Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'secret government'?

[David Guyatt]

So good to see the Vatican engaging in God's Work:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embas...nts/203608

Wednesday, 22 April 2009, 16:27
C O N F I D E N T I A L VATICAN 000059
EO 12958 DECL: 4/22/2029
TAGS PREL, PGOV, KIRF, VT, CU, VE, BL
SUBJECT: © VATICAN HOPES FOR BETTER U.S.-CUBA TIES, IN PART TO REIN
IN CHAVEZ AND HIS ACOLYTES
REF: A. A) CARACAS 486 B. B) CARACAS 443 C. C) VATICAN 36 D. D) VATICAN 12
CLASSIFIED BY: Julieta Valls Noyes, CDA, EXEC, State. REASON: 1.4 (b), (d)

1. © Summary: The Holy See welcomes President Obama's new outreach to Cuba and hopes for further steps soon, perhaps to include prison visits for the wives of the Cuban Five. Better U.S.-Cuba ties would deprive Hugo Chavez of one of his favorite screeds and could help restrain him in the region, according to a Vatican official. This is highly desirable for the Vatican, which is very concerned about the deterioration of Church-state relations in Venezuela. To avoid similar downward spirals elsewhere, the Vatican said Church leaders elsewhere in Latin America are reaching out to leftist governments. The recent attack on a Cardinal's home in Bolivia may have been intended to derail such quiet rapprochement. End Summary.

Cuba: Great News. What Will You Do Next?

----------------------------------------

2. © CDA and Acting DCM on April 22 called on the Holy See's official in charge of relations with Caribbean and Andean countries, Msgr. Angelo Accattino, to review recent developments in the region. As he had done previously (ref c), Accattino warmly welcomed recent White House policy decisions on Cuba and reviewed with interest the White House Fact Sheet on "Reaching Out to the Cuban People" which CDA gave him. Accattino also noted favorably Raul Castro's comments that Cuba was prepared to talk to the U.S. about all topics - although "after all, he has no other options anymore." CDA said Castro would need to reciprocate the moves from Washington with more than words - he needed to take action on political prisoners or reduce the cost of receiving remittances in Cuba.

3. © Accattino said the Vatican considered intriguing the possibility of a swap of political prisoners in Cuba for the "Cuban Five" in jail in the U.S. ADCM protested that their circumstances were not parallel, as the Cuban Five were convicted spies and the prisoners in Cuba were dissidents. Accattino quickly agreed but said discussions that led to the release of the dissidents were worth pursuing regardless. The Holy See was also following the Supreme Court appeal by the Cuban Five, to see how that might affect relations between the U.S. and Cuba. As an interim measure, Accattino suggested that the U.S. allow a jail visit by the wives of two of the five Cuban spies. CDA again noted that the U.S. had taken the first step, now the Cuban government needed to reciprocate in a concrete way.

Venezuela: Chavez is Worried. So is the Church.

--------------------------------------------- -

4. © The Cuba debate, Accattino said, had cast a long shadow at the recent Summit of the Americas. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was clearly rattled by the thought that the U.S. and Cuba could enter into a dialogue that excluded him, and this motivated his "little scene" at the Summit. "Chavez is not dumb," and he was playing to the other hemispheric leaders with his bombastic approach to President Obama. The Holy See believes that the U.S. and Cuba should pursue a dialogue both for its own sake and/and in order to reduce the influence of Chavez and break up his cabal in Latin America, Accattino said.

5. © The situation for civil society in Venezuela is getting worse every day, according to Accattino. The asylum request by Maracaibo Mayor Manuel Rosales in Peru was only the latest sign of the narrowing political space in Venezuela. (Asked for updates on the whereabouts or situation of the Venezuelan asylum seeker Nixon Moreno from the Nunciature in Caracas, however, Accattino answered a bit evasively.) The real concern, Accattino said, is that Venezuela is turning into Cuba, while Cuba may be ready to open up.

6. © Church-state relations are also deteriorating daily in Venezuela, Accattino said. The Venezuelan Catholic Conference of Bishops (CEV) did not check in with Rome before taking actions or making statements like its highly critical April 6 communique (ref A). The Holy See agreed with the CEV conclusions, and would defend them -- even when it believed "a less confrontational approach would be more effective."

Bolivia: No More Venezuelas, Let's Talk. But Who Attacked Our Cardinal?

--------------------------------------------- --------------

7. © Turning to the recent dynamite attack against the residence of Cardinal Terrazas on April 15 in Bolivia, Accattino said it had worried the Holy See greatly. There was property damage, but thankfully no-one was hurt. It could easily have been worse. The Vatican is reserving judgment, pending the government's investigation, on who was behind the attack. It could have been radicals inside the government who want to derail the recent rapprochement between the Church and the state. The extreme right also could have been responsible - trying to make it seem like the government did it - for the same reason. Accattino said the Holy See considers either explanation equally plausible at this point. Meanwhile, it will keep talking to the government, because it has no choice.

Comment: Looking Out for the Church First

-----------------------------------------

8. © The Holy See has consistently maintained that improving U.S.-Cuba ties would greatly reduce the appeal of Hugo Chavez. It is so alarmed by the continued downward spiral in its own relations with Chavez, in fact, that Accattino said Church leaders in Latin American countries with leftist governments are rethinking their approach. Many episcopal (bishops) conferences in the region had in the past been willing to criticize excesses of these governments in an effort to protect civil society. They may be pulling back from that activism and advocacy in the short term, in order to protect their longer-term ability to minister to the Catholic faithful without interference. That attitude is what is behind the Church's moves to improve relations with the Morales government in Bolivia. It may also explain Accattino's ever-so-mild tone of criticism when discussing CEV decisions in Caracas. As for Accattino's polite unwillingness to discuss the Nixon Moreno case, that may also be telling, given his considerable interest in the topic last time we spoke (ref c). End Comment.

NOYES

[David Guyatt]

FTR #724 Wiki of the Damned

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ October 19, 2010[URL="http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-724-wiki-of-the-damned/#comments"]

Thanks for posting this Ed. I'm a big fan of Dave Emory and Spitfire/FTR.

I noticed that the text you copied and pasted in had a large volume of "*" spread throughout the text, which made me squint a bit, so I've tried to post it again take in clean text -- but unfortunately, in my case, the "*" are simply replaced by hyphens. So, for those reader's who wish to read a clean copy they will need to visit the Spitfire site.

Meanwhile, the article states the following:

11. WikiLeaks’ political orientation is clarified in an article published in The New Yorker. Note that the group’s primary targets are “highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia”– the Earth Island about which we’ve spoken so often. They’re also willing to work against the United States, obviously.

WikiLeaks political orientation smacks of a Third Posi tion, UNPO political orientation–one consistent with the Underground Reich.

On the other hand, Wikileaks could just be focusing its energy on the major repressive regimes --- which makes sense to me. That's what forums like the DPF are intent upon also. The US certainly fits that description these days.

The latest round of leaks have so agitated the US that Assange is now languishing in prison awaiting extradition for almost certainly trumped up charges - and is imminently facing (according to his London lawyers) US espionage charges. Not something the Underground Reich can be pleased with since they have made so much progress over the decades to control world finance, a Nazi post war aim as expounded by Nazi financier, as Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht. And the US would be central to that aim, imo.

In fact I can't think of any bankers that are known for championing social cohesion, honesty, fairness and integrity. They all seem to me to lean towards the political right.

Or, as former head of the fascist leaning Propaganda Due (P2), Licio Gelli, once quipped, "the doors of all bank vaults open to the right." And I have to say that that is my own personal experience too.

[Peter Lemkin]

In an interview with The Daily Mail, Julian Assange's Swedish lawyer, Björn Hurtig, said that he had seen police documents that prove Mr Assange is innocent, and that the accusers had a "hidden agenda" when they went to the police:

"From what I have read, it is clear that the women are lying and that they had an agenda when they went to the police, which had nothing to do with a crime having taken place. It was, I believe, more about jealousy and disappointment on their part. I can prove that at least one of them had very big expectations for something to happen with Julian."

He has asked for the Swedish prosecutor's permission to disclose the evidence: "If I am able to reveal what I know, everyone will realise this is all a charade," he said. "If I could tell the British courts, I suspect it would make extradition a moot point. But at the moment I'm bound by the rules of the Swedish legal system, which say that the information can only be used as evidence in this country. For me to do otherwise would lead to me being disbarred."

Mr Hurtig added that he was ready to fly to London and present the evidence at the court hearing this Tuesday, if he was given permission. "That said, I’m convinced that as soon as the case is heard in Sweden it will be thrown out," he added.

You can read the full interview here.


-NB [IMO, NOT ONE CHANCE Swedish Prosecutor will allow him to tell the British this. If he did, he'd have to have proofs or swear under legal penalty, not just heresay...but the 'fix' is in on Assange....]

WikiLeaks 'rape' victims had hidden agendas ... and I've seen the proof says Julian Assange's lawyer

By Angella Johnson
Last updated at 9:11 AM on 12th December 2010
Comments (12)
Add to My Stories



Accused: Julian Assange is in a British jail, fighting extradition to Sweden

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s lawyer says he has seen secret police documents that prove the whistleblower is innocent of rape claims made against him by two women in Stockholm.

Björn Hurtig, who is representing Mr Assange in Sweden, said the papers, which form part of the official Swedish investigation, reveal both women had ‘hidden agendas’ and lied about being coerced into having sex with Mr Assange, 39.

The freedom of information crusader is being held in Wandsworth jail in London while fighting extradition to face the accusations, which his defenders say are part of a plot to stop him releasing more embarrassing information on his website about governments worldwide.

Australian Mr Assange met both women at a seminar in Stockholm last August. After having intercourse with each, at different times, he faced sex charges – which he strenuously denies – that were withdrawn and then reinstated.

Mr Hurtig said in an exclusive interview from his Stockholm office: ‘From what I have read, it is clear that the women are lying and that they had an agenda when they went to the police, which had nothing to do with a crime having taken place.

‘It was, I believe, more about jealousy and disappointment on their part. I can prove that at least one of them had very big expectations for something to happen with Julian.’

He has asked for Swedish prosecutors’ permission to disclose more ‘sensational’ information.

‘If I am able to reveal what I know, everyone will realise this is all a charade,’ he said. ‘If I could tell the British courts, I suspect it would make extradition a moot point.

‘But at the moment I’m bound by the rules of the Swedish legal system, which say that the information can only be used as evidence in this country. For me to do otherwise would lead to me being disbarred.’

Mr Hurtig, a top sex-crime defence lawyer, is ready to fly to London and present the evidence when Mr Assange appears in court this week – if he is given the all-clear.

‘He denied vehemently that he had raped or in any way indulged in non-consensual sex. He was very upset. He kept saying, “How can they do this to me? I’ve done nothing wrong. They are trying to destroy my credibility.” He kept saying it was a witch-hunt and we must fight it.’

[Peter Lemkin]

So good to see the Vatican engaging in God's Work:

Well since he/she banks with them, they in turn do his work....as interest.

[David Guyatt]

5 minute thought provoking clip of Ron Paul's speech in the House "Killing the Messenger for Bad News" defence of Wikieaks.

[Albert Doyle]

What I love about cases like this is, just like the WMD, false charges are a serious matter, especially with someone of the importance of Assange. Most likely nothing will be done to the accusers. I don't think progressive women should be proud of these gals.

[Peter Lemkin]

Good interview with Assange here. I have to also register my growing unease with those repeatedly posting about Assange as cult mind controlled whatever and antithesis of what he appears to be. I grant you, of course, you right to your opinion, but am almost at the point of wondering which side you are 'on'.................I have been [albeit in a much less high profile manner] in Assange's situation and remember much the same [albeit in much less visible and important circumstances].

Dave Emory has done great work on some things [IMO]...and Dave Emory has done shit work on other things, IMO. He is overly opinionated and a egotist. Some on the left and some on the right try to be the most extreme they can be....of those I always urge caution and more than caution...as they have the potential of being a provocateur. Time will tell. We will see what happens, if we still have the internet to interact.... Sorry for my extreme views. Perhaps. My gut feeling is Assange [while far from perfect is Assange as a cigar in the Freudian sense is sometimes just a cigar].

[Peter Lemkin]

First, They Came for WikiLeaks. Then...
The Editors
December 9, 2010 | This article appeared in the December 27, 2010 edition of The Nation.

The equanimity with which the government was able to breeze past the Post series is telling in light of the great ruckus caused by WikiLeaks and its slow drip of more than 250,000 State Department cables. The Post didn't tell secrets so much as outline the contours of the shadow world from which they originate; WikiLeaks rips off the veil. It's the exposure of these secrets that has the world's power elite so rattled. Pols and pundits are calling for the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Assange be assassinated. As a magazine that champions free speech, The Nation defends the rights of leakers and media organizations to disclose secrets that advance a public interest without fear of retribution—or murder. If the Justice Department goes after Assange as an enemy of the state, what's next? The arrest of the editors of the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País, the news outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks?

By and large WikiLeaks has come to embrace the ethics that guide traditional news organizations' disclosure of secrets, and it should be afforded the same protections. WikiLeaks' critics assert—without evidence—that its leaks have endangered lives, but a senior NATO official told CNN in October that "there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the [Afghanistan] leak." Critics characterize WikiLeaks' actions as indiscriminate document dumps, but at press time WikiLeaks had released only 1,095 cables, almost all vetted and redacted by its partner news organizations. WikiLeaks even asked the State Department to help redact the cables before they were released. It refused.

What's really at stake here is not individual privacy, the safety of sources or America's diplomatic leverage—it's the secret state. Over the past decade, our leaders have come to see secrecy as a casual right instead of a rare privilege. The cables released so far illustrate this corruption: routine, even banal, matters of diplomatic correspondence are labeled "NOFORN" (not for release to foreign nationals), "Confidential" or "Secret."

Beyond revealing the unprecedented scale of secrecy, WikiLeaks has also brought to light the antidemocratic actions secrecy protects. In Yemen, for example, the United States conducted secret airstrikes on suspected Al Qaeda targets, then conspired with Yemeni leaders to pretend that Yemen's military had done it (see Jeremy Scahill, "WikiLeaking Covert Wars," in this issue). Here is an instance where America's standing in the world was put at risk. But it's not WikiLeaks that did it. It's the policy of covert action and the lies told to cover it up.
=============================================
On September 6, 2009, President Obama's deputy national security adviser, John Brennan, met with Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to discuss the rising influence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). "President Saleh pledged unfettered access to Yemen's national territory for U.S. counterterrorism operations," according to a secret diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. While the Obama administration was insisting publicly that its role in Yemen was limited to training the country's military forces—the same claim it made about Pakistan—US Special Operations forces were conducting offensive operations in Yemen, including airstrikes, and conspiring with Yemen's president and other leaders to cover up the US role.

On December 17, 2009, an alleged Al Qaeda training camp in Yemen at al-Majalah, Abyan, was hit by a cruise missile, killing forty-one people. According to an investigation by the Yemeni Parliament, fourteen women and twenty-one children were among the dead, along with fourteen alleged Al Qaeda fighters. A week later another airstrike hit another village in Yemen.

Amnesty International released photographs from one of the strikes, revealing remnants of US cluster munitions and the Tomahawk cruise missiles used to deliver them. At the time, the Pentagon refused to comment, directing all inquiries to Yemen's government, which released a statement on December 24 taking credit for both airstrikes, saying in a press release, "Yemeni fighter jets launched an aerial assault" and "carried out simultaneous raids killing and detaining militants."

US diplomatic cables now reveal that both strikes were conducted by the US military under orders from Gen. David Petraeus, then head of US Central Command (Centcom). "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," President Saleh told Petraeus during a meeting in early January 2010, according to one cable. Yemen's Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi then boasted that he had just "lied" by telling Parliament "that the bombs...were American-made but deployed by" Yemen. According to US Special Operations sources, US teams also conduct targeted killing operations and raids inside Yemen.

The WikiLeaks information partially corroborates what sources told The Nation in June about how the Obama administration was expanding the footprint of covert actions conducted by the military, not the CIA, to more than seventy-five countries. The frontline battles, the sources alleged, were in Yemen and Somalia. "In both those places, there are ongoing unilateral actions," said a special operations source, adding that they do "a lot in Pakistan too."

The WikiLeaks cables also reveal that despite denials by US officials spanning more than a year, US Special Operations forces have been conducting offensive operations in Pakistan, helping direct US drone strikes and conducting joint operations with Pakistani troops against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in North and South Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. According to an October 9, 2009, cable classified by Anne Patterson, then the US ambassador to Pakistan, the operations were conducted by US Special Operations forces and coordinated with the US Office of the Defense Representative in Pakistan. A Special Operations source told The Nation that the US forces described in the cable as "SOC(FWD)-PAK" were "forward operating troops" from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the most elite force in the US military, made up of Navy SEALs, Delta Force and Army Rangers.

The cables also confirm aspects of a Nation story from November 2009, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," which detailed offensive combat operations by JSOC in Pakistan. At the time, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell called the Nation story "conspiratorial" and denied that US Special Operations forces were doing anything other than "training" in Pakistan. More than a month after the October 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Pakistan confirming JSOC combat missions, Morrell told reporters that the United States had "a few dozen forces on the ground in Pakistan...training Pakistani forces so that they can in turn train other Pakistani military," adding, "That's the extent of our military boots on the ground in Pakistan." It now appears that Morrell's statement was false.

To the embassy staff, Pakistan's allowing US forces to engage in combat was viewed as a "sea change" in its military leaders' thinking. The staff said they had previously been "adamantly opposed [to] letting us embed" US Special Operations forces with Pakistani forces. On the issue of airstrikes, the US government appears to have an arrangement with Pakistani authorities that mirrors the one with Yemen's government. While the US government will not confirm drone strikes inside the country and Pakistani officials regularly criticize the strikes, the issue of the drones was discussed in another cable, from August 2008. That cable described a meeting between Ambassador Patterson and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. Gillani said, "I don't care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."

In fall 2008, the US Special Operations Command asked top US diplomats in Pakistan and Afghanistan for detailed information on refugee camps along the Af-Pak border and a list of humanitarian aid organizations working in those camps. On October 6, Patterson sent a cable marked "Confidential" to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the CIA, Centcom and several US embassies, saying that some of the requests, which came as e-mails, "suggested that agencies intend to use the data for targeting purposes." Other requests, according to the cable, "indicate it would be used for 'NO STRIKE' purposes." The cable, issued jointly by the US embassies in Kabul and Islamabad, declared: "We are concerned about providing information gained from humanitarian organizations to military personnel, especially for reasons that remain unclear. Particularly worrisome, this does not seem to us a very efficient way to gather accurate information."

It is also clear from the cables that the ability of US Special Operations forces to operate in Pakistan is viewed as a major development. The US Embassy there notes the potential consequences of the activities leaking: "These deployments are highly politically sensitive because of widely-held concerns among the public about Pakistani sovereignty and opposition to allowing foreign military forces to operate in any fashion on Pakistani soil. Should these developments and/or related matters receive any coverage in the Pakistani or US media, the Pakistani military will likely stop making requests for such assistance."

Such statements might help explain why Ambassador Richard Holbrooke lied when he said bluntly in July: "People think that the US has troops in Pakistan. Well, we don't."

What the WikiLeaks documents make clear is that the handful of cables on US Special Operations activities in Pakistan and Yemen offer a tiny glimpse into one of the darkest corners of current US counterterrorism policy.
Jeremy Scahill

[Peter Lemkin]

WikiLeaks may make the powerful howl, but we are learning the truth

WikiLeaks has offered us glimpses of how the world works. And in most cases nothing but good can come of it

Henry Porter
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 11 December 2010 21.30 GMT

I have lost count of the politicians and opinion formers of an authoritarian bent warning of the dreadful damage done by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables, and in the very next breath dismissing the content as frivolous tittle-tattle. To seek simultaneous advantage from opposing arguments is not a new gambit, but to be wrong in both is quite an achievement.

Publication of the cables has caused no loss of life; troops are not being mobilised; and the only real diplomatic crisis is merely one of discomfort. The idea that the past two weeks have been a disaster is self-evidently preposterous. Yet the leaks are of unprecedented importance because, at a stroke, they have enlightened the masses about what is being done in their name and have shown the corruption, incompetence – and sometimes wisdom – of our politicians, corporations and diplomats. More significantly, we have been given a snapshot of the world as it is, rather than the edited account agreed upon by diverse elites, whose only common interest is the maintenance of their power and our ignorance.

The world has changed, not simply because governments find they are just as vulnerable to the acquisition, copying and distribution of huge amounts of data as the music, publishing and film businesses were, but because we are unlikely to return to the happy ignorance of the past. Knowing Saudi Arabia has urged the bombing of Iran, that Shell maintains an iron grip on the government of Nigeria, that Pfizer hired investigators to disrupt investigations into drugs trials on children, also in Nigeria, that the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, is swinging both ways on the Taliban, that China launched a cyber attack on Google, that North Korean has provided nuclear scientists to Burma, that Russia is a virtual mafia state in which security services and gangsters are joined at the hip – and knowing all this in some detail – means we are far more likely to treat the accounts of events we are given in the future with much greater scepticism.

Never mind the self-serving politicians who waffle on about the need for diplomatic confidentiality when they themselves order the bugging of diplomats and hacking of diplomatic communications. What is astonishing is the number of journalists out there who argue that it is better not to know these things, that the world is safer if the public is kept in ignorance. In their swooning infatuation with practically any power elite that comes to hand, some writers for the Murdoch press and Telegraph titles argue in essence for the Chinese or Russian models of deceit and obscurantism. They advocate the continued infantilising of the public.

Nothing is new. In 1771, that great lover of liberty, John Wilkes, and a number of printers challenged the law that prohibited the reporting of Parliamentary debates and speeches, kept secret because those in power argued that the information was too sensitive and would disrupt the life of the country if made public. Using the arcane laws of the City of London, Alderman Wilkes arranged for the interception of the Parliamentary messengers sent to arrest the printers who had published debates, and in doing so successfully blocked Parliament. By 1774, a contemporary was able to write: "The debates in both houses have been constantly printed in the London papers." From that moment, the freedom of the press was born.

It took a libertine to prove that information enriched the functioning of British society, a brave maverick who was constantly moving house – and sometimes country – to avoid arrest; whose epic sexual adventures had been used by the authorities as a means of entrapping and imprisoning him. The London mob came out in his favour and, supplemented by shopkeepers and members of the gentry on horseback, finally persuaded the establishment of the time to accept that publication was inevitable. And the kingdom did not fall.



Over the past few weeks, there have been similarly dire predictions from sanctimonious men and women of affairs about the likely impacts of publication, and of course Julian Assange finds himself banged up in Wandsworth nick, having neither been formally charged with, nor found guilty of, the sex crimes he is alleged to have committed in Sweden. Making no comment about his guilt or innocence, or the possibility of his entrapment, I limit myself to saying that we have been here before with John Wilkes; and the reason for this is that authorities the world over and through history react the same way when there is a challenge to a monopoly of information.

It is all about power and who has access to information. Nothing more. When those who want society to operate on the basis of the parent-child relationship because it is obviously easier to manage, shut the door and say "not in front of the children", they are usually looking after their interests, not ours.

I don't argue for a free-for-all, regardless of the consequences. In the WikiLeaks cables, knowledge and the editing and reporting skills found in the old media, combined with the new ability to locate and seize enormous amounts of information on the web, has actually resulted in responsible publication, with names, sources, locations and dates redacted to protect people's identities and their lives.

America is sore and naturally feels exposed, but the state department would have had much less cause for regret if it had listened to Ross Anderson, the Cambridge professor often quoted here in relation to Labour's obsession with huge databases of personal information. His rule states that it is a mathematical impossibility to maintain a large and functional database that is also secure. Hillary Clinton must rue the day that the Bush administration built a great silo of cables that could be accessed by three million staff. The Chinese and Russians would never have been so trusting.

There has been more than a hint that China and Russia have empathised with the Americans. The unseen affinities of the powerful may also be responsible for the unforgivable behaviour by Amazon, which pulled the plug on hosting WikiLeaks, and PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which unilaterally stopped customers making donations to WikiLeaks. There was not the slightest consideration of principles about free information or the freedom of their customers to make up their own minds. What next? Will these corporate giants be blocking payment to the New York Times and the Guardian? It is hard to feel much regret over the cyber attacks on their websites because, in the end, they did not seem much better than Shell and Pfizer, the companies that appear to be running so much of Nigeria like the worst type of imperial powers.

Nothing but good can come from revelations about these companies, and in this brief moment when we have a glimpse of how things really are, we should relish the fact that publication of the cables, as well as the shameful reactions to it, have brought light, not fire.

[Peter Lemkin]

Why did I back Julian Assange? It's about justice and fairness

Even my mother asked why I would stand surety for an alleged rapist. I was there because I believe this is about censorship

Jemima Khan
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 December 2010 00.01 GMT

Jemima Khan leaves Horseferry Road magistrates court after Julian Assange was remanded in custody. The WikiLeaks founder was refused bail at an extradition hearing in central London over sex crime allegations Photograph: Felix Clay

Why did I offer to provide surety for an alleged rapist, a man I have never met? That's the question even my mother asked me after I appeared in court for Julian Assange.

That morning I had sent a spur-of-the-moment message of support by email to Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, when I read of his arrest. He immediately responded and asked if I would be prepared to come to court in the next hour to act as a surety for Assange. I was nervous about the inevitable media circus, but felt that it was the right thing to do after being convinced by Stephens that it could help.

Assange has not even been charged, let alone convicted. Swedish prosecutors do not have to produce any evidence that he committed the alleged sexual offences to justify the warrant. On the basis of the allegations that I heard read out in court, the evidence seems feeble, but I concede that I don't know the full facts. Neither does Assange. Stockholm's chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, who heard the evidence against Assange in August, threw the case out of court, saying: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

That is not the reason I was there. I was there because I believe that this is about censorship and intimidation. The timing of these rehashed allegations is highly suspicious, coinciding with the recent WikiLeaks revelations and reinvigorated by a rightwing Swedish politician. There are credible rumours that this is a holding charge while an indictment is being sought in secret for his arrest and extradition to the US. An accusation of rape is the ultimate gag. Until proved otherwise, Assange has done nothing illegal, yet he is behind bars.

There is a fundamental injustice here. There are calls for the punishment (execution even) of the man who has reported war crimes, but not for those that perpetrated or sanctioned them.

On the one hand, the US is proud of its First Amendment and its long-standing commitment to the freedom of speech. It was announced last week that the US is to host next year's Unesco World Press Freedom Day event, which champions in particular "the free flow of information in this digital age".

On the other hand, it is examining ways to take legal action against Assange, who is in effect editor of the world's first stateless (non-profit) media organisation. It has blocked access to the WikiLeaks website and denied its citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant. It has also successfully pressured Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to withdraw their services from WikiLeaks, as well as the Swiss bank PostFinance, to close Assange's account.

WikiLeaks offers a new type of investigative journalism. I have my doubts about whether some cables should have been leaked – for example, the list of infrastructure sites vital to national security – and I share the concern that diplomacy could suffer as a result of others. But I feel passionately that democracy needs a strong and free media. It is the only way to ensure governments are honest and remain accountable.

WikiLeaks has revealed that we have been told a great many lies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that there has been little accountability. How are the recent revelations regarding America's secret war in Yemen not in the public interest? Don't American citizens have the right to know that, contrary to official denials, they have paid for cruise missile attacks on Yemen, which have accidentally killed 200 civilians?

I have a personal interest in the revelations about Pakistan, which highlight what many of us have long feared: that contrary to assurances from Pakistan's leaders, the US is fully ensconced, with bases and special forces, that there have been unreported civilian deaths and that the unwinnable war in Afghanistan is spilling over the border into its weak, corrupt and nuclear neighbour. The best justification governments can find to shut down information is that lives are at risk. In fact, lives have been at risk as a result of the silences and lies revealed in these leaks.

Exposés have always been initiated by leaks. As Assange himself has said: "If journalism is good, it's controversial." Without illicit information President Nixon would not have been forced to resign, we would never have known about the abuse of detainees by US personnel at Abu Ghraib, nor that US intelligence was phone-tapping and looking at emails without warrants. Daniel Ellsberg has said that when he released the Pentagon papers during the Vietnam war he suffered similar attacks. He was put on trial for theft and conspiracy and stolen medical files were used to discredit him. Now he's viewed as a journalistic hero.

If WikiLeaks is a terrorist organisation, as New York congressman Pete King stated, and if its founder, Julian Assange, is prosecuted for espionage, the future of investigative journalism everywhere is in jeopardy, as is our right as citizens to be told the truth.