Wiki-Leaks and plausible lies - Where have all the critical thinkers gone?
by Joe Quinn
Global Research, December 6, 2010
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=22275
excerpt:
While the revelations in the Wiki-leaks documents about the true nature of the US government and its imperial attitude towards other nations are welcome, I find myself in the strange position of having to agree with Hillary Clinton, David Cameron et al that the leaks won't affect anyone's relations with anyone.
Our leaders are an inherently hypocritical bunch and over the past 10 years, even the most uninformed have come to understand that our leaders have a definite tendency to say one thing and do another. Who doubts that such hardened politicians fully understand that lying to each other is par for the course in the sordid game of modern global governance? As such, why should the public be overly surprised to see confirmation of this in the Wiki-leaks documents? Entertained and even intrigued, but surprised?
I am not saying that there is no value in certain aspects of the documents themselves to the extent that they provide a chance to disseminate government corruption and mendacity to a wide audience, but titillating details such as Gadaffi's buxom 'nurse' is nothing new and, much more importantly, such details are by no means the main focus of the documents themselves.
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran...
The Wiki-leaks documents need to be considered in a broader context. By all means, alternative news sites should continue to expose American, British and any another government inequity that the documents reveal. But where is the criticism of the rest of the documents that confirm the standard Israeli/American narrative - that Iran poses 'an existentialist threat' to Israel and to 'moderate' Arab states?
Does anyone care that these documents clearly support US and Israeli war-mongering? Does anyone else find that to be astonishing? Where is the critical thought?
The problem is that, when the dust has settled (as it soon will) over all-too-familiar US government attempts to spy on UN officials and the pusillanimity of the British government assuring the Americans that their Iraq invasion inquiry would have a pro-US bias, we will be left with some core details which, far from being refuted or covered up, are being accepted as fact. Details such as:
Iran is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East. This is a blatant lie as every alternative, anti-war analyst who has studied the facts has declared vociferously for years now. And suddenly, with a widely publicized leak, the mainstream media wants to try and shove it down our throats again? Because it is a "leak" and Assange is being "hunted down" like Osama bin Under-the-bed? What kind of truth has ever gotten this kind of press in all the years since the Fascist take-over by the unelected G.W. Bush?
Iran received missile technology from North Korea that may enable it to attack Europe in a few years. That's pure propaganda, and every one of you alt news analysts and commentators know that. Iran is making its own missiles and, in any case, Iran is entitled to defend itself. You've all been saying that for years, based on hard data and researched facts. All of a sudden, a leak appears and the mainstream media wants to convince us otherwise? And you compare it to Watergate? Did you read Fletcher Prouty's expose on Watergate, how many of the documents were created and planted to be leaked because they served the agenda of the PTB?
Middle Eastern leaders want the US and Israel to attack Iran. How can this not been seen as further US and Israeli propaganda? And what Middle Eastern country in its right mind would want that considering that the entire area will be unfit for human habitation for years afterward?
Tehran used Red Cross ambulances to smuggle arms to Hizb'allah during its war against Israel in 2006 . Even if true, Iran is entitled to help the Lebanese defend themselves against Israeli aggression just like UK helped the U.S. attack Iraq and Afghanistan. Haven't all of you people been saying this for years now?
Iran harbors 'al Qaeda'. Why would this be seen as anything other than more of the tired old US 'al-qaeda' imaginings designed to scare the masses, at home and abroad?
Iran could produce an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States by 2015. And Saddam could 'hit the UK in 45 minutes', remember?
Pakistan continues to support the 'Mumbai terror attack group'. Why no details of David Headley, the CIA agent who planned the Mumbai attacks and who, according to the CIA, 'went rogue'? Again, yeah, right!
And let's not forget previous Wiki-leaks 'dumps' of data, which included nuggets of US and Israeli government nonsense like Iraq really did have WMDs! And there you were thinking that the WMD business was a total lie! Well, guess again, thanks to some of the Wiki-leaks documents, we now know that the US was totally justified in invading Iraq and killing 1.5 million innocent civilians. And if that isn't enough for ya, then just remember...9/11! Bin Laden (who is alive and well according to previous Wiki-leaks documents) killed about 3,000 Americans that day, which leaves the US and Iraq just about even (500 Iraqi lives being equal to one American life). And don't go spouting any spurious conspiracy theories, because Mr Assange is annoyed that such 'false conspiracies" [like 9/11] distract so many people (like you).
As Phyillis Bennis wrote recently on the Huffington Post:
"If you watched only Fox News or some of the outraged-but-gleeful mainstream pundits, you would believe that the documents prove the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and world-wide support for a military attack on Iran. If you read only the Israeli press, you would think the documents provide irrefutable proof that "the entire world is panicked over the Iranian nuclear program."
Phyillis is correct, but here's the problem: a vast number of people do watch only Fox News or one of its affiliates, and what gets said in the Israeli press is very often received with a sympathetic ear across the US media.
So why is no one contesting these very dubious and much more serious claims? These are claims that could be used to justify an attack on Iran and the murder of millions of Iranian civilians?
Yes, the US government is full of two-faced creeps who spy on friend and foe alike, and if the Wiki-leaks documents help to imprint that on the global awareness, then so much the better. But what will it change in the long run? And more importantly, at what price will come the wholesale acceptance of these documents? If, by simply referring to the precise details and the dominant discourse of the documents, I conclude that some aspects serve the goals of peace and public truth but many others serve the goals of the war-mongers in Tel Aviv and Washington, does that mean I hate Whistle-blowers and want to protect the US government? This whole thing is like the well-known ploy of the psychopath to engage the sympathy of their victim by admitting to flaws and failings - even a few seemingly painful admissions - putting the target to sleep thinking they now have the whole confession, all the while they are being set up for a really big con.
Our world is run by people who lie for a living, so let's examine the situation microcosmically and then all you have to do is extract the principle and apply it on a larger scale.
"Our culture agrees on the signs of lying. Ask anyone how to tell if someone is lying and they will tell you that they can tell by "lack of eye contact, nervous shifting, or picking at one's clothes." Psychologist Anna Salter writes with dry humor: "This perception is so widespread I have had the fantasy that, immediately upon birth, nurses must take newborns and whisper in their ears, "Eye contact. It's a sign of truthfulness." [Anna C. Salter, Ph.D.]
The problem is, if there is a psychopath - or those with related characteropathies - who doesn't know how to keep good eye contact when lying, they haven't been born. Eye contact is "universally known" to be a sign of truth-telling. The problem is liars will fake anything that it is possible to fake, so in reality, eye contact is absolutely NOT a sign of truth telling.