Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'secret government'?

[Peter Lemkin]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Swedish law prohibits extradition to any nation with the death penalty, when the crime could engender the death penalty....but a legal triviality, I'm sure they are working furiously to overcome now.

I don't know Pete. But it should be a simple job for the US and Sweden to sign a diplomatic understanding where the US unequivocally states the US will not execute Assange if extradited.

Not only could we later read that diplomatic understanding on Wikileaks, but cynics like me would simply ask just how many inmates in the US prison system die from preventable deaths each year?

The answer is somewhere under 7000 per year.

Compare that to the number of executions in the year 2009: 52.

And there is always torture....our new 'truth serum'!

[Magda Hassan]

Thay're probably doing exactly what the US did in Thailand with Victor Bout. Read the cables posted by Carsten there. Thai authorities accommodated every whim of the US.

[David Guyatt]

Would it be naughty of me to make some complete and utter guesses how this is going to play out?

* Assange is extradited from the UK to Sweden.

* The daily Wikileaks news will virtually cease the next day. Some newsworthy Wikileaks releases will be relegated to the inside pages for a short while and then stop. Including output from the Guardian, the NYT and other Wikileak media "partners".

* Assange will languish in Sweden and then will be extradited to the US - we will learn via a page 5 news item.

* Business will go on. Wikileaks will be forgotten by the MSM.

[Peter Lemkin]

Would it be naughty of me to make some complete and utter guesses how this is going to play out?

* Assange is extradited from the UK to Sweden.

* The daily Wikileaks news will virtually cease the next day. Some newsworthy Wikileaks releases will be relegated to the inside pages for a short while and then stop. Including output from the Guardian, the NYT and other Wikileak media "partners".

* Assange will languish in Sweden and then will be extradited to the US - we will learn via a page 5 news item.

* Business will go on. Wikileaks will be forgotten by the MSM.

I would have to disagree..this will not 'go silently into that good night, but fight, fight the dimming of the light!'

[Peter Lemkin]

WikiLeaks cables: US 'lobbied Russia on behalf of Visa and MasterCard'

US diplomats intervened to try to amend draft law so that it would not 'disadvantage' US credit card firms, cable says

Luke Harding
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 December 2010 14.30 GMT
Article history

MasterCard and other payment firms have severed ties with WikiLeaks in recent days. Photograph: Jonathan Bainbridge/Reuters

The US lobbied Russia this year on behalf of Visa and MasterCard in an attempt to ensure the payment companies were not "adversely affected" by new legislation, according to American diplomats in Moscow.

A state department cable released this afternoon by WikiLeaks reveals that US diplomats intervened to try to amend a draft law going through Russia's Duma. Their explicit aim was to ensure the new law did not "disadvantage" the two US firms, the cable states.

The revelation comes a day after Visa – apparently acting under intense pressure from Washington – announced it was suspending all payments to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website. Visa was following MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon, all of which have severed ties with the site and its founder Julian Assange in the last few days.

The companies have justified their decision to stop donations on the grounds that WikiLeaks is acting "illegally". Each has quickly become the target of sustained online revenge attacks by disgruntled hackers, with mastercard.com paralysed today.

The cable, dated 1 February 2010, states that the Obama administration took up the companies' plight with senior Russian government officials. Earlier this year Moscow unveiled plans to create a new National Payment Card System (NPCS) that would collect all credit card fees on domestic transactions – depriving Visa and MasterCard of a major chunk of revenue.

A consortium of state-owned Russian banks would administer the system and collect processing fees "estimated at $4 billion a year", the cable claims. Additionally, sending payment data abroad would be forbidden under the law going through Russia's rubberstamp lower house of parliament – another potential blow to the US credit card companies.

In the cable Matthias Mitman, a US diplomat specialising in economic affairs, and based at the Moscow embassy, urged Obama's presidential commission on Russia to take up the issue. Obama agreed to found a new bilateral commission with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, as part of the reset in US-Russian relations.

Mitman comments: "This draft law continues to disadvantage US payment card market leaders Visa and MasterCard, whether they join the National Payment Card System (NPCS) or not. If they join, the NPCS operator will collect the fees, leaving them to collect processing fees only when card-holders travel abroad – a tiny section of the market.

"If they do not join but choose to compete with NPCS cards, they will have to set up payment processing centers in Russia, a very large investment in itself, and compete against a system likely backed by the largest Russian state banks."

The answer, Mitman suggests, is for the Obama administration to actively bat for Visa and MasterCard. "While the draft legislation has yet to be submitted to the Duma and can still be amended, post will continue to raise our concerns with senior GOR officials.

"We recommend that senior USG officials also take advantage of meetings with their Russian counterparts, including through the Bilateral Presidential Commission, to press the GOR to change the draft text to ensure US payment companies are not adversely affected."

[Albert Doyle]

Since Assange hasn't really had any affect on the politics of those he exposes I wonder if this whole wikileaks thing isn't some sort of false flag operation trying to incur a reason for draconian information control laws?

[Peter Lemkin]

Since Assange hasn't really had any affect on the politics of those he exposes I wonder if this whole wikileaks thing isn't some sort of false flag operation trying to incur a reason for draconian information control laws?

Personally, I think you are dead wrong on the false flag; but dead right on the draconian ATTEMPTS at internet and other information control!

[Jan Klimkowski]

t seems to have escaped notice that one of the cables indicates that Sweden is secretly in NATO...and this might be bothering the Swedes now.....they may also worry that some info on the US-Swedish Assassination of Palme may surface in all this. Kill the messenger quick!

I think Sweden being a secret member of NATO is, indeed a bigger story than has been realized yet.

Not just because of the Palme murder, but because the Swedish grovelment has kept this hidden from their citizens - I imagine because the Swedes strongly believe in the dignity of their neutrality. They have been sold out.

But there maybe others nations that are also secret members of NATO. Switzerland perhaps? What about Austria? Is the Vatican City a secret non-military, intelligence gathering member maybe?

Are there other secret categories of membership we know nothing about yet?

Here are the grades of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

The first 3 degrees are open and acknowledged.

The higher degree are secret.

Degree Number Southern Jurisdiction[31] Northern Jurisdiction[32]
4° Secret Master Master Traveler
5° Perfect Master
6° Intimate Secretary Master of the Brazen Serpent
7° Provost and Judge
8° Intendant of the Building
9° Elu of the Nine Master of the Temple
10° Elu of the Fifteen Master Elect[33]
11° Elu of the Twelve Sublime Master Elected
12° Master Architect Grand Master Architect
13° Royal Arch of Solomon Master of the Ninth Arch
14° Perfect Elu Grand Elect Mason
15° Knight of the East, or
Knight of the Sword, or
Knight of the Eagle Knight of the East, or
Knight of the Sword
16° Prince of Jerusalem
17° Knight of the East and West
18° Knight Rose Croix Knight of the Rose Croix de Heredom Council of Kadosh
19° Grand Pontiff
20° Master of the Symbolic Lodge Master ad Vitam
21° Noachite, or
Prussian Knight Patriarch Noachite
22° Knight of the Royal Axe, or
Prince of Libanus Prince of Libanus
23° Chief of the Tabernacle
24° Prince of the Tabernacle Brother of the Forest
25° Knight of the Brazen Serpent Master of Achievement
26° Prince of Mercy, or
Scottish Trinitarian Friend and Brother Eternal[34]
27° Knight of the Sun, or
Prince Adept Knight of Jerusalem
28° Knight Commander of the Temple Knight of the Sun, or
Prince Adept
29° Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew Knight of Saint Andrew
30° Knight Kadosh, or
Knight of the White and Black Eagle Grand Inspector
31° Inspector Inquisitor Knight Aspirant
32° Master of the Royal Secret Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret
33° Inspector General

Analogously, I would speculate that the acknowledged military members of NATO represent the first three, open, degrees.

The higher, secret, grades represent more than just nation states. They are positions/security clearance levels granting knowledge of particular covert NATO aims.

These covert NATO aims would then be fulfilled through operations.

In principle, at a particular grade, the individual would have knowledge of some of that which is BELOW. But knowledge of that which is ABOVE would be absent.

Only the highest grades/ranks would see the entire picture.

An example of secret NATO aims would be the Strategy of Tension of Gladio. Pursuing the Scottish Rite analogy, specific false flag attacks would be perpetrated by a group operating under the control and patronage of a certain grade/rank.

So, Gladio operations in different countries would inevitably be controlled by planners of different ranks or levels. The true status of these atrocities not as genuine terrorist attacks, but as Gladio false flag attacks, would be known only by the grades/ranks above.

Considering groups who may be high level covert members of NATO, metaphorically at the 30° or above level, then my prime nomination would be SMOM.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

A search on DPF of SMOM may be an, ahem, illuminating experience.

For those with Eyes Wide Open....

Metaphorically, speculatively and symbolically speaking....

[David Guyatt]

The same thought has occurred to me also Albert. Assange or Wikileaks would not have to be complicit in such a scenario - just those who uploaded the cable file.

An interestng discussion took place this lunchtime on BBC Radio 2 (Jeremy Vine show) between (imo!) some flunky professor getting his pension stamped by the Empire, and Julian Assenge's lawyer, Mark Stevens. Professor Pension began making a big deal about the vital interests list Wikileaks published last Monday. Stevens retorted by asking the good Professor Stamp why, when the US and Uk authorities have the power (via D notice system) and the voluntary offer of Assange/Wikileaks to not publish anything the US claim is that "vital", why the US chose not to do so?

It's a very good question. The obvious answer is twofold: firstly, the list wasn't that important (which I think most people agree on anyway) and, secondly, they were waiting for a particular leak to chose their big offensive to get Assenge.

The conclusions to these various strands are manifold and not particularly clear. But I can easily see how, in the past, Wikileaks may have caused dismay because of the following it was attracting; that a decision was taken to bring it down once and for all and pass draconian legislation that allowed the US to go after anybody it wanted, irrespective of their citizenship, along with the negotiated complicity of the host nation.

It might be an Israeli game plan, but the results would be pretty much the same anyway, with the addition of strengthening the neocon agenda to take out any nation that defies the "international community's (read USA) demands.

I also notice that the main players in this, obviously beside Assange?Wikileaks are right-wing types - the Swedish pol who had the rape claims reopened, the US and Canadian pols who have called for his assassination, incarceration etc etc. Obviously this also meshes with the neocon angle.

At the present I continue to think that Assange/Wikileaks would be innocent of any knowing complicity in these scenarios. Indeed, it would be fairly important that they were, I think.

In the last analysis it comes down to how crafty these buggers are and what their long-term objectives really are?

And who they are?

Assuming it is not exactly as we see it portrayed in the daily media.

Even my wife who is not the most cynical person in the world, has offered her opinion that there is something very suspicious going on about the whole affair. And that from a Yorkshire lass too....

[Peter Lemkin]

Well, I'll certainly agree with some of the above and that things are now changing faster than any of us ever imagined could.....and fear they will only increase in pace in the next days and weeks....hold on to your asses, to not loose track of them, in the whirlwind! This is going to be a very bumpy ride and [I fear] a quick one....like one of those horrible amusement park rides you wish you had not taken the dare to get upon! One thing that certainly could happen in just a week or two is a total clamdown attempt on the internet...and just as likely a response by freedom hackers at those attempting same. Stay tuned! I think few of us realize just how pivotal [by design or chance] this whole episode is and will stand for all time!!!!! :top: Fasten your seatbelts...and best to even install one on your toilet!...that is just how fast this whole planet is morphing now.......tupido2: