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US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Jan Klimkowski - 13-04-2010 Keith - I agree with many of your comments in post #70. I was going to respond that, at the human level, a core problem is how young, impressionable, inexperienced, men (primarily) are trained by the military to behave. What they are told is expected of them by their officers and their country. How these young men are taught to "frame" the enemy. Then I read Josh Stieber's interview and found he said it all fantastically well, with moral courage, dignity and respect for his former colleagues who have been placed in this situation by the military machine and its corrupt, insane, masters. I've therefore posted Josh Stieber's interview in full, below: Quote:AMY GOODMAN: The attack also killed two Reuters employees: the photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, a father of four, Saeed Chmagh. US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Ed Jewett - 13-04-2010 In re: this incident and posts #70 and 71: I am tempted to look at this issue as an organizational development conundrum in terms of both training and leadership, two areas in which I have done some significant work. No, I haven’t been in combat. I did a brief stint as a wannabe Green Beret – Boy Scouts with M-1’s and blanks in 1966 -- but then my college roommate [a Christian conscientious objector] and my old high school English teacher [“Today we shall have naming of parts”] (who shunned me when I showed up in his domain dressed in jump boot and black beret), brought me to my senses before I could put myself into an untenable personal and moral position in which others would surely place me in an irretrievable one. Keith’s insights are valid and we must acknowledge the vet’s persona and experience even, as in another distant example, they retain anger and turn it on adolescents arrested for protesting in Senator’s offices. Even reading Jonathan Shay’s works on war and PTSD, or Keegan’s “The Face of Battle”, cannot convey the reality. One can only try to be at one with one’s own experience and reality. But, in an attempt to glean what I could from the development of soldiers in order to develop more effectively trained emergency responders, I have delved into the subject, ranging across topics of performance psychology, cognitive studies, sports psychology et al to learn how one can draw from within -- or from within another -- the best that is there. Hitting home runs, tactically seeing how to manage a mass casualty incident, and soldiering have some things in common. “Success depends on how effectively we can rapidly sort through, understand, assimilate and act on the most important bits (or "golden nuggets") of information within the vast quantities of data and information that are available to us in that moment.” This has been termed “situational awareness” or “tactical decision-making under stress”, two areas of intense US military funded research. Early events causing this inquiry were the collision of two jumbo aircraft on the runway at an airport in the Azores, and the incident involving the USS Vincennes. Vast quantities of formal studies followed, were boiled down, and were folded into military training. “If we function within a stressful technical or operational setting, such as a command or operations center of some sort, we have the added input (both information and “noise”) of phone, fax, e-mail, various alarms, radios on multiple frequencies covering multiple agencies, as well perhaps as a wide range of data that is available from an array of computers, dials, gauges and technical sensors.” Situation awareness requirements will vary, however, depending on a host of variables such as weather, temperature, lighting, surface or terrain variables, our strategic plan, and the nature of our “opponent”. The addition of automation and “intelligent systems” frequently exacerbate the problem, rather than help it. It is the human integration and interpretation that is the key component of situation awareness (SA). The goal is to make good decisions that depend on having a good grasp of the true picture of the situation. Mica Endsley, the guru of SA, uses the PCP acronym: perception, comprehension, projection. Further research and development in the topic brings you to a sport psychologist’s examination of “the four types of attention”, and Boyd’s OODA loop, and its use in “free play” by the US Marines (and USAF Academy rugby teams). Simulation-based training (another area of some person interest and expertise) lends other methods for training. This is discussed in the attached “Psychology of Strategy” (an MS Word document). James Loehr compared military and sport toughening models in his books: Toughness Training for Life, James E. Loehr, Ed.D., Plume/Penguin, New York 1993, as well as The New Toughness Training for Sports: Mental. Emotional and Physical Conditioning from One of the World's Premier Sports Psychologists, James E. Loehr, Ed.D., Dutton Books, New York 1994. Here I summarize that comparison: Undisciplined, immature, unfocused and fearful teenagers are transformed, in an 8-week period, into soldiers that can undertake 20 mile hikes carrying 60-100 pounds of gear, overcome a wide variety of obstacles, and conquer their ultimate fear. The techniques involved in this remarkable conversion have been refined over thousands of years. Studying this approach might yield important insights. The first place we might look is at the process of marching. Even today, when soldiers don't march into battle, they march because marching is for between battles. Marching develops and demonstrates an attitude that shows no weakness, no deviation, no fatigue, no negativism, no fear. What you see when you see a military unit in drill or on the march is precision, unit synchronization, decisive clean movement, total focus, confidence, and positive energy. Even the breathing is synchronized to movement. Marching is practice for being decisive, looking strong and acting confidently (regardless of feelings); it requires discipline, sustained concentration, and poise (all of which are essential elements in conquering emotions, especially the fear of death). The next time you observe an athletic competition, observe how the athletes walk into competition; watch their body language at the moments in the gaps between competitive movement. Further inquiry into soldier-making reveals the following effective elements: 1. A strict code concerning how one acts and behaves, especially under stress (head, chin and shoulders up, with quick and decisive response to commands). 2. No visible sign of weakness or negative emotion is permitted. (No matter how you feel, this is the way you act.) 3. Regular exposure to high levels of physical training as well as mental and emotional stress (courtesy of the obnoxious drill instructor) to accelerate the toughening process. (The more elite the unit, the higher the stress.) 4. Precise control, regulation and requirement of cycles of sleeping, eating, drinking and rest, with mandatory meals. 5. A rigorous physical fitness program, including aerobic, anaerobic and strength training. 6. An enforced schedule of trained recovery, including the items in #4, as well as regularly-scheduled R&R. Some of the undesirable features of this military training system are: 1. The stripping of personal identity and its replacement with group identity. (Where this happens in civilian life (gangs and cults), it usually indicates low self-esteem.) 2. Military values, beliefs and skills have little application in civilian life. 3. Blind adherence to authority is rarely appropriate outside the military. 4. Mental and emotional inflexibility and rigidity are severely limiting. Even on the battlefield, and in any emergency situation, inflexible thinking leads straight to disaster. 5. An acquired dislike for physical training, and/or intense mental and emotional stress, is a common result of the pain and boredom of the process, although others adopt a pattern of fitness that they follow for life. One approach used in military training was presented at the 19th Annual Springfield College Department of Psychology Conference in June 2002 ("Winning in Sport and Life") by Dave Czesniuk, a performance enhancement instructor at West Point. Dave's job was to prepare a team of volunteers (admittedly a group with high abilities, motivation and previous success) to compete in the annual Sandhurst event. Named after Great Britain's equivalent to West Point (and always won by a team of soldiers from Sandhurst, who prepare year round), the event is scored by team only and requires nine teammates to traverse five miles over rugged terrain as fast as possible while undertaking a series of challenges or skill stations that include (among others): marksmanship; the setup, use and takedown of technical gear; rappelling down a cliff and over a river; and working together to get all nine team members over an 8-foot wall without using any aids. The team gets very limited opportunities to "scrimmage" the event; team members are, of course, also involved in athletics, other military training, and an intense curriculum of study. Dave described participation in the event as similar to belonging to a club at another college; success was based entirely on what the individuals brought to the attempt. Training consisted of physical fitness and limited work in each of the skill stations, but Dave's primary role was to meet with each individual to establish and create an audio CD training tool. The audio tool consisted of each volunteer reading a script, out loud and in his own voice. (The brain, of course, responds much more effectively to one's own voice.) The "script" described, in detail, each key moment of the entire event as well as the role that individual would play in the complex interaction with his teammates at each skill station. The script also utilized goal statements, affirmations and cues specific to the individual and his role. [The above was taken from the chapter on "Inner Game Coaching Techniques" in my compendium entitled "Summon The Magic".] There are numerous other sources of similar research and instruction on the development of superlative performance, among them Tim Gallwey’s series. But to look at this issue as an exercise in organizational development is to sanctify it… to say it is worthy of research and study and improvement. For me, that was a road not taken. I think we need to simply understand that, whether they were mindful or not, whether they embraced the “attitude” of the mission or not, they did what they were sent there to do. A bit of dialogue from the movie “Glory”: Col. Montgomery: [ordering the burning of Darien, Georgia] Prepare your men to light torches! Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I will not! Col. Montgomery: That is an order! Colonel Robert G. Shaw: An immoral order, and by the Articles of War, I am not bound to follow it! Col. Montgomery: Then, you can explain that at your court-martial... after your men are placed under my command! US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Jan Klimkowski - 13-04-2010 Ed - your post #72 is also excellent. US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Helen Reyes - 13-04-2010 Keith Millea Wrote:I think I'm the only person that posts here that has actually been in combat.I have a different perspective than everyone else.For instance,seeing the soldier pick up the wounded child and run as fast as he could to get her to the medic track showed how he tried his best to save this child(which they actually did).I thought to myself,this guy will invision,and have trouble with this horrible scene for the rest of his life.The following interview proves this out.I have not seen nor heard anyone express anything but contempt for the soldiers though(murderers all). Getting people to name names is what journalists do I have no opinion on Amy Goodman, haven't heard her at all. It's possible the 2 Reuters guys were setting up for a photo shoot behind "enemy" lines and the people with tripods or RPGs or whatever they were skidaddled at the first whiff of canon fire. The resolution just isn't good enough for me to say. The helicopter crew would have had a better view, but that also means they killed the wrong guys and saw the kids in the van, most likely. I didn't watch the full video with the same guys killing civilians in an apartment building later in the day, but there are some stills up of that at cryptome.org today. The most obvious conclusion from the film is the military's engagement policy was/is to kill them all and figure it out later. That's a war crime, btw, even if it is policy. You aren't allowed to target civilians under any of international conventions mainly pushed by the United States. Ultimately it hardly matters to anyone affected what some group of soldiers thought they saw, and just as crooked cops will throw in a gun, so will soldiers, in a pinch, rumage up a grenade to toss in the crime scene. With all the reporters killed, it looks like the US targeted reporters, and in that case, is the dialogue we're listening to in the leaked video real at all, or is it just bad acting to cover up that policy of executing reporters in the arena? Is it unpremeditated murder, or is it murder with malice aforethought? I don't know. It's not manslaughter, though. Not with that imbalance of firepower. imo. US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Ed Jewett - 14-04-2010 Gates: Wikileaks ‘Irresponsible’ for Releasing Video Posted By Jason Ditz On April 13, 2010 @ 12:18 pm In Uncategorized | 2 Comments With growing concerns over the massive number of civilians being killed in America’s assorted wars, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates took time out to publicly condemn Wikileaks for its release of a July 12, 2007 video showing US helicopters massacring civilians in Iraq. Gates insisted it was “irresponsible” of Wikileaks to release the classified video and that it showed only a “soda straw” view of the overall war. He also lamented that Wikileaks “can put out anything they want and not be held accountable.” The video was leaked a week ago and showed the Apache helicopters killing at least a dozen civilians, including two Reuters employees. The military had previously claimed the incident was a result of “combat operations against a hostile force,” though the video clearly shows no action taken by any of the people killed. Gates’ comments came as he attempted to shrug off the recent attack on a busload of civilians in Afghanistan and several other US attacks on civilians there, urging people to “face the reality that we are in a war.” Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/04/13/gates-wikileaks-irresponsible-for-releasing-video/ US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Ed Jewett - 14-04-2010 Liberals Smear Wikileaks Posted By Justin Raimondo On April 13, 2010 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized | 1 Comment Activists intent on releasing evidence of crimes committed by a powerful government are harassed and followed by police and intelligence agents: a restaurant in which they are meeting comes under surveillance, and, subsequently, one of their number is detained by the police for 21 hours. Their leader is followed on an international flight by two agents: and, in a parking lot of foreign soil, one of their number is accosted by a "James Bond character" and threatened. Computers are seized, and on the group’s Twitter account the following message appears: "If anything happens to us, you know why … and you know who is responsible." Well, then, who is responsible? Surely it must be some totalitarian regime – say, the Chinese, or one of the Arab autocracies – but no. The culprits are the Americans, and their target is Wikileaks – the web site of record for leaked government and other official documents, which has so far done more real investigative reporting in the last few years to unnerve and expose the Powers That Be than the New York Times and the Washington Post, combined. From the dicey activities of major banks, to the "Climate-gate" e-mails that revealed attempts by government scientists to falsify or "sex up" data to make the case for global warming, to the war crimes committed by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wikileaks is fearlessly exposing the evil that stalks the world – and they, in turn, are being relentlessly stalked by the US government and its minions. A US government document [.pdf] posted on Wikileaks, and authored by Michael D. Horvath, of something called the "Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch," apparently a division of the Army Counterintelligence Center, declared Wikileaks to be a danger to national security. The report explored several ways to track the provenance of documents posted on the Wikileaks site, and take down the site itself. Horvath cites a supposed lack of "editorial review" which means "the Wikileaks.org Web site could be used to post fabricated information; to post misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda; or to conduct perception management and influence operations designed to convey a negative message to those who view or retrieve information from the Web site." Oh no! Furthermore, "it must be presumed that Wikileaks.org has or will receive sensitive or classified DoD documents in the future. This information will be published and analyzed over time by a variety of personnel and organizations with the goal of influencing US policy." Shocking! Why, how dare these perfidious personnel and obviously subversive organizations presume to imagine they could possibly influence US policy! Horvath lists a number of "foreign" intelligence agencies – the Russians, the British, the Israelis – who have the technical capacity to shut Wikileaks down, and alludes to a more subtle effort by averring: "Efforts by some domestic and foreign personnel and organizations to discredit the Wikileaks.org Web site include allegations that it wittingly allows the posting of uncorroborated information, serves as an instrument of propaganda, and is a front organization of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)." Horvath goes on to detail all the criticism of Wikileaks that have appeared in the general media, including the blogosphere, and now that the "Collateral Murder" video has been released – with another one, showing similar atrocities in Afghanistan, on the way – the techniques described by Horvath are being implemented by the Obama administration’s media shills to discredit and marginalize Wikileaks, particularly targeting its founder, Julian Assange. First up is Mother Jones magazine, a citadel of Bay Area high liberalism and the left-wing of the Obama cult, with a long article by one David Kushner. The piece is essentially a critical profile of Assange, who is described as an egotist in the first few paragraphs, and it goes downhill from there. Most of the article is a collection of dishy quotes from various "experts" – including from the apparently quite jealous (and obviously demented) editor of Cryptome.org, a similar site, who says Wikileaks is CIA front. Steven Aftergood, author of the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News blog, "says he wasn’t impressed with WikiLeaks’ ‘conveyor-belt approach’ to publishing anything it came across. ‘To me, transparency is a means to an end, and that end is an invigorated political life, accountable institutions, opportunities for public engagement. For them, transparency and exposure seem to be ends in themselves,’ says Aftergood. He declined to get involved." To begin with, quite obviously Assange and the Wikileaks group have a political goal in, say, publishing the Iraq massacre video – which is to stop the war, end the atrocities, and expose the war crimes of this government to the light of day. Surely the video, and the ones to come, will continue to "invigorate" our political life – perhaps a bit more than the Aftergoods of this world would like. Kushner contacted a few members of the Wikileaks advisory board who claim they never agreed to serve – and gets one of them, computer expert Ben Laurie, to call Assange "weird." Kushner adds his own description: "paranoid: – and yet Laurie’s own paranoia comes through loud and clear when he avers: "WikiLeaks allegedly has an advisory board, and allegedly I’m a member of it. I don’t know who runs it. One of the things I’ve tried to avoid is knowing what’s going on there, because that’s probably safest for all concerned.” This is really the goal of harassing and pursuing government critics: pure intimidation. With US government agents stalking Assange as he flies to a conference in Norway, and one attempted physical attack in Nairobi, Assange is hated by governments and their shills worldwide. And Mother Jones certainly is a shill for the Obama administration, a virtual house organ of the Obama cult designed specifically for Bay Area limousine liberals who’ll gladly turn a blind eye to their idol’s war crimes – and cheer on the Feds as they track Assange’s every move and plot to take him down. Kushner asks "Can WikiLeaks be trusted with sensitive, and possibly life-threatening, documents when it is less than transparent itself?" Oh, what a good question: why shouldn’t Wikileaks make itself "transparent" to the US government, and all the other governments whose oxen have been viciously gored by documents posted on the site? Stop drinking the bong water, Kushner, and get a clue. Kushner quotes one Kelly McBride, "the ethics group leader" at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, as saying Wikileaks suffers from "a distorted sense of transparency.” This Orwellian turn of phrase is an indicator of how the mind of a government shill works. Says McBride: “They’re giving you everything they’ve got, but when journalists go through process of granting someone confidentiality, when they do it well, they determine that source has good information and that the source is somehow deserving of confidentiality.” I want to ask this "ethics group leader" if someone who works for the US government and has evidence of war crimes committed by that government, "is somehow deserving of confidentiality?" Yes or no? If no, then you had better reexamine the "ethics" upheld by you and the Poynter Institute. By the way, nothing about McBride’s views are at all surprising, given that the Poynter Institute is promoting the idea of government subsidies to the American media. If McBride & Co. aren’t already on the government payroll, then they should be. Same goes for the ubiquitous Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, who "thinks WikiLeaks’ approach gives fresh ammunition to those who seek to pressure journalists to cough up the names of their unnamed sources. She forbids her staff from using the site as a source." Ms. Dalglish has her head screwed on backwards: that’s the only possible explanation for an organization ostensibly devoted to press freedom joining the government’s pushback against Wikileaks. She should resign – or be impeached – forthwith. Far from pressuring journalists, Wikileaks is an essential asset to the profession: it provides them not only with more sources, but also with a convenient fallback: "I got it from Wikileaks." This decreases pressure on journalists pressed to identify their sources: they can always blame it on Assange and his fellow Scarlet Pimpernels of the Internet. A child could understand this, but it’s way beyond the executive director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, and also far beyond the comprehension of the "liberal" Mother Jones magazine, which ought to change its name to Encounter. Kushner "reports" this nonsense uncritically, and even cites the loony John Young, of Cryptome.org, who rants: "’WikiLeaks is a fraud,’ [Young] wrote to Assange’s list, hinting that the new site was a CIA data mining operation. ‘Fuck your cute hustle and disinformation campaign against legitimate dissent. Same old shit, working for the enemy.’" Kushner has all bases covered: the white-wine-and-brie liberals who would rather look the other way while their hero Obama slaughters children on the streets of Baghdad, and the tinfoil hat crowd who can be convinced Wikileaks is a "false flag" operation. The positive impact of Wikileaks is "debatable," avers Kushner – especially if you’re an Obamaite intent on covering up the fact of US war crimes, because of the political damage it might inflict on your "progressive" coalition. As evidence of this "debatability," Kushner tries to blame the assassination of two Kenyan dissidents on the publication of documents on Wikileaks exposing Kenyan corruption – which seems a blatant case of diverting the real blame from where it really belongs, and that is on the Kenyan government and its death squads. No, it just won’t wash – and this is certainly a curious argument for an ostensibly liberal magazine, supposedly devoted to human rights, to make. But then again, anything is possible if you’ve decided to become a government apologist and errand boy. Speaking of government apologists and errand boys, Steven Colbert of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central had Assange on Monday night, and it was the Mother Jones piece with a snarky grin and a laugh track. Colbert dropped the comic mask, and let his true face as a loyal Obamaite shine through, reciting Pentagon lies and attacking Assange for having edited "Collateral Murder," and even for giving it that title. He then opined Assange was "emotionally manipulating" people – an echo of Horvath’s analysis, which denounced Wikileaks as "disinformation" and "propaganda." "Collateral Murder" was "an editorial," not real reporting, said Colbert, but looked a bit surprised when Assange calmly pointed out that the assertion of a nearby firefight is "a lie." "We have classified information" to the contrary, Assange said, with calm assurance. You could hear a pin drop when he said that the report of "some gunfire" preceded the killings by twenty minutes and miles away from the reported location. What was supposed to have been a "gotcha" interview turned into a triumph for Wikileaks. Colbert, the court jester in King Obama’s court, missed his target by a country mile. This failed ambush, coupled with the Mother Jones hit piece, tell us all we need to know about what political discourse in Obama’s America is going to be like. Obama’s political police are after Wikileaks, and specifically Assange, and the liberal smear brigade is going to go after him hammer and tongs. The Obamaites know that a great chunk of their liberal base opposes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their Dear Leader could easily find himself in the same position as Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968. No wonder there were two US State Department officials following Assange on that international flight: will Hillary Clinton, their boss, tell us what they were doing, and on what authority? The spying on Wikileaks, and attempts by the US government to take down and/or discredit this valuable Internet resource, is taking place on Obama’s watch, and under the direction of his appointed officials. The entire apparatus of surveillance and repression developed under the Bush administration has been adopted by and expanded on by the Obamaites This is a regime that has now decided it’s okay to assassinate American citizens, but foreign-born terrorists plotting to kill Americans must be tried in a US court and given free lawyers. And if that doesn’t prove we’ve entered Bizarro World, via the Twilight Zone, then I don’t know how else to explain it. While Assange is being tailed by Hillary’s gendarmes, and a brazen campaign of intimidation is being carried out by government agencies against a legal organization and web site, the "liberals" over at Mother Jones are doing their bit by trying to discredit Assange, and Wikileaks, in progressive circles. Judging from the comments attached to Kushner’s piece, it isn’t working all that well. When are conservatives going to wake up and smell the coffee? Probably when Obama’s thugs come after them and their dinky little web sites, if ever they become a threat to the regime. This is blowback, guys: the very spying and surveillance you wanted as weapons in the "war on terrorism" are now being turned on critics of a liberal Democratic administration. They’re going after the web site that published the "Climate-gate" emails — and you’re next! And when are liberals going to wake up and smell the fact that their Dear Leader has betrayed the Revolution, and is in many ways worse than his predecessor? At least you knew Bush was an authoritarian. Obama puts a "reasonable" and even "liberal" face on what is, essentially, the same doctrine of executive and governmental supremacism. What’s interesting is to listen to liberals now sounding like the once-hated neocons, smearing anyone who stands in their way and justifying an increasingly unpopular and costly war. The real Mother Jones must be spinning in her grave. Read more by Justin Raimondo
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/04/13/liberals-smear-wikileaks/ US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Presland - 14-04-2010 Ed Jewett Wrote:Liberals Smear Wikileaks More reason for my despair at any prospect of worthwhile, activist induced change that reduces the Machiavellian unaccountability of power. Violent revolution isn't much use either since it has always replaced one form of despotism with another. It's human nature that remains the problem. No sooner does an apparently worthwhile undertaking start to achieve some traction than it is targeted in the myriad ways illustrated in that article. It's founders reveal their human ambition and weakness for personal aggrandisement; those who might otherwise assist it are affronted by and jealous of it's 'success'; it's natural opponents (ie the nexus of established power) go on the offensive with all the deception, surveillance and propaganda assets and capabilities at their disposal. The result is co-option, compromise or destruction - and the cycle starts again. Some personal observations: Julian assange's clear love of the limelight; his publicity seeking is a big turn-off for me. I can understand him using it as a form of self-protection - which is probably needed - but he gives the appearance of taunting 'Authority' and seeking confrontation. That IMHO is a trait which a project like WikiLeaks could do without. I don't think John Young is Jealous either - much less 'demented'. He does his thing doggedly and without fanfare and the world needs more like him IMO. He nailed the potential weaknesses of WikiLeaks in observations published on DPF a while back. As for the political activist Left generally; well, what can I say? They really are no better than their right-wing counterparts. Just Sheeple - useful tools for those who hold real power - and very little else. The Left will support war for 'humanitarian intervention' purposes, or to emancipate the women of Afghanistan - that sort of ludicrous crap. The Right will support war to 'go after the terrorists' and its derivatives - equal crap. And all the while they both remain oblivious to the real purposes of their Lords and Masters - after all America's (UK France Germany - whatever nationality you like) purpose is to do good in the world. Mass perception and understanding of the what is going on really is childlike in its gross naivete. If only, IF ONLY those stupid dark-skinned foreigners would just see things our enlightened way we wouldn't have to go on killing them any more would we? It's all their fault so there! -stamps foot - 'we've got to destroy the city in order to save it' as some messianic warrior once opined (Vietnam war era as I recall). When it comes to the exercise of power, things really do not change US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Presland - 14-04-2010 This Guardian article on the WikiLeaks brohahah is worth a look. Some good background information plus a bit of 'on the one hand - on the other hand' analysis. Note the 'correction' regarding Julius Bare bank at the end. Powerful interests taking notice eh? Quote:It has proclaimed itself the "intelligence service of the people", and plans to have more agents than the CIA. They will be you and me.WikiLeaks is a long way from that goal, but this week it staked its claim to be the dead drop of choice for whistleblowers after releasing video the Pentagon claimed to have lost of US helicopter crews excitedly killing Iraqis on a Baghdad street in 2007. The dead included two Reuters news agency staff. The release of the shocking footage prompted an unusual degree of hand-wringing in a country weary of the Iraq war, and garnered WikiLeaks more than $150,000 in donations to keep its cash-starved operation on the road. US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Helen Reyes - 14-04-2010 hahaha they keep repeating the same stuff. WHERE IS THE JOHN YOUNG QUOTE THAT WIKILEAKS IS A CIA FRONT? There isn't one, but they keep saying there is. They quote an internal list-server email when John Young distanced himself from the project, without context. Several points spring to mind concerning the above-reposted media coverage: Assange's ego: Before the Iceland saga, I'd never ever seen a photo of Assange. The only reason I did see one was because Norway has some great journalists who dug up an archive photo from an awards ceremony. The Kenyan hitmen story only came out AFTER Iceland, afaik, so, so much for Assange publishing potboiler accounts of his sekrit dangerous life as a wikileaker. If anything, he's been incredibly private about his private life. This goes into the alleged board of wikileaks: Assange seems to have elected a bunch of big names without their permission. This is probably meant to confuse the process servers and researchers. If wikileaks has no physical presence, it can't be attacked as easily. Journalistic ethics: the above-quoted "specialist" is simply wrong, or doesn't have a clue about what she is saying, because the wikileaks interface to the world is an upload page that promises confidentiality. If wikileaks publishes something, it is abiding by the agreement on the upload page to keep the identity of the submitter confidential. If the sources "don't deserve" confidentiality, then wikileaks' choice is simple, that is, it can't publish that information from that source. there are even laws demanding wikileaks abide by this sort of confidentiality agreement with submitters in Sweden, I believe. Wikileaks came under attack in more venues than listed. One memorable event was the publication of information about the operation of child-porn servers in Germany. Internal German "FBI" (VfD I believe is the acronym, or BND) dox led to searches and seizures inside Germany. Denmark and Australia jointly attacked wikileaks for publishing lists of internet addresses blocked by both countries' internet-filtering projects. The Kenyan author Wrong's book is a canard if I recall correctly. In fact, wikileaks purposely did not distribute the book, and instead provided information for contacting the author in order to purchase a copy or request a hardship copy. It's possible wikileaks did this following an initial posting of her book, but this is all I saw, no free book. Assange is connected with an early ebook on hacking around about the time CultoftheDeadCow began attacking China in retalliation for their execution of a Chinese hacker or 2 Chinese hackers, or slightly before CDC's "hacktivism." CDC was designing software for remote control of computers around this time, BackOrifice, an early hacker's version of Remote Desktop by NSA/Microsoft. I would place Julian Assange in that milleu rather than John Young's cryptome, which was similar but different, but of course the point is divide-and-conquer, to play Young against Assange rather than addressing the information itself. On the copyright symbol on the Apache snuff film: so what? They did subtitles, they edited, they commented. Everyone puts a copyright symbol on things nowadays to claim it as their work. Somone types a public domain book into a digital format and they slap a copyright on for the typing effort. I did enjoy seeing Brigitta Jonsdottir's name in the credits at the end. In this case I don't think Assange was just adding famous names to things on a whim. She was and is involved with Assange in the IMMI, immi.is US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Helen Reyes - 16-04-2010 cryptome.org said: A3 writes of the Wikileaks gunship video: Having looked at all the evidence I can find on this incident it seems clear that the men killed in the video were armed insurgents with the Mahdi Army and that the photographers were embedded with them. The subsequent firing on the van is questionable. However, that one can identify an RPG in the video indicates that Wikileaks misrepresented the video or missed the obvious. Both scenarios are worrying and make this "leak" look like a charity drive for a website who's operating budget seems incredibly high for what they deliver. So, my question to you is this. Should Wikileaks simply publish or should they publish and editorialize? I fear they do themselves no favors through misrepresentation or omission, I believe their purpose is best served by presenting material with no additional commentary. I also fear that entering into the political fray will discredit them as an organization eventually and undermine their purpose. One of the best things about cryptome is that items are generally posted with commentary that doesn't exceed the title of the link. I've never seen you post a document with a preface you added, your warnings to not trust you are refreshing. Anyways, keep keeping on, "loony John Young, of Cryptome.org." Cryptome: Wikileaks should continue to do what it believes best, as should others, ignore critics who envy its ingenuity and fear its reverse criticism of lazy-minded, spoiled critics -- and comics. There is no single best means to gather and distribute information to the public -- nor to tell the truth about it. Variation and diversity and multiplicity is essential to avoid the deadly chokehold of dominant authorities, their complicit authoritatives and the grammar, rhetoric, graphics and technology they use for heirarchical control. To mimic the information strangulation of dominaters is to lie, deceive, misrepresent, bloviate, exaggerate, op- and pop-advert-editorialize, to manage the flow of information for a particular agenda always wedded to a grab for and protection of greater power and the lucrative revenue and fancy accoutrements it provides. There is a plaque in the rotunda of a courthouse at 60 Center Street, New York City, which commemorates the 300th anniversary of the trial of John Peter Zenger for seditious libel. He won the trial and laid the foundation for freedom of the press in the US Constitution. There is always a first of a venerable tradition taken for granted. Wikileaks may not be the first but it is certainly a standard bearer for those less known who are challenging conventional wisdom of freedom of the press, now grown into self-satisfied authoritativeness and embedded with authorities. The press (forget the trivializing, gossipy "media") must be goaded into overcoming its fear of being seditiously libelous, of "going too far." Thanks to Wikileaks for demonstrating that the information royalty is cravenly bare-assed, terrified of losing protection against the treaty-mongering avaricious FINCEN (forget trivializing, gossipy toothless NSA, ignore nuclear security theater). Excuse the bowel moving. Another lying sack of shit (LSOS). |