Deep Politics Forum

David Guyatt Wrote:The name Lawson always makes me a little jumpy... :afraid:

Me too!!

There are thumbnail bios on him here and here. That's all I can find on a quick search.

75 Aussie; resident in Thailand Hmmm. Strange accent for an Aussie too -more Oxford.

Doesn't look like one of that Lawson Clan though - but -- aagh what the hell DO we know for certain these days??

David Guyatt Wrote:

Peter Presland Wrote:Peter L is not going to like this video: Sex, Lies, Iran, Israel and WikiLeaks, but it is another persuasive contribution from that video-narrator extraordinaire Anthony Lawson and I commend it to all.

My own position - in simple terms, fluid and evolving, stands right now as follows:

1. The leaks are real - but massaged and grossly manipulated with probably a plant or two - or a hundred....
2. Wikileaks has been compromised almost from the start and cannot be expected to hurt Israel in any significant fashion. John Young's complex analyses of the entire set up is about as close as we are likely to get for the time being. (The link is a Google search of the Cryptome site on the single word "Wikileaks" BTW)

BTW - I have now posted an archive of bit-torrents for the entire Wikileaks collection at WikiSpooks here The files themselves are NOT hosted on WikiSpooks (or rather most of them aren't but, from random sampling most have at least 50 live seeds and peers with the bigger ones having several hundred to well over a thousand. IOW all the info released to date is out of the box and cannot be put back in - period.

It's completeness and accuracy is another matter.

Thanks for this Peter. I've checked some of his other material too, but I couldn't find anything about him personally.... no wiki page or similar. Do you know if he has a public bio/background please?

Te name Lawson always makes me a little jumpy... :afraid:

Oh, Peter Lemkin was not all that fazed or upset by the film; I'm as opposed to what Israel has done, as anyone; and firmly anti-Zionist, even if I'm Jewish. I long ago swore I'd not step foot in Israel unless and until the occupation and genocidal war against the Palestinians was stopped. I also was and am a big supporter of Vannunu and agree the 'silent' Nuclear threat of Israel is not defensive in nature, but offensive - as are their other WMDs. That said, I'm not SO sure Wikileaks is an invention of the CIA and Mossad [two groups that, yes, do work hand in glove at times and at times not]. Assange's statement on 911 is odd, but perhaps he is just not informed on it and playing egoist on his information. I don't know. Could the leaks have been planned to skew information - yes. Were they likely - I don't know. If they were, by whom - too early to tell; and most important if they were was Assange and Wikileaks in the loop - I think not, but don't know and neither do you. What bothers me is the glee in giving aid and comfort to the very people you claim to loathe. I think we should all keep a healthy skepicism [as always with Deep Politics] and wait and see. Lastly, the matter has gone way, WAY beyond Assange and Wikileaks and the more important issue is the future [if any] for a free net and a net where free speech and free exchange of information is possible - or it will all be controlled by the usual villians. mokin:

Peter Lemkin Wrote:

Peter Presland Wrote:My own position - in simple terms, fluid and evolving, stands right now as follows:

1. The leaks are real - but massaged and grossly manipulated with probably a plant or two - or a hundred....
2. Wikileaks has been compromised almost from the start and cannot be expected to hurt Israel in any significant fashion. John Young's complex analyses of the entire set up is about as close as we are likely to get for the time being. (The link is a Google search of the Cryptome site on the single word "Wikileaks" BTW)

Oh, Peter Lemkin was not all that fazed or upset by the film; I'm as opposed to what Israel has done, as anyone; and firmly anti-Zionist, even if I'm Jewish. I long ago swore I'd not step foot in Israel unless and until the occupation and genocidal war against the Palestinians was stopped. I also was and am a big supporter of Vannunu and agree the 'silent' Nuclear threat of Israel is not defensive in nature, but offensive - as are their other WMDs. That said, I'm not SO sure Wikileaks is an invention of the CIA and Mossad [two groups that, yes, do work hand in glove at times and at times not]. Assange's statement on 911 is odd, but perhaps he is just not informed on it and playing egoist on his information. I don't know. Could the leaks have been planned to skew information - yes. Were they likely - I don't know. If they were, by whom - too early to tell; and most important if they were was Assange and Wikileaks in the loop - I think not, but don't know and neither do you. What bothers me is the glee in giving aid and comfort to the very people you claim to loathe. I think we should all keep a healthy skepicism [as always with Deep Politics] and wait and see. Lastly, the matter has gone way, WAY beyond Assange and Wikileaks and the more important issue is the future [if any] for a free net and a net where free speech and free exchange of information is possible - or it will all be controlled by the usual villians. mokin:

Let me try to nuance the above position. I think it unlikely that Wikileaks was a CIA/Mossad initiated operation. But the SIS's are nothing if not opportunists. The Cyberpunks list was an operation that pre-dated Wikileaks by many years and provided the nucleus of the WL volunteers when it passed from Cyberpunk theorising to operational planning. The CP list would have been monitored closely by the SIS's - no question. They would have been aware of the WL planning as it developed and may or may not have had an 'Asset', conscious of his role, on the inside. It would have been clear at an early stage that the operation had serious potential for manipulated mischief - especially of the Mossad variety with their tentacles at the heart of US government, military and security systems. The problem for the SIS's would have been simply one of how best to manipulate and make use of WL for their own purposes.

The rest follows: The potential solutions to their problem would have ranged between pre-emptive sabotage/shutting down, to manipulation resulting in something not unlike we are seeing play out right now.

I'm agnostic about Assange. His conscious personal motives may be pure. OTOH, historical Patsies span the spectrum from angry, easily agent-provocateured and facilitated young man, to Full blown intelligent 'Manchurian candidate'. My guess is that Assange sits somewhere on that spectrum - but it's only a guess and I'm as keen as anyone to see him freed from physical incarceration whatever he is because I do NOT think he is a conscious CIA/Mossad agent.

Peter Presland Wrote:

David Guyatt Wrote:The name Lawson always makes me a little jumpy... :afraid:

Me too!!

There are thumbnail bios on him here and here. That's all I can find on a quick search.

75 Aussie; resident in Thailand Hmmm. Strange accent for an Aussie too -more Oxford.

Doesn't look like one of that Lawson Clan though - but -- aagh what the hell DO we know for certain these days??

Thanks Peter. Phew! I feel sure he's a Brit perhaps now living in Oz. After all, he doesn't say "G'day mate!" Couldn't be clearer eh...

Peter Presland Wrote:

Peter Lemkin Wrote:

Peter Presland Wrote:My own position - in simple terms, fluid and evolving, stands right now as follows:

1. The leaks are real - but massaged and grossly manipulated with probably a plant or two - or a hundred....
2. Wikileaks has been compromised almost from the start and cannot be expected to hurt Israel in any significant fashion. John Young's complex analyses of the entire set up is about as close as we are likely to get for the time being. (The link is a Google search of the Cryptome site on the single word "Wikileaks" BTW)

Oh, Peter Lemkin was not all that fazed or upset by the film; I'm as opposed to what Israel has done, as anyone; and firmly anti-Zionist, even if I'm Jewish. I long ago swore I'd not step foot in Israel unless and until the occupation and genocidal war against the Palestinians was stopped. I also was and am a big supporter of Vannunu and agree the 'silent' Nuclear threat of Israel is not defensive in nature, but offensive - as are their other WMDs. That said, I'm not SO sure Wikileaks is an invention of the CIA and Mossad [two groups that, yes, do work hand in glove at times and at times not]. Assange's statement on 911 is odd, but perhaps he is just not informed on it and playing egoist on his information. I don't know. Could the leaks have been planned to skew information - yes. Were they likely - I don't know. If they were, by whom - too early to tell; and most important if they were was Assange and Wikileaks in the loop - I think not, but don't know and neither do you. What bothers me is the glee in giving aid and comfort to the very people you claim to loathe. I think we should all keep a healthy skepicism [as always with Deep Politics] and wait and see. Lastly, the matter has gone way, WAY beyond Assange and Wikileaks and the more important issue is the future [if any] for a free net and a net where free speech and free exchange of information is possible - or it will all be controlled by the usual villians. mokin:

Let me try to nuance the above position. I think it unlikely that Wikileaks was a CIA/Mossad initiated operation. But the SIS's are nothing if not opportunists. The Cyberpunks list was an operation that pre-dated Wikileaks by many years and provided the nucleus of the WL volunteers when it passed from Cyberpunk theorising to operational planning. The CP list would have been monitored closely by the SIS's - no question. They would have been aware of the WL planning as it developed and may or may not have had an 'Asset', conscious of his role, on the inside. It would have been clear at an early stage that the operation had serious potential for manipulated mischief - especially of the Mossad variety with their tentacles at the heart of US government, military and security systems. The problem for the SIS's would have been simply one of how best to manipulate and make use of WL for their own purposes.

The rest follows: The potential solutions to their problem would have ranged between pre-emptive sabotage/shutting down, to manipulation resulting in something not unlike we are seeing play out right now.

I'm agnostic about Assange. His conscious personal motives may be pure. OTOH, historical Patsies span the spectrum from angry, easily agent-provocateured and facilitated young man, to Full blown intelligent 'Manchurian candidate'. My guess is that Assange sits somewhere on that spectrum - but it's only a guess and I'm as keen as anyone to see him freed from physical incarceration whatever he is because I do NOT think he is a conscious CIA/Mossad agent.

Pretty much where I stand too.

My gut feeling is that Assange is genuine and Wikileaks likewise. But the opportunity to use the affair by tricksy operators is quite possible and based on past cases, infiltrating one or more people into the WL nucleus has to be a real possibility.

It is therefore necessary to step with care, I think.

Having said that I will still spend time fighting the all important "free speech" aspect of Wikileaks.

PEN International, a global writers' organization with special consultative status at UNESCO and the United Nations, has released an official statement on WikiLeaks:
"PEN International champions the essential role played by freedom of expression in healthy societies and the rights of citizens to transparency, information and knowledge.
The Wikileaks issue marks a significant turning point in the evolution of the media and the sometimes conflicting principles of freedom of expression and privacy and security concerns. The culture of increasing secrecy in governments and the rise of new technology will inevitably lead to an increasing number of transparency issues of this sort. PEN International believes it is important to acknowledge that while the leaking of government documents is a crime under U.S laws, the publication of documents by Wikileaks is not a crime. Wikileaks is doing what the media has historically done, the only difference being that the documents have not been edited.
PEN International urges those voicing opinions regarding the Wikileaks debate to adopt a responsible tone, and not to play to the more extreme sections of society. In a world where journalists are regularly physically attacked, imprisoned and killed with impunity, calling for the death of a journalist is irresponsible and deplorable.
PEN International is also concerned by reports that some web sites, fearing repercussions, have stopped carrying Wikileaks, and that individuals, under threat of legal action, have been warned against reading information provided by the organization. PEN International condemns such acts and calls upon corporations and states to avoid breaches of the right to free expression. Governments cannot call for unlimited internet freedom in other parts of the world if they do not respect this freedom themselves.
The Wikileaks matter is a dynamic issue which we shall continue to monitor closely and on which we will refine our position as the situation requires. We welcome this debate and look forward to further discussion with the worldwide PEN membership."

2010-12-13: Julian Assange: Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year 2010
Submitted by admin on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 16:52

TIME magazine has just closed the Person of the Year readers' poll. Megan Friedman summarized the results: "Readers voted a total of 1,249,425 times, and the favorite was clear. Julian Assange raked in 382,020 votes, giving him an easy first place. He was 148,383 votes over the silver medalist, Recep Tayyip Ergodan, Prime Minister of Turkey."

TIME editors' official choice for Person of the Year will be announced on Wednesday morning on the Today show.

WL Central would like to thank all of you who chose to make a statement by voting for Julian Assange.

2010-12-13: Visa, Mastercard, PostFinance under investigation
Submitted by admin on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 15:27


The Icelandic Parliamentary General Committee met yesterday to discuss the ban that Visa and Mastercard placed on donations to WikiLeaks, reports The Reykjavik Grapevine. In attendance were representatives of Icelandic electronic payment companies Valitor and Borgun, which work with Visa and Mastercard, The Consumers' Alliance, Amnesty International, and WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson, who joined via video link.

Róbert Marshall, the chairman of the committee, said that "People wanted to know on what legal grounds the ban was taken, but no one could answer it. They said this decision was taken by foreign sources." The committee has asked for more information from the companies, to prove that there were legal grounds for such a ban. Marshall added that it was the committee's opinion that Visa and Mastercard's operating licenses be "seriously reviewed," reports The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Datacell, the company handling credit card donations for WikiLeaks, has already declared that it would file legal action against Visa and Mastercard.

PostFinance, the banking arm of the Swiss Post, found itself under investigation as well for potentially breaching secrecy laws by publicly disclosing that it has closed Julian Assange's bank account, reports AFP. "We are investigating if, in relation to the Postfinance press statement, there has been punishable action," Hermann Wenger, examining magistrate of the Bern-Mittelland region, told Sonntags Zeitung.

As previously reported, the Wau Holland Foundation also initiated legal action against PayPal, resulting in PayPal agreeing to release the blocked funds. In an interview with Der Spiegel today, Hendrick Fulda, a board member of the foundation, said that "Every new publication by WikiLeaks has unleashed a wave of support, and donations were never as strong as now. More than €80,000 was contributed in one week via PayPal alone. We will have to see what impact the removal of PayPal has on our incoming funds."

Who is Behind Wikileaks?

by Michel Chossudovsky


Global Research, December 13, 2010



Email this article to a friend
Print this article

0diggsdigg
8Share





Wikleaks is upheld as a breakthrough in the battle against media disinformation and the lies of the US government.
Unquestionably, the released documents constitute an important and valuable data bank. The documents have been used by critical researchers since the outset of the Wikileaks project. Wikileaks earlier revelations have focussed on US war crimes in Afghanistan (July 2010) as well as issues pertaining to civil liberties and the "militarization of the Homeland" (see Tom Burghardt, Militarizing the "Homeland" in Response to the Economic and Political Crisis, Global Research, October 11, 2008)
In October 2010, WikiLeaks was reported to have released some 400,000 classified Iraq war documents, covering events from 2004 to 2009 (Tom Burghardt, The WikiLeaks Release: U.S. Complicity and Cover-Up of Iraq Torture Exposed, Global Research, October 24, 2010). These revelations contained in the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs provide "further evidence of the Pentagon's role in the systematic torture of Iraqi citizens by the U.S.-installed post-Saddam regime." (Ibid)
Progressive organizations have praised the Wikileaks endeavor. Our own website Global Research has provided extensive coverage of the Wikileaks project.
The leaks are heralded as an immeasurable victory against corporate media censorship.
But there more than meets the eye.
Even prior to the launching of the project, the mainstream media had contacted Wikileaks.
There are also reports from published email exchanges that Wikileaks had entered into negotiations with several corporate foundations for funding. (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).
At the outset in early 2007, Wikileaks acknowledges that it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa".... [Its advisory board] includes representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers." (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).

Wikileaks formulated its mandate on its website as follows: [Wikileaks will be] "an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations," CBC News - Website wants to take whistleblowing online, January 11, 2007, emphasis added).
This mandate was confirmed by Julian Assange in June 2010 interview in the New Yorker:
Assange also intimated that "exposing secrets" "could potentially bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality—including the US administration." (Ibid)
From the outset, Wikileaks' geopolitical focus on "oppressive regimes" in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Central Asia was "appealing", i.e. consistent with US foreign policy.
The composition of the Wikileaks team, not to mention the methodology of "exposing secrets" of foreign governments, were in line with the practices of US covert operations geared towards triggering "regime change".
The Role of the Corporate Media: The Central Role of the New York Times
Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The Economist and Time Magazine have also played an important role.
While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)
This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks' editor Julian Assange.
The important question is who controls and oversees the selection, distribution and editing of released documents to the broader public?
What US foreign policy objectives are being served through this redacting process?
Is Wikileaks part of an awakening of public opinion, of a battle against the lies and fabrications which appear daily in the print media and on network TV?
If so, how can this battle against media disinformation be waged with the participation and collaboration of the corporate architects of media disinformation.
Julian Assange has enlisted the architects of media disinformation to fight media disinformation: An incongruous and self-defeating procedure.
America's corporate media and more specifically the New York Times are an integral part of the economic establishment, with links to Wall Street, the Washington think tanks, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Moreover, the US corporate media has developed a longstanding relationship to the US intelligence apparatus, going back to "Operation Mocking Bird", an initiative of the CIA's Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s.
Even before the Wikileaks project got off the ground, the mainstream media was implicated. A role was defined and agreed upon for the corporate media not only in the release, but also in the selection and editing of the leaks. In a bitter irony, the "professional media" to use Julian Assange's words in an interview with The Economist, have been partners in the Wikileaks project from the outset.
Moreover, key journalists with links to the US foreign policy-national security intelligence establishment have worked closely with Wikileaks, in the distribution and dissemination of the leaked documents.
In a bitter irony, Wikileaks partner, The New York Times which has consistently promoted media disinformation is now being accused of conspiracy. For what? For revealing the truth? Or for manipulating the truth? In the words of Senator Joseph L. Lieberman:






This "redacting" role of The New York Times is candidly acknowledged by David E Sanger, Chief Washington correspondent of the NYT:
Yet he also says later in the interview:
"Do it independently of the government" while at the same time "asking them [the US government] if they had additional redactions to suggest"?
David E. Sanger cannot be described as a model independent journalist. He is member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Aspen Institute's Strategy Group which regroups the likes of Madeleine K. Albright, Condoleeza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former CIA head John Deutch, Robert.B. Zoellick (president of the World Bank), and Philip Zelikow (formerly executive director of the 9/11 Commission) (among other prominent establishment figures). (See also F. William Engdahl, Wikileaks: A Big Dangerous US Government Con Job, Global Research, December 10, 2010).
Several American journalists, members of the Council on Foreign Relations interviewed Wikileaks, including Time Magazine's Richard Stengel (November 30, 2010) and The New Yorker's Raffi Khatchadurian. (WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 11, 2007)
Historically, The New York Times has served the interests of the Rockefeller family in the context of a longstanding relationship. The current New York Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, son of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger who served as a Trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation. Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor of The New York Times as well as Thomas Friedman among others are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
In turn, the Rockefellers have an important stake as shareholders of several US corporate media. (Membership Roster - Council on Foreign Relations)
The Embassy and State Department Cables
It should come as no surprise that David E. Sanger and his colleagues at the NYT centered their attention on a highly "selective" dissemination of the Wikileaks cables, focussing on areas which would support US foreign policy interests: Iran's nuclear program, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's support of al Qaeda, China's relations with North Korea, etc. These releases were then used as source material in NYT articles and commentary.
The Embassy and State Department cables released by Wikileaks were redacted and filtered. They were used for propaganda purposes. They do not constitute a complete and continuous set of memoranda.
From a selected list of cables, the leaks are being used to justify a foreign policy agenda. A case in point is Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, which is the object of numerous State Department memos, as well Saudi Arabia's support of Islamic terrorism.
Iran's Nuclear Program
The leaked cables are used to feed the disinformation campaign concerning Iran's Weapons of Mass Destruction. While the leaked cables are heralded as "evidence" that Iran constitutes a threat, the lies and fabrications of the corporate media concerning Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program are not mentioned, nor is there any mention of them in the leaked cables.
The leaks, once they are funnelled into the corporate news chain, edited and redacted by the New York Times, indelibly serve the broader interests of US foreign policy, including US-NATO-Israel war preparations directed against Iran.
With the regard to "leaked intelligence" and the coverage of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, David E. Sanger has played a crucial role. In November 2005, The New York Times published a report co-authored by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad entitled "Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims".
The article refers to mysterious documents on a stolen Iranian laptop computer which included "a series of drawings of a missile re-entry vehicle" which allegedly could accommodate an Iranian produced nuclear weapon:
These "secret documents" were subsequently submitted by the US State Department to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, with a view to demonstrating that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. They were also used as a pretext to enforce the economic sanctions regime directed against Iran, adopted by the UN Security Council.
While their authenticity has been questioned, a recent article by investigative reporter Gareth Porter confirms unequivocally that the mysterious laptop documents are fake. (See Gareth Porter, Exclusive Report: Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent, Global Research, November 18, 2010)
The drawings contained in the documents leaked by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger do not pertain to the Shahab missile but to an obsolete North Korean missile system which was decommissioned by Iran in the mid-1990s. The drawings presented by US State Department officials pertained to the "Wrong Missile Warhead":
David E, Sanger, who worked diligently with Wikileaks was also instrumental in the New York Times "leak" of what Gareth Porter describes as fake intelligence.(Ibid)
While this issue of fake intelligence received virtually no media coverage, it invalidates outright Washington's assertions regarding Iran's alleged nuclear weapons.
In a bitter irony, the selective redacting of the embassy cables by the NYT has usefully served not only to dismiss the issue of fake intelligence but also to reinforce Washington's claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. A case in point is a November 2010 article co-authored by David E. Sanger, which quotes the Wikileaks cables as a source;
These missiles are said to have the "capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles." (Ibid, emphasis added).
Wikileaks, Iran and the Arab World
The released wikileaks cables have also being used to create divisions between Iran on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on the other:
The Western media has jumped on this opportunity and has quoted the State Department memoranda released by Wikleaks with a view to upholding Iran as a threat to global security as well as fostering divisions between Iran and the Arab world.
"The Global War on Terrorism"
The leaks quoted by the Western media reveal the support of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to several Islamic terrorist organization, a fact which is known and amply documented.
What the reports fail to mention, however, which is crucial in an understanding of the "Global War on Terrorism", is that US intelligence historically has channelled its support to terrorist organizations via Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. REF These are covert intelligence operations using Saudi and Pakistani intelligence as intermediaries.
The use of the Wikleaks documents by the media tend to sustain the illusion that the CIA has nothing to do with the terror network and that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are "providing the lion's share of funding" to Al Qaeda, the Taliban Lashkar-e-Taiba, among others, when in fact this financing is undertaken in liaison with their US intelligence counterparts.
Similarly, with regard to Pakistan:
The corporate media's use and interpretation of the Wikileaks cables serves to uphold two related myths:
The CIA and the Corporate Media
The CIA's relationship to the US media is amply documented. The New York Times continues to entertain a close relationship with not only with US intelligence, but also with the Pentagon and more recently with the Department of Homeland Security.
"Operation Mocking Bird" was an initiative of the CIA's Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s. Its objective was to exert influence on both the US as well as foreign media. From the 1950s, members of the US media were routinely enlisted by the CIA.
The inner workings of the CIA's relationship to the US media are described in Carl Bernstein's 1977 article in Rolling Stone entitled The CIA and the Media:
Bernstein suggests, in this regard, that "the CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress" (Ibid).
In recent years, the CIA's relationship to the media has become increasingly complex and sophisticated. We are dealing with mammoth propaganda network involving a number of agencies of government.
Media disinformation has become institutionalized. The lies and fabrications have become increasingly blatant when compared to the 1950s. The US media has become the mouthpiece of US foreign policy. Disinformation is routinely "planted" by CIA operatives in the newsroom of major dailies, magazines and TV channels:
Since 2001, the US media has assumed a new role in sustaining the Global War on Terrorism and camouflaging US sponsored war crimes. In the wake of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or "Office of Disinformation" as it was labeled by its critics: "The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries -- as an effort to influence public opinion across the world. (Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002, see also michel Chossudovsky, War Propaganda, January 3, 2003).
Today's corporate media is an instrument of war propaganda, which begs the question as to why the NYT would all of a sudden promote transparency and truth in media, by assisting Wikileaks in "spreading the word"; and that people around the World would not pause for one moment and question the basis of this incongruous relationship.
On the surface, nothing proves that Wikileaks was a CIA covert operation. However, given the corporate media's cohesive and structured relationship to US intelligence, not to mention the links of individual journalists to the military-national security establishment, the issue of a CIA sponsored PsyOp must necessarily be addressed.
Wikileaks Social and Corporate Entourage
Wikileaks and The Economist have also entered into what seems to be a contradictory relationship. Wikileaks founder and editor Julian Assange was granted in 2008 The Economist's New Media Award.
The Economist has a close relationship to Britain's financial elites. It is an establishment news outlet, which has consistently supported Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. It bears the stamp of the Rothschild family. Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild was chairman of The Economist from 1972-1989. His wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild currently sits on The Economist's board. The Rothschild family also has a sizeable shareholder interest in The Economist.
The broader question is why would Julian Assange receive the support from Britain's foremost establishment news outfit which has consistently been involved in media disinformation?
Are we not dealing with a case of "manufactured dissent", whereby the process of supporting and rewarding Wikileaks for its endeavors, becomes a means of controlling and manipulating the Wikileaks project, while at the same time embedding it into the mainstream media.
It is also worth mentioning another important link. Julian Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI), a major London elite law, happens to be the legal adviser to the Rothschild Waddesdon Trust. While this in itself does prove anything, it should nonetheless be examined in the broader context of Wikileaks' social and corporate entourage: the NYT, the CFR, The Economist, Time Magazine, Forbes, Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI), etc.
Manufacturing Dissent
Wikileaks has the essential features of a process of "manufactured dissent". It seeks to expose government lies. It has released important information on US war crimes. But once the project becomes embedded in the mould of mainstream journalism, it is used as an instrument of media disinformation:
What this examination of the Wikileaks project also suggests is that the mechanics of New World Order propaganda, particularly with regard to its military agenda, has become increasingly sophisticated.
It no longer relies on the outright suppression of the facts regarding US-NATO war crimes. Nor does it require that the reputation of government officials at the highest levels, including the Secretary of State, be protected. New World Order politicians are in a sense "disposable". They can be replaced. What must be protected and sustained are the interests of the economic elites, which control the political apparatus from behind the scenes.
In the case of Wikileaks, the facts are contained in a databank; many of those facts, particularly those pertaining to foreign governments serve US foreign policy interests. Other facts tend, on the other hand to discredit the US administration.
All these facts are selectively redacted, they are then "analyzed" and interpreted by a media which serves the economic elites.
While the numerous facts contained in the Wikileaks data bank are accessible, the broader public will not normally take the trouble to consult and scan through the Wikileaks databank. The public will read the redacted selections and interpretations presented in major news outlets.
A partial and biased picture is presented. The redacted version is accepted by public opinion because it is based on what is heralded as a reliable source, when in fact what is presented in the pages of major newspapers and on network TV is a carefully crafted and convoluted distortion of the truth.
Limited forms of critical debate and "transparency" are tolerated while also enforcing broad public acceptance of the basic premises of US foreign policy, including its "Global War on Terrorism". With regard to a large segment of the US antiwar movement, this strategy seems to have succeeded: "We are against war but we support the "war on terrorism".
What this means is that truth in media can only be reached by dismantling the propaganda apparatus, --i.e. breaking the legitimacy of the corporate media which sustains the broad interests of the economic elites as well America's global military design.
In turn, we must ensure that the campaign against Wikileaks in the U.S., using the 1917 Espionage Act, will not be utilized as a means to wage a campaign to control the internet.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people...57455.html

Quote:13/12/2010 21:12
Geoffrey Robertson QC: The Great Defender - Profiles, People - The Independent
Page 1 of 2
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people...57455.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/...14207t.jpg
He says: "Justice is the great game because it provides the opportunity of winning against the most powerful, and against the state itself." Geoffrey Robertson QC: The Great Defender

One man stands between Julian Assange and extradition. Fortunately for the WikiLeaks founder, he is a barrister whose brilliance has won some of the defining
legal battles of the age
By Ben Chu
Saturday, 11 December 2010
"Openness is conducive to better government." Those words might have come from Julian Assange, the
founder of WikiLeaks who was arrested and detained in London this week, pending extradition to Sweden
accused of rape.
But, as chance would have it, they can be found in the memoirs of the man who stands between Assange
and prosecution abroad: Geoffrey Robertson QC.
But of course chance has nothing to do with it. Those who have followed Robertson's career will not have
been surprised to see the QC cutting short his holiday to come to the defence of his fellow Australian. The
case of the WikiLeaks founder, combining as it does high liberal principle, low scandal and massive publicity,
might have been designed with Robertson specifically in mind.
Related articles
WikiLeaks demos planned in Spain and Latin America
WikiLeaks splits as volunteers quit to set up rival website
Peter Stanford: Not so much the crucifixion of Christ as the martyrdom of Saint Julian
Search the news archive for more stories
To Robertson "justice is the great game because it provides the opportunity of winning against the most powerful, and against the state itself. This does not
mean that David will necessarily slay Goliath, but the laws of battle will prevent Goliath from siding up and hitting him on the head".
Robertson has said nothing since he took on the brief. But it seems a safe bet that the QC sees in Assange (a man who powerful American politicians have
suggested should be hunted down like a terrorist) something of an outgunned David. And if anyone can prevent Assange being unfairly hit on the head by
powerful forces it is Robertson.
Geoffrey Ronald Robertson was born in 1946 and grew up in a comfortable home in the Sydney suburbs. He was inspired to enter the law on reading reports
of the 1960 Lady Chatterley trial at the Old Bailey and, in particular, the performance of the defending barrister, Gerald Gardiner.
Afflicted by heavy acne as a teenager, he didn't socialise much and developed the habits of a workaholic. After Epping Boys High School came a law degree at
Sydney University. Robertson was an earnest student, with, in his own words, "a detached and slightly puritanical outlook".
He arrived in UK in 1970 expecting his Rhodes scholarship at Oxford to be a "pleasant diversion" before beginning a career at the Sydney Bar. But Oz,
ironically enough for an Australian in England, intervened. In Oxford, Robertson met fellow Australian expat Richard Neville, the publisher of an underground
satirical magazine of that name. Oz had been charged with "a conspiracy to corrupt public morals" for featuring a cartoon of a tumescent Rupert Bear. Neville
and Robertson got on and the young lawyer was given the job of preparing Neville's legal defence.
Although the defence failed, Robertson decided that his future lay in Britain. He was eventually called to the bar 1973 and embarked on a remarkable career.
Cause célèbre followed cause célèbre. In 1978 he defended two journalists who had been accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act when they interviewed a
former intelligence officer. The acquittal of the journalists was a landmark victory for press freedom. Robertson went on to defend Gay News and the National
Theatre from the legal assaults of Mary Whitehouse. These trials – and their outcome – helped to deliver the coup de grâce to cultural censorship in Britain.
Thereafter Robertson's focus shifted to human rights and holding governments to account. In the 1990s he defended the four directors of the machine tools
manufacturer Matrix Churchill who were accused of illegally supplying arms to Saddam Hussein. The trial collapsed after the judge rejected attempts by the
government to suppress key documents. And a subsequent judicial inquiry found that the ministers had actually encouraged the arms sales. Robertson was at
centre stage again when he defended The Guardian against the libel suit brought by Neil Hamilton, the Tory MP accused by the paper of taking cash to ask
questions in the Commons.
There was other less high-profile, but no less important, work too. As a QC he prosecuted the Malawian dictator Hastings Banda and defended dissidents
detained by Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. He appeared in many Caribbean death sentence appeals at the Privy Council. And in 2002 came a move from defence
to judgment, when Robertson served as a judge on the United Nations war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Robertson's private life has been as eventful as his public one. But his marriage to the wisecracking Australian novelist
Kathy Lette has kept him close to the media spotlight, even when not in the court. The two met in Brisbane 20 years ago filming an episode of Robertson's
long-running Australian current affairs television programme Hypotheticals. Both were in relationships at the time, Robertson with the future television chef
Nigella Lawson, and Lette married to the Australian television executive Kim Williams. "Opposites attract" is Robertson's explanation of the unlikely union of
the crusading liberal barrister and the author of such works as Foetal Attraction and Men – A User's Guide.
The couple have two children, Georgina and Julius, who, Robertson admitted in an interview last year, have urged their father to slow down. Robertson told
13/12/2010 21:12
Geoffrey Robertson QC: The Great Defender - Profiles, People - The Independent
Page 2 of 2
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people...57455.html
Peter Thompson of the Australian channel ABC: "It's all very well to say seize the day, do everything you can. It does take a toll. One day something will hit
me, maybe a stroke."
He is not joking. Simply to read Robertson's schedule is enough to bring on fatigue. As well as his practice work and sitting on the Sierra Leone tribunal,
Robertson has written three books in the past five years including a polemic calling for the prosecution of the Pope and a scholarly historical work on John
Cooke, the barrister who took on the task of prosecuting Charles I after the Civil War (a job one senses the author himself would have relished).
Robertson is not to everyone's taste. Right-wingers dislike his liberal campaigning. Catholics have been irked by his Pope-baiting. And Robertson's long-
standing support for humanitarian military interventionism as a means of bringing war criminals and human rights abusers to justice has led him to a
somewhat awkward position on Iraq. In the 2006 edition of his book Crimes Against Humanity he speaks of "the moral rightness of overthrowing Saddam
Hussein and the wrongfulness in law of the means used to accomplish it" with the implication that George Bush's mistake was merely to use the wrong
justification for the invasion.
At times he has allowed his eye for publicity to override his legal judgement. In 2003, The Guardian, urged on by Robertson, brought a legal challenge against
the 1848 Treason Felony Act, which makes it an offence to call for the abolition of the monarchy. Throwing out the case, Lord Scott noted that Robertson was
"a very good lawyer" but that the case lacked "common sense" since there was never a realistic prospect of someone being prosecuted under the act. There
are legitimate questions about his methods too. If Robertson wants to change society, it might be asked, should he not have stood for election rather than
seeking to do so through judicial activism?
That is an argument that Robertson would dismiss as the old fallacy he encountered at university in Australia: the idea that the law is simply a system for
applying rules drawn up by legislators. Robertson has always been guided by a very different star. In his memoirs, he describes how, in his view, the law can
serve as a "lever for liberation". It is a philosophy to which his entire career, whether in the courtroom, the television studio, or in print, has been devoted.
And if Robertson can lever Julian Assange, another campaigner for openness in public life, out of custody it will surely go down as the QC's most notable
triumph yet.
A life in brief
Born: Geoffrey Ronald Robertson, 30 September 1946.
Education: Epping Boys High School, Sydney University, Oxford University.
Family: Married to the novelist Kathy Lette. Two children, Georgina and Julius.
Career: Barrister since 1973, Queen's Counsel 1988, founder of Doughty Street Partners 1990, appeal judge on United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone,
2002-2007.
He says: "Justice is the great game because it provides the opportunity of winning against the most powerful, and against the state itself."
They say: "Robertson appears to want vengeance." Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet, a Catholic weekly.