The Wikileaks Question

[compared2what?]

you've read that, yes, but have you checked?

*

I wasn't sure how, but now I tried, using Google, and to my surprise I was able to do it quite easily. I found the cable about the Saudi King Abdullah.

You can use this site to search through all the currently released cables by keyword: http://ht.ly/3kggO

I don't know if it's a CIA front-end or whatever, it doesn't seem to be directly affiliated with Wikileaks, but I've been using it all week and it's very efficient.

Alice, you MUST read them. It's kind of monotonous going, but you can't take it for granted that the representations of even the best-intentioned commentators reflect the same things you'll see. Plus, it really is a lesson in the power of spin, as if we needed one. There isn't really a hardline bias in the informational content itself, beyond what you'd reasonably expect from a bunch of conventionally American-exception-minded diplomats writing to the people who pay the embassy's heating bills. Or....Wait a minute, I'm one of those people.

I guess I mean the people who authorize the payments. Or sign the checks. Or....You know what I mean. Their bosses.

WRT Iran specifically, there's one from Malaysia that wasn't published here that's a little bit of an eye-opener in its own way. The part that caught my attention (preceded by a handy key to the abbreviations) was:

FEEB = First East Export Bank, the subsidiary of Iran's Bank Mellat that is (or in 2009 was) licensed in Malaysia

BN= Barisian Nasional, the governing political coalitiion in Malaysia.

GOM = Government of Malaysia

USG = Bullies, weaklings, and liars, per a clear-eyed reading.

IRAN = victim of obsessive and unjust persecution by bullies, weaklings and liars, per a clear-eyed reading.

4. (S) Lee shared BN concerns that if BN were to revoke the

FEEB license it would trigger law suits against the GOM by
FEEB shareholders. He continued that after repeated BN
requests, the USG has yet to provide any concrete or specific
evidence of FEEB or Bank Mellat wrongdoing that could be used
in court by the GOM to defend a suit against BN for wrongful
action against FEEB. xxxxxxxxxxxx added that U.S. &suspicions
were not always accurate. Lee also queried on U.S.
designation actions on other Bank Mellat foreign subsidiaries
in Seoul, London, Ankara and other locations and asked why
Malaysia was being singled out for immediate action.
Abdullah noted that BN recently inspected FEEB and found the
bank had consummated only one Euro 400,000 letter of credit
for the import of oil and gas-related equipment from Iran in
its first six months of operation. BN officials argued that
they could supervise a low-activity Bank Mellat subsidiary as
well as those other countries where the US is not preparing
to implement sanctions.

Imagine that. U.S. diplomats are aware that Iran has business transactions that have nothing whatsoever to do with the alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, for which they can't provide Malaysia with evidence that would stand up in court, despite repeated requests.

That was last year, though. And per a brief search-term review, t looks like we have managed to make Seoul say "Uncle" since then. So maybe we're also still scary enough to cow Malaysia. But I doubt it. They're out of our price range these days. And in all events, London and Ankara are still saying la-la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you.

In any event. In all sincerity, I defy anyone to tell me whose national interests or what set of unseemly concealed objectives are served by letting the world know any of that. It doesn't even particularly help Iran. Or Malaysia. Or Turkey. Or South Korea. It just lets U.S. diplomats make themselves look like the arrogant, unreasonable, vengeful and demanding assholes that they were in fact being.

And it's quite informative that way. But only if you read it. Same (but different) goes for the rest of them, if you know what I mean.

Full text here, for those who want to cast their own eyes over it, which I urge them to do

[barracuda]

...there are posters on this forum who are spreading rightwing media filth that is largely and disgustingly anti-semitic on its face...

What? I beseech you, in the tiny duodenum of the little newborn baby Jesus, think it possible you may be mistaken.

[Plutonia]

This is interesting..

Richard Handler of the CBC attempting to apply MaPs revamped conception of The Public to the Wikileaks/Assange phenomenon.

If you have listened to CBC's Ideas 14 part program about the Making Publics program, (like I suggested) you might have noticed a consistent, unintended consequence of "people congregating around a shared interest" ie social change. The interest that is shared is irrelevant, but Handler sorta misses that whole sidebar; that Super-Assange emerged from a group of people (Hackers) with a shared interest in free information and Hacking but I'm side-tracking a bit.

There's a drop of good juice here. Check it out:

Julian Assange and the Forbidden Planet
By Richard Handler CBC News

The ongoing adventures of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are an ink-blot test for a mass public.

Just who is this guy, you might well ask. And which public exactly is he serving?

For right-wing U.S. politicians like Newt Gingrich, Assange is simply "an enemy combatant," a virtual cyber-terrorist who is putting America and its interests in harm's way.

But for many of the callers to a recent edition of CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup, Assange is a hero, a kind of cyber Robin Hood.

They reveled in the diplomatic undressing he and his cohorts have been administering to the Great Empire to the South.

The man at the centre of this storm, Assange, has been profiled in The New Yorker, Maclean's and here on CBC.ca, among other places, as a celebrated computer hacker and brilliant misfit with a bohemian upbringing.

But on another level, he confirms the existence of what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman once called (in his 1999 bestseller The Lexus and the Olive Tree) the super-empowered individual.

As Friedman saw it, globalization had so reshaped and distorted national authority that certain unique individuals have been able to emerge to punch far beyond their weight, essentially on the scale of nation states themselves.

Friedman's examples, for better and ill, included such super-empowered characters as Osama bin Laden, the Houdini of world terrorism, and Microsoft's Bill Gates, the epitome of start-up capitalism and global charity.

Julian Assange may or may not become Time magazine's Person of the Year. But as the current embodiment of Friedman's super-empowered, nation-shaking individual, he would appear to have few current equals.

The modern public

Still, you have to ask, who is the "public" that WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are intending to serve with these document dumps?

Surely it has to be more than just a bunch of conspiracy theorists, cyber-anarchists and news junkies.

We in the media, of course, are feasting on Assange's handiwork, to the point of commenting on the elegant quality of the diplomatic prose and parsing the revelations as either real or simply warmed-over titillations.

But we (and who is this "we"?) can't pretend anymore that one blanket mass audience exists.

In fact, a public is not just one thing, one big cover for a multitude. Today's public is more like a changing facade, an information market filled with high-end boutiques alongside discount shops, various, rowdy and noisily democratic.

This democratization of our public sphere is the lesson from my Ideas colleague David Cayley's multi-part series on "The Origins of the Modern Public," which first aired last spring.

The act of publicizing oneself, Cayley tells us, "was once the exclusive property of men of rank. They alone, by virtue of their stations, could make things public."

But no longer are men of rank, the king and the nobility (or Barack and his court), the ones who hold the keys to the public door.

Although this downward transfer of authority has been going on long before the days of WikiLeaks.

History has probably always had two (or more) narrative streams running side by side. Sometimes these streams resolve into one river (that's the dialectical view); and sometimes, as postmodernists believe, they simply travel in rough proximity.

This means we can have not only different options on history and the public interest — a "people's history" versus the well-buffed chronicles of the high and mighty.

But we can also have narratives where an outlier like Assange can apparently appeal to diverse publics at the same time, be they adolescent hackers or the greying patrons of CBC's The National.

Our forbidden planet

Ultimately, Cayley tells us, a public is a "summons to attention."

"People come into an awareness of themselves through media," as their public sense of themselves joins with their private identity.

[below this line is naught but silly drek]

Someone like Assange forces that awareness on us and mixes it up in the process: Is he a romantic hero or a villain? A man who wants to ruin discrete diplomacy or make it more transparent, so that it is more open to his preferred word, "justice"?

In this way, he is the (Bonnie and) Clyde Barrow of the digital age, hoodlum and hero, rolled into one, depending a bit on where you stand.

On the broader scale, the result of all this surplus information flowing about is a world of Facebook babble, endless scrolling, privacy commissioners and companies you can hire to remove your social media indiscretions before the next job interview.

In the 1950s science fiction classic Forbidden Planet, starring the late Leslie Nielson and Robbie the Robot, a United Planets spaceship is sent to a remote world, only to discover that its advanced civilization has been destroyed by a device called "a plastic educator."

The device so roiled the dreams of its inhabitants that they murdered each other after they went to sleep at night.

Transparency run amok, you might say, 1950s style.

Are there some things that are better left secret, black dreams in the night, or maybe the white lies we sometimes tell children, friends and colleagues?

Has the web and Julian Assange turned our world into a Forbidden Planet where every day we can pick our truths and demand others act in ways we would never demand of ourselves?

One thing I will predict. Coming next year, more children will be named Julian while, in government agencies, dartboards will be hoisted with his shining, winsome face.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/12/ ... z189RQZ7hs

From "What is Hacking" pdf:

In the Beginning...
Since hacktivism is a recombinant initiative comprised of
two divergent communities (hackers and activists) it is
necessary to understand their respective backgrounds in
order to analyze this historic merger and to examine its
challenges and future capabilities. "Hacker" was originally
a term that encapsulated an individual's deep
understanding of computer systems and networks and the
ability to invent, modify, and refine such systems. It is a
recombinant attitude that promotes problem solving and
creative instinct for it does not limit one's options to the
possible. Hacking thrives in an environment in which
information is freely accessible. The hacker ethic
formulated by Steven Levy in his 1984 book "Hackers:
Heroes of the Computer Revolution" outlines the hacker
tenets:
1. Access to computers should be unlimited and
total.
2. All information should be free.
3. Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking not
bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or
position.
5. You create art and beauty on a computer.
6. Computers can change your life for the better.

Hackers are used to thinking beyond the "bounds of the possible." That may be why we find the situation so difficult to read, we are stuck only being able to imagine the possible.

[Plutonia]

The Hacktivist wrote:
Stuff

Yea-ahhh... .. no.


“Anonymous is the first internet-based superconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they’re a group? Because they’re travelling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely.”

[compared2what?]

So let me see if I understand...

No, you didn't.

I don't know why you guys are making such a big deal of this. All I know is a) al-Haqiqa is not a reputable or trustworthy source; and b) it is the ONLY source for the allegation. More than that, I can't say.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please. But from what's available in the English press, it looks like both the reason for the al-Haqiqa blogger's disreputable untrustworthiness and the explanation for

why an expat government opponent would need to plant anti Israeli disinfo in a Syrian paper on behalf of western intel

are one and the same. To wit: Precisely that he probably did it for western intel, wittingly or unwittingly.

And more specifically, for American intel, seeking to discredit Wikileaks by yoking it to Israel wherever Israel is already so unpopular that it does hurt Wikileaks and can't hurt Israel. Or at least not any more than it's already hurt itself.

Anyway. Before I get to what makes it look that way to me, I'd first of all like to say that I find it very, very hard to judge the guy in question, whose name is Nizar Nayouf, too harshly for his disreputable and untrustworthy writing.

Because the reasons that it looks to me like he wrote at the behest of American intel all turn on his having been a decidedly non-expat government opponent before Syria sentenced him to ten years hard labor for it in the early '90s. Due to which, there's a nine-year stretch during which he was tortured and kept in solitary confinement between his resident-national and ex-pat periods. He got out a year early when pressure from western powers -- ie, powers that pretty much had to include America and exclude Israel -- leveraged his need for the cancer treatment he wasn't receiving to get him out. (First by getting him transferred to house arrest, and then by winning him permission to seek medical care in France. Where he immediately applied for political asylum. To nobody's surprise, I'm sure.)

Long story short:

That was in 2001. His ordeals left him blind and partly paralyzed. And one can easily see how they might also have left him more inclined to believe the sources who told him that Iraq's WMD and all of Saddam's gazillions had been transferred to Syria two years later.

And t least per what's available in English, that episode appears to be when his disreputable and untrustworthy period began, whether he's a flat-out paid operative or not.

But either way, it suggests that the agenda he's serving belongs to America and not to Israel. Because:

(1) He couldn't possibly be indebted to Israeli influence for getting him out of Syria, due to its having none.

(2) He's almost certainly indebted to American influence for getting him out of Syria, because in 2001, America was still hogging too much of the western influence for any other western power successfully to exert pressure on Syria without it. He's also almost certainly indebted to France, granted. And marchons, marchons, I say, by all means. But since France has no dog in the hunt wrt the disinfo, that's about all there is to say.

(3) You can kind of infer the potential for either outcome (I mean spook v. pawn, not U.S. v. France or Israel) from a few of the answers he gave in a Guardian interview in 2002:

You are out of jail, but your family is still in dire straits in Syria. On the other hand, the Syrian authorities freed dozens of political prisoners last November. According to you, are those releases, including yours, the sign of a move towards more freedom?

As the Syrian dictatorship failed to deter me from rebelling, whether before or after my release, they have decided to harass my family, thus trying to make them my first concern, but my fight will continue whatever happens to me. I am planning to set up a Pan-Arab organisation for the defense of expression and press freedom.

The wave of releases you refer to was to bluff the world public opinion. But all the Civil Society Clubs, which arose after al-Assad came to power, were banned; not to mention that most of their leaders were arrested last summer. Besides, the new president decreed a press law last September, which any Fascist regime would not even dare to implement!

Do you think that the Arab nations are not willing to accede to the so-called universal value that democracy represents, as suggested by some commentaries?

If this universal value is the one imposed by the White House, then I can affirm that no one in the Arab world, including myself, will adhere to such a universal value. But if it means what is agreed upon in the UN statute and other international conventions, then all the Arab nations will be willing to adhere to them providing those statutes and conventions govern all the nations, as justice cannot be discriminatory.

You can't believe everything you read, of course. And at that point, the chit might not yet have been called in, if that's what happened. But he sounds like he was a well-intentioned person in 2002 to me, fwiw.

However, that's strictly by the way. If you add his background to the fact that the WMD story and the WL=Israel story both provide political cover for the explicit and not-plausibly-deniable words and deeds of American officials -- plus the fact that only the former does anything for Israeli interests (and at one degree of separation even then) -- and then factor in there being no sign that Nayouf owes a thing to Israel and little chance that there was a thing Israel could have done for him, I think we've got some math. Or at least some mathematical theory.

And the result I get from it is that U.S. intel wants to discredit Wikileaks as a source and deflect blame from itself to Israel by linking it to Assange in places wherever there's already such a strong predisposition to think of evil and Israel as virtually synonymous that (a) people are likely to take the bait; and (b) it wouldn't adversely alter the status quo of Our Strategic Friend and Ally in the Region anyway.

That might be dead wrong. And it's definitely premised on partial data. But at least it adds up.

So as far as it goes -- assuming, of course, that it does go where it looks to me that it does -- it slightly augments the evidence favoring:

U.S. = virulent opposition to Assange.
Israeli-Wikileaks association = disinfo originated by American intel for American purposes, whether with or without Israeli approval.
Wikileaks/Assange = Still a dark horse, but not one that appears to be doing anything besides trying to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted so far, at least from what I can see.
___________________

But everyone please bring forth their perceptions trumping mine. Because that and what I wrote elsewhere are about all I got on this one. Which is inconclusive, as it presently stands.

[The Hacktivist]

Incorrect, but I dont feel the need to demonstrate with anyone here, it isnt within the ethical guidelines we work with. We can confirm anything we want, I dont think you understand the reach this group has my friend. If we want information we will get it.

Like I said I dont expect anyone here to believe me and thats ok, I will stick around and enjoy the discussion, but I am putting it on the record that I know for a fact that Mr. Assange is exactly who he claims to be and Wikileaks is exactly what it is. There is no intelligence agency behind it, they may be infiltrating it now, they may be hand feeding Mr. Assange information that benefits them and their objectives in the long run but I can assure you that Wikileaks and Mr Assange are legit and genuine.

I have no need to provide proof, the proof is in the pudding. You will see, stay tuned and keep watching, there is a lot more to come, this is only now getting started. I am not here to convince anyone of anything, I came here to state on the record that I KNOW FOR A FACT Mr. Assange is legit, his charges are being manufactured and stem from a honey pot operation he got caught up in after a few too many drinks, and, lastly Wikileaks is exactly what it appears to be, there is no big psy op here, none.

Finally, I came here to warn some of you that there are posters on this forum who are spreading rightwing media filth that is largely and disgustingly anti-semitic on its face and they are using this fascist propaganda to try and destroy Mr. Assange and his child, Wikileaks, but to their surpirse, they are not succeeding because they are being taken out faster than they can get back up and running. This operation will not cease until Assange is a free man again and allowed to do what he does best and that is expose the lies, the corruption and the war crimes of the high and mighty.

We will prevail.

In time you will know what I speak is the truth, I dont need to give you proof now because the proof is on its way, its coming, be patient.

did you type that on a mobile device by any chance?

Anyway, I hope you speak truly and I'll welcome an ambassador from the hordes of anonymous.

It does seem plausible that if they've got thousands of folks all over the world, there'd be enough manpower to do the legwork for a full scale background check.

That is it exactly, there are so many people involved in the group that there is no way information, any information, could get past the organization, the reach is mind boggling when you get up close and personal and really see how it works from the inside, believe me, if the organization wants information on anyone they will get it one way or another.

You need to understand that this concept that Anonymous is a bunch of pimple faced teenagers hacking in to websites for shits and giggles isnt true, Anonymous is made up of doctors, lawyers, accountants, graduate students, engineers, we have a wide variety of professionals who are members and of course we dont all now eachother, its a very loose-knit organization of which there is no real- organization at all, there are various places on the net where we look for particular messages that are sent out to all of us to go and do this or that and that is when we all move together as a unit and do our thing. There is no leadership or anything like that but I can tell you that these arent your typical little 4chan rejects youre dealing with anymoree, it once was exactly that but many of us strived ot make it better and more professional and in the process we drew a lot of very intelligent, skilled, highly ETHICAL and motivated people in to the cause and that is what it is today.

I am just here to chat like anyone else but when I see peopel saying things about the org that are clearly not true I need to correct that, especially now when the org is being villified and made out to be something other than what it is.


Above all else we care about human rights and protecting them for all people no matter who they are or where they live, when we see abuse of those rights or corruption among those who are charged with protecting those rights, WE WILL EXPOSE IT AND WE WILL DO SO IN A WAY THAT WILL MAKE YOU THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU DO IT AGAIN.



Hack

[The Hacktivist]

I dont think you understand the reach this group has my friend.

Whatever you say, Cupcake.

Why are we being rude to this guy? Maybe he is from Anonymous. I think those dudes deserve our respect. They seem to be only people willing to stand up and take any meaningful action power in the current climate. I think it'd be great to have contributions from the Hacktivist community here.

Its not a problem I expected to be unwelcomed and treated as any newbie would, in time they will see that I am not here to pull anyone's chains, this forum and thread is actually one of the best on the net at this time and we are all aware of it and have read much of what is posted here, I volunteered to join and ad a little to the discussion for the benefit of the few of you who might be open minded enough to at least consider that what I am saying is true.

Thanks for the welcome I do appreciate that.

[norton ash]

That is it exactly, there are so many people involved in the group that there is no way information, any information, could get passed the organization, the reach is mind boggling when you get up close and personal and really see how it works from the inside, believe me, if the organization wants information on anyone they will get it one way or another.

All right, all right, quit waving that thing around. We're cool.

[stefano]

Hello compared2what?, nice to see you.

[thatsmystory]

As always, certainty is lacking.

What an outrageous thing to say.

[anothershamus]

Cablegate comics, you know someone had to do it! OK, here is the link:
http://hilobrow.com/tag/cablegate/

[The Hacktivist]

I have to go for a little while, have some work to do, but we like to deliver pizzas to people who ridicule us and act like assholes on forums we visit and try to be friendly, so if you get a pizza tonight enjoy it on us.


(or maybe you would prefer cupcakes?)


Hack

[justdrew]

As always, certainty is lacking.

What an outrageous thing to say.

yeah I know, I'm really going out on a limb there

[The Hacktivist]

One last thing I just heard, Michael Moore is trying to bail Assange out.

[The Consul]

After WWII the military was injecting plutonium into volunteers that were long term prison and most likely also military personnel. Legal maneuvering was essential in light of the Nuremburg Rule after the trials of the gestapo experimentations on holocaust victim. Legally the idea was well....we get some piece of paper drawn up by our best lawyers in case the volunteer's survivors sue so we can cover our ass. At some point their was intercession of the "whattaya nuts?" variety in that the story must be buried because it doesnt matter what legal counsel concludes. The folks in Rapid City and Montaulk must always think we are not like the Nazis.
I sincerely believe that Wikileaks is one of the last great hopes of showing us just how we are, and maybe how we aren't (in which ways the same, in which ways better, and even....in which ways worse in terms of protecting the masses from conscious complicity). It may even unveil an unbroken continuity where wars and politics are simply franchises operated by the illustrious masters of illusion. The idea being if they got away with that shit then, with all the paperclips and monarchs and MKULTRAs what else is there? What else need there be before a catalyst forms? The head may be forming. The vision of it must exist. Like Anne Sexton said all those buildings and cars were once just ideas in someone's head. A revision is possible. A coming to terms. A great unleashing of information that will bowl over a politician as surely as a damn breaking before a kneeling blind preacher praying for it to hold.
It may soon be time to storm the Bastille.
Either that or the next president makes Jim Jones look like Mr. Smith.