Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo & the WikiLeaks Affair

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Quote:Weird comment -- posted to incite fear or is it a threat or to provoke violence and paranoia?

weird indeed... all it provoked from me was confusion.

[h3rm35]

(see original for embedded links)

Who's Who at Wikileaks?

By Julie Lévesque

Global Research, December 20, 2010

Global Research Editor`s Note


Progressive organizations have praised the Wikileaks endeavor. Our own website Global Research has provided extensive coverage of the Wikileaks data banks and their implications, particularly with regard to US-NATO war crimes.

The Wikileaks Project is heralded as an immeasurable victory against corporate media censorship, without examining its organizational structure.

A distinction should be made between the Wikileaks data banks, which constitute a valuable source of information in their own right, and the mechanisms whereby the leaks, used as source material by the corporate media, are transformed into news.

Wikileaks from the outset has collaborated closely with several mainstream media.

This article by Julie Lévesque focusses on the nature and organizational structures of the Wikleak project.



“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” --Franklin D. Roosevelt



After the publication of a series of confirmations rather than revelations, there are some crucial unanswered questions regarding the nature and organizational structure of Wikileaks.

Shrouded in secrecy, the now famous whistleblowing site and its director Julian Assange are demanding "transparency" from governments and corporations around the world while failing to provide some basic information pertaining to Wikileaks as an organization.



Who is Julian Assange?


In the introduction to the book Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (1997), by Julian Assange and Suelette Dreyfus, Assange begins with the following quotes:


"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." -- Oscar Wilde



"What is essential is invisible to the eye." -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery



From the start, Assange states that he undertook the research for the book; however, he fails to mention that he was actually one of the hackers analyzed in the book, going by the name of Mendax, a Latin word for “lying, false...”.

Although we cannot confirm that the above quotes referred to him, they nonetheless suggest that Assange, at the time, was hiding his true identity.

We know very little about the cryptographer Julian Assange. He is indeed very cryptic when it comes to revealing who he is and where he worked prior to the Wikileaks project. On the list of board members published previously by Wikileaks, we can read that Julian Assange:



n has “attended 37 schools and 6 universities”, none of which are mentioned by name;

n is “Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker”. A court case from 1996 cited abundantly in the mainstream press is available on the Australasian Legal Information Institute. Contrary to all the other cases listed on the afore mentioned link, the full text of Assange’s case is not available;

n “in the first prosecution of its type... [he] defended a case in the supreme court for his role as the editor of an activist electronic magazine”. The name of the magazine, the year of the prosecution, the country where it took place are not mentioned;

n allegedly founded “'Pickup' civil rights group for children”. No information about this group seems to be available, other than in reports related to Wikileaks. We don’t know if it still exists, where it is located and what are its activities.

n “studied mathematics, philosophy and neuroscience”. We don’t know where he studied or what his credentials are;

n “has been a subject of several books and documentaries”. If so, why not mention at least one of them?



One could indeed argue that Assange wishes to remain anonymous in order to protect himself, the whistleblowers and/or the members of his organization. On the other hand, he cannot realistically expect people to trust him blindly if they do not know who he really is.



The most interesting thing about Julian Assange is that his former employers remain unknown. His bio states that he is a “prolific programmer and consultant for many open-source projects and his software is used by most large organizations and is inside every Apple computer”. Was he working freelance? Who did he work for?



An old email exchange from 1994 between Julian Assange and NASA award winner Fred Blonder raises questions regarding Assange’s professional activities prior to launching Wikileaks. This exchange is available on the website of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:



Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 03:59:19 +0100

From: Julian Assange
To: Fred Blonder

Cc: karl@bagpuss.demon.co.uk, Quentin.Fennessy@sematech.org,

fred@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov, mcn@c3serve.c3.lanl.gov, bugtraq@fc.net

In-Reply-To: <199411171611.LAA04177@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov>

On Thu, 17 Nov 1994, Fred Blonder wrote: [EXCERPT]



> From: Julian Assange
>

> .

> Of course, to make things really interesting, we could have n files,

> comprised of n-1 setuid/setgid scripts and 1 setuid/setgid binary, with

> each script calling the next as its #! argument and the last calling the

> binary. ;-)

>

> The '#!' exec-hack does not work recursively. I just tried it under SunOs 4.1.3

> It generated no diagnostics and exited with status 0, but it also didn't execute

> the target binary....


> Proff



Julian Assange's e-mail to Fred Blonder was sent to an address ending with “nasirc.hq.nasa.gov”, namely NASA. The e-mail was also sent (cc) to Michael C. Neuman, a computer expert at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), New Mexico, a premier national security research institution, under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Energy.


At the time, Fred Blonder was working on a cyber security programme called “NASA Automated Systems Incident Response Capability” (NASIRC), for which he won the NASA Group Achievement Award in 1995. A report from June 2, 1995 explains:



NASIRC has significantly elevated agency-wide awareness of serious evolving threats to NASA's computer/network systems through on-going threat awareness briefings and in-depth technical workshop sessions and through intercenter communications and cooperation relating to the responsive and timely sharing of incident information and tools and techniques. (Valerie L. Thomas, “NASIRC Receives NASA Group Award”, National Space Science Data Center, June 2, 1995)



Is there any relation between Assange’s prosecution for hacking in 1996 and this exchange?

Was he collaborating with these institutions?

For example, in his e-mail, Assange updates Blonder on his work, referring to “other platforms I have not as yet tested”, seemingly indicating that he was collaborating with the NASA employee. One thing we can confirm is that Julian Assange was in communication with people working for NASA and the Los Alamos Lab in the 1990s.

Who's Who at Wikileaks? The Members of the Advisory Board



Here are some interesting facts about several members listed in 2008 on the Wikileaks advisory board, including organizations to which they belong or have links to.

Philip Adams:



Philip Adams, among other things, “held key posts in Australian governmental media administration” (Wikileaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008), chaired the Australia Council and contributed to The Times, The Financial Times in London and The New York Times. Confirmed by several reports, he is the representative of the International Committee of Index on Censorship. It is worth mentioning that Wikileaks was awarded the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award. (Philip Adams, Milesago.com)


Adams worked as a presenter for ABC (Australia) Radio's Late Night Live and as columnist for The Australian since the 1960s. The Australian is owned by News Corporation, a property of Rupert Murdoch, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Adams also “chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Mind at Sydney University and the Australian National University”. CFR member Michael Spence also serves on this board and Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, has served as well until 2001. The 2008 Distinguished Fellow of the Center for the Mind was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has faced a slew of accusations for war crimes. Does Adams have conflicting allegiances: serving on the advisory board of the Wikileaks organization whose mandate is to expose war crimes, yet at the same time sitting on another board which honors an accused war criminal.



According to an article in The Australian:



Adams, who has never met Assange, says he quit the board due to ill-health shortly after WikiLeaks was launched and never attended a meeting. “I don't think the advisory board has done any advisoring,” he quips.



CJ Hinke:



CJ Hinke, “writer, academic, activist, has lived in Thailand since 1989 where he founded Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) in 2006 to campaign against pervasive censorship in Thai society.” (Wikileaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008) FACT is part of Privacy International, which includes among others on its Steering Committee or advisory board, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Index on Censorship.



In 2009, FACT received funding from the following organizations: the European Parliament, the European Commission framework funding programmes, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, the Open Society Institute, the Open Society Justice Initiative, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, The Fund for Constitutional Government, the Stern Foundation, the Privacy Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the University of New South Wales (Sydney).



In the US, Privacy International is “administered through the Fund for Constitutional Government in Washington DC.”(About Privacy International, 16 December 2009).

One of the board members of this fund is Steven Aftergood, who wrote one of the first articles on Wikileaks before the website was even functional. In a report from Technology Daily dated January 4, 2007, it is stated that “Wikileaks recently invited Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy researcher at the Federation of American Scientists [FAS], to serve on its advisory board.”


Ben Laurie:

“’WikiLeaks allegedly has an advisory board, and allegedly I'm a member of it... I don't know who runs it...’ Laurie says his only substantive interaction with the group was when Assange approached him to help design a system that would protect leakers' anonymity.” (David Kushner, Inside Wikileaks' Leak Factory, Mother Jones, 6 April, 2010)

This article appeared in Mother Jones in April 2010. An article of the New York Daily News dated December 2010 quotes Ben Laurie as follows: “‘Julian's a smart guy and this is an interesting tactic,’ said Ben Laurie, a London-based computer security expert who has advised WikiLeaks.”


Despite his denial of being an advisor to Wikileaks, his name still appears on the list of advisory board members, according to reports. It is also worth noting that Ben Laurie is a “Director of Security for The Bunker Secure Hosting, where he has worked since 1984 and is responsible for security, cryptography and network design.” He is also a Director of Open Rights Group, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd and the Open Society Foundation.



Chinese and Tibetan Dissidents on the Advisory Board

Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang:


Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang, a “Tibetan exile & activist” is a former President of the Washington Tibet Association, and was a member of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. In July of this year he was appointed by the Governor of Washington State to the State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs. (A Tibetan Appointed to the Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, Tibetan Association of Washington, 17 July 2010)

Wang Youcai

Wang Youcai co-founded the Chinese Democracy Party and is another leader of the Tienanmen Square protests. Imprisoned for “conspiring to overthrow the Government of China... he was exiled in 2004 under international political pressure, especially from the United States. He is also a “member of Chinese Constitutional Democratic Transition Research and a member of the Coordinative Service Platform of the China Democracy Party” (Wikileaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008)

Xiao Qiang:



Xiao Qiang, is one of the Chinese dissidents listed on the Wikileaks board. He “ is the Director of the Berkeley China Internet Project...[He] became a full time human rights activist after the Tienanmen Massacre in 1989... and is currently vice-chair of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy”, according to Wikileaks’ description. He received the MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2001 and is a commentator for Radio Free Asia. (Wikilieaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008)

Xiao Qiang is also the "founder and publisher of China Digital Times" (Biographies, National Endowment for Democracy), which is a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (Directives from China's Ministry of Truth on Liu Xiaobo winning Nobel, Democracy Digest, October 8, 2010).


The Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy is an initiative of the Washington, DC-based NED. (World Movement for Democracy). In 2008, Xiao Qiang was part of a discussion panel intitled "Law Rights and Democracy in China: Perspectives and Leading Advocates", held by NED before the Democracy Award Ceremony. (2008 NED Democracy Award Honors Heroes of Human Rights and Democracy in China, National Endowment for Democracy, June 17, 2008).


Radio Free Asia is funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which describes itself as a body that “encompasses all U.S. civilian international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television.” Eight of its nine members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate; the ninth is the Secretary of State, who serves ex officio”. (Broadcasting Board of Governors)


RFE/RL no longer hides its covert origins: “Initially, both RFE and RL were funded principally by the U.S. Congress through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)... In 1971, all CIA involvement ended and thereafter RFE and RL were funded by Congressional appropriation through the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) and after 1995 the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). (A Brief History of RFE/RL)


Interestingly, in a report from 2002, the CFR suggested “creating a Public Diplomacy Coordinating Structure (PDCS) to help define communications strategies and streamline public diplomacy structures. ‘In many ways, the PDCS would be similar to the National Security Council’... PDCS members would include the secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury and Commerce, as well as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and BBG chairman”, a suggestion officially objected by the BBG “to preserve the journalistic integrity.” (BBG Expresses Concern With Report Recommendations on U.S. International Braodcasting, 31 July 2002)

Wang Dan:


Among the Chinese dissidents once listed on the board is Wang Dan. He was a leader of the Tienanmen Square democracy movement, which “earned him the top spot on China’s list of ‘21 Most Wanted Beijing Student Leaders’.” He was imprisoned for his subversive activities and “exiled in 1998 under international political pressure to the United States.” (Wikilieaks' Avisory Board, Wikileaks.org, 27 March 2008)


He is chairman of the Chinese Constitutional Reform Association, and sits on the editorial board of Beijing Spring, a magazine funded by NED, the “chief democracy-promoting foundation” according to an article by Judith Miller in The New York Times. One of the founders of NED was quoted as saying “A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” (quoted in William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, 2000, p. 180).

In 1998, Wang Dan was granted the NED's Democracy Award "for representing a peaceful alternative to achieve democracy and for [his] courage and steadfastness in the cause of democracy". (1998 Democracy Award honors Heroes of Human Rights and Democracy in China, National Endowment for Democracy)




The Battle for "Transparency"

In 2007, Wikileaks described itself as an “uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.” Its priority? “[E]xposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.” Like the advisory board member list, this description no longer appears on Wikileaks’ website. The organization also claimed to be “founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.” (Wikileaks.org, 17 December 2007)


In the currently available description, the reference to the Chinese dissidents and the origins of the other members has been removed. Wikileaks rather puts the emphasis on not being a covert operation.

Assange encourages blind faith in Wikileaks as he puts a lot of emphasis on the trustworthiness of his opaque organization. In the words of Assange:



“Once something starts going around and being considered trustworthy in a particular arena, and you meet someone and they say ‘I heard this is trustworthy,’ then all of a sudden it reconfirms your suspicion that the thing is trustworthy. So that’s why brand is so important, just as it is with anything you have to trust.”(Andy Greenberg, An Interview with Wikileaks' Julian Assange, Forbes, 29 October, 2010, emphasis added)

"People should understand that WikiLeaks has proven to be arguably the most trustworthy new source that exists, because we publish primary source material and analysis based on that primary source material," Assange told CNN. "Other organizations, with some exceptions, simply are not trustworthy."(The secret life of Julian Assange, CNN, 2 December 2010, emphasis added)

While Wikileaks no longer discloses the names of the members of its advisory board, nor does it reveal its sources of funding, we have to trust it because according to its founder Julian Assange, it “has proven to be the most trustworthy news source that exists”.

Moreover, if we follow Assange’s assertion that there are only a few media organizations which can be considered trustworthy, we must assume that those are the ones which were selected by Wikileaks to act as "partners" in the release and editing of the leaks, including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, El Paìs, Le Monde.

Yet The New York Times, which employs members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) including Wikileaks’ collaborator David E. Sanger, has proven more than once to be a propaganda tool for the US government, the most infamous example being the Iraqi WMD narrative promoted by Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller.



In an interview, Assange indicates that Wikileaks chose a variety of media to avoid the use of leaks for propaganda purposes. It is important to note that although these media might be owned by different groups and have different editorial policies, they are without exception news entities controlled by major Western media corporations.



A much better way to avoid the use of leaks for disinformation purposes would have been to work with media from different regions of the world (e.g. Asia, Latin America, Middle East) as well as establish partnership agreements with the alternative media. By working primarily with media organizations from NATO countries, Wikileaks has chosen to submit its leaks to one single "worldview", that of the West.



As a few critics of Wikileaks have noted, the Wikileaks project brings to mind the "recommendations" of Cass Sunstein, heads the Obama White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein is the author of an authoritative Harvard Law School essay entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures”. As outlined by Daniel Tencer in Obama Staffer Calls for "Cognitive Infiltration" of " 9/11 Conspiracy Groups":



Sunstein “argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via ‘chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine’ those groups”.



Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public — the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.



Sunstein, whose article focuses largely on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggests that the government “enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts.” (emphasis added)


Links to The Intelligence Community

Wikleaks feels the need to reassure public opinion that it has no contacts with the intelligence community. Ironically, it also sees the need to define the activities of the intelligence agencies and compare them to those of Wikileaks:


"1.5 The people behind WikiLeaks



WikiLeaks is a project of the Sunshine Press. It's probably pretty clear by now that WikiLeaks is not a front for any intelligence agency or government despite a rumour to that effect. This rumour was started early in WikiLeaks' existence, possibly by the intelligence agencies themselves. WikiLeaks is an independent global group of people with a long standing dedication to the idea of a free press and the improved transparency in society that comes from this. The group includes accredited journalists, software programmers, network engineers, mathematicians and others.



To determine the truth of our statements on this, simply look at the evidence. By definition, intelligence agencies want to hoard information. By contrast, WikiLeaks has shown that it wants to do just the opposite. Our track record shows we go to great lengths to bring the truth to the world without fear or favour." (Wikileaks.org, emphasis added)



"Is Wikileaks a CIA front?



Wikileaks is not a front for the CIA, MI6, FSB or any other agency. Quite the opposite actually. […] By definition spy agencies want to hide information. We want to get it out to the public." (Wikileaks.org, 17, December 2007, emphasis added)


Quite true. But by definition, a covert operation always pretends to be something it is not, and never claims to be what it is.

Wikileaks' Entourage. Who Supports Wikileaks?

The people gravitating around Wikileaks have connections and/or are affiliated to a number of establishment organizations, major corporate foundations and charities. In the Wikileaks’ leak published by John Young, a correspondence dated January 4, 2007, points to Wikileaks' exchange with Freedom House:



"We are looking for one or two initial advisory board member from FH who may advise on the following:



1. the needs of FH as consumer of leaks exposing business andpolitical corruption

2. the needs for sources of leaks as experienced by FH

3. FH recommendations for other advisory board members

4. general advice on funding, coallition building and decentralised operations and political framing



These positions will initially be unpaid, but we feel the role may be of significant interest to FH."



The request for funding from various organizations triggered some doubt among Wikileaks collaborators.

John Young became very sceptical concerning the Wikileaks project specifically with regard to the initial fund-raising goal of 5 million dollars, the contacts with elite organzations including Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy and the alleged millions of documents:



"Announcing a $5 million fund-raising goal by July will kill this effort. It makes WL appear to be a Wall Street scam.

This amount could not be needed so soon except for suspect purposes.

I'd say the same about the alleged 1.1 million documents ready for leaking. Way too many to be believable without evidence. I don't believe the number. So far, one document, of highly suspect provenance."



Young finally quit the organization on January 7, 2007. His final words: “Wikileaks is a fraud... working for the enemy”.

Four years after its creation, we still don’t know who funds the whistleblower site.


Wikileaks, Hackers, and “The First Cyberwar”



The shady circumstances around Julian Assange’s arrest for “sex crimes” have triggered what some mainstream media have called the “first cyberwar”. The Guardian for instance, another Wikileaks partner, warns us with this shocking title: “WikiLeaks backlash: The first global cyber war has begun, claim hackers".

Some people suspect that this is a false flag operation intended to control the Internet.



It is no secret that hackers are often recruited by governmental authorities for cyber security purposes. Peiter Zatko a.k.a. “Mudge” is one of them. Here is an excerpt of a Forbes interview with Assange regarding his connection to Peiter Zatko:



Assange:Yeah, I know Mudge. He’s a very sharp guy.



Greenberg: Mudge is now leading a project at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to find a technology that can stop leaks, which seems pretty relative [sic] to your organization. Can you tell me about your past relationship with Mudge?



Assange: Well, I... no comment.



Greenberg: Were you part of the same scene of hackers? When you were a computer hacker, you must have known him well.



Assange: We were in the same milieu. I spoke with everyone in that milieu.



Greenberg: What do you think of his current work to prevent digital leaks inside of organizations, a project called Cyber Insider Threat or Cinder?



Assange: I know nothing about it.



Peiter Zatko is an expert in cyber warfare. He worked for BBN Technolgies (a subsidiary of Raytheon) with engineers “who perform leading edge research and development to protect Department of Defense data... Mr. Zatko is focused on anticipating and protecting against the next generation of information and network security threats to government and commercial networks.” (Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, Information Security Expert Who Warned that Hackers "Could Take Down the Internet in 30 Minutes" Returns to BBN Technologies, Business Wire, 1 February 2005, emphasis added)



In another Forbes interview, we learn that Mr. Zatko is “a lead cybersecurity researcher at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA], the mad-scientist wing of the Pentagon.” His project “aims to rid the world of digital leaks”. (Forbes, emphasis added)


There also seems to be a connection between Zatko and former hacker Jacob Appelbaum, a Wikileaks spokesperson. Zatko and Appelbaum were purportedly part of a hacker group called Cult of the Dead Cow.



Appelbaum currently works for the Tor Project, a United States Naval Research Laboratory initiative. The sponsors of that project listed on its website are:



NLnet Foundation (2008-2009), Naval Research Laboratory (2006-2010), an anonymous North American ISP (2009-2010), provided up to $100k. Google (2008-2009), Google Summer of Code (2007-2009), Human Rights Watch, Torfox (2009) and Shinjiru Technology (2009-2010) gave in turn up to $50k.

Past sponsors includes: Electronic Frontier Foundation (2004-2005), DARPA and ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (2001-2006), Cyber-TA project (2006-2008), Bell Security Solutions Inc (2006), Omidyar Network Enzyme Grant (2006), NSF via Rice University (2006-2007).

Zatko and Assange know each other. Jacob Appelbaum also played a role at Wikileaks.

The various connections tell us something regarding Assange's entourage. They do not, however, provide us with evidence that people within these various organizations were supportive of the Wikileaks project.

Recent Developments: The Role of the Frontline Club

Over the last seven months, the London based Frontline Club has served as de facto U.K "headquarters" for Wikileaks. The Frontline Club is an initiative of Henry Vaughan Lockhart Smith, a former British Grenadier Guards captain. According to NATO, Vaughan Smith became an "independant video journalist [...] who always hated war, but remained [...] soldier-friendly". (Across the Wire, New media: Weapons of mass communication, NATO Review, February 2008)

Upon his release from bail, Julian Assange was provided refuge at Vaughan Smith's Ellingham Manor in Norfolk.

The Frontline Club is an establishment media outfit. Vaughan Smith writes for the NATO Review. (See NATO Web TV Channel and NATO Nations: Accurate, Reliable and Convenient). His relationship to NATO goes back to 1998 when he worked as a video journalist in Kosovo. In 2010, he was "embedded with a platoon from the British Grenadier Guards" during Operation Moshtarak in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. (PBS NewsHour, February 19, 2010). According to the New York Times, The Frontline Club "has received financing for its events from the Open Society Institute". (In London, a Haven and a Forum for War Reporters - New York Times, 28 August 2006)

Concluding Remarks: The Cyber Warfare Narrative

Wikileaks is now being used by the authorities, particularly in the US, to promote the cyber warfare narrative, which could dramatically change the Internet and suppress the freedom of expression Wikileaks claims to defend.

Peter Kornbluh, analyst at The National Security Archive, argues that "there's going to be a lot of screaming about Wikileaks and the new federal law to penalize, sanction, and put the boot down on organizations like Wikileaks, so that their reactions can be deemed illegal."

Ultimately, Wikileaks could spark off, intentionally or not, entirely new rules and regulations.

Julie Lévesque is a journalist at Global Research, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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On the Meaning of Patriotism: Manning within his Rights to Give Secrets to Wikileaks

By Sherwood Ross

Global Research, December 18, 2010

As the U.S. is now an international aggressor, do Americans still owe it allegiance?

If a citizen releases information about crimes the U.S. commits, can he or she be legally punished? These questions arise in connection with the arrests of Australian Julian Assange and PFC Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst believed to be the source of the secret government cables published by Assange's WikiLeaks Web site.

Thanks to the long arm of Uncle Sam, Assange is now being held under house arrest by its UK criminal co-conspirator in the Middle East wars and Manning now resides in the U.S. Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va. Although not convicted of any crime, Manning for seven months allegedly has been subjected to solitary confinement, perhaps the most diabolical punishment ever devised by American wardens. Studies of U.S. prisoners subjected to it show they suffer mental deterioration and insanity. This harsh punishment prior to any trial betrays the face of the tyrant state.

Under ordinary circumstances, the release of information labeled “secret” violates U.S. law, as intelligence specialist Manning undoubtedly knew. But if the U.S. is an aggressor state, as Germany was when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, doesn't that change everything? America under President George W. Bush attacked two small nations that posed no threat to it. Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was “illegal.” He said it contravened the UN Charter as the attack lacked Security Council approval. MIT Professor Noam Chomsky in his book “Imperial Ambitions,” (Metropolitan), called the U.S. invasion of Iraq as “open an act of aggression as there has been in modern history, a major war crime.” By ratifying the UN Charter the U.S. agreed to refrain “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state...” And international law authority Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois, Champaign, called the invasion of Afghanistan “an illegal armed aggression that has created a humanitarian catastrophe” for its 22 millions. (Destroying World Order, Clarity Press.)

And as these invasions are criminal, why shouldn't pertinent information about them not be brought to light? Whenever has it been wrong to expose a criminal enterprise? Public-spirited citizens go to the police and FBI every day to report crimes. “Under international law,” says Boyle, professor of that subject, “citizens have a basic human right to resist the commission of international crimes by their own government, especially aggression...” And this is what PFC Manning did. He resisted aggression by informing Americans of how their government breaks laws. The Associated Press reports Manning told an associate, “I want people to see the truth...because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” America's Founders believed that, too, and made a free press a cornerstone of the new nation. Ann Medlock, Founder of the Giraffe Heroes Project, says, "In a perfect world, institutions would listen to their staffers when they point out errors, lapses of ethics, and outright chicanery within the organization. Then those holding power would correct those flaws. But...that hasn't been the reality. Again and again authorities just blast away at the truthsayers rather than addressing the problems." In a democratic society, wouldn't the Pentagon commend Boyle for calling to attention the murder of innocent civilians and reporters by a helicopter gunship?

Webster's (Random House) defines a patriot as one who “loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests.” The word “defends” here is critical. The wars the U.S. is waging in the Middle East are not defensive but offensive, thus it is unpatriotic to support them. In its highest sense, patriotism means citizen opposition to a totalitarian regime, not support for it. Looking back, who do Germans today honor and revere as “patriots” during the Hitler years if not the students of the White Rose Society? Ask yourself if those students were guilty of treason for passing out leaflets that denounced Hitler's crimes? Hitler thought so and they were arrested, tortured and decapitated. Yet the students were only trying to reach their fellow Germans with truths Hitler tried to conceal. How different is PFC Manning's actions from theirs? PFC Manning appears to be within his rights as any whistle-blower to divulge information that exposes U.S. crimes.

Today, the American warfare state is a tyranny that operates 800 military bases abroad (in addition to 1,000 on its own soil) and spends more for war than the next 15 nations combined. It kidnaps people off the streets around the world and dispatches them to remote prisons where they are held incognito and tortured. It is the world's No. 1 Jailer, with tens of thousands imprisoned in the Middle East against whom no charges ever have been brought. It taps the telephones of UN officials and, as WikiLeaks disclosed, orders its diplomats to spy on their foreign counterparts. It leads the world in the sale of armaments to dictators. It violates anti-nuclear covenants and uses illegal irradiated ammunition on battlefields. It attacks small countries that have never attacked it and its CIA sows mayhem as it overthrows other countries (Iran and Chile are examples) by force and violence. President Obama's decision not to prosecute his predecessor for making illegal wars turns the Constitution into toilet paper.


Chalmers Johnson wrote in “The Sorrows of Empire,”(Metropolitan/Owl Books), “the growth of militarism, official secrecy, and a belief that the United States is no longer bound, as the Declaration of Independence so famously puts it, by “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” is probably irreversible. A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control, or to abolish the Central Intelligence Agency...” Johnson does not advocate revolution; he means an earth-shaking change needs to occur. As revolutions involve violence and proceed by force rather than reason, in point of fact, Americans who feel obliged to restore democracy here would be better off following Dr. King's example of exerting non-violent “soul force” to effect change. The American people have been led into wars based on lies, fictions, and secrets and should be grateful to Assange and Manning for revealing the truth of this misconduct. PFC Manning is no traitor but an American patriot. Like Julian Assange, he should be set free now.

[h3rm35]

(see original for embedded links)

Who is Behind Wikileaks?

By Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, December 13, 2010



"World bankers, by pulling a few simple levers that control the flow of money, can make or break entire economies. By controlling press releases of economic strategies that shape national trends, the power elite are able to not only tighten their stranglehold on this nation's economic structure, but can extend that control world wide. Those possessing such power would logically want to remain in the background, invisible to the average citizen." (Aldous Huxley)



Wikleaks is upheld as a breakthrough in the battle against media disinformation and the lies of the US government.

Unquestionably, the released documents constitute an important and valuable data bank. The documents have been used by critical researchers since the outset of the Wikileaks project. Wikileaks earlier revelations have focussed on US war crimes in Afghanistan (July 2010) as well as issues pertaining to civil liberties and the "militarization of the Homeland" (see Tom Burghardt, Militarizing the "Homeland" in Response to the Economic and Political Crisis, Global Research, October 11, 2008)

In October 2010, WikiLeaks was reported to have released some 400,000 classified Iraq war documents, covering events from 2004 to 2009 (Tom Burghardt, The WikiLeaks Release: U.S. Complicity and Cover-Up of Iraq Torture Exposed, Global Research, October 24, 2010). These revelations contained in the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs provide "further evidence of the Pentagon's role in the systematic torture of Iraqi citizens by the U.S.-installed post-Saddam regime." (Ibid)

Progressive organizations have praised the Wikileaks endeavor. Our own website Global Research has provided extensive coverage of the Wikileaks project.

The leaks are heralded as an immeasurable victory against corporate media censorship.

But there is more than meets the eye.

Even prior to the launching of the project, the mainstream media had contacted Wikileaks.

There are also reports from published email exchanges (unconfirmed) that Wikileaks had, at the outset of the project in January 2007, contacted and sought the advice of Freedom House. This included an invitation to Freedom House (FH) to participate in the Wikileaks advisory board:

"We are looking for one or two initial advisory board member from FH who may advise on the following:

1. the needs of FH as consumer of leaks exposing business and political corruption
2. the needs for sources of leaks as experienced by FH
3. FH recommendations for other advisory board members
4. general advice on funding, coallition [sic] building and decentralised operations and political framing" (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).

There is no evidence of FH followup support to the Wikileaks project. Freedom House is a Washington based "watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world". It is chaired by William H. Taft IV who was legal adviser to the State Department under G. W. Bush and Deputy Secretary of Defense under the Reagan administration.

Wikileaks had also entered into negotiations with several corporate foundations with a view to securing funding. (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007):

The linchpin of WikiLeaks's financial network is Germany's Wau Holland Foundation. ... "We're registered as a library in Australia, we're registered as a foundation in France, we're registered as a newspaper in Sweden," Mr. Assange said. WikiLeaks has two tax-exempt charitable organizations in the U.S., known as 501C3s, that "act as a front" for the website, he said. He declined to give their names, saying they could "lose some of their grant money because of political sensitivities."

Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks gets about half its money from modest donations processed by its website, and the other half from "personal contacts," including "people with some millions who approach us...." (WikiLeaks Keeps Funding Secret, WSJ.com, August 23, 2010)

Acquiring covert funding from intelligence agencies was, according to the email exchanges, also contemplated. (See Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007)

At the outset in early 2007, Wikileaks acknowledged that the project had been "founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.... [Its advisory board] includes representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers." (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).

Wikileaks formulated its mandate on its website as follows: "[Wikileaks will be] an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations," CBC News - Website wants to take whistleblowing online, January 11, 2007, emphasis added).

This mandate was confirmed by Julian Assange in a June 2010 interview in The New Yorker:

"Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations. (quoted in WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 7, 2010, emphasis added)

Assange also intimated that "exposing secrets" "could potentially bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality—including the US administration." (Ibid)

From the outset, Wikileaks' geopolitical focus on "oppressive regimes" in Eurasia and the Middle East was "appealing" to America's elites, i.e. it seemingly matched stated US foreign policy objectives. Moreover, the composition of the Wikileaks team (which included Chinese dissidents), not to mention the methodology of "exposing secrets" of foreign governments, were in tune with the practices of US covert operations geared towards triggering "regime change" and fostering "color revolutions" in different parts of the World.

The Role of the Corporate Media: The Central Role of the New York Times

Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role.

While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)

This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks' editor Julian Assange.

The important question is who controls and oversees the selection, distribution and editing of released documents to the broader public?

What US foreign policy objectives are being served through this redacting process?

Is Wikileaks part of an awakening of public opinion, of a battle against the lies and fabrications which appear daily in the print media and on network TV?

If so, how can this battle against media disinformation be waged with the participation and collaboration of the corporate architects of media disinformation?

Wikileaks has enlisted the architects of media disinformation to fight media disinformation: An incongruous and self-defeating procedure.

America's corporate media and more specifically The New York Times are an integral part of the economic establishment, with links to Wall Street, the Washington think tanks and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Moreover, the US corporate media has developed a longstanding relationship to the US intelligence apparatus, going back to "Operation Mocking Bird", an initiative of the CIA's Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s.

Even before the Wikileaks project got off the ground, the mainstream media was implicated. A role was defined and agreed upon for the corporate media not only in the release, but also in the selection and editing of the leaks. In a bitter irony, the "professional media", to use Julian Assange's words in an interview with The Economist, have been partners in the Wikileaks project from the outset.

Moreover, key journalists with links to the US foreign policy-national security intelligence establishment have worked closely with Wikileaks, in the distribution and dissemination of the leaked documents.

In a bitter irony, Wikileaks partner The New York Times, which has consistently promoted media disinformation is now being accused of conspiracy. For what? For revealing the truth? Or for manipulating the truth? In the words of Senator Joseph L. Lieberman:

“I certainly believe that WikiLleaks has violated the Espionage Act, but then what about the news organizations — including The Times — that accepted it and distributed it?” Mr. Lieberman said, adding: “To me, The New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, and whether they have committed a crime, I think that bears a very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department.” (WikiLeaks Prosecution Studied by Justice Department - NYTimes.com, December 7, 2010)

This "redacting" role of The New York Times is candidly acknowledged by David E Sanger, Chief Washington correspondent of the NYT:

"[W]e went through [the cables] so carefully to try to redact material that we thought could be damaging to individuals or undercut ongoing operations. And we even took the very unusual step of showing the 100 cables or so that we were writing from to the U.S. government and asking them if they had additional redactions to suggest." (See PBS Interview; The Redacting and Selection of Wikileaks documents by the Corporate Media, PBS interview on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross: December 8, 2010, emphasis added).

Yet Sanger also says later in the interview:

"It is the responsibility of American journalism, back to the founding of this country, to get out and try to grapple with the hardest issues of the day and to do it independently of the government." (ibid)

"Do it independently of the government" while at the same time "asking them [the US government] if they had additional redactions to suggest"?

David E. Sanger cannot be described as a model independent journalist. He is member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Aspen Institute's Strategy Group which regroups the likes of Madeleine K. Albright, Condoleeza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former CIA head John Deutch, the president of the World Bank, Robert. B. Zoellick and Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, among other prominent establishment figures. (See also F. William Engdahl, Wikileaks: A Big Dangerous US Government Con Job, Global Research, December 10, 2010).

It is worth noting that several American journalists, members of the Council on Foreign Relations have interviewed Wikileaks, including Time Magazine's Richard Stengel (November 30, 2010) and The New Yorker's Raffi Khatchadurian. (WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 11, 2007)

Historically, The New York Times has served the interests of the Rockefeller family in the context of a longstanding relationship. The current New York Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, son of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger who served as a Trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation. Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor of The New York Times as well as Thomas Friedman among others are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). (Membership Roster - Council on Foreign Relations)

In turn, the Rockefellers have an important stake as shareholders of several US corporate media.

The Embassy and State Department Cables

It should come as no surprise that David E. Sanger and his colleagues at the NYT centered their attention on a highly "selective" dissemination of the Wikileaks cables, focussing on areas which would support US foreign policy interests: Iran's nuclear program, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's support of Al Qaeda, China's relations with North Korea, etc. These releases were then used as source material in NYT articles and commentary.

The Embassy and State Department cables released by Wikileaks were redacted and filtered. They were used for propaganda purposes. They do not constitute a complete and continuous set of memoranda.

From a selected list of cables, the leaks are being used to justify a foreign policy agenda. A case in point is Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, which is the object of numerous State Department memos, as well as Saudi Arabia's support of Islamic terrorism.

Iran's Nuclear Program

The leaked cables are used to feed the disinformation campaign concerning Iran's Weapons of Mass Destruction. While the leaked cables are heralded as "evidence" that Iran constitutes a threat, the lies and fabrications of the corporate media concerning Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program are not mentioned, nor is there any mention of them in the leaked cables.

The leaks, once they are funnelled into the corporate news chain, edited and redacted by the New York Times, indelibly serve the broader interests of US foreign policy, including US-NATO-Israel war preparations directed against Iran.

With regard to "leaked intelligence" and the coverage of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, David E. Sanger has played a crucial role. In November 2005, The New York Times published a report co-authored by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad entitled "Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims".

The article refers to mysterious documents on a stolen Iranian laptop computer which included "a series of drawings of a missile re-entry vehicle" which allegedly could accommodate an Iranian produced nuclear weapon:

"In mid-July, senior American intelligence officials called the leaders of the international atomic inspection agency to the top of a skyscraper overlooking the Danube in Vienna and unveiled the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer.

The Americans flashed on a screen and spread over a conference table selections from more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead, according to a half-dozen European and American participants in the meeting.

The documents, the Americans acknowledged from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them as the strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a compact warhead to fit atop its Shahab missile, which can reach Israel and other countries in the Middle East."(William J. Broad and David E. Sanger Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims - New York Times, November 13, 2005, emphasis added)

These "secret documents" were subsequently submitted by the US State Department to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, with a view to demonstrating that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. They were also used as a pretext to enforce the economic sanctions regime directed against Iran, adopted by the UN Security Council.

While their authenticity has been questioned, a recent article by investigative reporter Gareth Porter confirms unequivocally that the mysterious laptop documents are fake. (See Gareth Porter, Exclusive Report: Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent, Global Research, November 18, 2010).

The drawings contained in the documents leaked by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger do not pertain to the Shahab missile but to an obsolete North Korean missile system which was decommissioned by Iran in the mid-1990s. The drawings presented by US State Department officials pertained to the "Wrong Missile Warhead":

In July 2005, ... Robert Joseph, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, made a formal presentation on the purported Iranian nuclear weapons program documents to the agency's leading officials in Vienna. Joseph flashed excerpts from the documents on the screen, giving special attention to the series of technical drawings or "schematics" showing 18 different ways of fitting an unidentified payload into the re-entry vehicle or "warhead" of Iran's medium-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-3. When IAEA analysts were allowed to study the documents, however, they discovered that those schematics were based on a re-entry vehicle that the analysts knew had already been abandoned by the Iranian military in favor of a new, improved design. The warhead shown in the schematics had the familiar "dunce cap" shape of the original North Korean No Dong missile, which Iran had acquired in the mid-1990s. ... The laptop documents had depicted the wrong re-entry vehicle being redesigned. ... (Gareth Porter, op cit, emphasis added)

David E, Sanger, who worked diligently with Wikileaks under the banner of truth and transparency was also instrumental in the New York Times "leak" of what Gareth Porter describes as fake intelligence. (Ibid)

While this issue of fake intelligence received virtually no media coverage, it invalidates outright Washington's assertions regarding Iran's alleged nuclear weapons. It also questions the legitimacy of the UN Security Council Sancions regime directed against Iran.

Moreover, in a bitter irony, the selective redacting of the Wikileaks embassy cables by the NYT has usefully served not only to dismiss the central issue of fake intelligence but also to reinforce, through media disinformation, Washington's claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. A case in point is a November 2010 article co-authored by David E. Sanger, which quotes the Wikileaks cables as a source:

"Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a [Wikileaks] cable dated Feb. 24 of this year.... (WikiLeaks Archive — Iran Armed by North Korea - NYTimes.com, November 28, 2010).

These missiles are said to have the "capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles." (Ibid, emphasis added).

Wikileaks, Iran and the Arab World

The released wikileaks cables have also being used to create divisions between Iran on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on the other:

"After WikiLeaks claimed that certain Arab states are concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and have urged the U.S. to take [military] action to contain Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took advantage of the issue and said that the released cables showed U.S. concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program are shared by the international community." Tehran Times : WikiLeaks promoting Iranophobia, December 5, 2010)

The Western media has jumped on this opportunity and has quoted the State Department memoranda released by Wikleaks with a view to upholding Iran as a threat to global security as well as fostering divisions between Iran and the Arab world.

"The Global War on Terrorism"

The leaks quoted by the Western media reveal the support of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to several Islamic terrorist organizations, a fact which is known and amply documented.

What the reports fail to mention, however, which is crucial in an understanding of the "Global War on Terrorism", is that US intelligence historically has channelled its support to terrorist organizations via Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, Montreal, 2005). These are US sponsored covert intelligence operations using Saudi and Pakistani intelligence as intermediaries.

In this regard, the use of the Wikleaks documents by the media tends to sustain the illusion that the CIA has nothing to do with the terror network and that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are "providing the lion's share of funding" to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, among others, when in fact this financing is undertaken in liaison and consultation with their US intelligence counterparts:

"The information came to light in the latest round of documents released Sunday by Wikileaks. In their communiques to the State Department, U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states describe a situation in which wealthy private donors, often openly, lavishly support the same groups against whom Saudi Arabia claims to be fighting." ( Wikileaks: Saudis, Gulf States Big Funders of Terror Groups - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News)

Similarly, with regard to Pakistan:

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, make it clear that underneath public reassurances lie deep clashes [between the U.S. and Pakistan] over strategic goals on issues like Pakistan's support for the Afghan Taliban and tolerance of Al Qaeda,..." (Wary Dance With Pakistan in Nuclear World, The New York Times December 1, 2010)

Reports of this nature serve to provide legitimacy to US drone attacks against alleged terrorist targets inside Pakistan.

The corporate media's use and interpretation of the Wikileaks cables serves to uphold two related myths:

1) Iran has nuclear weapons program and constitutes a threat to global security.

2) Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are state sponsors of Al Qaeda. They are financing Islamic terrorist organizations which are intent upon attacking the US and its NATO allies.

The CIA and the Corporate Media

The CIA's relationship to the US media is amply documented. The New York Times continues to entertain a close relationship not only with US intelligence, but also with the Pentagon and more recently with the Department of Homeland Security.

"Operation Mocking Bird" was an initiative of the CIA's Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s. Its objective was to exert influence on both the US as well as the foreign media. From the 1950s, members of the US media were routinely enlisted by the CIA.

The inner workings of the CIA's relationship to the US media are described in Carl Bernstein's 1977 article in Rolling Stone entitled The CIA and the Media:

"[M]ore than 400 American journalists who [had] secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. [1950-1977]Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. ... Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners,... Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work....;

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune. (The CIA and the Media by Carl Bernstein)

Bernstein suggests, in this regard, that "the CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress" (Ibid).

In recent years, the CIA's relationship to the media has become increasingly complex and sophisticated. We are dealing with a mammoth propaganda network involving a number of agencies of government.

Media disinformation has become institutionalized. The lies and fabrications have become increasingly blatant when compared to the 1970s. The US media has become the mouthpiece of US foreign policy. Disinformation is routinely "planted" by CIA operatives in the newsroom of major dailies, magazines and TV channels: "A relatively few well-connected correspondents provide the scoops, that get the coverage in the relatively few mainstream news sources, where the parameters of debate are set and the "official reality" is consecrated for the bottom feeders in the news chain."(Chaim Kupferberg, The Propaganda Preparation of 9/11, Global Research, September 19, 2002).

Since 2001, the US media has assumed a new role in sustaining the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) and camouflaging US sponsored war crimes. In the wake of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or "Office of Disinformation" as it was labeled by its critics: "The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries -- as an effort to influence public opinion across the world.'" (Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002, see also Michel Chossudovsky, War Propaganda, Global Research, January 3, 2003).

Today's corporate media is an instrument of war propaganda, which begs the question: why would the NYT all of a sudden promote transparency and truth in media, by assisting Wikileaks in "spreading the word"; and that people around the World would not pause for one moment and question the basis of this incongruous relationship.

On the surface, nothing proves that Wikileaks is a CIA covert operation. However, given the corporate media's cohesive and structured relationship to US intelligence, not to mention the links of individual journalists to the military-national security establishment, the issue of a CIA sponsored PsyOp must necessarily be addressed.

Wikileaks Social and Corporate Entourage

Wikileaks and The Economist have also entered into what seems to be a contradictory relationship. Wikileaks founder and editor Julian Assange was granted in 2008 The Economist's New Media Award.

The Economist has a close relationship to Britain's financial elites. It is an establishment news outlet, which has, on balance, supported Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. It bears the stamp of the Rothschild family. Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild was chairman of The Economist from 1972 to 1989. His wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild currently sits on The Economist's board. The Rothschild family also has a sizeable shareholder interest in The Economist.

The broader question is why would Julian Assange receive the support from Britain's foremost establishment news outfit which has consistently been involved in media disinformation?

Are we not dealing with a case of "manufactured dissent", whereby the process of supporting and rewarding Wikileaks for its endeavors, becomes a means of controlling and manipulating the Wikileaks project, while at the same time embedding it into the mainstream media.

It is also worth mentioning another important link. Julian Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI), a major London elite law firm, happens to be the legal adviser to the Rothschild Waddesdon Trust. While this in itself does prove anything, it should nonetheless be examined in the broader context of Wikileaks' social and corporate entourage: the NYT, the CFR, The Economist, Time Magazine, Forbes, Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI), etc.

Manufacturing Dissent

Wikileaks has the essential features of a process of "manufactured dissent". It seeks to expose government lies. It has released important information on US war crimes. But once the project becomes embedded in the mould of mainstream journalism, it is used as an instrument of media disinformation:

"It is in the interest of the corporate elites to accept dissent and protest as a feature of the system inasmuch as they do not threaten the established social order. The purpose is not to repress dissent, but, on the contrary, to shape and mould the protest movement, to set the outer limits of dissent. To maintain their legitimacy, the economic elites favor limited and controlled forms of opposition... To be effective, however, the process of "manufacturing dissent" must be carefully regulated and monitored by those who are the object of the protest movement " (See Michel Chossudovsky, "Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites, September 2010)

What this examination of the Wikileaks project also suggests is that the mechanics of New World Order propaganda, particularly with regard to its military agenda, has become increasingly sophisticated.

It no longer relies on the outright suppression of the facts regarding US-NATO war crimes. Nor does it require that the reputation of government officials at the highest levels, including the Secretary of State, be protected. New World Order politicians are in a sense "disposable". They can be replaced. What must be protected and sustained are the interests of the economic elites, which control the political apparatus from behind the scenes.

In the case of Wikileaks, the facts are contained in a data bank; many of those facts, particularly those pertaining to foreign governments serve US foreign policy interests. Other facts tend, on the other hand to discredit the US administration. With regard to financial information, the release of data pertaining to a particular bank instigated via Wikileaks by a rival financial institution, could potentially be used to trigger the collapse or bankrutpcy of the targeted financial institution.

All the Wiki-facts are selectively redacted, they are then "analyzed" and interpreted by a media which serves the economic elites.

While the numerous pieces of information contained in the Wikileaks data bank are accessible, the broader public will not normally take the trouble to consult and scan through the Wikileaks data bank. The public will read the redacted selections and interpretations presented in major news outlets.

A partial and biased picture is presented. The redacted version is accepted by public opinion because it is based on what is heralded as a "reliable source", when in fact what is presented in the pages of major newspapers and on network TV is a carefully crafted and convoluted distortion of the truth.

Limited forms of critical debate and "transparency" are tolerated while also enforcing broad public acceptance of the basic premises of US foreign policy, including its "Global War on Terrorism". With regard to a large segment of the US antiwar movement, this strategy seems to have succeeded: "We are against war but we support the 'war on terrorism'".

What this means is that truth in media can only be reached by dismantling the propaganda apparatus, --i.e. breaking the legitimacy of the corporate media which sustains the broad interests of the economic elites as well America's global military design.

In turn, we must ensure that the campaign against Wikileaks in the U.S., using the 1917 Espionage Act, will not be utilized as a means to wage a campaign to control the internet. In this regard, we should also stand firm in preventing the prosecution of Julian Assange in the US.

Note: Minor changes were added to this article on December 14, 2010

[rsol]

by jingo that's Christmas reading sorted then.

[h3rm35]

(12-24-2010 12:50 AM)rsol Wrote:  by jingo that's Christmas reading sorted then.

the whole thread?


anyway, I got this today via email from firedoglake, and since I appreciated the sentiment, I figured I'd pass it along. I doubt taking action will accomplish much in a military brig, but I bet he'll appreciate knowing that hundreds, if not thousands of people are lobbying on behalf of his decent treatment, and it's not a legal petition so anyone from anywhere can sign it:

Quote:Bradley Manning spent his 23rd birthday on Friday completely isolated, just as he has every day for the last five months months in his cell at the Quantico Marine Base.

Manning is the Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks. Since July, he has been held in cruel and inhumane conditions akin to how the US detains "enemy combatants." He spends each day completely isolated, with severe restrictions placed on basic activities like sleep and exercise. Yet he has not been convicted of any crime.

The extreme isolation in which Manning has spent every day of the last five months is soul-crushing. It’s already taking its toll: Bradley Manning’s physical and mental health are suffering, according to his attorney and friend who have seen him in prison.

Bradley Manning deserves humane treatment while he awaits trial. Can you please add your name to our letter urging Commanding Officer of Quantico Marine Corp Base to lift the heavy restrictions of Manning’s detention?

Bradley's friend, David House, will deliver your letter to the Commanding Officer at the Quantico Marine Base brig when he visits Bradley next month.

While Manning is held in “maximum custody,” the military’s most severe detention policy, he is also under a longstanding “Prevention of Injury” (POI) order that adds additional restrictions beyond those of other prisoners. While POI orders typically last a week or two, Manning has been held under a POI order for the entirety of his detention.

A day in the life of Bradley Manning is isolating, lonely, and frustrating.

* Manning stays in his cell for 23 hours a day
* Guards must check on him every 5 minutes, and he must respond each time
* He is not allowed to sleep between 5am and 8pm
* Substantive exercise is not allowed beyond walking, potentially in chains
* Communication with other people in the brig is banned, and he cannot write to people outside beyond the few a list approved by the brig commander; any unapproved letters he receives are destroyed.
* He has not been allowed to read newspapers or watch international news during TV time
* Comfortable sleep is impossible; he must surrender his clothes each night, has only a heavy “suicide blanket” akin to an x-ray vest, and guards must be able to see his face at all times.

A psychologist has said Manning isn’t a danger to himself or others, and the POI order is unnecessary. His lawyer has also been unable to have the POI order lifted. But it is clear that Bradley Manning has been subjected to inhumane and unnecessary punishment without being convicted of a crime, and it must stop now.

Stop the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning. Please add your name to our letter urging the Marine Commander in charge of Manning lift the unnecessary POI order.

No matter what you think of Manning's alleged acts, there is no reason to subject him to these extreme conditions. Thank you for standing up for human rights.

- Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com

the text of the letter is as follows:

Quote:Letter to Commanding Officer James Averhart, US MCB Quantico Brig:

Pfc. Bradley Manning has been held for five months under “maximum custody” at Quantico Marine Corps Base under your supervision. Pfc. Manning is under a “Prevention of Injury Order” (POI) that puts him in severe isolation and that limits his:

* social contact,
* news consumption,
* freedom to exercise, and
* ability to sleep.

The severe isolation is already having negative effects on Pfc. Manning’s health, according to his attorney and a friend. And his psychologist says he is of no danger to himself or others, making the longstanding POI order unnecessary.

The conditions of Pfc. Manning’s detention are cruel, inhumane, and disproportionate for the crime with which he has only been charged.

We urge you to lift Pfc. Manning’s POI order and allow him to exercise, communicate, and sleep as allowed under maximum custody.

[FastTadpole]

The above article is corroborated by bradleymanning.org

Made an example of and thrown to the wolves? Hogtied under the bus? A patriot? A part of the ruse? At this point it doesn't matter - Bradley Manning is a human being .. and, dare I say, so is Julian Assange and even maybe Hal Turner might be a bit human too. What happens to them will eventually, if deemed acceptable, set a precedent for what is deemed acceptable for all of us by apathy and even encouragement any way to give our permission you can bet the directors of this operation "divide and dehumanize" are picking up on.

It's our duty to say something but we need to think carefully on what we say.

Quote:Speak Out Against the Inhumane Imprisonment of Bradley Manning!
2010-12-22

Dear friends of Bradley Manning,

Please take action TODAY to speak out against the intolerable conditions of Brad’s imprisonment. A press release we sent out today detailing some of those conditions and pointing to other reporting on the topic follows.

Contact the Quantico base commander:

COL Daniel Choike
Phone: +1-703-784-2707
3250 Catlin Avenue
Quantico, VA 22134

Contact the Marine Brig commanding officer:

CWO4 James Averhart
Fax: +1-703-784-4242
3247 Elrod Avenue
Quantico, VA 22134

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Supporters Call for End to Inhumane Treatment of Bradley Manning

Quantico, VA, December 22, 2010 – After trying other avenues of recourse, the Bradley Manning Support Network is urging supporters to engage in direct protest in order to halt the punitive conditions of the soldier’s detention. Bradley Manning, 23, has been held in solitary confinement in military jails since his arrest in late May on allegations that he passed classified material to WikiLeaks..

In the wake of an investigative report last week by Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com giving evidence that Manning was subject to “detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries”, Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, published an article at his website on Saturday entitled “A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning”. Coombs details the maximum custody conditions that Manning is subject to at the Quantico Confinement Facility and highlights an additional set of restrictions imposed upon him under a Prevention of Injury (POI) watch order.

Usually enforced only through a detainee’s first week at a confinement facility, the standing POI order has severely limited Manning’s access to exercise, daylight and human contact for the past five months, despite calls from military psychologists to lift the order and the extra restrictions imposed.

Despite not having been convicted of any crime or even yet formally indicted, the confinement regime Manning lives under includes pronounced social isolation and a complete lack of opportunities for meaningful exercise. Additionally, Manning’s sleep is regularly interrupted. Coombs writes: “The guards are required to check on Manning every five minutes [...] At night, if the guards cannot see PFC Manning clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure he is okay.”

Denver Nicks writes in The Daily Beast that “[Manning’s] attorney […] says the extended isolation — now more than seven months of solitary confinement — is weighing on his client’s psyche. […] Both Coombs and Manning’s psychologist, Coombs says, are sure Manning is mentally healthy, that there is no evidence he’s a threat to himself, and shouldn’t be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection.”

In an article to be published at Firedoglake.com later today, David House, a friend of Manning’s who visits him regularly at Quantico, says that Manning “has not been outside or into the brig yard for either recreation or exercise in four full weeks. He related that visits to the outdoors have been infrequent and sporadic for the past several months.”

Bradley Manning Support Network founder Mike Gogulski stated that “the Marine Brig is using injury prevention as a vehicle to inflict extreme pre-trial punishment on Bradley Manning. These conditions are not unheard-of during an inmate’s first week at a military jail, but when applied continuously for months and with no end in sight they amount to a form of torture.”

The Bradley Manning Support Network calls upon Quantico base commander COL Daniel Choike and brig commanding officer CWO4 James Averhart to put an end to these inhumane, degrading conditions. Additionally, the Network encourages supporters to phone COL Choike at +1-703-784-2707 or write to him at 3250 Catlin Avenue, Quantico, VA 22134, and to fax CWO4 Averhart at +1-703-784-4242 or write to him at 3247 Elrod Avenue, Quantico, VA 22134, to demand that Bradley Manning’s human rights be respected while he remains in custody.

# # #

References:

“The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention”, Glenn Greenwald, 15 December 2010, http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/inde...14/manning

“A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning”, David E. Coombs, 18 December 2010, http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/...nning.html

“Bradley Manning’s Life Behind Bars”, Denver Nicks, 17 December 2010, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-s...in-prison/

Bradley Manning Support Network, http://www.bradleymanning.org/

http://www.bradleymanning.org/15812/spea...y-manning/

[h3rm35]

20,000 people signed the letter in 24 hrs...

[Steppenwolf]

The saga continues:

Quote:Monday, Dec 27, 2010 05:28 ET
The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired
By Glenn Greenwald

For more than six months, Wired's Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen has possessed -- but refuses to publish -- the key evidence in one of the year's most significant political stories: the arrest of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source. In late May, Adrian Lamo -- at the same time he was working with the FBI as a government informant against Manning -- gave Poulsen what he purported to be the full chat logs between Manning and Lamo in which the Army Private allegedly confessed to having been the source for the various cables, documents and video that WikiLeaks released throughout this year. In interviews with me in June, both Poulsen and Lamo confirmed that Lamo placed no substantive restrictions on Poulsen with regard to the chat logs: Wired was and remains free to publish the logs in their entirety.

Despite that, ...

[FastTadpole]

Quote:Bradley Manning Solidarity Weekend, April 9th-10th

Bradley Manning Solidarity Weekend is a call to socially conscious artists and organizers across the country and world to propel Bradley Manning to pop-culture status through artistic expression before he goes to trial.

Art is the primary tool and cornerstone of our organizing strategy, and we encourage art in all forms including, but not limited to, poetry, music, performance art, gallery exhibitions, and artistic public demonstrations.

These dynamic displays of creativity have the potential to substantially challenge and reshape Bradley’s narrative in the eyes of the public while simultaneously raising awareness of the conditions under which he is being held and contributing to his legal defense fund. All of which helps him take the steps toward the freedom he deserves.

Our goal is to put energy into something that will last longer than a protest on a street corner, so get creative! Open mics, concerts, plays, exhibits! Go outdoors! Go public! Go big! Bradley Manning and our country’s future depend on it!

Full Details and Guide here: http://www.bradleymanning.org/take-actio...ril-9-10th

It doesn't matter if this is a ruse, a shell game, Manning appears to be isolated in detention without trial under military law for something the likes of Daniel Ellsberg was praised for - being a whistleblower, although Ellsberg did it too late and sat on the information too long to really make a as large an impact as he could have. Don't let people be used as pawns. Protect the freedom of those who dare to speak out and challenge immoral action and shed light on what really goes on when and where they see it.

It's about the principle not the propaganda.

Status Updates on Brad at the Bradley Manning Support Network

[FastTadpole]

Quote:Army disciplined 15 over Bradley Manning and Wikileaks
By JOSH GERSTEIN |
12/8/11 5:30 AM EST

The discliplinary actions followed a report by Lt. Gen Robert Caslen about missed signs and inadequate responses to Manning's emotional problems and indications that he was not be stable enough to deploy to Iraq or to work with routine access to classified information, as his assignment as an intelligence analyst required.

"Appropriate action has been taken against 15 individuals identified in Lt. Gen. Caslen's report. In accordance with the Army's long-standing policy to protect the privacy of individuals below the general officer level, specific information concerning their misconduct is not releasable," Army spokesman George Wright told POLITICO's Charles Hoskinson Wednesday.

...

With a preliminary hearing for Manning set to get underway Dec. 16 at Ft. Meade, Md., Manning's civilian defense attorney, David Coombs, released a proposed witness list Saturday. The filing indicates that one potential witness, whose name and rank were deleted from the copy made public, served as Manning's non-commissioned officer-in-charge and "was administratively reduced [in rank] by a board due to being derelict in his duties."

....

Fidell said he doubts the single non-commissioned officer was the only one to face serious discipline. "There maybe other kinds of actions taken against them, adminisitrative reprimands that aren’t a matter of record, but are nonetheless harmful in career terms," he said.

Full Article: http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerste...leaks.html

Here is the real goods:

Proposed Witness List for Bradley Manning Hearing
  PPM170_defense_article_32_witness_list.pdf (Size: 1.78 MB / Downloads: 24)

Select Excerpts:

Secretary xxxxxxxxxxxxx wiil testify that although the leaks were embarrassing for the administration, that she concurs with opinion that they did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy.

xxxxxxxxxxxx will testify that on29 July 2010, he directed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to lead a comprehensive review of the documents allegedly given to Wikileaks and to coordinate under the Information Review Task Force (IRTF, formerly TF 725) to conduct a complete damage review. He will testify that the damage review confirmed that the alleged leaks represented a low to at best moderate risk to national security. Specifically, that all of the information allegedly leaked was either dated, represented low-level opinions, or was already commonly understood and know due to previous public disclosures.

The Afghanistan and Iraq SIGACTs are simply ground-level field reports that document dated activities which do not disclose sensitive information or our sources and methods.

As the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx made improper comments on 21 April 2011, when he decided to comment on PFC Manning and his case. On that date, he responded to questions regarding PFC Manning's alleged actions by concluding that "'We're a nation of laws. We don't let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He [PFC Manning] broke the law." .... he supported and signed into law the Reducing Over-Classification Act on 7 October 2010. ... that the transparency memorandum he wrote committed the administration to "an unprecedented level of openness" and to the establishment of "a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration"

PFC Manning had conversations with xxxxxxxxx about relationship issues and the fact he was having gender identify issues. She will testify that PFC Manning spoke to her often about wanting to get an Honorable Discharge so that he could keep his Top Secret Clearance after his release from the Army. She will testify that she noticed that very few people would talk to PFC Manning. She will testify, that every time that she saw PFC Manning, he was by himself. She will testify that others would make fun of PFC
Manning's size and the fact that they believed he was gay.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx will testify that he believes that PFC Manning used to be a very happy and very hyper individual, but his leadership wore him down. .... he recalls an incident when PFC Manning found a report that apparently upset him. PFC Manning had found in the report that some Iraqis or possibly some Moroccans were being arrested at a printing press facility. xxxxxxxxxx will testify that attached to this report was some evidence which had been collected; however, this information was in Arabic. He will testify that PFC
Manning had taken the time to have the document translated and tried to show the translation to his superiors. He will testify that PFC Manning was very upset about the issue. He will testify that if there was a moment in which PFC Manning may have snapped, this would have been it. .. everyone stonewalled PFC Manning on the issue as no one thought it was a big deal .. the translation indicated that the individuals being arrested had printed documents that were questioning whether the Iraqi government was embezzling public funds.

xxxxxxxxxxx will testify that PFC Manning was a very good analyst, who was good with computers but timid and not good at public speaking. .. during ott. ,*nseling session in December of 2009, PFC Manning grabbed the table and flipped it. .. that PFC Manning did not approach him, but he was concerned when PFC Manning stepped towards the weapons rack... grabbed PFC Manning from behind and held him until he calmed down.

xxxxxxxxxxxx noted that PFC Manning was attending what looked like a gay pride parade. He will also testify that he knew PFC Manning was suffering from extreme emotional issues. During the deployment, he found PFC Manning curled in the fetal position in the Brigade conference room, rocking himself back and forth.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx assessed that PFC Manning was salvageable if he received and actively participated in extensive psychological therapy.

xxxxxxxxxxx will testify that he later learned that PFC Manning had not gone to mental health as required.

An incident in December of 2009 by PFC Manning that required xxxxxxxxxx
to physically involve himself in the situation in order to ensure PFC Manning did not try to harm himself or others. After this emotional outburst, he will testify that he spoke to and recommended that he take the bolt from PFC Manning's weapon, send him to mental health and then get him out of the Army. ... Nothing was done.

xxxxxxxxx will testify that she was aware of multiple issues with PFC
Manning, but stated that PFC Manning stayed in the T-SCIF because xxxxxxxxx said that we needed personnel. She will testify that she believed that there was a lack of leadership across the board.

Every time that xxxxxxxxx found unauthorized material on the SIPRNeI, he would delete it. Occasionally, he would find a Soldier that would have a huge amount of unauthorized material on their computer -in one instance it was 500 Gigabyes of information, but nothing was done. He will testify that as the IASO he did not know that he needed to prepare a DoD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP) packet for certification and accreditation of the brigade network. He will also testifr that due to this failure, it was later determined that the brigade did not have an Approval to Operate (ATO) or an Interim Approval to Operate (IATO) for their network.

xxxxxxxx will also testify that the comments in the press that say the release of the CIDNE database compromised our key sources and put the lives of sources at risk are inaccurate.

xxxxxxxx will testify that he believed PFC Manning was good at his job and he was also impressed with PFC Manning's computer skills.

Based on psychiatrist XXX interview of PFC Manning and review of his record, xxxxxxxx will testify that he determined PFC Manning was at risk to himself and others and recommended that he not have an operable weapon.

xxxxx will testify that she believed that PFC Manning felt like he had no one to talk to. She believes that PFC Manning was very intelligent and knew a lot about the World issues.

xxxxxxxxxxxx said "We will do whatever we want to do. You make a recommendation and then I have to make a decision based upon everything else." .. 'that then said, "Well then don't say it is based upon mental health. You can say it is Maximum Custody, and just don't put that we [behavioral health] are somehow involved in this."

January of 2011, the Security Battalion Commander in charge of the Quantico Brig, .. xxxxxxxxxxxx spoke with others at the Brig to see if they knew why the Brig was so heavy handed on PFC Manning. He will testify that others at the Brig told him that they have never seen anything like this before. xxxxxxxx will testify that others told him that they were afraid to speak out about the situation given the concern of what would happen as a result of any complaint about PFC Manning's treatment.

xxxxxxxxx will testify about his classification review of the three Apache gun videos that were sent to his Division by FORSCOM.

[h3rm35]

that is good news, particularly if the secretary that´s redacted shares a name w/ a previous president.

[h3rm35]

Believe it or not, PFC Bradley Manning's Article 32 pre-trial hearing starts this Friday.

Firedoglake writer Kevin Gosztola is en route to Ft. Meade, Maryland to cover this important hearing that will determine whether or not the government has sufficient cause to move forward with prosecuting Manning.

The government has leveled dozens of charges against Manning, including aiding the enemy - which carries the potential penalty of life in prison or even execution. Firedoglake has been working tirelessly to defend Manning's right to a fair trial and humane treatment for over a year now, and Kevin will be there to report on these critical proceedings.

You can catch our coverage of the Article 32 hearing beginning this Friday at http://dissenter.firedoglake.com.

To date, over 20,000 people have signed our petition demanding the government drop the 'aiding the enemy' charges against Bradley Manning.

But with less than a week before proceedings are set to begin, the government is already refusing to play fair by blocking 38 of the 48 witnesses requested by the defense. In fact, the 10 witnesses who were approved by the government are simply the same 10 witnesses the prosecution plans to call as part of their own cross-examination.

Incredibly, among the 38 witnesses blocked from the hearing are Army mental health specialists and military personnel in Manning's immediate chain of command - individuals with intimate knowledge of the facts leading up to his arrest whose testimony would be imperative to deciding whether or not the government has sufficient cause to move forward.

In addition, Manning's counsel wanted to explore whether there was undue influence on the military chain of command stemming from President Obama's comment at a fundraiser earlier this year that Bradley "broke the law" 7 months before he even had a date set for his hearing. The defense also wanted to hear from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the true sensitivity of the materials Manning is alleged to have leaked. Both requests were blocked by the government, but Manning's counsel may at least pursue a deposition from them instead.

Firedoglake has been and will continue to be at the forefront of the battle for Bradley Manning's rights.

We're anxious for Manning to finally have his day in court, and hope you will continue to work with us throughout.

Thanks for all you do,

Jane Hamsher
Founder & Publisher,
Firedoglake.com


(I removed the fundrasing requests from the email. According to FDL, the ¨good news¨ is being negated by the government... go figure... chances are, FDL and Glenn Greenwald will be the only people other than government spin doctors and the military publication Stars And Stripes (then again maybe ¨Wired¨, you never know...) to cover the hearing... If and once there is an actual trial, the msm will be all over it calling him a terrorist. Just wait and see...)

[h3rm35]

via email:

Quote:The railroading of Bradley Manning is getting out of control.

Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, the investigating officer in Manning's Article 32 hearing has recommended that Manning face a court-martial for all 23 charges of which he is accused. 1

The charges Almanza has recommended are absurdly disproportionate to the acts Manning is accused of committing — the most egregious being "aiding the enemy," a charge that carries a possible penalty of life imprisonment. This charge rests on the government's dubious claim that Manning knowingly provided intelligence to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, because he knew Wikileaks might publish the information on the internet.

Almanza's recommendation will now move up the chain of command, where Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington will ultimately decide if Manning should be court-martialed, and on what charges. Can you help us stop this snowballing, unfounded attempt to paint Manning as a traitor?

Call the Department of Defense right now, leave a message for Maj. Gen. Linnington asking him to drop the "aiding the enemy" charges against Bradley Manning.

Click here for a phone number and a sample script: http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/manning-call

Manning's supporters see Lt. Col. Almanza's recommendation as just another step in what is becoming a sham trial. Almanza himself served as a prosecutor for the Justice Department, which is also investigating Manning, but refused to recuse himself as investigating officer. Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, claims the DOJ wants to flip Manning and have him testify against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.2

Of the 48 witnesses requested by Manning, Almanza only allowed 12 to testify - 10 of which were also requested by the government. Coombs has requested oral depositions of the denied witnesses, who he says have the potential to show how baseless the "aiding the enemy" charge really is. The fact that they were denied testimony in the first place says a lot about the reasoning behind such a severe accusation.

This entire process has not only been insanely cruel, it is setting a dangerous precedent for how the government deals with whistleblowers. We must stand up to the overcharging of Bradley Manning. His life and the safety of all whistleblowers depend on it. Can you call the Department of Defense, and urge Maj. Gen. Linnington to use his power to stop the over-zealous prosecution of Bradley Manning?

Call the Department of Defense right now, leave a message for Maj. Gen. Linnington asking him to drop the "aiding the enemy" charges against Bradley Manning.

Click here for a phone number and a sample script: http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/manning-call

No matter the Army's decision, Firedoglake will continue to report on this case and organize actions in pursuit of a fair trial and, ultimately, justice for Bradley Manning.

In solidarity,

Brian Sonenstein
Director of Online Activism,
Firedoglake.com

...

1. All Charges Against Bradley Manning Referred to Court Martial, Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 1/12/2011.

2. Manning Defense Files Motion Requesting Article 32 Officer Recuse Himself, Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 12/16/2011.

[h3rm35]

MILITARY JUSTICE: The Bradley Manning "Article 32 Hearing"

By Philip Fornaci and Susan Alfano

Global Research, January 28, 2012



Last month, at the massive Fort Meade army installation, Private First Class Bradley Manning, who grew in Crescent, OK, finally had his “day in court” – actually, seven days of a military “Article 32 hearing.”

The outcome of those hearings is that Manning will stand trial for “aiding the enemy,” among other charges, which could put him in prison for the rest of his life, and possibly result in a death sentence.

Any resemblance to actual justice or due process in Manning’s Article 32 hearing was purely coincidental.

As most of the world now knows, Manning has been accused of making thousands of allegedly “secret” military videos, diplomatic cables, and other documents available to the media outlet, Wikileaks.

Before any evidence had even been presented to a court, Manning had already been punished beyond the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. He’d been subjected to months of torturous conditions of confinement, including sleep deprivation, complete isolation from human contact and forced nudity, before being transferred to reportedly more humane conditions in the wake of global outrage.

The evidence we saw presented at the Article 32 hearing does not justify keeping Private Manning in custody, much less continuing these proceedings for a formal trial.

The Article 32 hearing is roughly analogous to a “probable cause hearing” afforded to criminal defendants in civilian courts, but with significant differences. It is actually an “investigative process,” where the government is permitted to unveil its purported evidence in the presence of an Investigative Officer [IO], rather than a judge.

Motions to suppress potentially illegally-seized and questionable evidence were not heard [unlike civilian cases], essentially allowing the government to present its version of the case against Manning undeterred by due process considerations.

The most serious charge against Manning is violation of Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, “Aiding the Enemy,” claiming that Manning did “knowingly give intelligence to the enemy, through indirect means.”

The identity of the “enemy” was revealed on the last day of the hearing to be “Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and ‘classified’ enemies.”

Although there are allegations that Manning made secret documents available to Wikileaks, no one claims that he had any contact whatsoever with the shadowy “Al Qaeda” bogeymen.

His alleged crime is merely that he made information that is embarrassing to the U.S. government available to anyone with Internet access, including the American people and its enemies.

For this very questionable “crime,” the best the government has been able to produce is circumstantial evidence, secured via an array of seemingly illegal tactics, including the use of a highly dubious government informant, presented before an investigating officer with blatant conflicts of interest.

The IO presiding over the Article 32, and the man who recommended a full trial for Manning, is Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, a civilian reservist and senior prosecutor in the Department of Justice [DOJ].

Citing the obvious conflict of interest in light of the DOJ’s ongoing investigation of Manning and Wikileaks, and Almanza’s pre-hearing decisions to exclude nearly all defense witnesses, Manning’s attorney, Daniel Coombs, made an impassioned motion for his recusal. Almanza refused the invitation to step down.

Almanza also refused to allow the defense access to the evidence in the prosecution’s possession, including evidence that could exonerate Manning, despite longstanding Constitutional requirements to do so.
The testimony actually provided during the Article 32 hearings suggests more a house of cards built by the government, rather than a convincing display of any credible evidence that any harm was done, that any of the warrants utilized were valid and that evidence was handled properly, or that the information relied upon is credible.

Some glaring problems with the government’s case include:

Special Agent Alfred Williamson testified that he forensically examined Manning’s computer account and that it was last accessed on May 28, 2010. Manning was in custody on May 27, 2010.
Adrian Lamo – the government informant who provided information about online chats he allegedly had with Manning, leading to the original arrest warrant – is a convicted felon with a history of drug abuse and mental illness. Lamo had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital on May 7, 2010, just weeks before he became the lynchpin for the government in this case, contacting military officials after chatting just one day online with someone named “BradAss87.” In perhaps his most egregious act, Lamo told “BradAss87” that he was a journalist and a minister, assuring his new friend that their discussions would remain private, and that he could treat their conversation as a confession, coaxing further discussion.
The investigator who obtained the original search warrant for Manning’s belongings in Iraq admitted that she secured the warrant based on information from a “confidential informant” [Lamo] and from Stars and Stripes magazine. Riddled with inaccuracies and unfounded assumptions, this investigator also stated that Manning had been accessing secret government files for a year, when he had only been in Iraq for six months.
Several witnesses testified that the computers associated with Manning and the alleged leaks were not password-protected, and were accessible by many other soldiers, and therefore computer activity could not be definitively linked to anyone. One of the machines used to implicate Manning was in fact a computer he did not commonly use.
Without a warrant, the military took possession of various computer files stored on various devices found in Manning’s aunt’s home, months after Manning’s arrest. These computer files became the key evidence against Manning, yet for months they allegedly lay scattered in the basement of his aunt’s home. At this point, Manning had already been subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement.

The stakes in the Manning affair are enormous for all Americans. Even if found guilty of releasing information, there is no evidence that any of the information allegedly sent to Wikileaks affected the national security of the United States.

To the contrary, the Wikileaks information has been credited with significant roles in, among other successes, the Tunisian revolution and the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

Yet it is far from clear that Manning even released the information, and it is increasingly evident that there is no way to definitively prove that he did. Meanwhile, this young soldier has been subjected to unspeakable torture at the hands of the military, serving as a reminder to all Americans of what will happen if you decide to speak the truth, or are merely accused of doing so.

Manning should be freed immediately.

The authors are Washington attorneys with experience in civilian criminal prosecution and prisoner's rights issues, but little exposure to the military justice system. They sat through much of Manning’s Article 32 hearing and filed this report for The Observer.