Dec 06 2010

Ann Wright: WikiLeaks and Accountability

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Mary Ann Wright is a former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. (wikipedia)

“We were told as diplomats, ‘Don’t ever put anything in a cable you wouldn’t want on the front page of a newspaper.’ It shows that they’re a lot of arrogant people, that the system itself wasn’t checking itself,” says Wright of the latest documents released from WikiLeaks.  Meanwhile, several of the diplomatic cables released depict possibly illegal actions by the U.S. government, and Wright notes that the chances of anyone being held accountable are slim.

Ann Wright joined Laura Flanders of GritTV to discuss the latest releases from WikiLeaks, what they tell us about the U.S. Government and Defense and State departments, and what should happen, but probably won’t, to the people implicated therein.


GritTV.org

Although WikiLeaks has had problems since the latest release with hacking, denial of service attacks, web hosts closing their sites down, and domain name registrars pulling their domain name, you can always get to their site by navigating to any of the WikiLeaks mirror sites listed at wikileaks.info:  

Important Wikileaks Links

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    • Edger on December 6, 2010 at 16:20
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  2. If WikiLeaks had been around in 2001, could the events of 9/11 have been prevented? The idea is worth considering.

    This appeared as an op-ed in the LATimeson October 15, 2010 co-written with Bogdan Dzakovic.

    Rowley was the FBI agent who blew the whistle on the FBI’s refusal to take seriously agents’ warnings that something big was about to happen before 9/11.  Rowley and Dzakovic conclude:

    WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors’ seeming indifference. They were indeed stuck in a perplexing, no-win ethical dilemma as time ticked away. Their bosses issued continual warnings against “talking to the media” and frowned on whistle-blowing, yet the agents felt a strong need to protect the public.

    I’ll go a step further and state that something like Wikileaks could have prevented Shock & Awe, the million plus deaths (murders), the gazillion maimings, the needless suffering, and the destruction of the “Code of Hammurabi”.  The Code of Hammurabi is (was) the first code of laws known, written in cuneiform on stone tablets, they were housed in the Baghdad Museum — which we bombed.

    Since our government takes us to wars based on lies, Wikileaks becomes the necessary antidote to our continued bombing of law.

  3. I’m simply going to post some later information, as an addendum to the various “Wikileaks” diaries in session!

    How does this article hit you?  Does this strike anyone as a “dragnet” in progress?  

    WikiLeaks reveals sites critical to US security

    By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Sharon Theimer, Associated Press – 1 hr 29 mins ago

    WASHINGTON – In a disclosure of some of the most sensitive information revealed yet by WikiLeaks, the website has released a secret cable listing sites worldwide that the U.S. considers critical to its national security.

    The locations cited in the diplomatic cable from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton range from undersea communications lines to suppliers of food, medicine and manufacturing materials.

    The Pentagon declined to comment Monday on the details of what it called “stolen” documents containing classified information. But a spokesman, Col. David Lapan, called the disclosure “damaging” and said it gives valuable information to the country’s adversaries.

    “This is one of many reasons why we believe Wikileaks’ actions are irresponsible and dangerous,” Lapan said. . . .

    Why Is the Government Waging a Doomed (and Illegal) War Against WikiLeaks?

    By Kevin Drum | Mother Jones

    Posted on Monday, December 6, 2010 @ 11:40 AM

    Clay Shirky is conflicted about WikiLeaks: he acknowledges that over the long haul human organizations of all kinds require a certain amount of secrecy, but he also thinks that the appearance of a guy like Julian Assange working to subvert a bureaucracy overly addicted to secrecy is occasionally a good thing. “The periodic appearance of such unconstrained actors in the short haul is essential to increased democratization, not just of politics but of thought.”

    But he’s not conflicted about how the United States ought to respond. If we pass a law criminalizing what WikiLeaks does, that’s one thing – even if he doesn’t like the law. But ignoring the law is quite another: . . . . .

    From Assange!  Let us hope and pray . . . . . !

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ‘will release poison pill of damaging secrets if killed or arrested’–Damaging documents thought to include details on BP, Guantanamo Bay

    06 Dec 2010

    The founder of WikiLeaks has warned that his supporters are primed to publish a ‘deluge’ of leaked government documents should his activities be curtailed by any country. Julian Assange has distributed to fellow hackers an encrypted ‘poison pill’ of damaging secrets, thought to include details on BP and Guantanamo Bay. He believes the file is his ‘insurance’ in case he is killed, arrested or the whistleblowing website is removed permanently from the internet . . . . .

    What the CIA . . . . then the light?

    Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group

    By Kirk James Murphy, M.D.

    04 Dec 2010

    [As reported by Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett in Counterpunch in September], Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he [Luis Posada Carilles] was involved in blowing up… Who is Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden? She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University — who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer.  She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana — whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras. . . . .

    This is . . . .  ?

    Lebanese Newspaper Publishes U.S. Cables Not Found on WikiLeaks

    03 Dec 2010

    Nearly 200 previously unreported U.S. diplomatic cables were posted on Thursday to the website of Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar. The cables, from eight U.S. embassies across the Middle East and North Africa, have not appeared on Wikileaks’ official website or in the Western media outlets working with Wikileaks….

    A series from Beirut in 2008 shows Lebanese Defense Minister Elias al-Murr telling U.S. diplomats, in a message he implied they should pass on to Israeli officials, that the Lebanese military would not resist an Israeli invasion so long as the Israeli forces abided by certain conditions. Murr, apparently hoping that an Israeli invasion would destroy much of the Hezbollah insurgency and the communities in Lebanon’s south that support it, promised an Israeli invasion would go unchallenged as long as it did not pass certain physical boundaries and did not bomb Christian communities. . . . .

    Curiouser and curiouser!  

    BRAVO, Julian Assange, for digging into a rotten can of worms!!!  Stay safe!!!!

  4. Wikileaks is currently mirrored on 507 sites (updated 2010-12-06 14:02 GMT)

    • RiaD on December 7, 2010 at 00:02
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    of wikileaks founder

    http://www.canada.com/news/Swi…

    GENEVA – The net tightened around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Monday as Swiss authorities shut a bank account and a report said British police received an international arrest warrant issued by Sweden.

    It comes as the whistle-blowing website unveiled a secret U.S. list of key infrastructure sites around the world that could be targetted by terrorists, ranging from undersea cables to the manufacturer of smallpox vaccine.

    The Swiss Post Office’s banking arm said it had closed an account set up by the embattled Australian after he gave false information.

  6. Check this out (note grammatical error in title)!

    Assange’s may surrender to British police

    By SYLVIA HUI and JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Sylvia Hui And John Heilprin, Associated Press

    12 mins ago

    LONDON – Julian Assange’s lawyer was arranging to deliver the WikiLeaks founder to British police for questioning in a sex-crimes investigation of the man who has angered Washington by spilling thousands of government secrets on the Internet.

    Lawyer Mark Stephens told reporters in London that the Metropolitan Police had called him to say they had received an arrest warrant from Sweden for Assange. Assange has been staying at an undisclosed location in Britain.

    “We are in the process of making arrangements to meet with police by consent,” Stephens said Monday, declining to say when Assange’s interview with police would take place. . . .

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