it wasn't open-and-shut, and taking a long position that makes you $2m is hardly "going after a bank". And that's one conviction, there isn't another.

It is no secret that Soros and Wall Street share an interest in opening markets to modern finance - what else would you expect a currency trader to want - but seeing this as evidence that Soros is a Zionist is tenuous. His mentions of the "pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views", statement that "the policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to [a resurgence of anti-Semitism]", and his opinion that Israel should meet with Hamas, ought maybe to give you pause.

The first time [WikiLeaks] was mentioned was in a Washington Post op-ed by Cass Sunstein

More bullshit. Here's that op-ed, it contains one sentence about WikiLeaks taken from what had been put up upon its launch three months earlier. The Post itself had written about WikiLeaks at least once before: in this article dated 15/01/2007 which mentions 20 000 Google references to it. Not surprisingly as WikiLeaks launched by contacting media outlets across the world.

Anyway most of the interview is shit flavoured with American exceptionalism. Tarpley goes into a rant about Barclays choosing not to buy Lehman, not even mentioning Hank Paulson and Jamie Dimon's far more direct role in what happened there, and is completely beside himself that WikiLeaks plans to expose corruption at a US bank. He also heavily wonders why the leaks don't mention 9/11 or the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, purposely or through malice failing to understand where the cables are from and who wrote them. Do you really think 60 000 State Department employees all over the world have access to all the CIA's darkest secrets?

That kind of MK Ultra zombie type is not going to be a particularly good witness, he's not going to eloquent and likeable.

Ha, whatever you old fool. Here's Assange being pretty eloquent and likeable.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

.
Curiously enough, it seems Anna Ardin may now have dropped her charges, and has apparently moved to Yanoun in Palestine as part of a Christian Outreach mission, helping to protect the villagers from violence directed at them by militant Israeli settlers. Yanoun is where Avri Ran's zionist Hilltop Youth made a name for themselves by chasing out the entire population with threats and attacks, except for two old people who were too sick to move.

Frankly, at this point, I no longer have any clue who is supposed to be working for who, on whose side, or to what purpose. Her last Twitter update says:

"CIA agent, rabid feminist / Muslim lover, a Christian fundamentalist, flat [Swedish slang meaning "dyke"] & fatally in love with a man, can you even be all the time?"

I take it that is in response to what people are saying about her online. But is she saying she is "fatally in love" with Assange? Still? Or is it meant ironically, in the same way as "CIA agent."?

EDIT: Yeah, thanks Stefano, I couldn't figure out why Tarpley was being cited as if he was an honest or reliable source either.

[nathan28]

Sun 31 Dec 2006 : Doing the pentagon poker
All who spend time in the spy world soon come to the view that the rest of the population lives their life in a sea fog as a tiny piece of cork buffeted by a vast ocean of concealed truth. True enough, but economics and scientific progress still dominates the spy world as every black budget bureaucrat finds to their classified horror when budget time arrives and they 'do the Pentagon poker'.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org/

good find, t-dawg.

---

I'm stepping into the RI DMZ for a moment to bring up two laughable cables (like the crashed drone cable, but without the int'l incident factor)

First up:

saudi_parties.png

"OMG, did you know that there are Muslims who consume alcohol? And that rich Saudi kids smoke hash and blow lines at parties? I thought they were all shar'ia-crazed loons! OMG!"


Then:

Just three months after this cable went out, the same embassy would be siezed and hostages held if I read the date right. For a year and a half. Gosh, do you think they did anything wrong in the hostage negotiations?

Also, check out the bit about how fealty to "Allah" keeps the Yazdi from realizing that 'actions have consequences'. I presume he means Yazdani, i.e., a non-Muslim or heterodox Muslim Kurd.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/1979/08/79TEHRAN8980.html

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEHRAN 08980

E.O. 12065: GDS 8/12/85 (TOMSETH, VICTOR L.) OR-P
TAGS: PEPR IR
SUBJECT: NEGOTIATIONS

¶1. (C - ENTIRE TEXT).

¶2. INTRODUCTION: RECENT NEGOTIATIONS IN WHICH THE
EMBASSY HAS BEEN INVOLVED HERE, RANGING FROM COMPOUND
SECURITY TO VISA OPERATIONS TO GTE TO THE SHERRY CASE,
HIGHLIGHT SEVERAL SPECIAL FEATURES OF CONDUCTING
BUSINESS IN THE PERSIAN ENVIRONMENT. IN SOME INSTANCES
THE DIFFICULTIES WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED ARE A PARTIAL
REFLECTION ON THE EFFECTS OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION,
BUT WE BELIEVE THE UNDERLYING CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
QUALITIES THAT ACCOUNT FOR THE NATURE OF THESE DIFFICULTIES
ARE AND WILL REMAIN RELATIVELY CONSTANT. THEREFORE,
WE SUGGEST THAT THE FOLLOWING ANALYSIS BE USED TO BRIEF
BOTH USG PERSONNEL AND PRIVATE SECTOR REPRESENTATIVES
WHO ARE REQUIRED TO DO BUSINESS WITH AND IN THIS
COUNTRY. END INTRODUCTION.

¶3. PERHAPS THE SINGLE DOMINANT ASPECT OF THE PERSIAN
PSYCHE IS AN OVERRIDING EGOISM. ITS ANTECEDENTS LIE
IN THE LONG IRANIAN HISTORY OF INSTABILITY AND INSECURITY
WHICH PUT A PREMIUM ON SELF-PRESERVATION. THE PRACTICAL
EFFECT OF IT IS AN ALMOST TOTAL PERSIAN PREOCCUPATION
WITH SELF AND LEAVES LITTLE ROOM FOR UNDERSTANDING POINTS
OF VIEW OTHER THAN ONE'S OWN. THUS, FOR EXAMPLE, IT
IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO AN IRANIAN THAT U.S. IMMIGRATION
LAW MAY PROHIBIT ISSUING HIM A TOURIST VISA WHEN HE HAS
DETERMINED THAT HE WANTS TO LIVE IN CALIFORNIA.
SIMILARLY, THE IRANIAN CENTRAL BANK SEES NO INCONSISTENCY
IN CLAIMING FORCE MAJEURE TO AVOID PENALTIES FOR LATE
PAYMENT OF INTEREST DUE ON OUTSTANDING LOANS WHILE THE
GOVERNMENT OF WHICH IT IS A PART IS DENYING THE VAILIDITY
OF THE VERY GROUNDS UPON WHICH THE CLAIM IS MADE WHEN
CONFRONTED BY SIMILAR CLAIMS FROM FOREIGN FIRMS FORCED
TO CEASE OPERATIONS DURING THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION.

¶4. THE REVERSE OF THIS PARTICULAR PSYCHOLOGICAL COIN,
AND HAVING THE SAME HISTORICAL ROOTS AS PERSIAN EGOISM,
IS A PERVASIVE UNEASE ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE WORLD IN
WHICH ONE LIVES. THE PERSIAN EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN THAT
NOTHING IS PERMANENT AND IT IS COMMONLY PERCEIVED THAT
HOSTILE FORCES ABOUND. IN SUCH AN ENVIRONMENT EACH
INDIVIDUAL MUST BE CONSTANTLY ALERT FOR OPPORTUNITIES
TO PROTECT HIMSELF AGAINST THE MALEVOLENT FORCES THAT
WOULD OTHERWISE BE HIS UNDOING. HE IS OBVIOUSLY
JUSTIFIED IN USING ALMOST ANY MEANS AVAILABLE TO EXPLOIT
SUCH OPPORTUNITIES. THIS APPROACH UNDERLIES THE SOCALLED
"BAZAAR MENTALITY" SO COMMON AMONG PERSIANS, A
MIND-SET THAT OFTEN IGNORES LONGER TERM INTERESTS IN
FAVOR OF IMMEDIATELY OBTAINABLE ADVANTAGES AND COUNTENANCES
PRACTICES THAT ARE REGARDED AS UNETHICAL BY OTHER
NORMS. AN EXAMPLE IS THE SEEMINGLY SHORTSIGHTED AND
HARASSING TACTICS EMPLOYED BY THE PGOI IN ITS NEGOTIATIONS
WITH GTE.

¶5. COUPLED WITH THESE PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS IS A
GENERAL INCOMPREHENSION OF CASUALITY. ISLAM, WITH ITS
EMPHASIS ON THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD, APPEARS TO ACCOUNT
AT LEAST IN MAJOR PART FOR THIS PHENOMENON. SOMEWHAT
SURPRISINGLY, EVEN THOSE IRANIANS EDUCATED IN THE
WESTERN STYLE AND PERHAPS WITH LONG EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE
IRAN ITSELF FREQUENTLY HAVE DIFFICULTY GRASPING THE
INTER-RELATIONSHIP OF EVENTS. WITNESS A YAZDI RESISTING
THE IDEA THAT IRANIAN BEHAVIOR HAS CONSEQUENCES ON THE
PERCEPTION OF IRAN IN THE U.S. OR THAT THIS PERCEPTION
IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO AMERICAN POLICIES REGARDING
IRAN. THIS SAME QUALITY ALSO HELPS EXPLAIN PERSIAN
AVERSION TO ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE'S OWN
ACTIONS. THE DEUS EX MACHINA IS ALWAYS AT WORK.

¶6. THE PERSIAN PROCLIVITY FOR ASSUMING THAT TO SAY
SOMETHING IS TO DO IT FURTHER COMPLICATES MATTERS.
AGAIN, YAZDI CAN EXPRESS SURPRISE WHEN INFORMED THAT THE
IRREGULAR SECURITY FORCES ASSIGNED TO THE EMBASSY REMAIN
IN PLACE. "BUT THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TOLD ME THEY
WOULD GO BY MONDAY," HE SAYS. AN MFA OFFICIAL REPORTS
THAT THE SHERRY CASE IS "90 PERCENT SOLVED," BUT WHEN
A CONSULAR OFFICER INVESTIGATES HE DISCOVERS THAT NOTHING
HAS CHANGED. THERE IS NO RECOGNITION THAT INSTRUCTIONS
MUST BE FOLLOWED UP, THAT COMMITMENTS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED
BY ACTION AND RESULTS.

¶6. FINALLY, THERE ARE THE PERSIAN CONCEPTS OF INFLUENCE
AND OBLIGATION. EVERYONE PAYS OBEISANCE TO THE FORMER
AND THE LATTER IS USUALLY HONORED IN THE BREACH.
PERSIANS ARE CONSUMED WITH DEVELOPING PARTI BAZI--THE
INFLUENCE THAT WILL HELP GET THINGS DONE--WHILE FAVORS
ARE ONLY GRUDGINGLY BESTOWED AND THEN JUST TO THE
EXTENT THAT A TANGIBLE QUID PRO QUO IS IMMEDIATELY
PRECEPTIBLE. FORGET ABOUT ASSISTANCE PROFERRED LAST
YEAR OR EVEN LAST WEEK; WHAT CAN BE OFFERED TODAY?

¶7. THERE ARE SEVERAL LESSONS FOR THOSE WHO WOULD NEGOTIATE
WITH PERSIANS IN ALL THIS:

- --FIRST, ONE SHOULD NEVER ASSUME THAT HIS SIDE OF
THE ISSUE WILL BE RECOGNIZED, LET ALONE THAT IT WILL
BE CONCEDED TO HAVE MERITS. PERSIAN PREOCCUPATION WITH
SELF PRECLUDES THIS. A NEGOTIATOR MUST FORCE RECOGNITION
OF HIS POSITION UPON HIS PERSIAN OPPOSITE NUMBER.

- --SECOND, ONE SHOULD NOT EXPECT AN IRANIAN READILY
TO PERCEIVE THE ADVANTAGES OF A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP
BASED ON TRUST. HE WILL ASSUME THAT HIS OPPOSITE
NUMBER IS ESSENTIALLY AN ADVERSARY. IN DEALING WITH
HIM HE WILL ATTEMPT TO MAXIMIZE THE BENEFITS TO HIMSELF
THAT ARE IMMEDIATELY OBTAINABLE. HE WILL BE PREPARED
TO GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL, INCLUDING
RUNNING THE RISK OF SO ALIENATING WHOEVER HE IS DEALING
WITH THAT FUTURE BUSINESS WOULD BE UNTHINKABLE, AT
LEAST TO THE LATTER.

- --THIRD, INTERLOCKING RELATIONSHIPS OF ALL ASPECTS
OF AN ISSUE MUST BE PAINSTAKINGLY, FORECEFULLY AND
REPEATEDLY DEVELOPED. LINKAGES WILL BE NEITHER READILY
COMPREHENDED NOR ACCEPTED BY PERSIAN NEGOTIATORS.

- --FOURTH, ONE SHOULD INSIST ON PERFORMANCE AS THE
SINE QUA NON AT ESH STAGE OF NEGOTIATIONS. STATEMENTS
OF INTENTION COUNT FOR ALMOST NOTHING.

- --FIFTH, CULTIVATION OF GOODWILL FOR GOODWILL'S SAKE
IS A WASTE OF EFFORT. THE OVERRIDING OBJECTIVE AT ALL
TIMES SHOULD BE IMPRESSING UPON THE PERSIAN ACROSS THE
TABLE THE MUTUALITY OF THE PROPOSED UNDERTAKINGS, HE
MUST BE MADE TO KNOW THAT A QUID PRO QUO IS INVOLVED
ON BOTH SIDES.

- --FINALLY, ONE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THE THREAT
OF BREAKDOWN IN NEGOTIATIONS AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT AND NOT
BE COWED BY THE POSSIBLITY. GIVEN THE PERSIAN
NEGOTIATOR'S CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS, HE
IS GOING TO RESIST THE VERY CONCEPT OF A RATIONAL
(FROM THE WESTERN POINT OF VIEW) NEGOTIATING PROCESS.


LAINGEN

CONFIDENTIAL

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Apparently, the guy who wrote that cable was held hostage himself for a couple of months. It probably just reinforced his opinion of "THE PERSIAN MIND." Hopefully, on his return to the US, someone told him how Caps lock works.

[Belligerent Savant]

But the biggest question I have is, why oh why is my spider sense tingling so hard my head feels like its coming off?

FWIW (very little, to anybody else) that's how I feel, as well. It's like you're presented with this delicious-looking food and told to help yourself, but there's this horrible stench emanating from it. So you take a closer look and what you see doesn't reassure you at all; on the contrary. The closer you look, the less it looks like food at all. People around you are munching happily and telling you to go ahead! it's great! and you're not only grossed out, you're starting to get scared at how oblivious they seem. You look around and thank God that there are some who appear to be as disgusted as you feel. They've smelled it and seen what you saw too, and even noticed some things that you hadn't. You and they can't stop people from eating, you can only try to warn them. But if they don't smell what you smell and see what you see, it doesn't do any good.

DITTO.

[vanlose kid]

Julian Assange should be awarded Nobel peace prize, suggests Russia
Russia urges Assange nomination in calculated dig at the US over WikiLeaks founder's detention

Luke Harding
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010 14.15 GMT

Russia called for Julian Assange to be nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.

In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate".

"Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."

Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's.

The Kremlin's initial reaction to stories dubbing Russia a corrupt "mafia state" and kleptocracy was, predictably, negative. Last week Medvedev's spokesman dubbed the revelations "not worthy of comment" while Putin raged that a US diplomatic cable comparing him to Batman and Medvedev to Robin was "arrogant" and "unethical". State TV ignored the claims.

Subsequent disclosures, however, that Nato had secretly prepared a plan in case Russia invaded its Baltic neighbours have left the Kremlin smarting. Today Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Nato had to explain why it privately considered Russia an enemy while publicly describing it warmly as a "strategic partner" and ally.

Nato should make clear its position on WikiLeaks cables published by the Guardian alleging that the alliance had devised plans to defend Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia against Russia, Lavrov said.

"With one hand, Nato seeks agreement with us on joint partnership, and with the other, it makes a decision that it needs to defend. So when is Nato more sincere?" Lavrov asked today. "We have asked these questions and are expecting answers to them. We think we are entitled to that."

Lavrov said his attitude towards the leaked US state department cables was "philosophical". "It is interesting to read, including what ambassadors write to provide a stream of information to their capitals," he admitted.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's hardline ultra-nationalist ambassador to Nato, also today voiced his support for the embattled Assange. He tweeted that Assange's arrest and incarceration on Monday at the City of Westminster magistrates' court demonstrated that there was "no media freedom" in the west. Assange's "fate" amounted to "political persecution" and a lack of human rights, the ambassador said.

In London, meanwhile, Russia's chargé d'affaires and acting ambassador in the UK, Alexander Sternik, said relations with Britain had improved since the coalition came to power. He complained, however, about the hostile reaction in the British media after Fifa's executive committee voted that Russia – and not England – should host the 2018 World Cup.

In a briefing to journalists this morning, Sternik said: "While the English bid was technically a strong one, the Russian bid was in line with the well-known Fifa philosophy of opening new frontiers for world football. The vote result was therefore quite logical, and while the disappointment of many in England is understandable, the media outrage was a step too far. It's not cricket, as the English say."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/de ... eace-prize

*

[barracuda]

Why Assange and Wikileaks have won this round

2010 December 8

by Ian Welsh

The odd thing about Wikileaks is that their success has been assured, not by what they leaked, though there is some important information there, but by their enemies.

The massive and indiscriminant overreaction by both government and powerful corporate actors has ensured this, and includes but is not nearly limited to:

Shutting down Wikileaks servers, starting with the Amazon server
Stopping domain name server propagation
Paypal refusing to send payments
VISA and Mastercard refusing to process payments
The Swiss Bank PostFinance shutting down Assange’s account
Senator Lieberman pressuring firms over Wikileaks
The odd behavior of prosecutors in the Assange rape accusations/case

Wikileaks and Assange have now been made in to cause celebres. If corporations and governments can destroy someone’s access to the modern economy as they have Wikileaks, without even pretending due process of the law (Paypal, VISA, Mastercard, Amazon, etc… were not ordered by any court to cut Wikileaks) then we simply do not live in a free society of law, let alone a society of justice.

Ironically the Wikileaks files reveal that the British fixed their inquiry into the war, and that the US pressured the Spanish government to stop a war crimes court case against ex-members of the Bush administration. Assange and Wikileaks are subject to extreme judicial and extrajudicial sanctions, but people who engaged in aggressive war based on lies, tortured people and are responsible for deaths well into the six figures, walk free.

To be just, law must be applied to both the big and the small. Thousands of executives at banks who engaged in systematic fraud were never charged, out and out war criminals are actively protected, and Wikileaks and Assange are hunted like animals?

This has enraged, in particular, the Hacktivist community, with Anonymous forming Operation Payback and shutting down both Mastercard servers and the Swiss Bank PostFinance’s website. As they themselves say, what enraged them was multiple companies attempting to shut Wikileaks down, both on the web, and financially.

While there is no comparison between what Assange has done and what happened on 9/11 (his actions are those of a free press), the rabid and indiscrimant overreaction of the the US in particular and the West in general is similar. And what it has done is make Assange into a martyr, an icon for freedom of speech and a symbol of politically motivated repression. It has done the same for Wikileaks and made Wikileaks a cause celebre.

It has proved that the West is run by authoritarian thugs with completely twisted priorities. Kill hundreds of thousands of people and engage in aggressive war? No big deal. Cause the greatest economic collapse of the post-war period sending millions into poverty? We couldn’t possibly prosecute the people who did that, but we will give them trillions! Reveal our petty secrets and lies, and that we know the war in Afghanistan is lost, have known for years and continue to kill both Afghanis and our own soldiers pointlessly? We WILL destroy you, no matter what we have to do.

Which leads us to the rape charges against Assange. Given what we know right now about the case against him, it appears that is going to come down to he said/she said. Unless the Swedish prosecutors have a smoking gun, even if Assange is convicted, most of his supporters will never believe the case wasn’t at the least heavily tainted by political pressure, and at worst, a set up. And if he is extradited from Sweden to the US to face some sort of charges, the howling will reach the high heavens. He will be a martyr for the cause. The more he is persecuted, the more many will rally around both him, and his child, Wikileaks.

Because of the massive overreaction to Wikileaks, the case against him is completely tainted. He might be guilty as sin, but justice can no longer be seen to be done, because it is far too evident that too many powerful people, corporations and governments want him taken out.

And so he has won. Whether he winds up free, in prison in Sweden or the US, or winds up dead, he has won this round. He will be a martyr and an icon, and his child, Wikileaks, whether it lives or dies, will become a rallying point and a symbol of how corrupt and unjust western society is.

.

[JackRiddler]

.

COUPLED WITH THESE PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS IS A
GENERAL INCOMPREHENSION OF CASUALITY.

Everybody: Is your Spidey Sense not tingling? Anyone?


Spidey has not yet seen the Vulture.

Mine certainly is. Lots of unknown big stuff going on here.

The problem is not necessarily that one proceeds to speculate toward one's a priori conclusions based on Spidey Sense. For all we know, one might succeed in confirming them through evidentiary discovery, or at least supporting them well enough to make a good argument. The problem really kicks in when one systematically re-fits all facts, or twists them, or just makes them up, or fills in all unknowns as desired to confirm one's a priori conclusions based on Spidey Sense. (Thanks for dealing with Tarpley/Jones, stefano!)

When metaphors about rotten food then start substituting for argument altogether, you achieve the level of blind invincibility.

Meanwhile, thanks to tazmic, above, this morning I discovered that someone I'd heard much about without reading very much he'd published in his own name is, if nothing else -- or if everything else -- a writer of some talent and insight.

But not the greatest typist:

Wed 29 Aug 2007 : Iirrationality in argument

The truth is not found on the page, but is a wayward sprite that bursts forth from the readers mind for reasons of its own. I once thought that the Truth was a set comprised of all the things that were true, and the big truth could be obtained by taking all its component propositions and evaluating them until nothing remained. I would approach my rhetorical battles as a logical reductionist, tearing down, atomizing, proving, disproving, discarding falsehoods and reassembling truths until the Truth was pure, golden and unarguable. But then, when truth matters most, when truth is the agent of freedom, I stood before Justice and with truth, lost freedom. Here was something fantastical, unbelievable and impossible, you could prove that (A => B) and (B => C) and (C => D) and (D => F) Justice would nod its head and agree, but then, when you turned to claim your coup de grace, A => F irrevocably, Justice would demur and revoke the axiom of transitivity, for Justice will not be told when F stands for freedom. Transitivity is evoked when Justice imagines F and finding the dream a pleasurable one sets about gathering cushions to prop up their slumber. Here then is the truth about the Truth; the Truth is not bridge, sturdy to every step, a marvel of bound planks and supports from the known into the unknown, but a surging sea of smashed wood, flotsam and drowning sailors. So first, always pick your poetic metaphor, to make the reader want to believe, then the facts, and -- miracle! -- transitivity will descend from heaven, invoked as justification for prejudice.

Often we suffer to read, "But if we believe X then we'll have to...", or "If we believe X it will lead to...". This has no reflection on the veracity of X and so we see that outcomes are treated with more reverence than the Truth. It stings us, but natural selection has spun its ancestral yarns from physically realized outcomes, robustly eschewing the vapor thread of platonism as an abomination against the natural order, fit only for the gossip of monks and the page.

Yet just as we feel all hope is lost and we sink back into the miasma, back to the shadow world of ghosts and gods, a miracle arises; everywhere before the direction of self interest is known, people yearn to see where its compass points and then they hunger for truth with passion and beauty and insight. He loves me. He loves me not. Here then is the truth to set them free. Free from the manipulations and constraints of the mendacious. Free to choose their path, free to remove the ring from their noses, free to look up into the infinite voids and choose wonder over whatever gets them though. And before this feeling to cast blessings on the profits and prophets of truth, on the liberators and martyrs of truth, on the Voltaires, Galileos, and Principias of truth, on the Gutenburgs, Marconis and Internets of truth, on those serial killers of delusion, those brutal, driven and obsessed miners of reality, smashing, smashing, smashing every rotten edifice until all is ruins and the seeds of the new.

Is that what they teach at the MK-Ultra Cult School?

The next few entries read as follows:

Sat 16 Jun 2007 : Nataliya

Did I ever tell you about the time Nataliya took me out to go get a drink with her? We go off looking for a bar and we can't find one. Finally Nataliya takes me to a vacant lot and says, 'Here we are.' We sat there for a year and a half, until sure enough, someone constructs a bar around us. Well, the day they opened we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Nataliya yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found 'em!'

(with apologies)
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Sat 16 Jun 2007 : Everyone and no one wants to save the world

When the world extended to one's surrounding hills and mountains and over them was only legend, saving the world was approchable and a natural activity to all of independent character.

You do not need to justify the possession of these noble instincts. Such attributes are normally distributed. You have a constellation of these attributes and that makes you who you are. Recognise that the substantial ones are invariant.

You must satisfy your invariant instincts or you will be at odds with your own character. It is only when we are not at odds with our basic makeup that we can find life meaningful.

To exercise your instinct for saving the world, requires saving what you perceive to be the world.

Being modern, educated and wordly, the world you perceive is immense and this is disempowering compared to the valley world of your ancestors where your feelings were forged and where saving 10 people saved 10% of the "world"'s population.

Here lays the difficulty in actualising your character. Your perception is of a world so vast that that you can not envisage your actions making a meaningful difference.

People try to fool themselves and others into believing that one can ``think globally and act locally', however to anyone with a sense of proportion (not most people, btw) thinking globaly makes acting locally seem to be a marginal activity. It's not setting the world to rights.

To meaningfully interact with the world, you have to either constrain your perception of what it is back to valley proportions by eschewing all global information (most of us here have engaged on just the opposite course which is what has provoked this discussion), losing your sense of perspective, or start seriously engaging with the modern perception of the world.

That latter path can be hard to find, because it is only satisfied by creating ideas or inventions that have a global impact. Perhaps I have found one, and there's others out there, but for most people of your character a combination of eschewing knowledge of those parts of the world they can't change, and robust engagement with the parts they can is probably optimal.

Do not be concerned about when one is to do good, who defines good, etc. Act in the way you do because to do otherwise would to be at odds would to be at odds with yourself. Being on a path true to your character carries with it a state of flow, where the thoughts about your next step come upon waking, unbidden, but welcome.

I support similarly minded people, not because they are moral agents, but because they have common cause with my own feelings and dreams.
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Sat 09 Jun 2007 : The United what of America?

It has been frequently noted that many corporations exceed nation states in GDP. It has been less frequently noted that some also exceed them in population (employees).

But it is odd that the comparison hasn't been taken further. Since so many live in the state of the corporation, let us take the comparison seriously and ask the following question. What kind of states are giant corporations?

In comparing countries, after the easy observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations.

The corporation as a nation state has the following properties:

- Suffrage (the right to vote) does not exist except for land holders ("share holders") and even there voting power is in proportion to land ownership.
- All executive power flows from a central committee. Female representation is almost unknown.
- There is no division of powers. There is no forth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.
- Failure to submit to any order can result in instant exile.
- There is no freedom of speech. There is no right of association. Love is forbidden without state approval.
- The economy is centrally planned.
- There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.
- The society is heavily regulated and this regulation is enforced, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can goto the toilet.
- There is almost no transparency and something like the FOIA is unimaginable.
- The state has one party. Opposition groups (unions) are banned, surveilled or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.

These large multinationals, despite having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms. Internally they mirror the most pernicious aspects of the 1960s Soviet. This even more striking when the civilising laws of region the company operates in are weak (e.g West Pupua or South Korea). There one can see the behavior of these new states clearly, unobscured by their surroundings.

If small business and non-profits are eliminated from the US, then what's left? Some kind of federation of Communist states.

A United Soviet of America.
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Fri 13 Apr 2007 : Kurt Vonnegut dies

Kurt Vonnegut is dead. A friend and iconoclast, he died last night aged 85. Vonnegut was the author of over 20 books, including "Slaughter House Five", written about his experiences as a PoW during the Dresden firebombing. On the night of the firebombing, 30,000 civilians were burnt to death and most of Dresden's buildings were destroyed. Vonnegut hid with other PoWs in a slaughterhouse basement.

Five years ago, I spent the winter exploring the former East German town. I learnt that Australian Army hiking boots are good to minus 7 degrees, but at minus 8, heat flows out of the soles. I learnt that every major building in Dresden, from the Opera House to the Dresden Museum, was a socialist re-construction. I learnt that for even for a whole city the essential can be invisible to the eye.

As a successful author Vonnegut sometimes pushed whimsy into self- indulgence, fueled by a cult following in the the youth movement of the United States, which, lacking other role models or serious tasks, anointed him a genius. Yet in "Slaughter House Five", this confidence and littery flexibility gave Vonnegut what he needed to reveal a major allied atrocity to a generation that was sick of hearing stories about the war. This book seeded the belief system of a generation that would eventually react against similar atrocities inflicted on the Vietnamese.

Here is part of an an excellent longer interview with Vonnegut on Australian Radio last year. Even in this fragment Kurt's acuity and character shine.

ABC mp3 recording
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Tue 13 Mar 2007 : Do electric sheep dream of f16's?

In the morning, the call to prayer rises from mosque to citadel, the sun lights the haze into a furnace, glowing and aglow, casting long golden shadows into dusty streets, where swallows swoop on blinking gendarmes, while above them young girls water roof top sheep and pigeon boys climb their hutches to wave great checkered flags at distant points in the sky.
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Mon 26 Feb 2007 : Decisions made by a group reflect its membership

Insofar as our decisions are an expression of who we are, we must make sure that we do not lack courage. Insofar as we want a full range of intellectual opinions, we must have the courage to accept the full range of emotional inclinations that lay behind them.
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Mon 26 Feb 2007 : Average shy intellectuals

X is an "average shy intellectual" and in that is a sounding for characters of his type. This type is often of a noble heart, wilted by fear of conflict with authority. The power of their intellect and noble instincts may lead them to a courageous position, where they see the need to take up arms, but their instinctive fear of authority then motivates them to find rationalizations to avoid conflict.

Much more at http://web.archive.org/web/200710200519 ... ://iq.org/

.

[AlicetheKurious]

you don't attempt to rebut anything in the Marshall article, and in response post a link to an interview and call it "informative" because it, erm, says want you want it to say.

You're right. Actually I did write a long 'rebuttal' starting yesterday and continuing today but after working on it and working on it I just felt this wave of tiredness and futility so I deleted it. I couldn't believe I'd wasted so much time and effort on dissecting a truly insignificant, essentially vacuous article. I'm getting very close to not giving a sh*t anymore, not least because I'm reassured that those (especially in targeted countries) who most need to know what Wikileaks is, already do.

Believe what you want to believe: Soros is just a banker who happens to be a major investor in Mossad-linked espionage firms and whose 'philanthropic' institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy (famous for staging "color revolutions" in countries whose governments are not subservient to Western interests), the Open Society Institute and Freedom House promote democracy world-wide and even in the United States. Mark Stephens, employed by Soros' Open Society Institute, now representing Assange is just a coincidence, as is the alleged preponderance of Soros-linked individuals on the board of Wikileaks -- I say "alleged" because it's been reported but not corroborated or refuted, as far as I know. Wikileaks is not a psyops, because writings attributed to Assange are nice. We know Wikileaks are not a psyop because psyops don't involve things like misdirection and lies and fabrications to make people think that they're fighting for their "freedom" when they're really being manipulated into building the walls of their own cages. Wikileaks does not provide pretexts for (among other things) warmongering and a full-blown government attack on internet freedom.

Aaagh! I'm doing it again. I should have just stopped at "believe what you want to believe". Unlike the previous one, I'm posting this anyway just because I wasted time writing it. Whatever.

[seemslikeadream]

believe what you want to believe

[undead]

An Exclusive Interview with Julian Assange on the Eve of His Arrest

WikiLeaks Founder Denies Accusations, Says It’s Fascinating to See the Tentacles of the Corrupt American Elite

By Natalia Viana
Opera Mundi, translated by Narco News

December 7, 2010

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, gave an exclusive interview to Brazilian journalist Natalia Viana of the online publication Opera Mundi on Monday. (Viana, 2004 graduate of Narco News’ School of Authentic Journalism, now is co-chair, with Bill Conroy, of its investigative journalism program.) Assange didn’t hide his irritation at the freezing of his Swiss bank account (on the pretext of his having registered it at a local address while he does not reside in a European country) and with other actions taken against his organization since it published embarrassing documents from US Embassies.

Assange was preparing to turn himself in to British police, who arrested him in London this morning. Assange is accused of sexual crimes in Sweden. The accusation isn’t very clear and includes charges of having unprotected sex with two women while he was in Stockholm giving a speech. On November 18 Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant with the objective of interrogating him for “reasonable suspicion of rape, sexual and coercive aggression.” The WikiLeaks founder faces a hearing in the Westminster court in the central region of London, where it will be decided if he will be extradited to Sweden.

Natalia Viana: What is the accusation against you and how do you feel about your imminent arrest?

Julian Assange: There are many accusations. The most serious is that I and our people have committed espionage against the United States. This is false. There is also a so-called “rape” investigation from Sweden. This is false and will go away once the facts come out, but is being used to attack our reputation in the meantime.

Viana: Regarding the accusation of espionage, have there been any legal charges filed?

Assange: It is a formal investigation involving the heads of the FBI, CIA, and the US Attorney General and so on. Australia is also conducting a similar “whole of government” investigation and assisting the United States. One of the alleged sources, Bradley Manning (US soldier accused of being WikiLeaks’ source), sits in solitary confinement in a prison cell in Virginia. He faces 52 years if convicted on all charges.

Viana: What is the difference between what WikiLeaks does and espionage?

Assange: WikiLeaks receives material from whistleblowers (persons who denounce wrongdoing in the organizations in which they work) and journalists and makes it public. Espionage would require us to actively take material and give it deliberately to a foreign power.

Viana: In the Sweden case, what do the women allege?

Assange: They say that I had consensual sex. The case was dropped within 12 hours when the chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, read the interviews. Then it was picked back up again after political involvements. The whole thing is very disturbing. They just froze my Swiss bank account, my defense fund.

Viana: On what basis?

Assange: They do claim I was putting them in danger. But there is nothing to suggest that. And, in any case, it’s false.

Viana: What is your opinion about the freezing of your money transfers by the business PayPal, and that Amazon removed your site? How do you see those acts?

Assange: It is fascinating to see the tentacles of the corrupt American elite. In some ways, seeing the reaction is as important as the material we have released. PayPal and Amazon froze our accounts for political reasons. With PayPal, 70,000 euros were frozen. With our defense fund, that was 31,000 euros.

Viana: What do they allege?

Assange: They say that we were conducting “illegal activities,” and that clearly is untrue. More, they are echoing the accusations of (US Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton about publishing embarrassing US government documents. However, the head of the Senate Committee for Homeland Security bragged to the press about how he had called Amazon and demanded they shut us down.

Assange: What is WikiLeaks doing to defend itself from the freezing of its donations?

Assange: We have lost 100,000 euros this week alone as a result of the freezing of our assets. We have accounts in other banks – in Iceland and Germany, for example, that the public can still use. We have a website. We also accept credit card donations.

Viana: What more is WikiLeaks doing to defend itself?

Assange: We are counting on a diversity of support from good people. We have more than 350 websites in the world that are reproducing our content. We value that more than anything.

http://narconews.com/Issue67/article4273.html

[vanlose kid]

Jack, tazmic, thanks for the tip. had to post this:

Wed 20 Dec 2006 : black hawk down, white wash up

Something worth noting about the unusual relative power of community building islamist movements when operating against well funded US led democracy wagons as evidenced by the recent victories of the Somali UIC; the promise of better shopping does not move the heart to the great acts of love or sacrifice required in war. "Democracy" is a difficult abstraction that is easily abused (try drawing it). It is a means to an end, not the end itself. There's no instinctive desire for democracy. Consider the US Declaration of Independence (1776), a document which is the distillation of psychological forces which drove men to civil war and kept them there. What are those forces?

...God.. Creator.. Men are created equal... Life, Liberty,... pursuit of Happiness.. Safety and Happiness... [followed by 26(!) paragraphs of hatred for the abuses of King George].

In other words, religious feeling (x2), equality, life, liberty, happiness (x2), safety and above all, an extreme hatred for the brutal acts, preferment, and corruption of foreign influenced or controlled government.


Not once does democracy or shopping appear.

This doesn't bode well for the Iraqi provisional authority -- at least the British spoke the same language.

*