WikiLeaks
25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST
Summary
WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary AWD, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail.
The document collection will shortly be available on a dedicated webpage.
Added 2 more videos to this post. One is a very long interview with Assange plus a link to the transcript if you'd rather read it _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
WikiLeaks pulls off biggest intel leak in Afghan war records
Press Trust Of India
New York, July 26, 2010First Published: 09:24 IST(26/7/2010)
Last Updated: 11:16 IST(26/7/2010)
A massive set of 90,000 leaked US military records have provided one of the most revealing insights into the US-led war in Afghanistan, including unreported civilian killings by coalition forces and raids by a special force to hunt down Taliban leaders. The leaked documents called the "The War Logs," posted on Sunday, map the US war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2009, and with it WikiLeaks has pulled the biggest leaks in intelligence history.
The documents include plans of US operations, threat reports from intelligence sources, descriptions of meeting between politicians, military officials and insurgents and plans hatched by the militants.
Of particular importance are detailed descriptions of covert raids carried out by a secretive US special operations unit called 'Task Force 373' to hunt down 'high-value' Taliban targets in "kill or capture" operations without trial.
It also reveals that the special forces have targeted civilians in hundreds of incidents and some of the covert operations resulted in the killings of Afghan civilians, including children.
The current documents were made public in advance to three publications -- The New York Times, Guardian, and the German weekly Der Spiegel -— several weeks ago by the whistleblower's website.
These publications sifted through troves of documents to reveal several secrets about the war, including indications that intelligence agencies in Pakistan and Iran may be fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan.
The leaked papers document assessments by military officers that the ISI, considered an ally, may actually be supporting the Afghan insurgency.
The White House condemned the disclosures, and contended that they "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk". It also defended Pakistan's role and lauded its contribution in the war in Afghanistan.
WikiLeaks Australian founder Julian Assange told The NYT that an additional 15,000 documents would also be revealed until WikiLeaks could redact names of individuals in the reports whose safety could be jeopardised.
WikiLeaks.org, the online organisation, which was founded in 2006, says that "transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies".
"If journalism is good it is controversial by its nature," Assange told the Guardian.
He said it was the role of good journalism to take on "powerful abuses," a move that always prompts a back reaction.
He especially pointed out the existence of "Task Force 373", a US-based assassination squad that goes around killing people in a 'kill or capture list'.
In April, another video called "Collateral Murder" made in 2007 was published by WikiLeaks.
It showed American soldiers in Iraq firing on a group of people comprising Iraqi children and journalists.
The appearance of the video led to a federal probe and last month, 22-year-old military analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested by US authorities for leaking the tape and is being held in a US military detention facility in Kuwait.
James Jones, US National Security Advisor, issued a statement noting that WikiLeaks did not inform the US government about the leak, which learnt about it from the media.
"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," Jones said.
The Pentagon Papers, released in the seventies exposed how the US was conducting the war in Vietnam, were around 10,000 pages.
"In this case it will show the true nature of this war and then the public from Afghanistan and other nations can see what is really going on and take steps to address the problem," he said.
Assange pointed out that this leak is unprecedented not only because of the much greater volume of material compared to the Pentagon Papers but also due to the possibility that many more people around the world will be able to access it and comment on it because of the Internet. _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
"The leaked papers document assessments by military officers that the ISI (aka the CIA is disguise), considered an ally, may actually be supporting the Afghan insurgency."
No *, exactly what the 'truth movement' has been saying for nigh on 9 years .....
The headline for this news item should be changed to "Wikileaks used as False Flag Attack Conduit" or something similar. While the majority of the 90,000+ pages may be real the AQ planned a 9/11 attack is clearly faked and bonkers!
Fake: the plan was found in papers dated March 2009 - this seems a totally "unreal" timescale for a reason I can't place my finger on - it just does seem credible
Bonkers: AQ were expecting to use 22 suicide hijackers - since there is probably only "200 AQ operatives" in Afghanistan that would be 10% of their total manpower - that seems immensely dumb planning to me! Plus the training/rehearsal required... does not compute! Plus other reports were military reports not intelligence reports (except for the baseless Pakistan ISI reports - which I now also suspect as being planted).
Wikileaks is the perfect place to release such bonkers information: surrounded by enough real info to gain credibility but bonkers enough to destroy wikileaks credibility in the long run.
In this interview, Belfast Telegraph reporter Matthew Bell asks Wikileaks founder Julian Assange about "conspiracy theories". Assange subsequently explains his position:
His obsession with secrecy, both in others and maintaining his own, lends him the air of a conspiracy theorist. Is he one?
"I believe in facts about conspiracies," he says, choosing his words slowly.
"Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere.
There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news."
What about 9/11?
"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."
The political spinning of the WikiLeaks exposé: Antiwar whistle-blowing or war propaganda?
by Larry Chin, Online Journal, 30 July 2010
Since the release of classified US military papers by WikiLeaks, the material has been aggressively spun by various political factions. Meanwhile, virtually no attention has been devoted to investigating the source of this “leak,” or questioning the agenda behind it.
According to the Associated Press, a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that the US government is not certain who “leaked” the 91,000 documents to the online whistle-blowing web site, other than suspicion again falling on Pfc. Bradley Manning.
Unlike a previous WikiLeaks exposing the murder of Iraqi civilians in a US airstrike, nobody has been apprehended, arrested or pressured by the Pentagon, the CIA or any US agency.
The White House has expressed no intense concern. It did not block the release or deny the material. Government officials, led by President Obama, have almost casually dismissed the exposé as nothing new.
The major mainstream newspapers that had full early access to the material -- The New York Times, Der Spiegel and the Guardian -- also had ample time to frame and steer the discourse surrounding it, and (particularly in the case of the White House-friendly New York Times) conduct damage control.
Leak as antiwar fodder
The new material obviously adds to what is already known for years: US forces are mired in a dirty and horrific war, and committing atrocities and war crimes. Corruption is rampant, allies are despicable and untrustworthy, and there appears no end in sight.
For critics of US policy, the exposé reinforces their tired call for the war to end. However, the value of these particular papers (in terms of turning public opinion against the war) is questionable. This is not a potent high-level Pentagon Papers-type leak, and today’s society is a far cry from the 1970s.
Today’s acquiescent, ignorant and grossly manipulated mass populace -- one that fully embraces and supports the manufactured “war on terrorism” -- wholeheartedly supports any and all means to “prevent another 9/11.” A decade of Bush-Cheney criminality and mass murder failed to trigger any interest from a general US population that has been shocked into servitude, and further brain-addled by ubiquitous corporate right-wing media. Another day, another massacre.
Leak as imperial war propaganda
Where the WikiLeaks papers gain significance is in the detail revealed about the operations of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and, more specifically, the manner in which leading government figures and the media have interpreted these items.
The ISI is being accused of “undercutting” US operations, “conspiring with’ and aiding the “powerfully resurgent” Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, aiding the killing of US forces, and organizing “networks of militants” across the region. An all-out propaganda attack against Pakistan led by the White House is underway.
Essentially, Pakistan is being branded as a terrorist state and a worthy target of military attack, along with Iran, which is also fingered by the WikiLeaks’ leaks for backing Taliban militants within Afghanistan.
Hamid Gul, former ISI chief and major regional player, accuses the US of orchestrating the exposé to shift attention away from the US government’s “own failings,” in order to “force Pakistan’s hand on policy in Afghanistan.”
According to Gul “they [the Americans] want to bash Pakistan, at this time to come up with this leak. I refuse to believe it is not on purpose.”
The Obama administration, eager for a pretext to escalate the Central Asia/Middle East (resource) war into Pakistan and Iran, has certainly found ammunition with the WikiLeaks exposé.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the “leak” occurred just prior to a new $33 billion/30,000 troop surge for Afghanistan was approved by the US House, and ahead of a possible military attack on Iran, which former CIA Director Michael Hayden says is “inexorable”.
The glaring omission
As accusations and attacks on Pakistan and its “terrorist ISI” rise in intensity, not one mainstream media report mentions the fact that the ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA, and one that operates on behalf of Anglo-American policy.
It is fact that the ISI, with full Anglo-American direction, has long been a driving force behind “Islamic militants” and “terrorists” throughout the world, including “Al-Qaeda.” The CIA and ISI have cooperatively fomented instability and tension throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, playing all sides for geostrategic gain. This “strategy of tension” is one of the hallmarks of the “war on terrorism.” The ISI was also directly involved with the false flag operation of 9/11.
According to Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization, “The ISI actively collaborates with the CIA. It continues to perform the role of a ‘go-between’ in numerous intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA. The ISI directly supports and finances a number of terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda.”
If the ISI is responsible for terrorism, the funding and aiding of “Islamic militants,” and the killing of US forces, logic dictates that its big brethren -- the CIA and officials in Washington -- are also guilty and involved.
The manner in which the ISI is under fire, while omitting any mention of the ISI’s guiding superiors in Washington, speaks to a deliberate anti-Pakistan/pro-US bias.
Whose political weapon?
Until the source of this WikiLeaks is revealed, along with the motive for the “leak,” all that remains is a political Rorschach test, open to interpretation.
The ultimate beneficiary is whatever faction controls the interpretation.
In the end, only Pakistan and Iran have been politically damaged, while the Obama administration has a new pretext to escalate and intensify its continuing resource war.
Anyone must wonder to the apparent MSM coverage of Assange
Not to mention face everywhere _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
The guy is a walking money making opperation. He isn't interested in "truth", he's interested in "the money". Other than the Collateral Murder tapes what has wikileaks published other than this? Just useless information!
What more proof do people need, when the guy appears in an Economist interview?
If this had been REAL secret info, that the state didn't want published, D notices would have gone out. Failing that people would have been arrested! Failing that, they would have had nasty accidents.
When did any of these newspapers launch investigations into the truth behind 9/11? Most people in the mainstream media knows about the gapping holes in the official narratives behind 9/11, 7/7, Bali and Madrid but they will not touch with a barge pole! The owners would sake them! Which begs the question, why do three rival newspapers, in three allied NATO countries, owned by similar corporatocracy elites publish this???
Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere.
There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two.
Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news.
I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.
The statement above is so subtly manipulative (conspiracy with facts=news, 9/11=false conspiracy) that I will dare to speculate Assange is a controlled asset.
How do we know the leaks are not controlled?
We don't.
How grave was the latest 'super' leak?
Surely it's hurtful to Anglo-American imperialism, but the handlers may have decided it's worth the price if they can create a credible figure that decides what is and what is not a government conspiracy.
The strategy would have been simple but effective: build Assange's credibility with a first emotional leak (helicopters executing 10 civilians).
Then, once his credibility is established, control the message.
Given the perceived scale of the latest revelations, is it plausible that Assange's site was not taken down?
No.
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 10:05 pm Post subject:
I suspect you guys may well be right. I was wondering how the 'Powers' hadn't managed to locate and deal with him.
Having your possessions in a back-pack, and sleeping in a different place each night, well, not too plausible he hasn't been 'found'. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Where the WikiLeaks papers gain significance is in the detail revealed about the operations of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and, more specifically, the manner in which leading government figures and the media have interpreted these items.
The ISI is being accused of “undercutting” US operations, “conspiring with’ and aiding the “powerfully resurgent” Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, aiding the killing of US forces, and organizing “networks of militants” across the region.
An all-out propaganda attack against Pakistan led by the White House is underway.
My respect for Webster Tarpley keeps growing: he predicted the escalation against Pakistan and identified it as Brzezinski's brainchild months and months ago...
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:37 am Post subject:
Yup - I'm tending to this view
When George Soros is throwing millions at it I'm doubly suspicious.
acrobat74 wrote:
the handlers may have decided it's worth the price if they can create a credible figure that decides what is and what is not a government conspiracy.
The strategy would have been simple but effective: build Assange's credibility with a first emotional leak (helicopters executing 10 civilians).
Then, once his credibility is established, control the message.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:37 am Post subject:
The Centre for Investigative Journalism in London have been hosting Julian Assange this summer.
I wonder if any of the journalists there have been asking questions about Wikileaks' funding or the recent highly suspect and partial anti Pakistan 'leaks'?
Wikileaks does rather show how appauling the mainstream press has become. Whistleblowers can't trust them to publish much but official government and military 'leaks'.
It’s fair to say that Wikileaks has produced as many scoops as any major newspaper has produced in their entire lifetime, and in a matter of just four years. The release of the footage from the Apache helicopter attacks on civilians and Reuters journalists, toxic waste dumping by Trafigura, emails on climate change from University of East Anglia, the major Peruvian oil scandal, are just a fraction of what WikiLeaks has been producing and what is yet to come......
If my Facebook account is a good judge of peoples perception then Wiki is doomed to fail
That said I have lost one suspicious character for posting Wiki scepticism lol
Scott Rockefeller he has even refused as yet to explain the problem :0 _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Hidden intelligence operation behind the Wikileaks release of "secret" documents?
by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, 11 August 2010
Since the dramatic release of a US military film of a US airborne shooting of unarmed journalists in Iraq, Wiki-Leaks has gained global notoreity and credibility as a daring website that releases sensitive material to the public from whistleblowers within various governments. Their latest “coup” involved alleged leak of thousands of pages of supposedly sensitive documents regarding US informers within the Taliban in Afghanistan and their ties to senior people linked to Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence. The evidence suggests however that far from an honest leak, it is a calculated disinformation to the gain of the US and perhaps Israeli and Indian intelligence and a coverup of the US and Western role in drug trafficking out of Afghanistan.
Since the posting of the Afghan documents some days ago the Obama White House has given the leaks credibility by claiming further leaks pose a threat to US national security. Yet details of the papers reveals little that is sensitive. The one figure most prominently mentioned, General (Retired) Hamid Gul, former head of the Pakistani military intelligence agency, ISI, is the man who during the 1980’s coordinated the CIA-financed Mujahideen guerilla war in Afghanistan against the Soviet regime there. In the latest Wikileaks documents, Gul is accused of regularly meeting Al Qaeda and Taliban leading people and orchestrating suicide attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The leaked documents also claim that Osama bin Laden, who was reported dead three years ago by the late Pakistan candidate Benazir Bhutto on BBC, was still alive, conveniently keeping the myth alove for the Obama Administration War on Terror at a point when most Americans had forgotten the original reason the Bush Administration allegedly invaded Afghanistan to pursue the Saudi Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks.
Demonizing Pakistan?
The naming of Gul today as a key liaison to the Afghan “Taliban” forms part of a larger pattern of US and British recent efforts to demonize the current Pakistan regime as a key part of the problems in Afghanistan. Such a demonization greatly boosts the position of recent US military ally, India. Furthermore, Pakistan is the only muslim country possessing atomic weapons. The Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency reportedly would very much like to change that. A phoney campaign against the politically outspoken Gul via Wikileaks could be part of that geopolitical effort.
The London Financial Times says Gul’s name appears in about 10 of roughly 180 classified US files that allege Pakistan’s intelligence service supported Afghan militants fighting Nato forces. Gul told the newspaper the US has lost the war in Afghanistan, and that the leak of the documents would help the Obama administration deflect blame by suggesting that Pakistan was responsible. Gul told the paper, “I am a very favourite whipping boy of America. They can’t imagine the Afghans can win wars on their own. It would be an abiding shame that a 74-year-old general living a retired life manipulating the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan results in the defeat of America.”
Notable, in light of the latest Afghan Wikileaks documents, is the spotlight on the 74-year-old Gul. As I wrote in a previous piece, Warum Afghanistan? Teil VI:Washingtons Kriegsstrategie in Zentralasien, published this June on this website, Gul has been outspoken about the role of the US military in smuggling Afghan heroin out of the country via the top-security Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.
As well, in a UPI interview on September 26, 2001, two weeks after the 9-11 attacks, Gul stated, in reply to the question who did Black Sept. 11?, “Mossad and its accomplices. The US spends $40 billion a year on its 11 intelligence agencies. That’s $400 billion in 10 years. Yet the Bush Administration says it was taken by surprise. I don’t believe it. Within 10 minutes of the second twin tower being hit in the World Trade Center CNN said Osama bin Laden had done it. That was a planned piece of disinformation by the real perpetrators…” [1] Gul is clearly not well liked in Washington. He claims his request for travel visas to the UK and to the USA have repeatedly been denied. Making Gul into the arch enemy would suit some in Washington nicely.
Who is Julian Assange?
Wikileaks founder and “Editor-in-chief”, Julian Assange, is a mysterious 29-year-old Australian about whom little is known. He has suddenly become a prominent public figure offering to mediate with the White House over the leaks. Following the latest leaks, Assange told Der Spiegel, one of three outlets with which he shared material from the most recent leak, that the documents he had unearthed would “change our perspective on not only the war in Afghanistan, but on all modern wars.” He stated in the same interview that ‘”I enjoy crushing b******.” Wikileaks, founded in 2006 by Assange, has no fixed home and Assange claims he “lives in airports these days.”
Yet a closer examination of the public position of Assange on one of the most controversial issues of recent decades, the forces behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center shows him to be curiously establishment. When the Belfast Telegraph interviewed him on July 19, he stated,
"Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two...." What about 9/11?: "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." What about the Bilderberg Conference?: "That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes." [2]
That statement from a person who has built a reputation of being anti-establishment is more than notable. First, as thousands of physicists, engineers, military professionals and airline pilots have testified, the idea that 19 barely-trained Arabs armed with box-cutters could divert four US commercial jets and execute the near-impossible strikes on the Twin Towers and Pentagon over a time period of 93 minutes with not one Air Force NORAD military interception, is beyond belief. Precisely who executed the professional attack is a matter for genuine unbiased international inquiry.
Notable for Mr Assange’s blunt denial of any sinister 9/11 conspiracy is the statement in a BBC interview by former US Senator, Bob Graham, who chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when it performed its Joint Inquiry into 9/11. Graham told BBC, "I can just state that within 9/11 there are too many secrets, that is information that has not been made available to the public for which there are specific tangible credible answers and that that withholding of those secrets has eroded public confidence in their government as it relates to their own security." BBC narrator: "Senator Graham found that the cover-up led to the heart of the administration." Bob Graham: "I called the White House and talked with Ms. Rice and said, ‘Look, we've been told we're gonna get cooperation in this inquiry, and she said she'd look into it, and nothing happened.’”
Of course, the Bush Administration was able to use the 9/11 attacks to launch its War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and then Iraq, a point Assange conveniently omits.
For his part, General Gul claims that US intelligence orchestrated the Wikileaks on Afghanistan to find a scapegoat, Gul, to blame. Conveniently, as if on cue, British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, on a state visit to India, lashed out at the alleged role of Pakistan in supporting Taliban in Afghanistan, conveniently lending further credibility to the Wikileaks story. The real story of Wikileaks has clearly not yet been told.
_______________________
Notes
[1] General Hamid Gul, Arnaud de Borchgrave 2001 Interview with Hamid Gul, Former ISI Chief, UPI, reprinted July 2010 on
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:37 am Post subject:
John Pilger talking about the guilibility of the media amongst other things
Something of the Icke about his manner which I find intriguing
Recent sanctions against Iran are an attempt by the US to return the country to its sphere of influence, claims veteran journalist John Pilger. "Iran was a pillar of the American empire in the Middle East. That was swept away in 1979 by the Islamic revolution, and it has been American foreign policy to get that back," he said. "It has absolutely nothing to do with so-called nuclear weapons. The nuclear power in the Middle East is the fourth biggest military power in the world and that is Israel. It has something like 500 or more nuclear warheads. It is never discussed." Pilger added that Barack Obama has failed to change the trajectory of US foreign policy and following George W. Bush's line. "For the first time in US presidential history -- it has not happened before -- a president has taken the entire defense department bureaucracy, and the Secretary of State for Defense, from a previous discredited administration. We have basically Robert Gates and the same generals running American foreign policy with a lot of help from people of like mind."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 8:56 pm Post subject: Re: Hidden intelligence operation behind the Wikileaks relea
Someone at Indymedia UK has hidden this extremely important article mistakenly saying that it is a duplicate article
cheeky infiltrated disorganised so and sos
must be an issue the infiltrators are DESPERATE to cover up
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/08/456921.html
Political spinning of WikiLeak release:Antiwar whistleblowing or war propaganda?
11.08.2010 19:14
The political spinning of the WikiLeaks exposé: Antiwar whistle-blowing or war propaganda?
by Larry Chin, Online Journal, 31 July 2010
Since the release of classified US military papers by WikiLeaks, the material has been aggressively spun by various political factions. Meanwhile, virtually no attention has been devoted to investigating the source of this “leak,” or questioning the agenda behind it.
According to the Associated Press, a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that the US government is not certain who “leaked” the 91,000 documents to the online whistle-blowing web site, other than suspicion again falling on Pfc. Bradley Manning.
Unlike a previous WikiLeaks exposing the murder of Iraqi civilians in a US airstrike, nobody has been apprehended, arrested or pressured by the Pentagon, the CIA or any US agency.
The White House has expressed no intense concern. It did not block the release or deny the material. Government officials, led by President Obama, have almost casually dismissed the exposé as nothing new.
The major mainstream newspapers that had full early access to the material -- The New York Times, Der Spiegel and the Guardian -- also had ample time to frame and steer the discourse surrounding it, and (particularly in the case of the White House-friendly New York Times) conduct damage control.
Leak as antiwar fodder
The new material obviously adds to what is already known for years: US forces are mired in a dirty and horrific war, and committing atrocities and war crimes. Corruption is rampant, allies are despicable and untrustworthy, and there appears no end in sight.
For critics of US policy, the exposé reinforces their tired call for the war to end. However, the value of these particular papers (in terms of turning public opinion against the war) is questionable. This is not a potent high-level Pentagon Papers-type leak, and today’s society is a far cry from the 1970s.
Today’s acquiescent, ignorant and grossly manipulated mass populace -- one that fully embraces and supports the manufactured “war on terrorism” -- wholeheartedly supports any and all means to “prevent another 9/11.” A decade of Bush-Cheney criminality and mass murder failed to trigger any interest from a general US population that has been shocked into servitude, and further brain-addled by ubiquitous corporate right-wing media. Another day, another massacre.
Leak as imperial war propaganda
Where the WikiLeaks papers gain significance is in the detail revealed about the operations of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and, more specifically, the manner in which leading government figures and the media have interpreted these items.
The ISI is being accused of “undercutting” US operations, “conspiring with’ and aiding the “powerfully resurgent” Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, aiding the killing of US forces, and organizing “networks of militants” across the region. An all-out propaganda attack against Pakistan led by the White House is underway.
Essentially, Pakistan is being branded as a terrorist state and a worthy target of military attack, along with Iran, which is also fingered by the WikiLeaks’ leaks for backing Taliban militants within Afghanistan.
Hamid Gul, former ISI chief and major regional player, accuses the US of orchestrating the exposé to shift attention away from the US government’s “own failings,” in order to “force Pakistan’s hand on policy in Afghanistan.”
According to Gul “they [the Americans] want to bash Pakistan, at this time to come up with this leak. I refuse to believe it is not on purpose.”
The Obama administration, eager for a pretext to escalate the Central Asia/Middle East (resource) war into Pakistan and Iran, has certainly found ammunition with the WikiLeaks exposé.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the “leak” occurred just prior to a new $33 billion/30,000 troop surge for Afghanistan was approved by the US House, and ahead of a possible military attack on Iran, which former CIA Director Michael Hayden says is “inexorable”.
The glaring omission
As accusations and attacks on Pakistan and its “terrorist ISI” rise in intensity, not one mainstream media report mentions the fact that the ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA, and one that operates on behalf of Anglo-American policy.
It is fact that the ISI, with full Anglo-American direction, has long been a driving force behind “Islamic militants” and “terrorists” throughout the world, including “Al-Qaeda.” The CIA and ISI have cooperatively fomented instability and tension throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, playing all sides for geostrategic gain. This “strategy of tension” is one of the hallmarks of the “war on terrorism.” The ISI was also directly involved with the false flag operation of 9/11.
According to Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization, “The ISI actively collaborates with the CIA. It continues to perform the role of a ‘go-between’ in numerous intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA. The ISI directly supports and finances a number of terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda.”
If the ISI is responsible for terrorism, the funding and aiding of “Islamic militants,” and the killing of US forces, logic dictates that its big brethren -- the CIA and officials in Washington -- are also guilty and involved.
The manner in which the ISI is under fire, while omitting any mention of the ISI’s guiding superiors in Washington, speaks to a deliberate anti-Pakistan/pro-US bias.
Whose political weapon?
Until the source of this WikiLeaks is revealed, along with the motive for the “leak,” all that remains is a political Rorschach test, open to interpretation.
The ultimate beneficiary is whatever faction controls the interpretation.
In the end, only Pakistan and Iran have been politically damaged, while the Obama administration has a new pretext to escalate and intensify its continuing resource war.
Most of the response to the WikiLeaks Afghanistan document release thus far has focused on the absence of major revelations, with most of the details reinforcing existing analysis rather than undermining official discourse about the war. A similar response is appropriate to a story making the rounds that the documents bolster the case for significant connections between Iran and al-Qaeda. Information in the documents, according to the Wall Street Journal, "appear to give new evidence of direct contacts between Iranian officials and the Taliban's and al Qaeda's senior leadership." What's more important in these stories than the details found in the documents about Iran's activities in Afghanistan is the attempt to spin them into a narrative of "Iranian ties to al-Qaeda" to bolster the weak case for an American attack on Iran.
There's no secret about Iran's role in Afghanistan, of course -- this has long been a staple of the debate over Afghan policy, and has also long been pointed out as an area of potential cooperation or conflict between Washington and Tehran. As with much of the rest of the WikiLeaks documents, much of what has been found about Iran's role in Afghanistan is already generally known, while other information in them is of dubious provenance. It's not like we didn't know about Iran and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. These new details do add to the case for taking Iran into account more effectively when designing Afghanistan policy, on both the military and political dimensions. But they don't add up to some kind of smoking gun demonstrating an Iranian alliance with al-Qaeda.
This use of the WikiLeaks documents brings back some old memories, of a long time ago (March 2006) in a galaxy far far away when the Pentagon posted a massive set of captured Iraqi documents on the internet without context. Analysts dived into them, mostly searching for a smoking gun on Iraqi WMD or ties to al-Qaeda. The right-wing blogs and magazines ran with a series of breathless announcements that something had been found proving one case or another. Each finding would dissolve when put into context or subjected to scrutiny, and at the end it only further confirmed the consensus (outside of the fever swamps, at least) that there had been no significant ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda. But the cumulative effect of each "revelation", even if subsequently discredited, probably fueled the conviction that such ties had existed and did help maintain support for the Iraq war among the faithful. The parallel isn't exact -- in this case, there actually is something real there, and these documents were released against the government's will -- but it does raise some flags about how such documents can be used and misused in the public debate.
That experience is something to remember when an "Iranian ties to al-Qaeda" claim, loosely backed by reference to these documents, enters into the argument to attack Iran which I expect to heat up in the coming few months. It would be irresponsible and misleading to use of the documents to bolster the weak case for war with Iran by raising the specter of "ties to al-Qaeda". But then, the agitation to attack Iran is already following the Iraq script so faithfully that it really only seems natural that we'd get some questionable or exaggerated reports about Iranian ties to al-Qaeda to complete the loop. The tragedy may not yet be over, but farce is impatiently waiting in the wings.
Straight out of Vietnam in the form of 'Apocalypse Now' why do I look surprised? and Bush asking Congress for funds to set up more terror cells
TonyGosling wrote:
WikiLeaks - US military logs reveal US ‘Death Squad’ in Afghanistan: Task Force 373
August 14, 2010
WikiLeaks US military logs reveal US ‘Death Squad’ in Afghanistan: Task Force 373 30 Jul 2010 Among many classified/secret military data brought in to light by the organization WikiLeaks, other than the civilian killings which amount to war crimes, is the revelation of a ‘death squad’ called the Task Force 373 operating in the Afghanistan war theater which is going about killings with impunity. A ‘black’ Special Forces squad led by the U.S. targets Taliban and Al-Qaeda figures in Afghanistan.The team, T ask Force 373, hunts for suspects on a 2,000 strong list to kill or capture, known as Jpel. The secret-classified military log allegedly reveals the unit has killed innocent men, women and children and Afghan police officers who got in their way.
http://waronyou.com/topics/wikileaks-us-military-logs-reveal-us-death- squad-in-afghanistan-task-force-373/
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
by Peter Chamberlin, Online Journal, 5 August 2010
How could a bunch of “lone wolf” researchers be considered dangerous to the United States? The official explanation given is that we confuse those who hear or read what we have to say, undermining the national unity and trust in government which is necessary to wage war. That is as good an excuse as any to explain why the American people have not rallied around this war of terror. The national unity that politicians whine about was achieved only once in the beginning of this war, before the politicians and the corporations revealed the war for what it has always been -- a war to control oil and gas.
The great danger posed by conspiracy theorists is that we will finally wake the people up to the fact that we have been deceived, in order to trick us into allowing the armed forces of the United States to be used as a mercenary force, an army of conquest, to rob the people of Asia of their God-given natural resources. The danger of the “conspiracy theorist” is that he will awaken the people from their trance-like slumber which binds them, trapped somewhere between the waking world and the dream state. In this state, most of us meekly “support the troops” as they mercilessly clear the ground of resisters to the great conspiracy. The danger is that we will shock them and turn their thoughts toward this ugly reality of the waking world.
The “conspiracy theorist” is discredited because he or she dares to look for alternatives to the idiotic official excuses given for key events like the 911 and London subway bombings, or for historic, pivotal political assassinations. Researchers who dare to look beyond explanations which are obviously lies automatically become delegated to the lunatic fringe. With the Internet becoming the researchers’ primary source of information, it has became possible for national security organizations to control nearly all critical information, thus insuring that no one would find any hidden proof of the crimes of the past. This federal oversight meant that it became necessary for theorists to switch tactics and shift our focus from looking for evidence of government crimes in the past (which have had time to be covered-up), to rooting-out proof of ongoing crimes and criminal plans for the future. In today’s environment of massive social and political discontent, hard proof of either ongoing war crimes or of criminal conspiracies to commit future crimes, could very likely prove to be the spark that lights the “prairie fires” of a grass roots revolution. This is the real danger of uncontrolled research.
The sudden and widespread popular reactions to the WikiLeaks story which contains proof of US and NATO war crimes, demonstrates the potential powder keg to be tapped by the right torch bearer. Government leaders undoubtedly understood the great potential danger risked by allowing the release of the Wiki documents, but, being the practitioners of Nazi mind-science that they are, they fully understood the potential rewards to be reaped by the correct handling of the leaks and Western reporting on them. Popular emphasis upon the Pakistani angle of Wiki revelations could help create a national consensus for attacking Taliban bases in Pakistan.
The WikiLeaks were a document dump, intended to overwhelm researchers and to preoccupy they, studying the Empire’s past moves, in order to distract us from our new focus upon the present, looking towards the future. Look for the release of an even greater document dump from WikiLeaks in the near future, as they dump their Iraq files onto the Internet. Another effect of the Wiki document dump is that it has flooded search engines with countless new variations on the search for “American war crimes,” or info on important key battles or screw-ups, making it even more impossible to find information on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or anything covered in the leaks. This will muddy the waters for us even more and make it even less likely in the future that we will stumble across important evidence of ongoing criminal activity.
The nature of our conspiracy research is searching to find preventative answers, evidence to reveal overlooked evidence which could possibly preempt ongoing conspiracy plans. My focus for several years now has been to find preventive evidence of America’s true intentions in Pakistan. I have chosen Pakistan because I figured it to be the primary focus of the whole ongoing criminal American conspiracy (which involves many foreign co-conspirators), the critical component to the entire pipeline scheme. No matter how far into Central Asia the evidence has gone, it always relates back to Pakistan, certainly as the port for the pipeline plans, but also, just as important, to the thirty-year old scheme to create an army of “Islamists,” created to serve the Empire builders’ plans. Without Pakistan, none of the current plans for Empire would have even been possible.
For this unshakeable loyalty, if nothing else, we owe Pakistan a great debt. But Pakistan has gone far beyond mere loyalty in serving American interests, risking everything to serve as America’s secret sword. Pakistan risked its very existence in this capacity, standing alone on the lofty Himalayan peaks, toe-to-toe against the intimidating Soviet Union. They exposed their entire population to thermonuclear blackmail or potential elimination, to serve as the American stand-in for the historic confrontation which brought the Communist empire to its knees. Pakistan has given and risked so much for us that our leaders have decided to sacrifice the nation on the altar of self-aggrandizement. The greatest service we could do to them and to ourselves today would be to throw a monkey wrench into their plans for our Pakistani friends.
Sadly, the ongoing insidious criminal plans of the Empire extend far beyond Pakistan, reaching into every country on the earth, extending its tentacles like some great octopus, grasping to control every life within its reach. In the past, many researchers who got too close to the “Octopus” were eliminated, usually in an unconventional manner, usually in bizarre “suicides” . Now, our numbers have grown so great that it has altered the equation a bit, there are too many of us to kill today. The idea of using anti-Empire activists, such as myself, to help advance their plans and to agitate the public into a frenzy, has been a risky one. When the time comes to flip right-wing and left-wing activists towards the Empire’s preferred “consensus” there has always been a great inherent danger that the activists would not follow the trail of breadcrumbs leading us into new American police state.
That is the great weakness in the Empire’s plan -- by continually operating in a Hegelian manner (always manipulating both left and right, to force a consensus), every argument put forth by politicians or behaviorists, seeking to confine us within a narrow political spectrum, reaches a flipping point, where both synthesis and antithesis change direction, heading towards, instead of away from each other. It is at this flipping, or tipping point, where the original argument fizzles-out, losing its steam and forward momentum, and the threat we represent becomes the greatest. The greatest danger in allowing us to access inconvenient or incriminating evidence from the Internet comes just at the point of flipping. This is why the Internet has not yet been pulled out from under us.
This is why the WikiLeaks leaks are like a two-edged sword, they could just as easily cut the legs out from under us as they could undercut the criminal war for resources. Instead of following the game plan and jumping on the national bandwagon of a “patriotic” war on Pakistan, we must find the strength to muster our own groundswell of support by exposing the criminal intentions which have underwritten this war from the beginning, bringing the American people together to oppose the planned expansion of the war.
We are a threat if we start to come together. The ideas that bind us all here in the alternative media are exactly the sort of thinking that must be eliminated. The path to either victory or defeat for the anti-Empire side, just as it is for the bad guys, lies in changing the thinking of the people. The bad guys are intent on erasing the polluting ideas of freedom, liberation and individualism from the human lexicon, replacing all of these cherished concepts with ideas of hopelessness, terror and submission (SEE: Bombing Improper Thoughts). We must be just as committed to reinforcing visions of hope, fighting terror with truth and reason, building the fires of resistance within the besieged minds of our countrymen and our fellow man.
The greatest danger to the Empire is that you will refuse to lie down and submit. If enough people begin to feel this way, then the tide will turn towards freedom’s shore.
WikiLeaks’ CIA Red Cell memo: Orwellian mindset exposed
by Larry Chin, Online Journal, 30 August 2010
The CIA Red Cell memorandum released by WikiLeaks speaks volumes about the doublethink, paranoia, deception, and delusion of the CIA itself.
1. In this memo, the CIA is concerned that “American freedoms facilitate terrorism”. The “freedoms” include the Internet and the ability to travel.
Translation: the CIA wants these and other “freedoms” ended. Not even the post-9/11 “homeland security” lockdown made possible by the Patriot Act has been enough.
2. The memo cites 1) Muslim-American men who traveled to Pakistan to the “join the Taliban in jihad”, 2) David Headley’s membership in the group Lashkar-i-Tabiya, and his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror incident, 3) American Jews engaging in “violent acts against perceived enemies of Israel”, and 4) Irish-American support for the IRA.
Translation: the CIA absolves itself of any responsibility for the continuous management of terrorist groups all over the world, in total denial of historical fact. It makes no mention of its own role behind the incidents mentioned, its own involvement behind the Mumbai event, notably the Pakistani ISI’s connection to Lashkar-i-Tabiya and the other groups responsible.
It denies, ignores or purposely does not mention that CIA-Taliban-ISI-Al-Qaeda is a collaborative network, and that maintaining “militant Islam” is a long-term Anglo-American geostrategy. No mention is made of how Washington supports the Taliban, or how “jihad” benefits Washington resource war agendas.
It denies the overt and tacit support for all military-intelligence operations aimed at all perceived enemies of the interests of the US and its allies, when politically expedient to do so. It also denies how the CIA plays all sides of all conflicts.
3. The CIA is concerned about the ability to continue engaging in “extrajudicial activities”----renditions, detention, “interrogation”---if the US were perceived as an exporter of terrorism, and US allies become (for political reasons) less willing to cooperate.
Translation: CIA must continue illegal “extrajudicial” activities programs, or else a key component of the “war on terrorism” is threatened. No “interrogations”, no false confessions. No false or guided confessions, no propaganda, no pretexts for more war. No boogeymen.
It is fascinating to note that CIA Red Cell memos are meant to be comprised of “out of the box” ideas meant to “provoke thought” from some sort of opposing viewpoint. But the ideas represented in this one are narrow, closed, robotic, delusional and one-sided. The opposing side is the same and only side. The entire Langley bureaucracy---and indeed, Washington as a whole---runs out of this type of pathological mindset.
As former CIA veterans Victor Marchetti and John Marks wrote in their 1974 book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, the CIA is “romanticized by myths” and “beclouded by false images and shielded by official deceptions”. Its practices are “hidden behind arcane and antiquated legalisms”.
The CIA is, in the authors’ words, “not defending our national security. It seeks rather to maintain the status quo…”
“The CIA has a momentum of its own, and its operatives continue to ply their trade behind their curtain of secrecy. They do not want to give up their covert activities, their dirty tricks. They believe in these methods and they rather enjoy the game.”
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 8:53 pm Post subject:
Plot thickens; not many are likely to assign ulterior motives to John Pilger, who I and I suspect most posters regard as the real McCoy (though like far too many, he has a 'blind spot' re 9/11),: here is his take:
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=584 _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
And Ray McGovern praises his work. I don't think any of us will knock Ray McGovern. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:54 pm Post subject:
John Pilger wrote:
I like Julian Assange’s dust-dry wit. When I asked him if it was more difficult to publish secret information in Britain, he replied, “When we look at Official Secrets Act labelled documents we see that they state it is offence to retain the information and an offence to destroy the information. So the only possible outcome we have is to publish the information.”
Are the CIA stage managing this entire show?
Controlling all pieces on the chessboard.
I wonder....
outsider wrote:
Julian Assange has received the 2010 Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence in London:
Wikileaks documents show Turkey helped Al-Qaida
www.jpost.com
Report: Documents expected to be leaked allege that Turkey allowed citizens smuggle weapons into Iraq, US helped Kurdish terrorists.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You can attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Chat
Usergroups
Calendar
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
