rigorousintuition.ca

c2w, don't be here on the fly. Have a seat, take a load off. Something hot to drink? I'll just go unpack your things while you relax a bit, watch the fire and reflect on this whole Wikileaks conundrum and how your unique contribution just may help us all get to the bottom of it.

Sounder wrote:This psy-ops shit is so simple, just play to the targets pretenses and presto-chango, folk that are consciously anti-globalist get turned into globalist shills. Of course the potential dissonance and threat to the validity of ones personal identity will ensure that ideas like this ignored or failing that are shouted down by the righteous warriors for 'truth'.

Well its always worked before, so why not now?

The kind of psy-ops shit that we're speculating that Assange could be engaged in is actually really, really hard. And equally so whether he's an agent provocateur or a freedom-fighter, really. To succeed in either role, you can't talk to practically anybody, you can't make mistakes about anything, and at least occasionally, it's possible, probable or certain that your opponents are trying to kill you.

It's very stressful. And difficult. People who are good at it just make it look simple. They kind of have to. Because they can't afford to give too many signs about what they're thinking and feeling to the general public, they have no way of knowing who's watching.

There's a lot of room for custom variation in performance style, though. Kind of like the different ways that umpires working for Major League Baseball call strikes.

C2w it's great to see you here, and I hope you'll stick around as your eloquence and advocacy are much appreciated. I imagine you're here to defend JA from the heartless philistines, and I admire you for that, but seriously, the wikileaks saga was DOA. These latest wrinkles are delightful but much too little too late. Wiki made made its nut pimping for the oil boys when they "leaked" those weather station e-mails, then for the Bushlers (no doubt the same customers) with those immaculately epilated 911 communications, so there's nothing they can do to redeem themselves, not that they've tried. Leaking State Department cables is not just evil it's sick and depraved, but that's wikileaks, whoever they are.

Anyway, please don't be a stranger!

nathan28 wrote:Thanks for coming back, c2w.

compared2what? wrote:Hell, I'll even see your "inconclusive" and raise you the difference between it and "almost ostentatiously ambiguous." And throw in an entirely new unsettled question, too.

In any event:

Why would the opaque, discreet and source-protecting Assange go out of his way to say

"I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassay staff, after"

only a few sentences after he'd gone out of his way to identify the past "release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik reporting on contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of euros in claimed loan guarantees" as a possible trigger for the (alleged) then-ongoing surveillance and harassment he describes?

For sake of clarity this is the passage you are mentioning:

U.S. sources told Icelandic state media's deputy head of news, that the
State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the
U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at
the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had
contact with Embassay staff, after.

Try as I might, I cannot really understand what you are suggesting here.

What I read Assange state here is that 1. The US is investigating a leak out of the Reykjavik embassy 2. Assange was seen at an embassy party and has had contact with people at the embassy since attending the party. The implication being that he was at the party to chat up potential sources and he may now have them.

That would seem to be a tell, but the greater context (i.e., the surrounding paragraphs) state that 3. Assange is being followed and harassed by people who seem very likely to be spooks.

The greater implication being, Assange is being followed because he has a source in the Reykjavik embassy, that the US spook complex is aware that he does and hopes to learn more/who/what is being leaked to Assange. What I don't understand is why or how Assange's claim to that extent is problematic if it is at all truthful. If the spooks are looking closely at the Reykjavik staff and Assange, it follows that he isn't exactly exposing or admitting anything they aren't already aware of. That, and while I think it's not a far cry to assume that "contact with" is the same as "have a source inside", prima facie, it's not, which is enough to shift the burden of proof--a burden that it seems spooks are eagerly attempting to establish.

There are possibilities i'm not considering here. E.g., that account about harassment may be BS and the piece is intended to signal that he has sources at the embassy. I can think of one further speculation that builds upon that but it's speculating from speculative assumptions and am not going to cough it up lest any pattern-seeking minds mistake artifice for nature.

It's ALL speculation. If I were just in it for fun, I could put together a roughly equivalent brief based on best info available that suggested....Well, the outcome of my choice, probably. But certainly one that suggested Assange was an operative for the state. Which I'm certain of because I more or less did exactly that for devil's advocacy purposes in the course of trying to clarify my own thoughts. I just didn't write it down, because (a) I'm guessing the other way based on marginal nuance, quite frankly; and (b) the elements of that position are already pretty well represented here.

But fwiw, the transient hypothesis wrt to that post that I was trying to outline is:

The reason that he was going out of his way to draw attention to the implication that his source for a diplomatic cable leak was someone at the Reykjavik embassy -- and possibly the reason that he went to the embassy, for that matter -- was that he was being followed by spooks who wanted to know where he got the materials currently being released. IOW, that he was laying down a false trail to protect his source, his material, and himself.

Per that scenario, it's also possible that the leak from back then that he refers to was a trial balloon.

I mean, only he would know enough about what he was up to when the (presumed) surveillance/harassment began to make an informed guess about what triggered it. Obviously. But if I assigned a thinking exercise to myself that was something along the lines of...

"You are Julian Assange. Your aim is to do your best to effect change by releasing the secrets of a corrupt global imperial system that's gotten sloppy about defending its outermost (technological, in this case) borders.** You just hit the jackpot wrt to material said empire regards as a real threat. What would you do that might be perceptible as a sign of your intentions to some stranger on the internet months after the fact?"

...after I'm done wasting my time and energy on that ludicrous fucking dead-end, it occurs to me that one of the things I would do is take a number of relatively standard security and legal precautions. Which I can roughly imagine by analogy, because I've taken them at a much, much lower and less interesting level of endeavor.

And it looks to me like he had a basic legal and security strategy in place by the time those tweets went up that he's been pursuing ever since. And also like he knew he was going to prison at least briefly as soon as All Was Known. And also (not coincidentally) that like he knew beyond question that some of the embassy-originated material -- I have no clue at all exactly what -- posed a very significant threat to one or more state powers.

As I said, a lot of that is based on nuances that it's hard to recapitulate. But broadly speaking, the big tells are the timing and phraseology of the communiques I already cited; the timing of Bradley Manning's arrest and he duration of his unalleviated sequestration; the timing and phraseology of Assange's denial wrt receiving the cables not too long after that, as, for instance, at about 7:00 to 7:25-ish here.

Which suggests to me that technically, he didn't receive them; rather, they were received by someone or in some form that gave him access to them.

Plus, I don't know, some other stuff he says at other points in that and other interviews, notably his remarks about not knowing the identity of sources and destroying evidence of it soon as possible when it accidentally did become known near the start of the linked video. And the two trial runs on the major-media distribution model that preceded the present doc dump. And the shut-out of the NYT. And the defections from inside the organization.

And blah, blah, blah, it's far, far from conclusive. I totally concede that right up front.

I do think it couldn't hurt for everyone to check how cleanly and directly they're drawing lines between cause and effect, though. Because even if the guy is an operative whose job is to plant the false flag under which the government shut-down/smothering of the internet, or the U.S./Israeli attack on Iran, or [YOUR CANDIDATE FOR EVIL OBJECTIVE HERE], he still wouldn't be the one who was responsible for dropping the bombs or pulling the plug or whatever.

The people charged with running U.S. (or Israeli, or some other national) state affairs are the go-to parties for that shit. And it's a mistake to lose sight of that, imo.



** Like all empires ultimately have gotten, one way or another, let's face it. They always take it that one expansion too far, and they always get caught looking when the Medes/Vandals/Franks/Spartans/Macedonians/Hacktivists/Whatevs come rushing in.

lupercal wrote:C2w it's great to see you here, and I hope you'll stick around as your eloquence and advocacy are much appreciated. I imagine you're here to defend JA from the heartless philistines, and I admire you for that, but seriously, the wikileaks saga was DOA. These latest wrinkles are delightful but much too little too late. Wiki made made its nut pimping for the oil boys when they "leaked" those weather station e-mails, then for the Bushlers (no doubt the same customers) with those immaculately epilated 911 communications, so there's nothing they can do to redeem themselves, not that they've tried. Leaking State Department cables is not just evil it's sick and depraved, but that's wikileaks, whoever they are.

Anyway, please don't be a stranger!

Thanks. And nope, I see no Philistines. Or pharisees, as the case may be. Except in potential, obviously. I mean, I can read and everything.

Personally, I lean toward the hypothesis that Wikileaks is authentic at the moment. But I really and truly don't see a strong enough case for or against to go on defense. Or on offense. I just try to notice what I notice most of the time. And try not to make a habit of falling for it so hard that I, like, elope to Vegas with it twenty minutes after laying eyes on it. Or whatever a metaphor like that one except better actually is.

But you're certainly free to imagine that I'm doing whatever you want to imagine I'm doing, as long as you don't start confusing it with what I'm doing. And keep it clean or keep it to yourself, I should say. Because I have too much of a dirty mind for that reading of what I just said not to occur to me, btw, not because I think you do. Um...At an awkward place now. Seeking refuge in next paragraph therefore.

Basically, I'm cautiously optimistic because by my standards, neither the case against nor the case for is so unassailable that any urgent defensive action on my part is called for at this point. Or imaginable, for that matter. After all, what specific action is there for anyone to take, beyond whatever same general program of action-on-conviction he or she is already pursuing, if any?

My mind is open and my opinions aren't fixed. I like thinking, so that's fine with me. And that's where I'm at.

Dull, I know.

AlicetheKurious wrote:c2w, don't be here on the fly. Have a seat, take a load off. Something hot to drink? I'll just go unpack your things while you relax a bit, watch the fire and reflect on this whole Wikileaks conundrum and how your unique contribution just may help us all get to the bottom of it.

I appreciate the hospitality. Especially the cuisine, Madame.

IOW: Thanks! Hi, Alice! Miss you! I'm good, nothing to unpack, short visit, temperamentally incapable of relaxing, have never gotten to the bottom of anything!

I love reading you, though, as you know. You always make me think. Which, as I was just saying, I enjoy. So very heartfelt thanks for that, too.

I'm a thread-killer, dammit.

I don't want to be, though.

No you're not - it's probably just a stunned silence.

I'm personally so glad to see you I think my wig mighta fell off.

.
I was going to post something really relevant that would have kept us all talking, but I've forgot what it was. It wasn't really relevant. Just to do with the fact that the "Embassy Revelation!!!" article was written by Andrew Gilligan, and that Ms Jonsdottir must've given the story to him specifically, rather than a local Icelandic journalist, knowing full welll about his significant role in the David Kelly affair.

I used to think Gilligan was one of the good guys in that bad business, and that he was very badly treated - a journalist who actually did his job, and protected his source (to the best of his ability), and paid the price. Having followed his career and his statements since, I'm not so sure anymore.

But that's just throwing more tainted meat into the shark pool, really.

Jesus... I never even checked for any Kelly cables. It's bound to have been mentioned. It was a major diplomatic incident on both sides of the Atlantic.

And welcome back, C2W?

I think this..

Although he had already upset the US Assange was the toast of Iceland at the time of the party, having published a secret report relating to the 2008 collapse of the country’s banks on WikiLeaks.

It was against this background that Assange apparently thought it would be amusing to go into the lion’s den. On the day of the ambassador’s reception, he didn’t even bother to wait for Jonsdottir before heading over to the US embassy.

Jonsdottir explains: "The irony was that I went to collect him from his guesthouse and couldn't find him, so just went back to work and didn't even go myself.

"I found out later he'd just decided to go on his own and got in by saying he was my guest. He said he'd spent a long time talking to Mr Watson."

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/72733,peo ... z189bBhjvd

makes this claim...

"I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassay staff, after"

quite convenient in a very suspect kinda way. As always, I appreciate Ms. What?'s contribution here.

Was this party at the Embassy or the Ambassadors residence (as Assange claims) or was there more than one party?

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:.
I was going to post something really relevant that would have kept us all talking, but I've forgot what it was. It wasn't really relevant. Just to do with the fact that the "Embassy Revelation!!!" article was written by Andrew Gilligan, and that Ms Jonsdottir must've given the story to him specifically, rather than a local Icelandic journalist, knowing full welll about his significant role in the David Kelly affair.

I used to think Gilligan was one of the good guys in that bad business, and that he was very badly treated - a journalist who actually did his job, and protected his source (to the best of his ability), and paid the price. Having followed his career and his statements since, I'm not so sure anymore.

But that's just throwing more tainted meat into the shark pool, really.

Jesus... I never even checked for any Kelly cables. It's bound to have been mentioned. It was a major diplomatic incident on both sides of the Atlantic.

And welcome back, C2W?

Thank you, sweetheart.

And also, I'm sure I don't need to point out that it's not true that Ms. Jonsdottir must've given the story to anybody, since anybody who was looking for a story about "Julian Assange" and "U.S. embassy" online could easily have found he went to a party at the one in Iceland on his own. And just as easily have called both it and Ms. Jonsdottir, after discovering the latter's existence via a handy search of the Nexis-Lexis database, which I'm absolutely positive The Daily Telegraph subscribes to.

If Assange did have a bombshell at the time, I very much doubt that either she or more than one or two other people knew about it then or knows about it now through his having told them. That's just SOP.

Proceeding under the same assumption -- since it's the one I happen to be exploring at this precise instant -- neither would I bet money on the accuracy of what Ms. Jonsdottir told Gilligan, and for more reason than one.

First of all, if he cold-called her, she might have been surprised enough (or just responding to questions that were couched in who-knows-what terms) to have said something that was open to construction in ways she didn't intend. You should never, ever talk to the press unless you're totally clear on what you want them to say you said and have a plan for making it meaning-proof. Unless it's not about anything that's important to you. Or you have some reason to believe it will be advantageous. Or....FFS, use your own judgment! That's what it's there for!

And second of all, she:

(a) might not know the truth about every single detail -- as if, let's say, the party came up in casual conversation, he arranged to go with her in order to get the date-time-guestlist info necessary for admission, and then went without her for her own best interests, sending flowers and chocolate and a charming note the next day; and

(b) might have arranged for him to go but sworn to keep it confidential on any one of several dozen viable, plausible pretexts, given that he is in the anonymous whistleblower business, after all. That's why you should never, ever date Julian Assange unless you're absolutely....Oh, never mind. You're all adults. I trust you to figure that stuff out yourselves.

And once again, for the record: I do not pretend to know or, really, to be doing anything other than seeing whether the information available to me fits just as well into a narrative framework I made for myself as it does into one of the ones you can buy at the store.

I always do that, if I'm interested enough. If I'm really, really interested, once in a blue moon, I even make a feeble gesture in the direction of testing my best hypothesis. I don't always end up anywhere that's even remotely in the same vicinity as where I started out. Or even anywhere conclusive at all, necessarily. I just find it rewarding to take the trip.

Oh! Also: In all cases, I'd say the notice of non-availability quoted by JackR (Hi, Jack!) is a weak indication but nonetheless some kind of indication that Gilligan sought her and not the other way around.

Cosmic Cowbell wrote:I think this..

Although he had already upset the US Assange was the toast of Iceland at the time of the party, having published a secret report relating to the 2008 collapse of the country’s banks on WikiLeaks.

It was against this background that Assange apparently thought it would be amusing to go into the lion’s den. On the day of the ambassador’s reception, he didn’t even bother to wait for Jonsdottir before heading over to the US embassy.

Jonsdottir explains: "The irony was that I went to collect him from his guesthouse and couldn't find him, so just went back to work and didn't even go myself.

"I found out later he'd just decided to go on his own and got in by saying he was my guest. He said he'd spent a long time talking to Mr Watson."

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/72733,peo ... z189bBhjvd

makes this claim...

"I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassay staff, after"

quite convenient in a very suspect kinda way. As always, I appreciate Ms. What?'s contribution here.

Was this party at the Embassy or the Ambassadors residence (as Assange claims) or was there more than one party?

And thank YOU, honey. But I don't understand what you suspect. Could you elaborate?

ON EDIT: WRT the "Embassy" vs. "Ambassador's residence" question, I'd say: When in doubt, assume the reporter didn't think about making the distinction. They're not all bad, but nobody gets it all perfectly right every time on that kind of detail when writing for a daily. Copy desks. Deadlines. Hangovers. Children with flu. Misreading your own notes. Those things might happen to anyone. And even CIA-for-Kidz isn't omnipotent enough to override that.

barracuda wrote:No you're not - it's probably just a stunned silence.

I'm personally so glad to see you I think my wig mighta fell off.

Thanks, doll. As always, I appreciate your contributions here.

compared2what? wrote:ON EDIT: WRT the "Embassy" vs. "Ambassador's residence" question, I'd say: When in doubt, assume the reporter didn't think about making the distinction. They're not all bad, but nobody gets it all perfectly right every time on that kind of detail when writing for a daily. Copy desks. Deadlines. Hangovers. Children with flu. Misreading your own notes. Those things might happen to anyone. And even CIA-for-Kidz isn't omnipotent enough to override that.

That's certainly plausible, although very unprofessional of the reporter not even to check whether the party was held at the embassy or the ambassador's residence, or to issue a correction, for that matter.

The part of that story that I find totally impossible to believe, however, is the part where the frisky and fun-loving Assange playfully decides to go to the "lion's den" by himself, and, even though he's only the guest of an invitee, he is allowed in, and they had "no idea who he was". That is pure bullshit. The only reason I can think of for telling such a whopper is that ol'Birgitta, the Swedish "Leftist" MP, was tasked with telling a story that would neutralize in advance any witness who pops up with a recollection of Assange's presence at the embassy/residence and the fact that "he spent a long time talking" with a US intelligence official. And yes, this story does cast Ms. Jonsdottir as very probably "one of them".

The emergence of this tale at this time may very well be related to the charged atmosphere occasioned by the current claims from a number of quarters that Mr. Assange is playing a leading role in a US or Israeli Intelligence psyop. These allegations are a pretty recent phenomenon, but have spread suspicions like wildfire, making any potential eyewitness testimony about Mr. Assange's meeting with the US intelligence official have a far greater impact on the psyop's credibility than it would previously would have. Hence the inorganic 'feel' of this story, that it was quickly cobbled together and shoved into the narrative, where its many rough edges make it stick out like a sore thumb. Or, if you prefer, like Julian Assange sipping, nibbling and chatting away in the lion's den.

AlicetheKurious wrote:

compared2what? wrote:ON EDIT: WRT the "Embassy" vs. "Ambassador's residence" question, I'd say: When in doubt, assume the reporter didn't think about making the distinction. They're not all bad, but nobody gets it all perfectly right every time on that kind of detail when writing for a daily. Copy desks. Deadlines. Hangovers. Children with flu. Misreading your own notes. Those things might happen to anyone. And even CIA-for-Kidz isn't omnipotent enough to override that.

That's certainly plausible, although very unprofessional of the reporter not even to check whether the party was held at the embassy or the ambassador's residence, or to issue a correction, for that matter.

The part of that story that I find totally impossible to believe, however, is the part where the frisky and fun-loving Assange playfully decides to go to the "lion's den" by himself, and, even though he's only the guest of an invitee, he is allowed in, and they had "no idea who he was". That is pure bullshit. The only reason I can think of for telling such a whopper is that ol'Birgitta, the Swedish "Leftist" MP, was tasked with telling a story that would neutralize in advance any witness who pops up with a recollection of Assange's presence at the embassy/residence and the fact that "he spent a long time talking" with a US intelligence official. And yes, this story does cast Ms. Jonsdottir as very probably "one of them".

The emergence of this tale at this time may very well be related to the charged atmosphere occasioned by the current claims from a number of quarters that Mr. Assange is playing a leading role in a US or Israeli Intelligence psyop. These allegations are a pretty recent phenomenon, but have spread suspicions like wildfire, making any potential eyewitness testimony about Mr. Assange's meeting with the US intelligence official have a far greater impact on the psyop's credibility than it would previously would have. Hence the inorganic 'feel' of this story, that it was quickly cobbled together and shoved into the narrative, where its many rough edges make it stick out like a sore thumb. Or, if you prefer, like Julian Assange sipping, nibbling and chatting away in the lion's den.

You may be right. But once again:

* This tale emerged nine months ago, when it was first posted to the front page of Wikileaks by Julian Assange. Who really isn't to blame if people don't remember any of the work he did in the three years prior to the last two weeks.


And it really goes without saying that the emergence of this tale at this time did not spontaneously forge a relationship to the charged atmosphere all by itself. Because it has no agency on its own. The people who wrote, published and read it do, though.

So if your instincts tell you that a closer examination of the issue is merited, I'd say you first have to take a look at as many of them as are clearly in view and see whether any lead you toward Mossad involvement and if so, via what route before you start excluding all other possibilities. You never know where stuff might go if you don't look.

And anyway, I want to know what you see when you do, that I might learn from it.

* I can think of two plausible reasons why the frisky and fun-loving Assange playfully decided to go to the "lion's den" by himself: Source protection (as I outlined in an earlier post) and/or source contact (as he implies in his post).

And neither of them has yet been excluded by events, or even very seriously challenged by materially and specifically informed sources.

Also, he doesn't strike me as all that frisky and fun-loving. I mean, he's an Australian guy in his late twenties thirties who likes having sex, evidently. But that's certainly no crime.

And additionally, I don't see why it necessarily would have been all that much of a high-drama, "lion's-den"-level-dangerous excursion, to be honest. He was at a party in full view of any number of disinterested and presumably law-abiding persons, not at some furtive noir-ish back-alley rendez-vous.

As a matter of fact, a cocktail reception full of civil servants is pretty much the ideal setting in which to make contact with someone in circumstances that you have some rational grounds for believing may put your physical safety at risk.

Now that I come to think of it.

* The premise that his admission to the event at the embassy was as the mere guest of an invitee by people who had no idea who he was does not exactly rest on a rock-solid foundation.

And neither is it automatically suspect, for all I know. But on the face of it, since it's loosely stitched together from what appear to be casually considered remarks made by a single source in the course of a brief and less-than-searching exchange with a reporter from the Telegraph, I don't think it's a good idea to put as much weight on it as you're doing if there's anything valuable to you somewhere in there. It might not be strong enough to bear up.

I don't know (or claim to know) any ill of either Ms. Jonsdottir or that reporter fellow. But in my experience, one source of unknown reliability (and, in this case, at least once-removed by the mediation of a journalist) is almost never enough to stake everything you've got on it without further consideration.

That's, like, a Judith-Miller-league level of play. And I guess that she's free to lower herself to anyplace that still lets her make it if that's what she wants to do. But I don't see why we have to, when we can both do better.

In case the reference seems obscure: I'm thinking specifically of the front-page story she did for the Times on Iraqi WMD, in which every shred of direct evidence regarding their existence came from some ex-pat whose name she was withholding at the request of government officials, supported by some secondaries on background with government officials. Plus, IIRC, Ahmad Chalabi, who at that time was totally supported by the grants he received from government officials.

I will never forget reading it and thinking: "But that's one source, not several, by my count. And worse, with one identity: The state." Such things were still sometimes notable to me then. Not surprising. But notable. As in: I've never fucking seen that before.

Can't say that I even remember a time when I could have said the same about articles with an "inorganic" feel to them, though. That's the rule, not the exception. Same goes double for rumors of U.S. or Israeli psy-ops on the internet that cause suspicions to spread like wildfire, giving off sparks that fly through the charged atmosphere as they wing through it, apparently unaided by even as much as a single damn source of unknown reliability once removed.

Except that I can remember when I first saw those, of course.

* * * * *

SHORTER VERSION: Not conclusive. And there's still plenty more yet to come, inshallah.