John Pilger warned that Julian Assange and Wikileaks would be smeared

[Catherina]

Back in August, Pilger warned Assange.

John Pilger warned that Julian Assange and Wikileaks would be smeared

Sunday, 22 August 2010
by Luna17

There's a very good John Pilger article in this week's New Statesman, praising Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Pilger perceptively, perhaps even presciently, noted the US authorities' determination to discredit Assange:

'There is understandably hysteria on high, with demands that the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, be "hunted down" and "rendered".

In Washington, I interviewed a senior official in the defence department and asked: "Can you give a guarantee that the editors of WikiLeaks and the editor-in-chief, who is not American, will not be subjected to the kind of manhunt that we read about in the media?" He replied: "It's not my position to give guarantees on anything."
He referred me to the "ongoing criminal investigation" of a US soldier, Bradley Manning, an alleged whistleblower. In a nation that claims its constitution protects truth-tellers, the Obama administration is pursuing and prosecuting more whistleblowers than any of its modern predecessors. A Pentagon document states bluntly that US intelligence intends to "fatally marginalise" WikiLeaks. The preferred tactic is smear, with corporate journalists ever ready to play their part.'

...

http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/blogs/66-luna17-activist/6344-john-pilger-warned-that-julian-assange-and-wikileaks-would-be-smeared

Pilger's article continues

The Pentagon line

On 31 July, the American celebrity reporter Christiane Amanpour interviewed the US secretary of defence, Robert Gates, on the ABC network. She invited him to describe to her viewers his "anger" at WikiLeaks. She echoed the Pentagon line that "this leak has blood on its hands", cueing Gates to find WikiLeaks "guilty" of "moral culpability". Such hypocrisy coming from a regime drenched in the blood of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq - as its own files make clear - is apparently not for journalistic inquiry. This is hardly surprising now that a new and fearless form of public accountability, which WikiLeaks represents, threatens not only the warmakers but also their apologists.

Their current propaganda is that WikiLeaks is "irresponsible". Earlier this year, before it released the cockpit video of a US Apache gunship killing 19 civilians in Iraq, including journalists and children, WikiLeaks sent people to Baghdad to find the victims' families in order to prepare them. Before the release of last month's Afghanistan war logs, WikiLeaks wrote to the White House asking that it identify Afghan names that might draw reprisals. There was no reply. More than 15,000 files were withheld and these, Assange says, will not be released until they have been scrutinised "line by line" so that the names of those at risk can be deleted.

...

http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/08/pilger-wikileaks-afghanistan

[EFerrari]

1. Invisible rec. I was just sorting through some of this.

Assange is in Pilger's new film, "The War You Don't See", soon to be released.

[Catherina]

2. New Pilger film? Will it be online?

I'm going to go check it out now. Thanks friend.

[EFerrari]

6. The trailer is up now. I imagine it will go up on his site sooner

than later.
http://www.johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-you-dont-see-trailer

[truedelphi]

26. Good to know. It is eagerly anticipated in

My household

(And BTW I am not stalking you.)

[pnwmom]

3. Our constitution protects the Press, not self-proclaimed leakers,

like Bradley Manning.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/funny+little+accused+leaking+documents/3915957/story.html

snip

He was granted a security clearance and trained as an intelligence agency at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., before being assigned to the Second Brigade 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. He shipped out to Baghdad as a computer specialist in October 2009.

Iraq quickly turned out to be a disappointment: Pvt. Manning was a poor soldier who was reprimanded twice, including once for assaulting an officer.

"Bradley Manning is beyond frustrated with people and society at large," he said in a Facebook posting on May 5, 2010.

The next day, he posted, "Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment."

Disaffected soldiers are common, but in the wake of 9/11, Pvt. Manning had access to some of the most secret information on the planet. Information-sharing between the U.S. intelligence services was opened up, making huge caches of documents available to those with minimal security clearance.

snip

[Catherina]

5. Will you please quit with your contention that the US constitution applies to the whole world?

For your information, this article is about Julian Assange. Try to stick to the topic please and not derail this thread.

[pnwmom]

13. I was responding to this quote in the article, which is about Manning,

not Assange.

"He referred me to the "ongoing criminal investigation" of a US soldier, Bradley Manning, an alleged whistleblower. In a nation that claims its constitution protects truth-tellers. . . "

Nothing in our Constitution protects servicemen-turned-leakers like Manning.

[RufusTFirefly]

16. Above all, remember that this is entirely about Julian Assange,...

.. not about the appalling revelations that come from his whistle-blowing.

Those, after all, are old news.

Focus on the celebrity, not on the content or context.

:sarcasm:

[Ken Burch]

7. You're quoting from the most reactionary newspaper in Canada

To attack people who's only real crime is to try to challenge the arrogance of the National Security State?

It's not like that power structure is ever on the side of ordinary folks like us.

The secrecy freaks don't care how many of us die.

[pnwmom]

14. So? Manning's Facebook quotes are a matter of record.

So is his military history.

[Ken Burch]

17. Your whole right-wing position on this has been deeply disturbing.

How can you defend Henry Kissinger's way of dealing with the world? That's what secrecy is always about. It can't be progressive or lead to peace.

If a government is hiding something from us, it's almost always something we need to know.

[pnwmom]

20. self-delete (dupe)

[pnwmom]

21. I'm not a right-winger. I'm also not an anarchist or

a Libertarian (i.e., an anarchist with capital to protect.) So I don't support what Manning did or what Assange is trying to do.

[Ken Burch]

22. You trust the people who don't care how many wars they get us into.

Why?

Secrecy never protects the people.

[pnwmom]

24. Not necessarily. I supported Ellsberg, but unlike Ellsberg

I don't support Wikileaks' wholesale, indiscriminate release of hundreds of thousands of documents for the nebulous purpose of "transparency."

Sometimes secrecy is needed for diplomacy -- can anyone really be so naive as to not understand that?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034276,00.html

SNIP

The repercussions of the WikiDump are only beginning to play out. In Korea, the nuclear-armed regime of Kim Jong Il learned that its longtime protector, China, may be turning on it and is willing to contemplate unification of the peninsula under the leadership of the South Korean government in Seoul. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discovered through the leak that while his Arab neighbors were publicly making nice, privately they were pleading with the U.S. to launch an attack against Tehran's nuclear program. Whether that revelation weakens Iran's bargaining position or whether it will encourage Iran's leaders to hunker down and be even less cooperative in negotiations remains to be seen. What is plain is that in Iran and elsewhere, the WikiLeaks revelations could change history.

SNIP

[EFerrari]

8. We really don't need right wing slop here. n/t

[Hawkeye-X]

19. Just press the Alert button

and select off-topic discussion that potentionally derails thoughtful discussion.

[pnwmom]

23. What is off-topic about responding to a quote in the OP?

"He referred me to the "ongoing criminal investigation" of a US soldier, Bradley Manning, an alleged whistleblower. In a nation that claims its constitution protects truth-tellers. . . "

Our Constitution protects the Press, not -- if his own claims are true -- leakers like Manning.

[truedelphi]

4. Wow. What a fascinating post.

A lot to think about.

The Powers that Be have spent four decades attempting to have fairly total control over the press. Embedding the troops, and making sure that no one stands in the way of the WH, Big Business revolving door.

Example of the latter: BP says Nothing is Wrong. And no reporters on the beaches, or they will face fines and imprisonment.

The WH: BP needs to be listened to, as there is a sentence inside pertinent law that stipulates that the Offending Company needs to be responsible for any cleanup. And we take that to mean, BP must supervise the cleanup. (Were any palms greased on that one? Of course it doesn't matter if they were - Corporations have the right to pay infinite sums of money to whatever campaign fund they wish to. And that's not bribery - that's free speech!)

[Catherina]

9. Just found more thanks to EFerrari Interview Pilger, The War You Don't See

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5mESfAQujY

It's about Assange and the latest Wikileaks

[EFerrari]

12. Holy moly, John Pilger is on the move in support of Wikileaks!

The interviewer tried to twist him up and he didn't let her, either.

Love Pilger. He has a lot of sand.

[Catherina]

18. I love that he calls on Australians to defend Julian Assange. The whole world needs to.

I'm on his website now. Good stuff.

[EFerrari]

10. Can't dig on our own beaches, can't read Wikileaks.

What's next?

[malaise]

11. Super post

K &R

[kgnu_fan]

15. Kick with happiness

[EFerrari]

25. .