Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'secret government'?

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: Revelations continue to emerge every day from the massive trove of diplomatic cables being published by WikiLeaks in conjunction with newspapers around the world. The latest disclosures reveal US officials tried to influence Spanish prosecutors and government officials to drop court investigations into torture at Guantánamo, CIA extraordinary rendition flights, and the 2003 killing of a Spanish journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq.

Spanish prosecutors are coming under criticism for revelations that they shared information on cases they were involved in with U.S. officials. According the leaked cables, U.S. officials were worried in particular about investigations pursued by the world-renowned Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, whom U.S. officials described as having, quote, "an anti-American streak." Garzón opened a case against six former Bush administration officials, including former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, for torture at the Guantánamo prison camp. Senator Mel Martinez and U.S. embassy’s chargé d’affaires visited the Spanish foreign ministry to warn the Guantánamo investigation would have consequences. The cables say, quote, "Martinez and the charge underscored that the prosecutions would...have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship." The U.S. ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre, was also pressuring the Spanish government to drop a precedent-setting case against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

And U.S. officials were especially alarmed when prosecutors in Spain and Germany began comparing notes on their investigations into CIA extraordinary rendition flights. U.S. officials said, quote, "This co-ordination among independent investigators will complicate our efforts to manage this case at a discreet government-to-government level." The investigation in Germany was in regard to the CIA abduction and rendition of German citizen Khaled El-Masri. He was wrongly abducted and flown to Afghanistan, where he was held for months without charge. When it looked like 13 CIA agents might be charged in the case, the U.S. embassy in Berlin stepped in and, according to one leaked cable, threatened, quote, that "issuance of international arrest warrants would have a negative impact on our bilateral relationship."

For more on all these revelations, I’m joined here in New York by Scott Horton. He’s an attorney specializing in international law and human rights, and he’s a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, where he writes the blog ""http://harpers.org/subjects/NoComment">No Comment."

Let’s start with Khaled El-Masri. Can you talk about his case? Explain exactly. Remind people, because I think these names come and go, who he was, what happened to him.

SCOTT HORTON: Well, Khaled El-Masri was a green grocer from small town in south Germany. And in around New Year’s 2003, he made a bus trip down to Macedonia after having a spat with his wife. He was apprehended by border agents there, and they noticed his passport, his name, was almost, but for two letters, the same as one of the most wanted al-Qaeda agents, who had in fact been operating in Germany, also named Khalid al-Masri. And they brought this to the attention of the CIA. The CIA concluded very quickly that they had their man. They arrested him, and after he was interrogated for a few days, he was shipped off to—first to Baghdad and then to Afghanistan. He recounts he was beaten, he was shot up with drugs. He was beaten repeatedly, and he was interrogated. Throughout, he insisted that, "No, I’m a grocer from south Germany, and my passport’s correct, and there’s nothing wrong."

Well, after several months, the CIA concluded that indeed he was exactly who he said he was, not the person that they thought they had apprehended. Then a controversy broke out within the CIA about what to do with him, a number of senior CIA officials evidently saying, "This man knows too much. We can’t turn him free." But evidently, Condoleezza Rice, in the end, intervened and ordered that he be released, and he was released. Now, the jet that flew him—

AMY GOODMAN: But for a period of time, the top officials knew they had the wrong man, and they kept him.

SCOTT HORTON: For several months they knew they had a completely innocent German citizen, and they continued to hold him. And indeed, Condoleezza Rice at one point stated that she had ordered his release, and she checked back more than a week later and found that he was still being held, and she said this was unacceptable, he had to be released.

Now, the jet that flew him on the special rendition flight set out from Spain, and Spanish authorities had collected information about it. So that’s the basis of this concern that there would be a collaboration between criminal investigators in Spain and Germany, which in fact was going on. That was a matter of very, very acute concern to U.S. diplomats.

And I think in this case in Spain, this is a sensational matter in Spain right now. It’s been the top of the news for three consecutive days now, and it’s causing the Spaniards to question the independence of their prosecutorial service and their judiciary, because here’s a foreign power using extraordinary means, things certainly that are not conventional diplomacy, to affect the handling of a criminal case in their system. We have U.S. diplomats trying to dictate which prosecutors are assigned, trying to assure which judge is assigned, engaging in all sorts of conspiracies, really, with local officials, trying to remove the judge who’s initially assigned, actually trying to remove several different judges. They go through the list of judges, and they pick the judges they think they want to handle the cases and the judges they want off. And of course, Baltasar Garzón has become the target of a judicial ethics complaint based on his handling of Franco-era cases, which they say were beyond his jurisdiction. It becomes clear from these cables that Spanish authorities and U.S. diplomats agreed to use this as a procedure to remove him from handling the Guantánamo torture cases, which is just astonishing.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Eduardo Aguirre, the U.S. ambassador to Spain, who is a banker from Texas, a Cuban American, appointed by George W. Bush—

SCOTT HORTON: "George Bush’s plumber," he calls himself.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s right. He said, "I am George Bush’s plumber. I solve George’s problems," he told El País, the Spanish newspaper. He talked about him as anti-American, as he takes on these cases. But Baltasar Garzón is known, for example, as the judge who was responsible for getting Augusto Pinochet arrested in Britain and held under house arrest for about a year. I mean, he is known around the world, as he takes on these cases, which particularly inspired fear in the U.S. government.

SCOTT HORTON: Well, that’s—I just—take the first charge of these anti-American on. I mean, I think that’s—I’ve known Garzón for quite some time. That’s completely ridiculous. He’s been a teacher at NYU Law School. He’s here in the United States frequently. He’s welcome as an honored guest at bar associations around the country. It’s very clear that he was harshly critical of the Bush administration and the Bush administration’s management of the war in Iraq, period. There is not a trace of anti-Americanism about him. But I think what we see going on here is a confusion of the policies and interests of the Republican Party and the Bush administration with those of the United States.

And particularly, Eduardo Aguirre really is viewing himself as someone who was there to fix problems that affect the Bush administration senior officials. And so, he’s particularly concerned when he sees that the Garzón torture investigation involves six senior judges—six senior, rather, lawyers of the Bush administration, starting with Alberto Gonzales, including David Addington, John Yoo and several others. And he wants to bring an end to that immediately, and he’s taking steps that are really not consistent with diplomacy to do so. And we see in these cables he has been briefed in tremendous detail about everything that’s going on in these courts, which means he has sources of information that evidently include either judges or prosecutors or potentially both, and he’s actively involved in strategies to shut down these investigations. Now, if that were going on in the United States right now, a foreign ambassador were doing such thing, the foreign ambassador would probably, in short order, be invited to leave.

AMY GOODMAN: And what’s causing such a crisis in Spain is that the top U.S.—the top Spanish officials, like the attorney general, the top prosecutors, are meeting with one U.S. government official after another, assuring them that they can probably table these cases from Guantánamo torture to others.

SCOTT HORTON: That’s exactly right. I mean, particularly Spain’s attorney general, Conde-Pumpido, clearly deeply involved himself personally—that appears—and is repeatedly giving promises to the U.S. government that he’s going to act basically not as Spain’s attorney general, but as the U.S.’s attorney general, and bringing an end to these cases. We also have some informationthat suggests pretty strongly that the prosecutors who are attached to the national security court, the Audiencia Nacional, supported the investigation into Guantánamo torture, were prepared to go along with it, until a political order came from the top of the administration to reverse course and oppose it. So there was direct political manipulation of these cases. Now, of course, the United States goes around the world talking about the importance of independent judges and independent criminal justice process and the importance of keeping politics out, and here we see really direct evidence of a really quite crude political manipulation of criminal proceedings by the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to a break and then come back. We’re speaking with Scott Horton, attorney specializing in international law and human rights, contributing editor at Harper’s. He writes the blog ""http://harpers.org/subjects/NoComment">No Comment." Then we’re going to be going to Madrid and speaking with the brother of the Spanish journalist José Couso, who was killed April 8th, 2003, when a U.S. tank shelled the Palestine Hotel, where hundreds of unembedded journalists were staying. They killed two reporters: José Couso of Telecinco and Taras Protsyuk of Reuters, also a cameraman. This is Democracy Now! Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We continue on the massive release of documents by WikiLeaks, by the whistleblower website. Not all have been released, but we’re talking about more than a quarter of a million diplomatic cables. It has set newspapers on fire, the headlines around the world, more so than in the United States, I must say. Today we’re focusing on Spain. El País, the headlines are raging across the front pages. In Germany, Der Spiegel magazine; in Britain, The Guardian; here in the United States, the New York Times has taken on this, as well; in France, Le Monde.

Back to Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen. So, the plane that took him to Afghanistan started in Spain. But what happened in Germany once he came back and told his story?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, a criminal investigation was opened in Munich. And in fact, the criminal investigators there debriefed him, got his account of what happened. They opened an investigation into kidnapping and torture, and they started validating the case. And I think the criminal investigators—I, in fact, interviewed one of them—were able to conclude very quickly that his narrative of what happened to him, from beginning to end, was accurate, that in fact he was drugged, and he was subjected to a special starvation regimen. And they were able to tell this from skin and hair samples, which they tested. They then began to ascertain who had been involved in the snatch, and they identified 13 CIA agents who had been involved. They were collecting information in coordination with the Spanish investigators, who looked at what had gone on in Spain, where 13 CIA agents had entered using false identifications and had launched this effort from Palma de Majorca. And they issued arrest warrants for the 13 agents.

At that point, a diplomatic contretemps broke out, and Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, was in Washington, met with Condoleezza Rice. They gave a press conference at the end. And it was stated that, well, this is a criminal justice matter, whatever the Germans do is not going to affect our relationship. But what we discover now is that, in fact, what was said between German diplomats and Americans was exactly the opposite. Germany was threatened very aggressively. They were told that this will adversely affect our bilateral relationship, you have to bring an end to this case. And we recognize that while nominally there’s some independence of prosecutors, there’s also a political element, and Chancellor Merkel’s government is able to influence and stop these cases, and that’s what we want you to do. And indeed, right after that, pressure was brought to bear on the German prosecutors to at least slow down the case and to stop the issuance of an arrest warrant. But, of course, what the U.S. was concerned about was that this action between the Spanish and German authorities would lead to the case being concluded. And after the German request was withdrawn, the Spanish investigators simply issued arrest warrants for the 13 CIA agents. By the way, their names are now known; they’ve been identified. They’re in the European media.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what is happening to Julian Assange right now? There has been an international arrest warrant out for him for charges of—what are the charges?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, the charges relate to sexual misconduct. Originally, it was charged as rape, and I think there’s been some back and forth with prosecutors in Spain—excuse me, in Sweden, about what to charge him with. But it’s clearly aggravated sexual misconduct having to do with an incident involving two different women in Sweden. And first there was an arrest warrant issued. Then it was withdrawn, and then it was reissued.

AMY GOODMAN: Attorney General Eric Holder revealed this week the Justice Department has also launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks.

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: Along with other members of the administration, I condemn the action that WikiLeaks has taken. It puts at risk our national security. But in a more concrete way, it puts at risk individuals who are serving this country in a variety of capacities, either as diplomats, as intelligence assets. It puts at risk the relationships that we have with important allies around the world. We have an active, ongoing criminal investigation with regard to this matter. We are not in a position as yet to announce the result of that investigation, but the investigation is ongoing.

AMY GOODMAN: Federal authorities are reportedly investigating whether Julian Assange could be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. At the White House, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration is weighing a range of punitive measures.

PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS: There is an ongoing criminal investigation about the stealing of and the dissemination of sensitive and classified information. Secondly, under the administration—or I would say—should say administration-wide, we are looking at a whole host of things, and I wouldn’t rule anything out.

AMY GOODMAN: While the Obama administration threatens to prosecute WikiLeaks, some influential lawmakers are calling for even harsher action. On Monday, the incoming chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Republican Congressmember Peter King of New York, said WikiLeaks should be declared a foreign terrorist organization. King spoke to NBC’s Matt Lauer.

MATT LAUER: You would like to see WikiLeaks, the organization that has really served as the messenger for these leaked documents, to be declared an FTO, or a foreign terrorist organization. That would put them in the same category as al-Qaeda, basically.

REP. PETER KING: Right.

MATT LAUER: What is the likelihood of that happening?

REP. PETER KING: I was disappointed when Jim Miklaszewski said that it doesn’t appear the government is going to be taking tough legal action. If American lives are at risk—and every top military official has said that—then we have to be serious. We should go after them for violating the Espionage Act. And the reason I say foreign terrorist organization, because they’re engaged in terrorist activity. Their activity is enabling terrorists to kill Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s New York Congressmember Peter King. Attorney Scott Horton, your response?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, I’d say, first of all, this is largely a distraction, because, of course, generally, the credibility of a source when information is released is a very important thing for a journalist. Not in this case, however. These are Department of State cables. There’s no question about them or their validity. And so, the credibility of Julian Assange is simply not an issue, and a lot of people are trying to make an issue out of it basically to distract us from looking at the cables.

Second point is, of course Congressman King’s call is simply absurd. U.S. legislation defines what a foreign terrorist organization is, and it says it’s an organization that is engaged in multiple politically motivated acts of violence. So if you were to label WikiLeaks a foreign terrorist organization, you would be making a nonsense out of our own statute. You would be highly politicizing it.

I think, here, the U.S. government does have a basis to bring criminal claims against persons who disclose this information. It’s the individuals who owe the duty to the United States to preserve the confidentiality or secrecy of the information and who disclosed it. So whoever did that—and, of course, Bradley Manning is a focus—would naturally be the subject of a criminal investigation and prosecution.

AMY GOODMAN: And the former presidential candidate, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, calling for Bradley Manning to be executed?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, and using the word "treason." And I think you’ve got to just stop and think. Treason is a highly disfavored crime under U.S. law. It was highly disfavored by the founders of this country. And there’s a good reason for that, because the founders of our country committed treason. So, therefore, they don’t like the charge of treason. They defined it in the Constitution itself, and they made it almost impossible to charge and try. I think professional prosecutors will have far sounder—I mean, he’s going for sound bites, obviously, not really studying the law. A professional prosecutor will have a far sounder basis for formulating charges and going forward. But the death penalty, I just don’t see. In the case of nuclear secrets being disclosed or other maybe signals intelligence, certain things like that, there’s a possibility in those cases for an extreme charge and an extreme penalty, but not in this case, I think. Frankly, there hasn’t been any severe harm. People have been embarrassed by what’s going on, but there’s been no real severe harm to U.S. interests. And most of the things we discovered are things that most people who were closely following the situation long suspected anyway.

AMY GOODMAN: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did speak to Time Magazine from an undisclosed location on Tuesday. Julian Assange said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should resign. Listen carefully.

JULIAN ASSANGE: She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage activity at the United Nations in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Julian Assange talking to Time Magazine, saying that Hillary Clinton should, quote, "resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage [activity at] the United Nations in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up," he said. "Yes, she should resign over that." Scott Horton, he’s talking about, for example, the call—sending out cables to U.S. embassies around the world to say spy on both world leaders and also UN diplomats, even going after their biometric information, DNA, iris scan, fingerprints. It’ll give new meaning to inviting someone to the embassy for tea.

SCOTT HORTON: Well, that brings to mind that famous scene from Casablanca. I am shocked—shocked—that they would do this. Of course, diplomats are not supposed to engage in espionage. On the other hand, of course, diplomats, one of their principal functions is collecting information and funneling it back to their government. And the division between collecting information and espionage is a slight and subtle distinction. So, frankly, no one who’s familiar with contemporary diplomatic practice was at all surprised by these cables or by the fact that the U.S. is collecting information or that it’s spying on United Nations officials. In fact, all these things have been reported in the press for many, many years. And grounds for resignation of a secretary of state, that strikes me as rather extreme. I mean, you know, frankly, we probably wouldn’t have many sitting foreign ministers or secretaries of state around the world if they all had to resign because they authorized the collection of such data.

AMY GOODMAN: I think what’s important here is the level of the documents, maybe underscoring the great journalist I.F. Stone’s comments, journalist—I.F. Stone the journalist’s comments, "Governments lie," that what we see governments saying is very different what’s going on behind the scenes. And what those issues are, you were expressing, for example, in Spain, why this is causing such a furor, actually showing what the U.S. government was doing in other countries to prevent any kind of prosecution of, well, issues related to, for example, the Iraq war, Guantánamo, which takes us to this issue of the journalists being killed.

[Peter Lemkin]

Who precisely is attacking the world?

by Paul Craig Roberts


Global Research, December 1, 2010


The stuck pigs are squealing. To shift the onus from the US State Department, Hillary Clinton paints Wikileaks’ release of the “diplomatic cables” as an “attack on the international community.” To reveal truth is equivalent in the eyes of the US government to an attack on the world.

It is Wikileaks’ fault that all those US diplomats wrote a quarter of a million undiplomatic messages about America’s allies, a.k.a., puppet states. It is also Wikileaks’ fault that a member of the US government could no longer stomach the cynical ways in which the US government manipulates foreign governments to serve, not their own people, but American interests, and delivered the incriminating evidence to Wikileaks.

The US government actually thinks that it was Wikileaks patriotic duty to return the evidence and to identify the leaker. After all, we mustn’t let the rest of the world find out what we are up to. They might stop believing our lies.

The influential German magazine, Der Spiegel, writes: “It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.”

This might be more a hope than a reality. The “Soviet threat” during the second half of the 20th century enabled US governments to create institutions that subordinated the interests of other countries to those of the US government. After decades of following US leadership, European “leaders” know no other way to act. Finding out that the boss badmouths and deceives them is unlikely to light a spirit of independence. At least not until America’s economic collapse becomes more noticeable.

The question is: how much will the press tell us about the documents? Spiegel itself has said that the magazine is permitting the US government to censure, at least in part, what it prints about the leaked material. Most likely, this means the public will not learn the content of the 4,330 documents that “are so explosive that they are labelled ‘NOFORN,’” meaning that foreigners, including presidents, prime ministers, and security services that share information with the CIA, are not permitted to read the documents. Possibly, also, the content of the 16,652 cables classified as “secret” will not be revealed to the public.

Most likely the press, considering their readers’ interests, will focus on gossip and the unflattering remarks Americans made about their foreign counterparts. It will be good for laughs. Also, the US government will attempt to focus the media in ways that advance US policies.

Indeed, it has already begun. On November 29, National Public Radio emphasized that the cables showed that Iran was isolated even in the Muslim world, making it easier for the Israelis and Americans to attack. The leaked cables reveal that the president of Egypt, an American puppet, hates Iran, and the Saudi Arabian government has been long urging the US government to attack Iran. In other words, Iran is so dangerous to the world that even its co-religionists want Iran wiped off the face of the earth.

NPR presented several nonobjective “Iranian experts” who denigrated Iran and its leadership and declared that the US government, by resisting its Middle Eastern allies’ calls for bombing Iran, was the moderate in the picture. The fact that President George W. Bush declared Iran to be a member of “the axis of evil” and threatened repeatedly to attack Iran, and that President Obama has continued the threats--Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has just reiterated that the US hasn’t taken the attack option off the table--are not regarded by American “Iran experts” as indications of anything other than American moderation.

Somehow it did not come across the NPR newscast that it is not Iran but Israel that routinely slaughters civilians in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, and that it is not Iran but the US and its NATO mercenaries who slaughter civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yeman, and Pakistan.

Iran has not invaded any of its neighbors, but the Americans are invading countries half way around the globe.

The “Iranian experts” treated the Saudi and Egyptian rulers’ hatred of Iran as a vindication of the US and Israeli governments’ demonization of Iran. Not a single “Iranian expert” was capable of pointing out that the tyrants who rule Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear Iran because the Iranian government represents the interests of Muslims, and the Saudi and Egyptian governments represent the interests of the Americans.

Think what it must feel like to be a tyrant suppressing the aspirations of your own people in order to serve the hegemony of a foreign country, while a nearby Muslim government strives to protect its people’s independence from foreign hegemony.

Undoubtedly, the tyrants become very anxious. What if their oppressed subjects get ideas? Little wonder the Saudis and Egyptian rulers want the Americans to eliminate the independent-minded country that is a bad example for Egyptian and Saudi subjects.

As long as the dollar has enough value that it can be used to purchase foreign governments, information damaging to the US government is unlikely to have much affect. As Alain of Lille said a long time ago, “money is all.”

[Peter Presland]

Who precisely is attacking the world?
The “Iranian experts” treated the Saudi and Egyptian rulers’ hatred of Iran as a vindication of the US and Israeli governments’ demonization of Iran. Not a single “Iranian expert” was capable of pointing out that the tyrants who rule Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear Iran because the Iranian government represents the interests of Muslims, and the Saudi and Egyptian governments represent the interests of the Americans.

Think what it must feel like to be a tyrant suppressing the aspirations of your own people in order to serve the hegemony of a foreign country, while a nearby Muslim government strives to protect its people’s independence from foreign hegemony.

Undoubtedly, the tyrants become very anxious. What if their oppressed subjects get ideas? Little wonder the Saudis and Egyptian rulers want the Americans to eliminate the independent-minded country that is a bad example for Egyptian and Saudi subjects.

As long as the dollar has enough value that it can be used to purchase foreign governments, information damaging to the US government is unlikely to have much affect. As Alain of Lille said a long time ago, “money is all.”

That sums things up to a tee.

The latest Zogby poll on Middle-Eastern opinion is a revelation on precisely the same subject though you will struggle to find mention of it anywhere in the Western MSM.

No fewer than 57% of the populations of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and UAE say that a nuclear armed Iran would be a positive development for the region!!! with a further 20% saying it does not matter.

The full report is here

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: I think what’s important here is the level of the documents, maybe underscoring the great journalist I.F. Stone’s comments, journalist—I.F. Stone the journalist’s comments, "Governments lie," that what we see governments saying is very different what’s going on behind the scenes. And what those issues are, you were expressing, for example, in Spain, why this is causing such a furor, actually showing what the U.S. government was doing in other countries to prevent any kind of prosecution of, well, issues related to, for example, the Iraq war, Guantánamo, which takes us to this issue of the journalists being killed.

The leaked U.S. embassy cables from Madrid, that are getting a lot of attention in Spain, reveal U.S. pressure to drop a lawsuit brought by the family of a Spanish journalist who was killed in the U.S. military’s 2003 attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. A cable from May 14, 2007, authored by Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre, reads, quote, "For our side, it will be important to continue to raise the Couso case, in which three U.S. servicemen face charges related to the 2003 death of Spanish cameraman José Couso during the battle for Baghdad."

Couso was a young cameraman with the Spanish TV network Telecinco. He was filming from the balcony of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, April 8th, 2003, when a U.S. Army tank fired on the hotel, packed with journalists, killing Couso and a Reuters cameraman.

For more on this cable and the Couso lawsuit, we’re going to Madrid, to Spain. We’re joined by Javier Couso, the brother of José Couso. Also with us on the line and translating for Javier Couso is former Democracy Now! producer Maria Carrion.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Maria, if you could first just explain this particular case and the impact it’s having in Spain. El País is one of the five newspapers working with WikiLeaks and releasing these documents over time.

MARIA CARRION: An enormous impact. That’s really all that’s being talked about. It’s even relegated the economic crisis we’re facing to a second topic. It’s very important because we’re seeing, although many people suspected this, the maneuverings that were going on, the political maneuverings that were going on behind the scenes, to try to shelve the Couso case, as well as others, in the Spanish national court. Javier has, as he would describe to you, not stopped giving interviews since this broke, this news broke. It’s been—they’re being heavily affected by this, because they’re seeing just how the Spanish government was playing into the hands of the American interests back in the Bush years, basically trying to have the Couso case thrown out and playing a two-prong strategy, not only on the political level, but also on the judicial level, trying to influence judges that have the case and prosecutors who are, you know, telling them that they have to appeal the case, and the Spanish government was basically walking step in step every minute with the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: The Spanish court has reopened this case for the third time in the last few months into the killing of José Couso. I want to go back to the moment of the U.S. attack on the Palestine Hotel. This is a clip from the documentary Hotel Palestine: Killing the Witness, produced by José Couso’s network, Telecinco. It was broadcast on Spanish television, includes interviews with numerous journalists who were inside the Palestine Hotel and helped rush José Couso to the hospital, where he later died. This clip begins with scenes taken inside the Palestine Hotel moments after the U.S. tank attack. A warning to our television audience, some footage contains graphic scenes.

NARRATOR:* The shell explodes before hitting the hotel facade and sprays the upper floors with shrapnel. The Reuters room suffers the dramatic consequences. Near the balcony, their cameraman Taras Protsyuk receives the full blast and collapses, mortally wounded. Paul Pasquale finds himself on the floor covered with blood.

JON SISTIAGA: [translated] I couldn’t believe that it was the Americans until I reached Couso, who was conscious, who was awake, and he told me it was the tank.

ANTONIO BAQUERO: [translated] Suddenly we saw a damaged balcony. It was the 15th floor. But I started to count. One, two, three, four, five...15. They hit the Reuters room. The first thing I thought was, “Damn it, Couso is right below there.”

JON SISTIAGA: [translated] It was a tank, because Couso saw how they shot him. He was looking at the tank when he was hit. He was aware of who killed him.

ANTONIO BAQUERO: [translated] And then I saw the camera on the floor, destroyed, and the pool of blood. That moment is frozen in my mind. I remember I stopped saying, “My god, my god.”

AMY GOODMAN: Both José Couso and Taras Protsyuk, a Reuters cameraman, were on separate balconies filming—in the end, filming their own deaths, as the U.S. tank opened fire on the Palestine Hotel. That’s an excerpt of the documentary Hotel Palestine: Killing the Witness, produced by José Couso’s own network in Spain called Telecinco.

Well, I interviewed one of the many Spanish journalists who witnessed the attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, April 8th, 2003. Olga [Rodríguez], a correspondent for one of the leading radio networks in Spain, narrowly survived the attack herself. I spoke to her five years ago, when she came here to New York.

OLGA RODRÍGUEZ: We were in the balcony. We were living in that hotel, approximately 200 journalists, Europeans, American journalists. And that day before the attack, we said even hello to the troops. They were in the other side of the river, Tigris River, and they were there looking around as military people. They were trying to know what—which buildings were surrounding them, and that was the day before.

The 8th of April, we woke up early in the morning, and we saw some tanks already on the bridge. They were not hiding. They were there. When the attack happened, I saw them the first time like four hours before the attack on the bridge. And I was in the 16th floor of Palestine Hotel, and I was waiting for a phone call from my radio station in Spain, because I had to be on the air, and I was on the balcony. Suddenly, my phone rang, so I went inside the room. And when I was doing that, the attack came.

At first, I thought that I was dead. I felt completely empty inside me. I couldn’t hear anything. Then five seconds later, I reacted. I started to touch myself. I discovered some blood in my leg, and I decided to run. I went to the other room where some Spanish journalists were, and I said, "I cannot hear anything. We have been attacked." And after that, we went stairs down. When we arrived to the 14th floor, where José—

AMY GOODMAN: Fifteenth?

OLGA RODRÍGUEZ: In the 15th floor, there were Reuters people. One of them, Taras, was dead, immediately, in that attack. But we didn’t know that. When I arrived to the 14th floor, an Italian journalist who was a friend of mine was shouting, "José is injured. José is hurt."

Like one hour after that, I talked with Spain by phone, and my boss said to me, "The Pentagon has recognized that it was an American attack." And I couldn’t believe it, because I knew that they knew that that hotel, as everybody in the world knew, that hotel was the place in which were living 200 journalists from Europe, from America, and they were not far away. They didn’t arrive ten minutes before the attack. They were there before, 36 hours before. They knew exactly where the Palestine Hotel was, even from the bridge. They could—you can go to the bridge in Baghdad, and you can see Palestine Hotel in English in the building.

AMY GOODMAN: Olga Rodríguez is a Spanish journalist with Cuatro TV. She was there at the Palestine Hotel. She herself was wounded as she observed the attack that killed José Couso. We’re joined in Madrid by Javier Couso, his brother.

Javier Couso, you and your mother have not let this case die. Can you explain, now with the release of the cables that show the U.S. putting pressure to have this case dropped, what your response is?

JAVIER COUSO: [translated] First, we are absolutely horrified and outraged by this—horrified because we cannot believe that our government and our prosecutors conspired with a foreign government to prevent the investigation of what happened to my brother, a Spanish citizen, and outraged because we would like to—we met with these people from the government and the prosecutor’s office, and they repeatedly told us that they would not get in the way of this investigation and this process.

AMY GOODMAN: Who have you sued? Name the names of the soldiers that you are going after here in the United States and what you want to see happen. Maria Carrion is translating for José’s brother, Javier Couso.

JAVIER COUSO: [translated] Well, in the lawsuit, we named several people and, thanks to the Supreme Court, which reopened the case in July of this year, were able to do so, against Captain Gibson, Sergeant Wolford and Lieutenant Philip de Camp. They are really the chain of command, from the sergeant who ordered the shot to everyone in the chain of command that made this happen. And we just want a fair trial. We obviously want these soldiers to be able to defend themselves, but we also want to know exactly what happened on that morning seven years ago. And we believe that that’s what should happen in countries that have a rule of law, and it’s something that should happen between two countries that presumably are allies, although now it seems like we are citizens, or at least a small province, of an empire of the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, there was an arrest warrant issued for these three U.S. soldiers? Is that right? And what happened to it, Javier?

JAVIER COUSO: [translated] We were surprised to find that for the first time in the existence of Interpol, which was created at the beginning of the 20th century, this agency, Interpol, has refused a direct arrest order issued by the judge in this case. It is only valid within the eurozone.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Javier Couso, I want to thank you for being with us. And thank you, Maria Carrion, former Democracy Now! producer. We will continue to follow this case and continue, of course, to follow the release of these diplomatic cables, more than a quarter of a million. This is unprecedented, as we look not at the overall trove, but individually at these cables and what they mean for individuals and countries all over the world. Thanks so much for being with us. And thanks to Scott Horton, attorney here in New York, writes for Harper’s Magazine.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Reverend Jesse Jackson will be joining us. He, too, is included in this trove of WikiLeaks cables, back in South Africa, when Nelson Mandela was released. Stay with us.

[Peter Lemkin]

The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics
By Glenn Greenwald

AP
Julian Assange at a press conference in London on Oct. 23

(updated below - Update II)

Time's Joe Klein writes this about the WikiLeaks disclosures:


I am tremendously concernced [sic] about the puerile eruptions of Julian Assange. . . . If a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail because of a leaked cable, this entire, anarchic exercise in "freedom" stands as a human disaster. Assange is a criminal. He's the one who should be in jail.


Do you have that principle down? If "a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail" because of the WikiLeaks disclosure -- even a "single one" -- then the entire WikiLeaks enterprise is proven to be a "disaster" and "Assange is a criminal" who "should be in jail." That's quite a rigorous moral standard. So let's apply it elsewhere:

What about the most destructive "anarchic exercise in 'freedom'" the planet has known for at least a generation: the "human disaster" known as the attack on Iraq, which Klein supported? That didn't result in the imprisonment of "a single foreign national," but rather the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent human beings, the displacement of millions more, and the destruction of a country of 26 million people. Are those who supported that "anarchic exercise in 'freedom'" -- or at least those responsible for its execution -- also "criminals who should be in jail"?

How about the multiple journalists and other human beings whom the U.S. Government imprisoned (and continues to imprison) for years without charges -- and tortured -- including many whom the Government knew were completely innocent, while Klein assured the world that wasn't happening? How about those responsible for the war in Afghanistan (which Klein supports) with its checkpoint shootings of an "amazing number" of innocent Afghans and civilian slaughtering air strikes, or the use of cluster bombs in Yemen, or the civilian killing drones in Pakistan? Are those responsible for the sky-high corpses of innocent people from these actions also "criminals who should be in jail"?

I'm not singling out Klein here; his commentary is merely illustrative of what I'm finding truly stunning about the increasingly bloodthirsty two-minute hate session aimed at Julian Assange, also known as the new Osama bin Laden. The ringleaders of this hate ritual are advocates of -- and in some cases directly responsible for -- the world's deadliest and most lawless actions of the last decade. And they're demanding Assange's imprisonment, or his blood, in service of a Government that has perpetrated all of these abuses and, more so, to preserve a Wall of Secrecy which has enabled them. To accomplish that, they're actually advocating -- somehow with a straight face -- the theory that if a single innocent person is harmed by these disclosures, then it proves that Assange and WikiLeaks are evil monsters who deserve the worst fates one can conjure, all while they devote themselves to protecting and defending a secrecy regime that spawns at least as much human suffering and disaster as any single other force in the world. That is what the secrecy regime of the permanent National Security State has spawned.

Meanwhile, in the real world (as opposed to the world of speculation, fantasy, and fear-mongering) there is no evidence -- zero -- that the WikiLeaks disclosures have harmed a single person. As McClatchy reported, they have exercised increasing levels of caution to protect innocent people. Even Robert Gates disdained hysterical warnings about the damage caused as "significantly overwrought." But look at what WikiLeaks has revealed to the world:

We viscerally saw the grotesque realities of our war in Iraq with the Apache attack video on innocent civilians and journalists in Baghdad -- and their small children -- as they desperately scurried for cover. We recently learned that the U.S. government adopted a formal policy of refusing to investigate the systematic human rights abuses of our new Iraqi client state, all of which took place under our deliberately blind eye. We learned of 15,000 additional civilian deaths caused by the war in Iraq that we didn't know of before. We learned -- as documented by The Washington Post's former Baghdad Bureau Chief -- how clear, deliberate and extensive were the lies of top Bush officials about that war as it was unfolding: "Thanks to WikiLeaks, though, I now know the extent to which top American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public," she wrote.

In this latest WikiLeaks release -- probably the least informative of them all, at least so far -- we learned a great deal as well. Juan Cole today details the 10 most important revelations about the Middle East. Scott Horton examines the revelation that the State Department pressured and bullied Germany out of criminally investigating the CIA's kidnapping of one of their citizens who turned out to be completely innocent. The head of the Bank of England got caught interfering in British politics to induce harsher austerity measures in violation of his duty to remain apolitical and removed from the political process, a scandal resulting in calls for his resignation. British officials, while pretending to conduct a sweeping investigation into the Iraq War, were privately pledging to protect Bush officials from embarrassing disclosures. Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered U.N. diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data in order to spy on top U.N. officials and others, likely in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961 (see Articles 27 and 30; and, believe me, I know: it's just "law," nothing any Serious person believes should constrain our great leaders).

Do WikiLeaks critics believe it'd be best if all that were kept secret, if we remained ignorant of it, if the world's most powerful factions could continue to hide things like that? Apparently. When Joe Klein and his media comrades calling for Assange's head start uncovering even a fraction of secret government conduct this important, then they'll have credibility to complain about WikiLeaks' "excessive commitment to disclosure." But that will never happen.

One could respond that it's good that we know these specific things, but not other things WikiLeaks has released. That's all well and good; as I've said several times, there are reasonable concerns about some specific disclosures here. But in the real world, this ideal, perfectly calibrated subversion of the secrecy regime doesn't exist. WikiLeaks is it. We have occasional investigative probes of isolated government secrets coming from establishment media outlets (the illegal NSA program, the CIA black sites, the Pentagon propaganda program), along with transparency groups such as the ACLU, CCR, EPIC and EFF valiantly battling through protracted litigation to uncover secrets. But nothing comes close to the blows WikiLeaks has struck in undermining that regime.

The real-world alternative to the current iteration of WikiLeaks is not The Perfect Wikileaks that makes perfect judgments about what should and should not be disclosed, but rather, the ongoing, essentially unchallenged hegemony of the permanent National Security State, for which secrecy is the first article of faith and prime weapon. I want again to really encourage everyone to read this great analysis by The Economist's Democracy in America, which includes this:


I suspect that there is no scheme of government oversight that will not eventually come under the indirect control of the generals, spies, and foreign-service officers it is meant to oversee. Organisations such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically opposed to state secrecy and which operate as much as is possible outside the global nation-state system, may be the best we can hope for in the way of promoting the climate of transparency and accountability necessary for authentically liberal democracy. Some folks ask, "Who elected Julian Assange?" The answer is nobody did, which is, ironically, why WikiLeaks is able to improve the quality of our democracy. Of course, those jealously protective of the privileges of unaccountable state power will tell us that people will die if we can read their email, but so what? Different people, maybe more people, will die if we can't.


The last decade, by itself, leaves no doubt about the truth of that last sentence. And Matt Yglesias is right that while diplomacy can be hindered without secrecy, one must also consider "how the ability to keep secrets can hinder diplomacy" (incidentally: one of the more Orwellian aspects of this week's discussion has been the constant use of the word "diplomacy" to impugn what WikiLeaks did, creating some Wizard of Oz fantasy whereby the Pentagon is the Bad Witch of the U.S. Government [thus justifying leaks about war] while the State Department is the Good Witch [thus rendering these leaks awful]: that's absurd, as they are merely arms of the same entity, both devoted to the same ends, ones which are often nefarious, and State Department officials are just as susceptible as Pentagon officials to abusive conduct when operating in the dark).

But Matt's other point merits even more attention. He's certainly right when he says that "for a third time in a row, a WikiLeaks document dump has conclusively demonstrated that an awful lot of US government confidentiality is basically about nothing," but I'd quibble with his next observation:


There’s no scandal here and there’s no legitimate state secret. It’s just routine for the work done by public servants and public expense in the name of the public to be kept semi-hidden from the public for decades.

It is a "scandal" when the Government conceals things it is doing without any legitimate basis for that secrecy. Each and every document that is revealed by WikiLeaks which has been improperly classified -- whether because it's innocuous or because it is designed to hide wrongdoing -- is itself an improper act, a serious abuse of government secrecy powers. Because we're supposed to have an open government -- a democracy -- everything the Government does is presumptively public, and can be legitimately concealed only with compelling justifications. That's not just some lofty, abstract theory; it's central to having anything resembling "consent of the governed."

But we have completely abandoned that principle; we've reversed it. Now, everything the Government does is presumptively secret; only the most ceremonial and empty gestures are made public. That abuse of secrecy powers is vast, deliberate, pervasive, dangerous and destructive. That's the abuse that WikiLeaks is devoted to destroying, and which its harshest critics -- whether intended or not -- are helping to preserve. There are people who eagerly want that secrecy regime to continue: namely, (a) Washington politicians, Permanent State functionaries, and media figures whose status, power and sense of self-importance are established by their access and devotion to that world of secrecy, and (b) those who actually believe that -- despite (or because of) all the above acts -- the U.S. Government somehow uses this extreme secrecy for the Good. Having surveyed the vast suffering and violence they have wreaked behind that wall, those are exactly the people whom WikiLeaks is devoted to undermining.

* * * * *

On the issue of the Interpol arrest warrant issued yesterday for Assange's arrest: I think it's deeply irresponsible either to assume his guilt or to assume his innocence until the case plays out. I genuinely have no opinion of the validity of those allegations, but what I do know -- as John Cole notes -- is this: as soon as Scott Ritter began telling the truth about Iraqi WMDs, he was publicly smeared with allegations of sexual improprieties. As soon as Eliot Spitzer began posing a real threat to Wall Street criminals, a massive and strange federal investigation was launched over nothing more than routine acts of consensual adult prostitution, ending his career (and the threat he posed to oligarchs). And now, the day after Julian Assange is responsible for one of the largest leaks in history, an arrest warrant issues that sharply curtails his movement and makes his detention highly likely. It's unreasonable to view that pattern as evidence that the allegations are part of some conspiracy -- I genuinely do not believe or disbelieve that -- but, particularly in light of that pattern, it's most definitely unreasonable to assume that he's guilty of anything without having those allegations tested and then proven in court.

Finally, as I noted last night: I was on Canada's CBC last tonight talking about these issues; it can be seen here. I'll also be on MSNBC this morning, at roughly 10:00 a.m., on the same topic.



UPDATE: The notion that one crime doesn't excuse another has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote; it's a complete nonsequitur, merely the standard claim of those who want to propound moral standards for others that they not only refuse to apply to themselves, but violate with far greater frequency and severity than those they're condemning.



UPDATE II: This cartoonist (and Professor of History) summarized several of the key points perfectly:

[Peter Lemkin]

Amazon [one of the many hosts/mirrors for Wikileaks] cuts connections - citing 'anti-Americanism' [whatever that means]

.......let me guess; Americanism = anti-truth, so Truth = anti-Americanism.

[Ed Jewett]

WikiLeaks: More Israeli Game Theory Warfare?

by Jeff Gates / December 1st, 2010

The United States is the real victim of WikiLeaks. It’s an action aimed at discrediting them.
— Franco Frattini, Foreign Minister of Italy

The impact of the WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables fits the behavior profile of those well versed in game theory warfare.
When Israeli mathematician, Robert J. Aumann, received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science for his work on game theory, he conceded, “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.”
The candor of this Israeli-American offered a rare insight into an enclave long known for waging war from the shadows. Israel’s most notable success to date was “fixing” the intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq in pursuit of a geopolitical agenda long sought by Tel Aviv.
When waging intelligence wars, timing is often the critical factor for game-theory war planners. The outcome of the WikiLeaks release suggests a psy-ops directed at the U.S.
Why now? Tel Aviv was feeling pressure to end its six-decade occupation of Palestine. With this release, its foot-dragging on the peace process was displaced with talk of an attack on Iran.
While the U.S. bore the brunt of the damage, the target was global public opinion. To maintain the plausibility of The Clash of Civilizations, a focus must be maintained on Iran as a credible Evil Doer.
With fast-emerging transparency, Israel and pro-Israelis have been identified as the source of the intelligence that took coalition forces to war in Iraq. Thus the need to shift attention off Tel Aviv.
WikiLeaks may yet succeed in that mission.
Foreseeable Futures
Game theory war planning aims to create outcomes that are predictable — within an acceptable range of probabilities. That’s why Israeli war planners focus on gaining traction for a plausible narrative and then advancing that storyline step by gradual step.
For the Zionist state to succeed with its expansionist agenda, Iran must remain at center stage as an essential villain in a geopolitical morality play pitting the West against Islamo Fascists.
To displace facts with false beliefs — as with belief in the intelligence that induced the invasion of Iraq — momentum must be maintained for the storyline. Lose the plot (The Clash) and peace might break out. And those deceived may identify the deceiver.
Thus the timing of this latest WikiLeaks release. Its goal: to have us believe that it is not Tel Aviv but Washington that is the forefront of geopolitical duplicity and a source of Evil Doing.
Intelligence wars rely on mathematical models to anticipate the response of those targeted. With game theory algorithms, reactions become foreseeable — within an acceptable range of probabilities.
Control enough of the variables and outcomes become a mathematical inevitability.
The WikiLeaks Motive
Was the reaction to this latest WikiLeaks foreseeable? With exquisite timing, the U.S. was discredited with an array of revelations that called into question U.S. motives and put in jeopardy U.S. relations worldwide.
As the Italian Foreign Minister summarized: “The news released by WikiLeaks will change diplomatic relations between countries.”
The hard-earned trust of the Pakistanis disappeared overnight. Attempts to engage Iran were set back. The overall effect advanced The Clash storyline. If Washington could so badly misread North Korean intentions, then why is the U.S. to be trusted when it comes to a nuclear Iran?
This Wiki-catalyzed storyline pushed Israel off the front page in favor of Iran.
Even U.S. detainees at Guantanamo are again at issue, reigniting that shameful spectacle as a provocation for extremism and terror. U.S. diplomats will now be suspected of spying and lying. What nation can now trust Americans to maintain confidences?
In short, the risks increased for everyone.
Except Israel.
Should Israel launch an attack on Iran, Tel Aviv can cite WikiLeaks as its rationale. Though an attack would be calamitous from a human, economic and financial perspective, even that foreseeable outcome would be dwarfed by the enduring hatred that would ensue.
That too is foreseeable — from a game theory perspective of those marketing The Clash.
The effect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was predictable. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia foresaw it, noting simply that the U.S. invasion would “give Iraq to Iran as a gift on a golden platter.”
With the elimination of Sunni leader Saddam Hussein, the numerically dominant Shiites of Iraq were drawn into the political orbit of the Shiite-dominant Iran.
Game theorists focus their manipulation of affairs on their control of key variables. Then events take on a life all their own. The impact of this discrediting release was wide-ranging and fully foreseeable.
A Mossad case officer explained Israel’s success at waging war by way of deception: “Once the orchestra starts to play, we just hum along.”
These, after all, are the leading authorities in the field.
Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk, and The Ownership Solution. Read other articles by Jeff, or visit Jeff's website.
This article was posted on Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 at 7:01am and is filed under Disinformation, Espionage/"Intelligence", Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Media, Opinion.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/wikile...y-warfare/

[Ed Jewett]

Hillary Gets Wiki-Served

[/url]Posted on Nov 30, 2010

AP / Evan Vucci Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gestures while making a statement on the new WikiLeaks release of documents. She spoke Monday at the State Department in Washington.
By [url=http://www.truthdig.com/robert_scheer]Robert Scheer
Hillary Clinton should cut out the whining about what the Obama administration derides as “stolen cables” and confront the unpleasant truths they reveal about the contradictions of U.S. foreign policy and her own troubling performance. As with the earlier batch of WikiLeaks, in this latest release the corruption of our partners in Iraq and Afghanistan stands in full relief, and the net effect of nearly a decade of warfare is recognized as a strengthening of Iran’s influence throughout the region.
Do we as voters not have a need to know that our State Department says that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of the Afghan leader we are backing and himself the head of government in the most contested province, “is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker”? Or that authorities working with our Drug Enforcement Administration discovered Afghanistan’s then-vice president smuggling $52 million in cash out of his country, a nation that U.S. taxpayers are bankrolling?
In the cable discussing Ahmed Wali Karzai, or AWK as he is called, there is a pithy description of the basic folly of our attempt to control the uncontrollable land of Afghanistan: “The meeting with AWK highlights one of our major challenges in Afghanistan: how to fight corruption and connect the people to their government, when the key government officials are themselves corrupt.”
The cables make a hash of claims that our invasion of Iraq—where al-Qaida could not operate when Saddam Hussein was in power—was helpful in the war on terror. Recall that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Yet the WikiLeaks documents reveal, as The New York Times reported, that “Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the ‘worst in the region’ in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December.”
While the great threat is now said by Clinton’s State Department to emanate from Iran, the cables make clear that Iranian power was much enhanced by the U.S. overthrow of Saddam, who had fought a long, bloody war against the ayatollahs. The result of our invasion is an Iraqi government run by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, described in the cables as being much under the influence of Iran, which orchestrated his deal with the Iranian-backed Sadrists that kept him in power. The cables report King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia dismissing Maliki as no more than an “Iranian agent.”
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This material refutes the stated anti-terrorist purposes of the two wars we are fighting, and that is the prime reason it is classified. If any of the information was so sensitive, why was none of it labeled “top secret” as is the practice with content that would risk our nation’s security? And why was this vast trove placed in computer systems to which low-ranking personnel had access? The real problem with the release of the dispatches, particularly the kind labeled “noforn,” meaning it shouldn’t be shared with foreign governments, is that it is politically embarrassing—which is why we, the public, have a right to view it. That is certainly the case with the revelation that Secretary Clinton destroyed the once-sacred line between the legitimate diplomat deserving of universal protection and the spies that governments could be justified in arresting. Instead of disparaging the motives of the leakers, Hillary Clinton should offer a forthright explanation of why she continued the practice of Condoleezza Rice, her predecessor as secretary of state, of using American diplomats to spy on their colleagues working at the United Nations. Why did she issue a specific directive ordering U.S. diplomats to collect biometric information on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and many of his colleagues?
As the respected British newspaper The Guardian, which obtained the WikiLeaks cables, said in summarizing the matter: “A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton’s name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications system used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.”
The Guardian pointed out that the Clinton directive violates the language of the original U.N. convention, which reads: “The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable.” The spying effort derived from concern that U.N. rapporteurs might unearth embarrassing details about the U.S. treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the directives demanded “biographic and biometric” information on Dr. Margaret Chan, the director of the World Health Organization, as well as details of her personality and management style. Maybe she’s hiding bin Laden in her U.N. office.

Click here to check out Robert Scheer’s new book,
“The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.”

[Ed Jewett]

> Former Pakistani General: CIA, Mossad behind WikiLeaks Reports

[URL="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8909091183"]Fars News Agency
[/URL]Dec 1, 2010

A former Pakistani army commander said that the disclosure of classified documents by the whistleblower site of Wikileaks is a US plot to create rift among friendly and neighboring states.

"The US has a hand in this plot, and these reports (posted by the WikiLeaks website) are part of the US psychological warfare," former Chief of the Staff of the Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beg told FNA in Islamabad on Tuesday.

He stated that the US could prevent the leak of information if it wanted to do so, and warned that the real plot and conspiracy pursued by these reports will be unraveled in future.

Aslam Beg further reiterated that the CIA and Israel's spy agency Mossad have launched efforts to weaken and destabilize Pakistan, and WikiLeaks reports are part of these efforts.

The remarks by the Pakistani figure came after US embassy cables posted by WikiLeaks website sparked hot reactions in the region.

In one cable, the WikiLeaks claimed, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, a close ally of Pakistan, reportedly called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari the main cause of his country's woes.

Pakistani President's office responded on Monday that the leaks were "no more than an attempt to create misperceptions between two important and brotherly Muslim countries".

http://www.prisonplanet.com/former-pakista...ks-reports.html

[Peter Lemkin]

Huckabee: Execute whoever leaked WikiLeaks cables
By JPOST.COM STAFF
12/02/2010 10:33

2012 Republican presidential hopeful says US gov't employee responsible for leak is guilty of treason, has blood on hands.


Former Arkansas governor and 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee called for the execution of whoever is responsible for the leaking of 250,000 US diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks website this week, according to a Wednesday report on the Guardian's website.

"Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty," Huckabee stated.

RELATED:
WikiLeaks founder 'wanted' by Interpol over rape claims
Wikileaks founder: 'Obama stifles freedom of the press'

"They've put American lives at risk. They put relationships that will take decades to rebuild at risk. They knew full well that they were handling sensitive documents they were entrusted...and anyone who had access to that level of information was not only a person who understood what their rules were, but they also signed, under oath, a commitment that they would not violate. They did … Any lives they endangered, they're personally responsible for and the blood is on their hands," he added.


US army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning is suspected of leaking the cables. He has been charged with transferring classified data and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source. He faces up to 52 years in prison. Manning is currently being held at a military base.

Huckabee joined another potential Republican candidate Sarah Palin in calling for harsh punishments for those involved in the WikiLeaks affair. Palin said that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be "hunted down."

University of Calgary Professor Tim Flanagan on Wednesday called for the assassination of Assange in a television interview with Candadian state broadcaster CBC.

Flanagan helped organize the campaign of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2003. He also served as the Conservative Party's campaign manager in Canada's general elections in 2004 and 2006. He retired in 2006 and became a full-time teacher.

"Well I think Assange should be assassinated actually," Flanagan said about Assange. "I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something," he suggested.