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Responses to Wikileaks by Israel Shamir and other things, August 23, 2010.

 

From Ian Buckley

 

This item would seem to confirm Mr. Assange's credentials:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/21/julian-assange-wikileaks-arrest-warrant-sweden

 

Unless it's a double bluff...;-)

 

From Come Carpentier:

 

Well said, Israel. I expressed similar views in my own comments to Engdahl's critical review of Wikileaks.

From Frank Scott

 

Thank you Israel for providing the most sensible, critical  and even handed analysis yet available of the wikileaks story. But  the conspiratorial mindset will not accept anything that does not fit within the parameters of non-systemic machinations of individuals, groups or cults - the illuminati, elders of zion, or much closer to reality bilderbergs or spy networks - which operate in a  social vacuum unconnected to political economics but act as extensions of identity group politics - the kind of system supporting divisions we deal with when  placed in ethnic-religious-sexual-racial-tribal categories that invite continued rule by wealthy minorities who might as well be divine-satanic-ethereal entities for all the substantial opposition they will ever get from such divided forces...

 western invented and inspired dualism - which must be overcome if we are ever to become a human race - has a sort of good side in that  so many are so disgusted with the rulers of the world that they believe almost nothing those rulers tell them...of course the bad side is that they often run helter skelter after any concept-story-idea-fable that fits the story of evil rulers hell bent on destroying the world...

but a division between bad and not quite as bad is too close to what passes for democracy, when people vote for lesser evil...we still end up with bad, or evil...that's the horror of dualism and the problem we must solve by ridding ourselves of the west's philosophic banishment of anything existing between extremes...we are supposedly stuck with one or the other, and we will remain so as long as we continue acting out individualist behaviors and denying social realities...

fs

 

From Joe Quinn, editor sott.net

 

Dear Israel,

you title your last missive "Wikileaks - The Real Stuff", yet you fail to point to anything "real" or valuable in the Wikileaks documents. Can you point to any detail, either within the documents or within those documents that have been published by the mainstream media that was not already publicly available? Alternatively, can you point to some evidence that the release of the documents has in some way effected a sea-change in the general public opinion of the US misadventure in Afghanistan? I ask this because, such is the hype surrounding the release of the documents, I think we are all justified in expecting 'big things' as a result.

I don't doubt that the coverage of the Wikileaks documents by the mainstream media gives extra weight to the long-established truth (as purveyed most notably by the alternative news sites) that civilians are being murdered in Afghanistan, but the precise number of dead is all important, as is where to lay the blame.

The UK Guardian newspaper has taken the lead in the dissemination of the Wikileaks documents.  I would like you to look at this article, if you have not already done so. It is the main story that appeared in the Guardian announcing the documents.

And consider the bullet-pointed summation at the beginning:

• Hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops
• Covert unit hunts leaders for 'kill or capture'
• Steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on NATO

Were you shocked Israel? "Hundreds" killed by coalition troops! The true figure is over 30,000 Afghan civilians killed as a result of the US invasion.

How many average US or European citizens do you think will be shocked by the claim that a "covert unit hunts" those evil Tailban leaders? Is this meant to be a shocking exposé?

And what are we to make of the "steep rise in Taliban attacks on NATO"?  Is this meant to elicit a "poor NATO" response from readers?

But I admit, some people are strong-willed, and read further than the bullet points of an article, and at least get to the end of the first paragraph where, in the case of the Guardian exposé, the public is treated to a further data point:

"NATO commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency."

Do you find that interesting Israel? Suspicious even? Is it possible that a reasonable person could make a tenuous link between the hint that Iran is involved in the increased attacks on US troops in Afghanistan and the incessant sabre-rattling from both the US and Israel over a threatened attack on Iran?

But we could read on a little further and learn that:

"the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date."

So we see that the 'Taliban" are to blame for the lion's share of civilian deaths, while "coalition forces", we are told, are responsible for "at least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded, in total"

At least we understand who the real murderers in Afghanistan are.

On the Guardian's interactive war-logs page, we are treated to a cornucopia of videos and flash pages, all very pleasing to eye but none providing any more substance than that written in black and white print. The emphasis on Iran and Pakistan as the real problem is hard to miss. In an editorial entitled:  Afghanistan war logs: the unvarnished picture

we are informed that:

"In these documents, Iran's and Pakistan's intelligence agencies run riot. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is linked to some of the war's most notorious commanders. The ISI is alleged to have sent 1,000 motorbikes to the warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani for suicide attacks in Khost and Logar provinces"

Are you getting the picture yet Israel?

Under "latest news" in the 'War logs' section, the Guardian reports what you mention in your defence of wikileaks, that, Reporters Without Borders has accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of 'incredible irresponsibility' over the leaked documents.

The accusation is inane and baseless, as you note, but I am more interested in how this attack on Assange (and indirectly on the Guardian for publishing the documents), serves to convince an increasingly disgruntled public that these documents, and the Guardian's analysis of them, are the 'real deal'. I have sifted through the 92,000 documents, and based on the details therein, I agree with the Guardian's analysis of their overall message - Iran and Pakistan and the Taliban are evil and responsible for most of the deaths in Afghanistan. For sure, US troops are trigger happy at times, but who can blame them? War is hell after all!

Do you agree with this assessment of the causes of the problems facing Afghanistan and the Afghan people today? More importantly, is the general public now more convinced that this perspective is the real one because it comes from alleged 'secret documents'?

I am not convinced that we are dealing with some grand conspiracy to deceive the public that includes Wikileaks, Reporters without borders, the CIA, the White House, the Pentagon and the Guardian etc. because it is not necessary. If we simply take the US national security state apparatus, the US military command structure, the illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign S.E. Asian state, throw in some for-profit newspapers and a well-meaning, somewhat naive and impressionable 29-year old hacker, and a public starving for something real but who must be kept on a diet of half-truths and hollow hopes, we have all the ingredients we need for a controversial issue. The result can look like a conspiracy, when in fact it is just another day's news in the 'mixtus orbis' that is 2010 planet earth - that is to say, the unfiltered Truth is seldom seen, and increasingly, in these increasingly desperate times, when it does chance to poke its head above the parapet, it very often treads on the toes of those emotionally invested in the idea that there can be any real positive change in our world without the conscious, active participation of all, or at least a majority.

You also seem to believe that Osama bin laden really was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Is this the case?

Regards

Joe Quinn
Editor
http://www.Sott.net

 

Shamir replies: Dear Joe, probably we’ll have to work hard to achieve ‘sea-change’ you and I wish to have. Wikileaks is just one of the tools, not a magic wand. Did they deliver some impressive news? Yes. The US pays in cash to Iraqi and Afghani media for positive coverage. For journalists this is important news. They released hundreds of names of the US agents. The hit squad is not to be pooh-poohed, either. It was never published in the US, only in the UK and Germany. Wikileaks Afghan stuff is raw data, it has to be processed to become acceptable. The bias, as I’ve said, is that of newspapers that process, but you can also process the stuff if you are willing. Julian Assange is definitely not 29-year old somewhat naïve hacker – he is 39 and quite astute. And your question about Osama, I presume is facile – my view was expressed on September 12, 2001 in the piece called Orient Express http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Orient_Express.htm

 

From Syed Zaidi

 

On receiving this piece <Wilileaks Defence by Israel Shamir>, I wrote to Gordon Duff, asking him to respond to the challenge from Shamir.  His reply is given below.  To get a measure of Duff's expertise on Afghanistan, and of the sources he draws on, please see his article from March, at   http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/13/gordon-duff-afghanistan-and-america-our-dysfunctional-approach/


 

From Gordon Duff

 

Shamir,

 

I was trying to be as honest as possible.  I have no absolute proof that Israel is paying the bills for Assange.  However, there is more than reasonable evidence that the articles released were carefully gleened.

 

Most of the docs were not military but from private contractors.  The primary private contractors are BW/Xe and Dyncorp.  Most of the intel reports come from BW/Xe.  I have the misfortune of living, for many years, in the small town as Eric Prinz and the real controller at BW, Richard DeVos of the Amway cult.  These are the primary American financiers of both the neo-con political movement and Christian Zionism.

 

DeVos is the largest contributor to the Republican Party, a former gubernatorial candidate and someone I lived next door to for 15 years.

 

Intelligence operations were "outsourced" to control output. 

 

As a military contractor, I have direct personal access to, not only the BW intel personnel but all intel personnel that return from the region.  I am also part of the Afghanistan "working group" and primary author of the Pentagon's "White Paper" on Afghanistan.

 

An honest assessment of raw intel output from Afghanistan would have had these things:

 

  1. Corruption related to Karzai supporters covers most of the documents, hundreds of thousands of pages....not one was leaked

  2. Extensive secret operations in Baluchistan, involving the drug trade, Jindallah and including Israeli, British and Indian intelligence is second.  Not one page was released.

  3. Money laundering operations, involving American and Pakistani government officials and the entire Likud party were omitted.  This is hot stuff....and very well documented...and very classified. 

  4. The influence of former Communists in Afghanistan was not mentioned, something now seen as a threat and something that is covered in thousands of pages of intel reports.

  5. I have seen the intel reports on the Indian "consulates" that indicate that 200 terrorist trainers are operating in Afghanistan.  The ISI reports say 2000.  Not one word is mentioned on this.

  6. Of a higher level of classification, many USAID employees are suspected of involvement in drug trade.  Camp Campbell, where the "CIA attack" occurred was totally misrepresented.  None of that intel made it out either.

  7.  

It must have taken weeks to clean all real intel out of the WikiLeaks.  I know how many man hours the ISI put into reviewing the documents.  If you have not read the analysis by BG Asif Haroon Raja, I suggest you do so.

 

It is reality based.

 

I leak enough crap, real stuff.  Anymore and I am going to be shut down.  I walk a very fine line here.  The idea is to help, not harm.  You might want to ask someone in Israel what they did with the 2 billion dollar SBLC that Senator's McCain and Lieberman took to Tel Aviv from Islamabad a few months ago.

 

This was a negotiable instrument physically carried in violation of UN money laundering restrictions.  The SWIFT system could not be used.

 

Think about what it takes to move $65 billion around and how it seems to leave no trail.

 

We could go further, with discussions of how many people held in prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven to be other than identified or how many died in custody.

 

We could talk about narcotics on rendition flights. 

 

I suggest you not blame Engdahl.  His article was simply based on mine.  Mine was based on reality.  My audience, to a large extent, is Pentagon based and people in the intelligence community.  I am hoping to embarrass them. 

 

Reaching the public seems to be a waste of time.  Bibi reminds us how unreliable they are.

 

More on

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/21/gordon-duff-wikileaks-a-circus-with-no-elephants/

 

Shamir replied: Dear Gordon, how about real-time experiment? You upload to Wikileaks secure server the real stuff you do not feel you can use under your own name; tell me you did; if it would not appear I’ll ask Mr Assange why it did not appear. Fair?

 

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