A Response to 'Some Reasons Why Wikileaks isn't a “CIA/NOW/Zionist/Pro-War Propaganda Operation”

I saw this article

“Some Reasons Why Wikileaks Isn’t a “CIA/NOW/Zionist/Pro-War
Propaganda Operation”

on the net, and the author did something that many of the pro-Wikileaks
people on Twitter don't do. this author attempted to explain why he thought
that the Wikileaks was genuine, and why arguements like mine and others which
claim that Wikileaks is a CIA, or Mossad or psyops operation is wrong.

My reasons for why his arguements are faulty are below. I address each of
his main points.


http://stream.adamdodson.org/items/view/3819

“Some Reasons Why Wikileaks Isn’t a “CIA/NOW/Zionist/Pro-War Propaganda Operation”

ENEMY OF THE STATE

Leaking is inherently an anti-authoritarian act.
It is inherently an anarchist act.” - Julian Assange

Conspiracies are real and all governments conspire. The act of collaborative communication and planning in secret is a necessary condition for the very
existence of governments. And it's generally reasonable to be concerned
about such conspiracies when living under the rule of a government. That
said, it's vanishingly unlikely that Wikileaks is part of a government
conspiracy. If the State's aim were to spread propagandistic justification
for more war -- and certainly that is its aim -- then using Wikileaks would
be the most ineffective and counter-productive way to do it. Here are some
reasons why.

By Anok Black

First, using a venue that is deeply critical of the US government would
damage the government's credibility more so than it would justify the
government's desired war. Put another way: the costs associated with
using Wikileaks (i.e. delegitimizing yourself in general) vastly outweigh
the benefits (i.e. building support for your next war). So it would be
positively irrational to use Wikileaks in this manner, were you an operative
of the State considering how to best spread propaganda. (This reasoning
applies to the Wikileaks-as-Zionist claim as well. The US government is
committed to defending and funding the Israeli government, so that if the
latter used Wikileaks for propaganda purposes, it would defeat its own
interests insofar as the US government is delegitimized.)

Consider, for instance, all the people receiving the "pro-war justifications"
from the leaks; these people would also be visiting Wikileaks's website and
seeing the Collateral Murder video and all the Iraq war logs inter alia,
material which demonstrates the State's lies and murders in plain view.
To have millions of people viewing this material alongside your implicit
pro-war propaganda would defeat your purpose. The last thing you would want
to do, if you were the State or the CIA or some other shadowy organization,
is work through, and call attention to, Wikileaks, as a way of manipulating
the masses in your favor.

Indeed this is why we find the feds trying their best to prevent active duty soldiers from visiting Wikileaks (http://is.gd/id2xV) -- they likely realize
that the material discredits the US government and its wars, if anything,
despite any concomitant pro-war justifications that could be extracted and appropriately spun. On the hypothesis that Wikileaks is being used to justify
war, the feds' behavior is completely inexplicable. On that hypothesis we
would expect them not to hinder the troops' access to Wikileaks.

Second, such a conspiracy just wouldn't succeed anyway. It would be
ineffective. Why? Because it's a safe bet that the average supporter of
Wikileaks has some broadly anti-establishment or anti-war inclinations in
first place. None of us, I take it, are so dogmatically committed to
Wikileaks that we would believe anything a particular leak says up to the
point of supporting a war. Wikileaks supporters would probably leave by
the droves if Assange (or one of the leaks) were to start spreading
justifications for wars (even if done very subtly). To use Wikileaks as
a means to spread propaganda would be to assume that its supporters aren't discerning enough to detect such propaganda. A foolish assumption.

Third, there's a great deal of empirical evidence that suggests Assange
is an anti-authoritarian at heart, a genuine contrarian, rather than a
"CIA asset". For starters, there are still archives of his personal blog
dating back to 2006: http://web.archive.org/web/20061021194534/http://iq.org/.
There are also his personal essays on government conspiracy: http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf. The ideas expressed in these essays and blog
entries are the last thing a "CIA asset" would want to promulgate. Of
course, there's always the possibility that Assange could be a highly
skilled CIA asset, such that these "personal" writings are all a clever
tactic to gain the trust of other anti-authoritarians.

But (and this is the fourth reason): Wikileaks is not Julian Assange.
Wikileaks involves the collective efforts of hundreds of anonymous hackers
and journalists, so that it would be nearly impossible to hijack it for the
purpose of spreading pro-state or pro-war propaganda. Even if your shadowy organization managed to sneak in some propaganda via an "artificial leak",
it would be dwarfed by the thousands of other leaks exposing government
corruption, murder, and lies -- owing to the decentralized nature of whistle blowing. So why Julian Assange? Well, in its infancy, Wikileaks received a
lot of criticism for not having a more "public" identity. Julian Assange
simply filled this need. Not to mention, he's insanely smart. He's exactly
the sort of guy you would want representing your organization. He's the
surface image. He's the one responsible for receiving a lot of undue credit
-- and a lot of undue criticism, for that matter -- in exchange for the organization's innerworkings being kept relatively unscathed and out of
sight.

The wikileaks-as-stealthy-pro-war-propaganda idea is problematic for those
reasons. The more plausible explanation is that, well, the Iranian and
Pakistani governments and all the others mentioned in the leaks really are
corrupt and bent on destruction. From the fact that the US government would
like to go to war with these governments, it does not follow that these
governments aren't evil. And it certainly does not follow that we should
support these governments since we happen to share an enemy with them (namely,
the US government). An enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend.
They are governments, after all; they are all corrupt, and they all have
blood on their hands. So we shouldn't be shocked to see their corruption
surfacing in the leaks.

So, if a leak happens to expose the corruption of a foreign government,
it's unreasonable to infer from this fact that the CIA/NWO (or whomever)
is using Wikileaks to justify another war. When there is a better reason
to be skeptical of Wikileaks, then we should be skeptical. But for now,
there is no evidence strong enough to warrant the sort of skepticism displayed
by certain anti-war activists and Alex Jones fans, the people alleging that
Assange is a "CIA asset" and asserting that the leaked cables were intended
to justify war with Iran/Pakistan. We should support Wikileaks as much as
possible, with measured skepticism where appropriate.

Anok Black is an anarchist anti-war activist and student in California,
currently finishing a PhD in analytic philosophy. Find him on facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000805691468."



MY RESPONSE:

Wrong. "First, using a venue that is deeply critical of the US
government would damage the government's credibility more so than
it would justify the government's desired war."

The most effective disinformation is a mix of truth with disinformation
and propaganda. It is vital to gain trust and appear legitimate. A
double agent will pass on secrets to gain trust.

"Second, such a conspiracy just wouldn't succeed anyway. It would be
ineffective. Why? Because it's a safe bet that the average supporter
of Wikileaks has some broadly anti-establishment
or anti-war inclinations in the first place."

That's a hypothesis that Julian Assange has shown not to be true in
his case given his utterly pro-establishment same as CIA/US Government
views on 9/11! He claims that 9/11 was a False conspiracy.

And he does so in the face of massive, and overwhelming evidence that
WTC I and II were imploded...just as building No. 7 was.

"Third, there's a great deal of empirical evidence that suggests
Assange is an anti-authoritarian at heart."
Refer to the above, and also his praise for Benjamin Netanyahu!

Fourth "so that it would be nearly impossible to hijack it for
the purpose of spreading pro-state or pro-war propaganda."

Really? who develops these sysems? It is nothing for the CIA, Mossad
or any intelligence agency to put what they want into the apparatus.
Just as the text of 'Operation Northwoods' 1962 (makes clear that the
Joint Chiefs of Staff said that it would be easy for them to plant
phony documents and make it look authentic.

"Even if your shadowy organization managed to sneak in some propaganda
via an "artificial leak", it would be dwarfed by the thousands of other
leaks exposing government corruption, murder, and lies"

Those who are directing the American Empire's wars are not worried about
those things. No one has been indicted, or brought to court for
'Collateral Murder" or any of the other war crimes.

The main point for them is to get their point across. It is not
Wikileaks, it is better to call it NYTimes government lies,
disinformation, and war propaganda.

I respectfully ask you to consider how 2anti-authoritarian", or
"anti-establishment" , or revolutionary an act is it to give the
material to the New York Times to decide what data should be released
or emphasized, and put on the front pages for discussion.

The New York Times has been the main media organ for putting out
the lies, disinformation and propaganda for American governments
since it's inception. It's role was crucial in promoting all the
Lies used in the run up to the Iraq war in 2003. The flip side of
the coin is that it keeps out the truth.

But, what's worse, as noted out by Michel Chossudovsky, the New York Times
had appointed Mr. David Sanger who sits on 'the Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR) and the Aspen Institute's Strategy Group' with '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' 1 to decide what information is worthy for public consumption.

Who is Behind Wikileaks? by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research,
December 13, 2010 http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22389

That is like handing over the information directly to the CIA!

Finally, you state "Not to mention, he's insanely smart."
There is a fine line between brilliance and insanity, and many
of the most evil and corrupt may also be called 'insanely smart.'

Finally, I thank you for addressing this dispute; it is most
important that reasoned debate be struggled over.

Yours,
Paul Meuse