Secret US Embassy Cables, Wikileaks:
Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.
The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.
The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in “client states”; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.
So far 278 of 251287 cables have been released.
How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked, guardian.co.uk:
What will emerge in the days and weeks ahead is an unprecedented picture of secret diplomacy as conducted by the planet’s sole superpower. There are 251,287 dispatches in all, from more than 250 US embassies and consulates. They reveal how the US deals with both its allies and its enemies – negotiating, pressuring and sometimes brusquely denigrating foreign leaders, all behind the firewalls of ciphers and secrecy classifications that diplomats assume to be secure. The leaked cables range up to the “SECRET NOFORN” level, which means they are meant never to be shown to non-US citizens.
Or for that matter to citizens.
Although their contents are often startling and troubling, the cables are unlikely to gratify conspiracy theorists. They do not contain evidence of assassination plots, CIA bribery or such criminal enterprises as the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan years, when anti-Nicaraguan guerrillas were covertly financed.
One reason may be that America’s most sensitive “top secret” and above foreign intelligence files cannot be accessed from Siprnet, the defence department network involved.
Nothing to see here “conspiracy theorists”, only “an unprecedented picture of secret diplomacy as conducted by the planet’s sole superpower”.
WikiLeaks: Russians smell anti-Obama conspiracy – CSMonitor.com:
In Russian political culture, the secret services, Kremlin leaders, and business oligarchs have long practiced the dark arts of kompromat, spreading misinformation to blacken opponents’ reputations and influence public moods. So they suspect that there has to be something or someone with a hidden agenda standing behind WikiLeaks.
“I have no doubt that this was a prepared operation, probably by [the] US secret services,” says Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow. “I find it improbable that US authorities couldn’t deal with one guy (Mr. Assange) if they really wanted to. No, this is clearly being done as an instrument of destabilization,” he says.
The most popular theory is that the massive outing of classified State Department communications is designed to make Obama look weak, inept, and unable to control his own government machinery.
“This will obviously damage Obama and his policies,” says Sergei Strokan, a foreign affairs columnist with the Moscow business daily Kommersant. “Obama made a strong emphasis on international affairs, outreach to the Muslim world, and resetting relations with Russia. These leaks show that many diplomats take a privately cynical view of those goals, or are actually working at cross purposes to them. All these disclosures will be a serious blow to America’s new image in the world, and will only undercut Obama.”
The guardian.co.uk article above notes that they have had the diplomatic cable data since “earlier this year”. I don’t have time or inclination to read all 250K cables nor more than a little of the smokescreen of spin and misdirection thrown up around them. Instead I’d like to focus on what the cables reveal about “GOI” (government of Israel), its obsession with Iran, and its relations with “USG” (United States government), especially concerning attempts to justify and precipitate a USG attack on Iran.
In the misleadingly-titled article Saudi Arabia urges US attack on Iran to stop nuclear programme, guardian.co.uk, the authors write:
No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out.
guardian.co.uk has so far placed 16 Israel-related cables online with their own title and highlighting. They do not link the corresponding Wikileaks pages.
The misleadingly-titled article links US embassy cables: Ehud Barak sets deadline to resolve Iran nuclear ambitions (02 June 2009):
When asked if the use of force on Iran might backfire with moderate Muslims in Pakistan, thereby exacerbating the situation, Barak acknowledged Iran and Pakistan are interconnected, but disagreed with a causal chain. To the contrary, he argued that if the United States had directly confronted North Korea in recent years, others would be less inclined to pursue nuclear weapons programs. By avoiding confrontation with Iran, Barak argued, the U.S. faces a perception of weakness in the region.
Another guardian.co.uk article, Israel primed to attack a nuclear Iran, links more cables which actually indicate GOI priming USG to attack Iran. These cables include US embassy cables: Israel sees Iran’s uranium enrichment as ‘point of no return’ (17 March 2005) which refers to an “Israeli Preference for USG and UNSC Involvement” and US embassy cables: Mossad says US and Israel agree on Iran (17 March 2005):
Acknowledging that there are at times differences in analysis of the facts, [Mossad Chief Meir] Dagan stressed that it is similarities rather than differences that are at the heart of the GOI-U.S. intelligence relationship, particularly on Iran.
US embassy cables: US pressed to maintain Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ (30 July 2009) provides an example of less direct pressure whereby USG helps ensure GOI’s political-military supremacy in the region:
A/S [US assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs Andrew] Shapiro stressed the importance of the U.S-Israeli political-military relationship, noting the significance of visiting Israel on his first overseas trip in his capacity as Assistant Secretary for the Political-Military Affairs Bureau.
GOI officials reiterated the importance of maintaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME).
[MFA’s (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Deputy Director General for Strategic Affairs Alon] Bar argued that a perceived closure in the capability gap between Israel and Arab states, coupled with a nuclear-armed Iran, could compel moderate Arab states to reassess the notion that Israel was a fixture in the region.
In contrast, Saudi efforts to influence USG contrast are direct. US embassy cables: Saudi king urges US strike on Iran (20 April 2008):
The King, Foreign Minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq. The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes as well. Al-Jubeir recalled the King’s frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. “He told you to cut off the head of the snake,” he recalled to the Charge’, adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government.
GOI has responded to the leaked cables by spinning it as a good thing.
Israel greets WikiLeaks cables as vindication of its Iran policy, CSMonitor.com:
“I don’t see any damage. Quite the opposite,” said Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, in an interview with Israel Radio. “Maybe there’s an indirect benefit that the truth is coming out, that the entire Middle East, including Arab states, are very fearful from the Iranian nuclear threat, and are calling on the West to be much more aggressive toward Iran.”
The revelation of regional support for Israel’s hard-line approach to Iran was seen as such a boon that Sever Plocker, a columnist for the daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper, quipped, “If the WikiLeaks site did not exist, Israel would have to invent it.”
“The massive leak of American diplomatic telegrams indicates a single picture, sharp and clear,” he added. “The entire world, not just Israel, is panicked over the Iranian nuclear program.”
Actually the sharp, clear picture is that GOI is more panicked than anyone else over Iran, and that they desperately want “the entire world”, but especially USG, to serve Israeli interests under the misguided belief that we are serving our own.
Part of GOI’s “Qualitative Military Edge” includes nuclear weapons. Part of what could be called GOI’s “Qualitative Political Edge” is that these weapons are rarely mentioned or questioned, though when they are the picture comes through sharp and clear:
In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel’s existence.[19] Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst’s “The Gun and the Olive Branch” (2003) as saying “I consider it all hopeless at this point. … We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under.” He quoted General Moshe Dayan: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”
UPDATE, 1 Dec 2010: Wikileaks has dubbed this Cablegate. At the moment the Wikileak web server hosting the cables (cablegate.wikileaks.org AKA ec2-184-72-37-90.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com) is offline.
Its quite possible that they were leaked on purpose as justifacation to invade Iran. Similar to 9/11 and Iraq and Afghanistan.
Where has all the focus in Afghanistan? Helmand prvince. Wheres the planned gas pipe through to Europe located? Helmand province.
The question is what would they want from Iran, uranium?
http://waeshael.wordpress.com/
Another example of Israeli diplomacy.
A member of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave the US embassy a report of a meeting that took place between the French and the Israelis on October 28, 2009 :
wikileaks cable :
“The French participants in the Strategic Dialogue noted profound disquiet among the Israelis about Turkey, Bereyziat said. He reported that the Israelis claimed the Turks have allowed weapons-related material for Iran’s nuclear program to transit Turkey, with Prime Minister Erdogan’s full knowledge.”
[ . . . ]
“the Israelis blamed the Europeans, and especially France, for this shift in Turkey’s policy. They said that if Europe had more warmly embraced Turkey, then the Turks would not be taking steps to earn approval in the Arab and Muslim world at the expense of Israel.”
I found that on the French website FdeSouche. What is funny is that we are often told that Israel is the bullwark of the West against Islam, when in fact, Israel would like Turkey to become a part of the European Union!
Good catch Armor.
WikiLeaks Using Amazon Servers After Attack – Digits – WSJ.
It’s not helping. The URL you posted is hosted at Amazon but is inaccessible at the moment.
US embassy cables culprit should be executed, says Mike Huckabee:
Huckabee said: “Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.”
. . .
“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.”
Capital idea! But let’s get the priorities staight. First this standard should be applied to those in government who have aided and abetted genocidal levels of immigration. These genocidal traitors swore oaths too. They are more numerous, more powerful, and have more blood on their hands than anyone accused of leaking diplomatic cables.
“the Israelis blamed the Europeans, and especially France, for this shift in Turkey’s policy”
Well obviously. It couldn’t be anything to do with them or even Erdogan being an Islamist.
Or the fact that the sort of people who’d try and sell the security of 100s of millions of Europeans in exchange for the security of Israel will always find they have endless enemies.
It’s not even smart. Once Europe was fully betrayed and destroyed what reason would the Arabs have to stick to their side of the deal?
Arabs don’t need jewish help to compete with Africans.
“Its quite possible that they were leaked on purpose as justification to invade Iran.”
I wouldn’t be at all surprised by that.
Good podcast on this topic here: http://theuglytruth.podbean.com/2010/11/30/the-ugly-truth-podcast-nov-30-2010/
I enjoyed that podcast.
The comparison to Pollard is apt. As James Edwards put it, “the people who are always calling for civil liberties to be restricted in the name of national security, and are always pushing for us to attack yet another country in the Middle East in the name of national security, are the very same people who are always demanding that the infamous spy and traitor Jonathan Pollard be freed from prison”.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Wikileaks might have gotten the cablegate dump from AIPAC (via Larry Franklin, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman). Even if it does occur to someone in the FBI, I doubt they’ll be permitted to look into it.
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/08MOSCOW2837.html
¶1. (C) Summary: The Ambassador met separately with xxxxx during the week of September 15.
xxxxx probed for potential U.S. sanctions against investors in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and flagged concern over Iran’s nuclear program. Both xxxxx agreed that manifestations of anti-Semitism in Russia had fallen in recent years, but xxxxx attributed Putin’s relatively pro-Jewish stance to his need to not appear anti-Semitic during his campaign against the oligarchs. Regarding the Jewish community, xxxxx praised the positive effects of Russia’s explosion of wealth, while xxxxx linked economic expansion to a negative shift in the occupational and educational interests of the Russian Jewry. Both xxxxx added that immigration from Israel to Russia vastly exceeded Russian emigration to Israel, but xxxxx noted the reduced Israeli financial support because of the falling
dollar. End Summary.
site:cablegate.wikileaks.org anti-semitism – Google Search – 7 results
site:cablegate.wikileaks.org jewish – Google Search – 20 results
site:cablegate.wikileaks.org israel – Google Search – 141 results (“about 241 results” reported in first 14 pages)
site:cablegate.wikileaks.org – Google Search – about 1,860 results (holds steady for 52 pages)
Wikileaks claims only 611 of 251287 cables have been released so far. (Many of the currently indexed 1860 google results are navigation pages.)
I’m guessing all these numbers will only go up as Wikileaks releases more cables.
So…
Is Wikileaks deliberately focusing on the jew-related material first, or are these proportions indicative of USG diplomatic focus overall?
The picture so far, sharp and clear, is that USG is highly concerned about jewish interests, not just in Israel, but around the globe.
Lawrence Auster says Israel’s position improved by leaks:
Tovi A. writes:
It might interest you to know that the current Wikileaks controversy is being viewed somewhat positively in Israel, including by PM Netanyahu himself. See this, this, and this.
One reason is that it’s taking the spotlight off Israel. You have this global leftist apparatus which has for years been maintaining a laser-like focus on Israel, portraying it as the reason for all the world’s ills. Now these people realize there’s a bigger world out there.
Another reason [see column below] is that the leaks show that the whole world, not just Israel, is very worried about Iranian nuclear weapons.
The “column below”, quoted in full by Auster, is the second “this” link. The CSMonitor article in my initial post, Israel greets WikiLeaks cables as vindication of its Iran policy, by Joshua Mitnick reporting from Tel Aviv, seems to be a mashup of these Ynetnews articles, or vice versa.
Take note of the use of absurd hyperbole and generalization – eg. “the whole world” and “the reason for all the world’s ills”. Plainly what the Israel-firsters using such terms are projecting is their own passionate desire for “the whole world” to see Iran as “the reason for all the world’s ills”.
Here are links, titles, and snippets from the three articles mentioned in the previous comment.
Netanyahu on WikiLeaks: Israel probably not center of attention – Israel News, Ynetnews
Netanyahu added that “is it customary for there to be an information gap between what is said publicly to what is said privately. When it comes to Israel, the gap isn’t too big. As far as other countries are concerned, the gaps are very very big.
In the interest of reducing information gaps, everyone should watch Israeli PM Netanyahu: I “stopped” Oslo peace process – ENGLISH SUBTITLES. The English subtitles are made visible by clicking the “Interactive transcript” button just below the statistics button. In part they read:
2:16 Netanyahu: Turn off the camera so that we can elaborate on this.
2:20 Narrator: A few minutes later… the camera is turned on again and Netanyahu begins to speak without quotation marks and without masks
. . .
2:51 Netanyahu: The Arabs now are preparing for a campaign [or war] of terror, and they think that this will break us.
2:55 Netanyahu: The main thing is, first and foremost, to hit them hard.
3:01 Netanyahu: Not just one hit… but many painful, so that the price will be unbearable.
3:05 Netanyahu: The price is not unbearable, now.
3:07 Netanyahu: A total assault on the Palestinian Authority.
3:11 Netanyahu: To bring them to a state of panic that everything is collapsing.
3:18 Netanyahu: …fear that everything will collapse… this is what we’ll bring them to…
3:21 Woman interrupts: But wait a minute, at that point the whole world will say ‘What are you occupiers?’ Netanyahu: The world will say nothing. The world will say that we are defending ourselves.
3:27 Woman: Aren’t you afraid of the world Bibi? Netanyahu: No
3:30 Netanyahu: Especially now, with America, I know what America is.
3:33 Netanyahu: America is a thing that can be easily moved. …moved in the right direction.
3:38 Netanyahu: They [Americans] will not bother us.
3:42 Netanyahu: Let’s suppose that they [Americans] will say something [to us – Israelis]… so they say it… [so what?]
3:47 Netanyahu: 80% of the Americans support us.
3:49 It’s absurd! We have such [great] support there!
Yes, it is absurd.
The world thinks like us – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews:
The leak does not hurt America’s foreign policy, with the exception of a few tales recounted by junior diplomats.
He appears to be the only person in “the world” who thinks this.
Netanyahu: Let Arabs say the truth out loud – Israel News, Ynetnews:
The documents revealed, among other things, that many Arab leaders called on the United States to attack Iran. “If the exposure causes the region’s leaders to refrain from saying what they think in private talks, then we have a problem,” Netanyahu said.
“But if the leaders make the statements publically there will be a significant change. When leaders are willing to tell their people the truth it promotes peace.” The prime minister added that “peace based on truth has a lasting chance.”
The truth, as it appears even when only considering the scattered glimpses offered by cablegate, is that some Arab leaders have in private made direct calls for USG to attack Iran, while GOI and its numerous agents have less directly but more often and more insidiously goaded a USG attack on Iran.
Let the Israel-firsters say the truth out loud, then we can judge whether it “promotes peace”.
How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks | TPMMuckraker:
[Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee], in his statement today, called on “any other company or organization that is hosting Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.”
. . .
“Sen. Lieberman hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the site,” [Senate Homeland Security Committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips] said.
Amazon: We Didn’t Pull Down WikiLeaks Because Of Government | TPMMuckraker:
“It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content,” Amazon said in a statement.
Lieberman also said he will try to stop any hosting company which provides a safe haven for WikiLeaks data.
At Why we removed the WikiLeaks visualizations | Tableau Software, Elissa Fink writes:
Our decision to remove the data from our servers came in response to a public request by Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, when he called for organizations hosting WikiLeaks to terminate their relationship with the website.
WikiLeaks fights to stay online after US company withdraws domain name | Media | guardian.co.uk:
The California-based internet hosting provider that dropped WikiLeaks at 3am GMT on Friday (10PM EST Thursday), Everydns, says it did so to prevent its other 500,000 customers of being affected by the intense cyber attacks targeted at WikiLeaks.
The site this morning said it had “move[d] to Switzerland”, announcing a new domain name – wikileaks.ch, with the Swiss suffix. However, the new address still only points to an IP address, suggesting WikiLeaks has been unable to quickly find a new hosting provider.
In other words, to get around DNS outages “213.251.145.96” can be substituted for “cablegate.wikileaks.org” in any URL. At least until the server at 213.251.145.96 gets taken down.
WikiLeaks cables claim first scalp as German minister’s aide is sacked | World news | The Guardian:
The cables relate how an FDP insider – “a fly on the wall, a young, up-and-coming party loyalist who was taking notes during the marathon talks” – delivered documents to the US embassy and kept US diplomats informed on the new government formation in October last year.
On Monday Westerwelle dismissed the reports as false and insisted there was no mole. But Helmut Metzner, his chief of staff, was sacked after admitting he was the source of the US intelligence.
Metzner is quoted in EJP | News | Germany | Jews consider German elections. Metzner “is typically a Jewish name” according to Wikipedia.
Jeffery Kuhner at the Washington Times says, Assassinate Assange:
Julian Assange poses a clear and present danger to American national security. The WikiLeaks founder is more than a reckless provocateur. He is aiding and abetting terrorists in their war against America. The administration must take care of the problem – effectively and permanently.
. . .
American diplomacy has been crippled. So has our ability to conduct the war on terrorism.
. . .
In short, Mr. Assange is not a journalist or publisher; rather, he is an enemy combatant – and should be treated as such.
. . .
News reports say the WikiLeaks founder is hiding out in England. If that’s true, we should treat Mr. Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him.
Kuhner is president of The Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal. Concerning Obama, Kuhner says:
And if you want to know why he is now practicing appeasement against Iran — I’m going to say it because I’m the only one in Washington to have the guts to say it. I believe deep down, he wants the Jewish state to be extinct. I believe that secretly he wants the Israelis and the Jews to be wiped off the face of the Earth. Because in his warped, leftist, academic mind, the two great evils of the world, the two great Satans of the world, are Israel and America.
In an op-ed originally titled “Obama’s Jewish Problem”, published before Obama was elected (with 78% of the jewish vote), Kuhner wrote:
Mr. Obama’s solution to the emerging Iranian threat to Israel is more talk, sanctions and diplomatic bargaining – the very policies that have enabled Iran to outmaneuver the international community for the last decade. His major foreign policy proposal is to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. This would play right into Tehran’s hands, and leave a strategic vacuum in Mesopotamia that would be immediately filled by Iran.
. . .
This is bad for America – and the Jews.
In other words Kuhner is yet another outspoken dissimulator whose concern for one thing, in this case America, appears to be driven by an even deeper concern for the interests of jews and Israel – the kind of person in whose fevered utterances the whole world is “at war with ‘the jews’“, which actually seems to reflect a fevered imagination in which the whole world is goes to war for ‘the jews’.
The question arises: do people like Kuhner continue to get paid to call for assassinations because they are such rabid supporters of jewish interests, or is it because they are such rabid supporters of jewish interests that they take such jobs and make such statements in the first place?
WikiLeaks on Twitter.
A recent twit: “Utterly surreal: Pravda justifiably criticising US for trying to stifle a free press bit.ly/hD2zst How times change.”
The Pravda article: Valerie Plame, YES! Wikileaks, NO!.
That’s the neolib take. For neocons it’s: Pollard, FREE! Assange, KILL!
In The Middle East fallout could be grave Alan Dershowitz sees Wikileaks mainly through an Israeli lens:
The disclosure that virtually every Arab country, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would favour a military attack, as a last resort, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons could have a discernible effect on the policies of several countries. Israel, of course, has long insisted that the military option be kept on the table. The disclosure that North Korea has delivered missiles to Iran may well frighten European countries into considering the option of military action, if sanctions don’t work.
. . .
A third mistake is to believe that there can be real peace in the Middle East with an Iranian nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Israel.
. . .
Now that it has been made public that Arab nations favour a military attack, it will become more difficult for these countries to condemn Israel if it was to decide on a surgical strike. This public disclosure might embolden Israel to consider such a strike as a last resort.
Dershowitz identifies “virtually every Arab country” as favoring attack, rather than hyperbolizing about “the world”, but clearly what he’s rationalizing here is to embolden anyone to attack Iran, and he’s clearly doing so because he’s concerned mainly about the interests of Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRmgI_WXff0&feature=player_embedded
Another great Austrian.
I don’t have the time these days to really read deeply on these stories and come to an educated view of my own but I have been impressed lately by the Veterans Today guys, Gordon Duff and Jeff Gates. They have a few analyses up already and I’d be inclined to give them more credence than most:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/01/gordon-duff-wikileaks-reading-zbigniew-brzezinskis-take/
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09ABUDHABI754.html (offline at the moment, see here for full text meanwhile) concerns the thinking of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ):
¶4. (S/NF) MbZ reiterated his belief that an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran was increasingly likely, saying he was convinced the Netanyahu government was prepared to act against Iran, and that he agreed with Israeli intelligence assessments regarding how close Tehran is to achieving its nuclear ambitions. The Iranian response to a pre-emptive strike, predicted MbZ, would be attacks on U.S. allies in the region, foremost among them the UAE; Iran may also unleash terrorist cells against western interests around the world. ASD Vershbow explained that the USG assessment differed in timeframe — we do not anticipate military confrontation with Iran before the end of 2009 — stressing, however, that denying Iran’s nuclear ambitions and stemming its efforts to achieve regional hegemony were foremost among U.S. international security concerns.
. . .
¶9. (S/NF) MbZ criticized other regional leaders for playing both sides and for “dating” Iran. MbZ compared the current situation to pre-WWII Europe saying, “Ahmedinejad is Hitler,” and neighboring capitals believe erroneously that they can prevent Iranian retaliation by playing nice or signing agreements with Tehran. “They think the are backing the winning horse,” MbZ explained, emphasizing that if they think that by appeasing Iran they will avoid Iranian retaliation “then they are seriously mistaken, Sir.”
This undermines the claim that “virtually every Arab country” “favour a military attack”. MbZ thinks an attack is coming, no matter what, and is clearly motivated by the fear that his country/regime will be attacked in retaliation. He’s backing the horse he thinks will win, especially since they are so eager to “help” him. MbZ believes his neighbors favor Iran, or at least think they can appease it.
Wikileaks also has an interesting cable by the US ambassador in Tel Aviv, about Israel being a mobster state and its mafia spreading to the USA :
Google: Cunningham+Organized-Crime+Israel
The title of the cable is explicit:
Promised land for organized crime?
A few quotes from the cable :
“Organized crime in Israel now has global reach, with direct impact inside the United States.”
“New OC business also includes technology-related crimes, such as stock market and credit card fraud, and operates on a global scale.”
“Israeli OC now plays a significant role in the global drug trade”
“The prostitution business has also grown beyond the neighborhood brothel. In March 2009, [Israeli National Police] arrested twelve suspects in what is believed to be the largest Israeli-led human trafficking network unearthed to date. Ring leader Rami Saban and his associates were charged with smuggling thousands of women from the former Soviet Union and forcing them to work as prostitutes in Israel, Cyprus, Belgium, and Great Britain.”
“It is not entirely clear to what extent OC elements have penetrated the Israeli establishment and corrupted public officials.”
“Israel’s multi-ethnic population provides a deep well of opportunity for Israeli OC to expand into new territory. Most Israeli crime families trace their roots to North Africa or Eastern Europe, and many of their Israeli operatives hold foreign passports allowing them to move freely in European countries, most of which participate in the visa waiver program with the United States.”
“The profit motive serves as a great unifier among Israel’s diverse demographic groups.”
“Given the volume of travel and trade between the United States and Israel, it is not surprising that Israeli OC has also gained a foothold in America. Over the last decade, media reports have detailed a number of high-profile cases involving Israeli OC, ranging from large-scale drug deals to murder.”
William Pierce on the “Russian” mafia: Paying the Organizatsiya — Free Speech, June 1998, and The Jewish Mob in America — Free Speech, August 2000.
PayPal Freezes WikiLeaks Account, at Wired.com:
“PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity,” reads a statement on PayPal’s website. “We’ve notified the account holder of this action.”
Most of the over $1 million in contributions WikiLeaks has drawn in the last year have come through its PayPal account, which belongs to the Wau Holland Foundation, a German non-profit group that manages the bulk of WikiLeaks’ money.
WikiLeaks: Internet backlash follows US pressure against whistleblowing site | Media | guardian.co.uk:
Website hosts are being encouraged to add a “/wikileaks” directory into their sites, redirecting to which redirects to http://88.80.13.160/, run by the Swedish hosting company Bahnhof.
At present, that location redirects users to a Wikleaks page at http://213.251.145.96/, which is run by a French company, but if pressure from the French government pushes Wikileaks off that host, it will still have the Swedish location.
At the same time, scores of sites “mirroring” WikiLeaks have sprung up – by lunchtime today, the list was 74-strong and contained sites that have the same content as WikiLeaks and – crucially – link to the downloads of its leaks of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.
The backlash has also gained its own tag on the microblogging service Twitter, where people who have linked to the main site are using the hashtag #imwikileaks.
Thanks to kulak for this gem: Felt it had to be published as a separate post:
Wikileaks? There is an easy way to secure all government documents, and to prevent any further security leaks.
Keep all of America’s classified documents in the same filing cabinet as President Obama’s college transcripts, passport information, nationality documents and birth certificate(s).
Problem solved.
On 29 Nov Auster writes, The leaks–who cares?:
For years I have called the columnist Spengler a clueless pseudo-intellectual. But today I will change my tune and say of him, Great minds think alike, because his take on the leaks is virtually identical to my own.
These jewish/crypto-jewish pseudo-intellectuals certainly do think alike. They care a great deal about spinning certain cables a certain way.
The essay by “Spengler”, actually David P. Goldman, The lunatic who thinks he’s Barack Obama, is a variation on the Alan Dershowitz and Ynetnews articles linked above. Goldman explains what the cables mean for Israel vis-a-vis Iran:
We are shocked – shocked – to discover that the Arab Gulf states favor an invasion of Iran
. . .
There never has been a shred of evidence that an Israeli-Palestinian agreement would help America contain Iran’s nuclear threat. The deafening silence over this issue in the diplomatic cables is the strongest refutation of this premise to date.
. . .
The window is closing in which Iran may be contained. Covert operations and cyber-sabotage might have bought some time, but benign neglect of Iran has reach its best-used-by-date.
We are shocked – shocked – to find yet another Israel-firster saying its the Arabs trying to manipulate USG into an attack or Iran ASAP.
On 30 Nov Auster writes, On the inconsequentiality of the leaks linking Judith Miller’s WikiLeaks Documents State the Obvious. There she writes:
Why should Americans not know that Arab states, often at the top level, have been urging Washington to take military or other drastic action against Iran, while they publicly oppose such action? As Foreign Minister of Qatar is famously quoted as saying: “They (the Iranians) lie to us and we lie to them.”
Nor should we be shocked that Israel and its Arab neighbors agree on the danger posed by an Iran with nuclear weapons, or that Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister and its current defense minister warned his American counterparts, according to a a June, 2009 cable, that there was a “window between 6 and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable.”
We should not be shocked to hear the same sales pitch, over and over, or that it comes from people trying to provide false, universalized rationales for what they see very particularly as being in the narrow interests of Israel.
In Auster’s post a commenter also points to Wikileaks “Bombshells” Confirm What We Already Know, by Jeff “Yid With Lid” Dunetz. In Dunetz’s mind, there’s no need for the attack-Iran pitch. That part’s a done deal. From #1 on his short list of “old news”:
Arab states see Iran as a danger: The revelation that Israel is not the only nation in the Middle East suggesting that the “head of the snake” be cut off is nothing close to new. Even the fact that other nations in the Middle East want nuclear technology because Iran has been closing in on the nuclear weapons are have been discussed before. I would also note that the James Baker meme (subscribed to by Obama and Hillary Clinton) that solving the Iran problem is linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was totally destroyed by the Wikileaks release. There was not one mention of “linkage” by an Arab state in the released cables.
Goldman also links these supposedly unlinked issues. “The whole world”, or some subset larger than GOI alone, is begging someone else (USG preferably) to attack Iran, and because of this GOI is free to answer their Palestinian Question however they see fit. In presenting the two issues together Israeli-firsters call attention to the very linkage (Israeli interests) they seek to deny.
Following Dunetz’s logic, we can call the two memes for solving Israel’s problems the wipe Iran off the map meme and wipe Palestine off the map meme. They spring from the same Israel-first meme. As Goldman puts it in 2009, Either Way, Amalek Must Die.
Richard Cohen, out ahead of the “nothing new” curve, 27 July 2010: Wikileaks, telling us the obvious in Afghanistan.
Cohen’s take 6 Dec 2010, WikiLeaks and the trouble with transparency:
What the Clinton scandal and the WikiLeaks disclosures have in common is a sad collapse of the mainstream media’s gatekeeper role.
WikiLeaks cables: Art looted by Nazis, Spanish gold and an embassy offer | World news | The Guardian:
In another cable the embassy explained the background to Cassirer’s claim. “The Nazis forced Mr Cassirer’s grandmother to sell the painting in 1939. Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza acquired it in 1976. In the early 1990s, the Spanish government purchased the collection and built the current museum. In 1958, Mrs Cassirer received a DM120,000 restitution payment for the disappearance and provisional dispossession of the painting, but retained full right to the painting.”
The museum has refused to hand over the artwork, claiming that it was bought in good faith. Baron Thyssen had not known the story of Lilly Cassirer, a wealthy German Jew who said she was forced to sell the picture for 900 marks (about $360). She said it was the only way she could obtain an exit visa from Germany as Nazi oppression of the Jews escalated. The painting of a rain-soaked Paris boulevard had hung on the walls of the family’s Berlin and Munich homes since the impressionist painted it in 1897.
USG goes to bat for the American grandson of a wealthy German jew. The cable also contains a brief sympathetic report on “Jewish Community in Spain”. USG works against American interests in America (leaving the border undefended, suing Arizona) while defending jewish interests all over the world. What a country!
Israel gives the orders, USG obeys them, while pretending it’s not carrying Israel’s water.
WikiLeaks cables: Sudan warned to block Iranian arms bound for Gaza | World news | guardian.co.uk:
Only rarely do the US cables show evidence of direct Israeli requests to the US to block arms deliveries, probably because they would be highly classified. But in one bilateral meeting in Tel Aviv in 2009 a senior state department official noted “most requests to third countries to deny arms transfer overflights are based on Israeli intelligence. Additional information/intelligence from the government of Israel would ensure greater co-operation”.
In February 2010 Israeli military intelligence informed the US that Syria “intended to imminently transfer” Scud-D ballistic missiles to Hezbollah, warning of a “new level of concern” on the northern border if the transfer went ahead. The Israelis requested that any demarche be delivered before the arrival in Washington of their defence minister, Ehud Barak, to avoid the impression “that the US and Israel collaborated to uncover and thwart the transfer“. Three days later the US warned Syria that it would be a “strategic miscalculation” to provide the Lebanese group with these weapons.
President Assad was informed of US concerns by the undersecretary of state, William Burns. But the Syrian leader “bluntly stated that he knew of no new weapons systems going to Hezbollah … despite disturbing and weighty evidence to the contrary”.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Miqdad, countered that the message showed that “the US has not come to a mature position [that would enable it] to differentiate between its own interests and Israel’s”. But US allies in the west and the Arab world were told bluntly: “These are US concerns. We are not carrying somebody else’s ‘water’ on this issue” – a clear reference to Israel.
Evidence of earlier US interest in blocking arms deliveries to Hezbollah and Hamas can be seen in secret cables dating from June 2006. Jordan’s general intelligence directorate chief, General Muhammad Dahabi, told the assistant secretary of state, David Welch, that he had recently met the head of Iran’s foreign intelligence service, who complained that Jordan had publicised Hamas attempts to smuggle weapons via Jordan to the West Bank.
Peter B. Collins interview of Gordon Duff here from August:
http://peterbcollins.com/2010/08/24/the-world-according-to-gordon-duff/
In the first few minutes Duff goes into his and Gates’s background and talks about the backgrounds of the writers and sources for his site. It looks like something of a fight-back by patriotic elements within the intelligence services of various countries run by Jews for Jews.
[Barak] argued that if the United States had directly confronted North Korea in recent years, others would be less inclined to pursue nuclear weapons programs.
Ah, the chorus, the chorus.
This is hilarious. The neokhans raise a clamor to invade Iran, but their voices fade to nothing when it comes time to sing for invading NK. Then fellow traveler Barak swoops in and uses our “inaction” on NK to bolster the argument for invading Iran.
A thoroughly dishonest tribe.
Lol.
I’m very skeptical of Wikileaks. The fact that the mass media is giving it so much attention is suspicious. I’m sure a few things in it are bad for Israel, but ultimately it just looks like sophisticated Zionist disinfo. Note that Assange supports the official story of 9/11. That fact alone makes it very unlikely that his operation is legit. The 9/11 official story is crumbling, and Assange is running damage control.
Note also that WL first released these documents to the MSM, ensuring the establishment-line had a head start. Wouldn’t it have been more in line with WL’s stated philosophy to give the independent media/blogosphere at least equal access? Heck, if I were Assange and genuine I’d do eveything I could to boost the independents and citizen-journalists every way I could.
fellist,
In the first few minutes Duff goes into his and Gates’s background and talks about the backgrounds of the writers and sources for his site. It looks like something of a fight-back by patriotic elements within the intelligence services of various countries run by Jews for Jews.
I’m not sure about the fighting-back part. Duff states, right off the bat, that before 1993 he “was working for a nasty, unnamed government agency, writing the same kind of deceptive things I do today, apparently.” He then shares his suspicion that many of the VT writers and editors are on the payroll of intelligence agencies. Later he says half the staff are muslims and “the rest are jews”. He says he gets phone calls from Mossad people. He claims high level US military contacts and has tea regularly with the Pakistani/ISI elite.
Are these things true? If they are, how does this reconcile with the heretical things he says concerning jews and Israel? Why do these other people (except maybe the Pakis) not run away from him shrieking about his “hate”? He says Wikileaks is
disinformation. I wonder if he and VT are disinformation.
And what to make of this: The Heretics’ Hour: Gordon Duff, Prescott Bush and the interview that wasn’t : Voice of Reason Broadcast Network?
How familiar are you with Duff’s work? Does he propound, as Yeager puts it at the end of her podcast, that “the nazis are now the zionists, the zionists are the nazis, there’s no difference between them, then they have the whole theory that the nazis and the zionists were conspiring back then, and they’re conspiring now, and that we can blame it all in the end on the nazis after all”?
It’s clear form the lists of editors and contributors posted at VT that nothing like half of the staff are Muslims or Jews, so I have to assume he’s talking figuratively there: VT has a lot of Muslim and Jewish input alongside Christian/regular American input. As to why a self-identifying Jew such as Alan Sabrosky would be involved with VT, well he has heretical views on Israel too (laying 9/11 at her feet), and presumably that’s true of the other Jews there. It’s not unprecedented, many writers at antiwar.com are Jewish and are content with or even add to its generally hostile view of Israel. And while VT writers are unusually critical of Israel I don’t think they really discuss the JQ in its essence a la MacDonald, say, who posts at Vdare and Alt.Right alongside ‘tolerant’ Jewish writers, despite his going deeper into forbidden territory than even Jeff Gates does.
What makes you think disinfo? What do you believe the aim of that disinfo may be? It seems to me the most likely effect of VT on its readers would be to undermine the imperial program, promote an America First foreign policy, and bring into light and focus criticism on the Israel lobby / War Party. If it’s disinfo rather than solid info it still would appear to be a project of rogue patriotic elements within the security services of the US and would-be allies.
I haven’t listened yet to Carolyn Yeager’s latest. Personality /style clash? Doesn’t Carolyn state on which of his comments or articles she bases her characterisation of Duff’s views?
I haven’t read anything by Duff suggesting that the Nazis are around today and running things in concert with the Zionists. (obviously ;) )
This is Duff’s main tactic; make White America the real guilty party in this chess game.
“And what to make of this: The Heretics’ Hour: Gordon Duff, Prescott Bush and the interview that wasn’t : Voice of Reason Broadcast Network?”
Gee, Tan, what is it with this apparent fascination of yours with the way Krauts do nationalism? Is it that, once in a while, Krauts actually decide to, um, do something, in lieu of sitting on their thumbs? “The” English would most certainly not approve. Tut tut.
“Is it that, once in a while, Krauts actually decide to, um, do something, in lieu of sitting on their thumbs?”
The Germans didn’t “do something” until the German economy had been completely destroyed by jewish bankers.
That last show of Yeager’s didn’t discuss Duff or his views much, focusing more on a representative article about the alleged connections between US bankers including Prescott Bush and the TR. She’ll tackle Duff next week she says. I like them both so I’m inclined to think it was more a misunderstanding than anything else, Duff too quick to dismiss her when Yeager, perhaps in retrospect ill advised, pretended never to have heard the stories Duff had every right to expect she’d be familiar with. As Yeager says, those stories are pretty hard to avoid.
***
Anonymous on Duff … bullshit! Duff hosts only one writer, Michael Leon, with any pronounced tendency to talk about race in a standard thus anti-White way. And comments are not censored — you’re free to disagree.
And I seem to recall Duff posting a video that showed David Duke to be a much more reasonable man than the celebrated liberal interviewing him on some TV show. Duff’s aim, stated quite plainly if I recall correctly, was to encourage his readers to question their training and consider whether Duke was really the bad guy of the pair.
Bullshit? I’ll prove it with a simple link. This is simply a small sampling of the “bullshit” this Duff character engages in.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/11/11/gordon-duff-in-motion-the-plot-to-destroy-the-united-states/
“Anyone who doesn’t think the real heart of American politics has always been racism is a liar. Family values means “white” family values. African Americans know shame at the relief they have felt seeing Muslims targeted for persecution. Every political position in today’s America is derived from institutionalized racism, be it immigration, health care or “constitution.”
When a return to the “constitution” is brought up, by people who wouldn’t know the document from a Croatian take-out menu, the reality is always race, fear, hate and envy, the glue that holds American society prisoner.
Decades ago, and even more recently during our last presidential election, African Americans were represented as animals, “goyim” to the Jews. Now we play “Kill the camel jockey.” Is this why the Christianized army we sent to Afghanistan murders innocent civilians for sport?”
You see where this guy is coming from. He attacks White Americans as stupid morons who are persecuters of blacks and other races. He speaks this way constantly. He hates “White America.” All this bile he spews against “Israel” always really comes back as White America’s fault. Germany is another one of his little attack subjects.
Yeager was right to call Duff out on his BS. Good for her. She smelled a rat. It is called good discernment.
Yeager posted this over at VOR:
http://reasonradionetwork.com/20101206/the-heretics-hour-gordon-duff-prescott-bush-and-the-interview-that-wasnt
“I was glad shortly afterward and I get more glad all the time because it would never have come off. I’ve been reading some of his older articles and listening to some past interviews; it’s now quite clear to me he’s working for somebody. His zingers are usually directed at Hitler/Nazis/Third Reich and Fox New/Rupert Murdoch. Those are Alan Hart’s favorite bad boys too, and a few others I could name. Just coincidence?”
Exactly right.
Tan, The video showing in the link below, as well as the posting, are highly recommended, to the point of classing them as “must sees”.
Tony Lawson has an excellent video and Incogman has the strategy behind the tactics in, “Sex, Lies, Iran, Israel and Wikileaks”.
http://incogman.net/12/2010/sex-lies-iran-israel-and-wikileaks/
.
Flanders
Please continue the discussion of Duff at Gordon Duff, Friend or Foe?
Flanders,
I see clearly the efforts in media to spin Wikileaks into justification for attacking Iran. I see that the individuals responsible for this spin are Israel-firsters, and all of the individuals I linked above are jews. I note that these individuals use very similar phrases and lines of argument, which certainly could be explained by a shared set of talking points.
Upon examining the cables it’s clear the spin about the Arabs or “the whole world” calling for attack on Iran is hyperbole. The cables actually contain plenty of evidence of insidious long-term GOI influence over USG, including constant pressure from GOI and its agents to convince USG that an attack on Iran is in US interests. There is at least one cable concerning Israeli organized crime which hints gingerly at it’s world-wide impact: Promised land for organized crime?
That’s what I see. I think it’s pretty damning.
I would not characterize what I’ve seen so far as “Wikileaks is giant CIA/MOSSAD “psyops” program”. Nor would I judge the worth of someone’s opinion on a given subject based on their position on 9/11.
Writing in 2006, Julian Assange describes “authoritarian conspiracies” as networks and hypothesizes about “the non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance”. It’s a bit dry and abstract.
The link comes via The Unknown Blogger Who Changed WikiLeaks Coverage – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic, who gushes about the left-o-sphere gushing about the sexed-up extrapolation in Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government” « zunguzungu.
Alex Madrigal and Ethan Zuckerman and Xeni Jardin think Aaron Bady’s take on Wikileaks is just fantastic.
I’m skeptical. I think this is exactly how jewish ethnic networking works.
Report: Assange’s alleged “Jewish” conspiracy – Julian Assange – Salon.com:
“According to a column in a British magazine, Julian Assange complained that he believes a “Jewish” conspiracy is bent on smearing WikiLeaks. Private Eye, a print magazine know both for satire and original reporting, printed a column penned by editor Ian Hislop today that details a Feb. 16 phone conversation between Hislop and Assange.
While discussing a WikiLeaks associate in Russia recently accused of denying the Holocaust, Assange told Hislop that the story represented a larger conspiracy organized by the Guardian newspaper in order to deny his organization of Jewish donations and support. In a reproduction of the Private Eye column — which is currently only available in print — Hislop attempted to reason with Assange“
It seems (deliberately) difficult to make sense of what’s going on here. Links lead eventually to the following wikileaks statements.
TwitLonger: WikiLeaks statement that was given to, but not used by, the UK satirical current-affairs magazine, P:
“Israel Shamir has never worked or volunteered for WikiLeaks, in any manner, whatsoever. He has never written for WikiLeaks or any associated organization, under any name and we have no plan that he do so. He is not an ‘agent’ of WikiLeaks. He has never been an employee of WikiLeaks and has never received monies from WikiLeaks or given monies to WikiLeaks or any related organization or individual. However, he has worked for the BBC, Haaretz, and many other reputable organizations.
It is false that Shamir is ‘an Assange intimate’. He interviewed Assange (on behalf of Russian media), as have many journalists. He took a photo at that time and has only met with WikiLeaks staff (including Asssange) twice.“
TwitLonger: Because WikiLeaks has some Jewish staff and enjoys wide spread Jewish support, its staff have freque:
“We treasure our strong Jewish support and staff, just as we treasure the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share our hope for a just world.“
Is Julian Assange an Anti-Semite or Should We Take Him at His Word? — Daily Intel:
“The problem with Julian Assange, of course, is that he’s the silver-haired man of mystery who sees conspiracies everywhere. And as Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson have shown us, anti-Semitism is on the conspiracy theorists all-time greatest hits.“
Wow. Everybody’s just imagining poor innocent jews everywhere.
There it all is, Tan. Bubbling like water in a cauldron just beneath the ostensibly-for-lemmings static surface of the ice. Saw some Jew on Hannity say, “All that stuff that went up his [Sheen’s] nose must have affected his brain.” One month of honest coverage on Fox “News” would bring the whole house down. But that ain’t gonna happen any time soon.
Glenn Beck is now peddling the theory that China, Russia and the Muslim world engineered the financial crisis. Jesus H. Christ.