STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Truth About WikiLeaks?
By Staff News & Analysis - December 15, 2010

Who is Behind Wikileaks? … 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. … 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. – Global Research, Michel Chossudovsky

Dominant Social Theme: It's a great organization and questions should be ignored.

Free-Market Analysis: We were pleased to see that Michel Chossudovsky has weighed in on WikiLeaks with a six page opus posted at Global Research. At least some of his issues, in fact, have already been presented within these modest pages, and below we provide some links to our staff reports and a trilogy about an Assange-like character that make similar points:

WikiLeaks: Clever PsyOps?

Assange, Hero or Trickster?

Trilogy:

Comes a Blond Stranger …

Goes the Dark Leader? …

Coda: Sayeth the Chosen One …

It is instructive to see what Chossudovsky has concluded. Admittedly, he raises issues that we have mentioned only generally or in passing. His general conclusion like ours is that Julian Assange (Pictured above left) is probably NOT what he appears to be, but some good is coming out of L'affaire Assange nonetheless – and we agree. From our point of view, Assange may possibly have links to the Anglo-American power-elite, but if so, his arrival on the scene shows once more the difficulty of the challenges that the Anglosphere is now encountering.

Because of the truth-telling of the Internet, more than a century of mind control (the 20th century) has been diminished. Accept, as we do, that there is an Anglo-American inter-generational elite whose goal is to build a kind of one world order and Assange becomes a statement as much as the head of a powerful debunking movement. Acquiesce hypothetically to Assange-as-elite-ally and one can see how far away from its goals the elite has been forced to move.

The elite has attempted to nudge the world toward global governance by using fear-based promotions, dominant social themes, that frighten the middle class into giving up wealth and power to a variety of specially created global facilities – the UN, WHO, World Bank, etc. These fear-based promotions are promulgated via what is called the Hegelian Dialectic, a public conversation that is controlled by the elite on both sides. Gradually the dialogue – argument – is moved toward the goals and objectives of the elite and away from undesirable conclusions.

While the Hegelian Dialectic is a great society molding tool, it has one logical flaw: At certain times of great social stress the elite has to readjust the dialectic to include arguments that it had dealt with previously but which are reappearing. What this means practically is that it has to reintroduce spokespeople to represent the side of the argument that it has already left behind. If society in some fashion has reignited a debate that the elite believed was already doused, then the elite is a position of re-endorsing perspectives that it had intentionally done away with. This is what is happening now.

What the elite may have failed to grasp is that the control mechanisms of the 20th century are not configuring the conversation in the desired manner in the 21st. Why is this the case? Because the Internet is a process not an episode. The Anglo-American axis is a linear enterprise with a single focus, apparently: world government. But linear solutions are not going to work in the Internet era. In fact, there is an argument that such solutions will actually make things worse from the Anglosphere's point of view.

Grant Assange is in some way a controlled entity; nonetheless, a group of his peers have split away from WikiLeaks and are setting up their own enterprise, OpenLeaks. If this enterprise is not controlled as well then any control over Assange will make little difference. The larger conversation still remains out of control.

Is Assange in a sense being positioned – knowingly or not – as the controlled opposition? (Perhaps he is merely a courageous individual motivated by strong convictions; and we have acknowledged this possibility as well.) Our suspicions regarding Assange are reinforced, nonetheless, by Chossudovsky, as follows. The following are direct quotes from the article:

• There are reports from published email exchanges that Wikileaks had entered into negotiations with several corporate foundations for 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."

• 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 "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).

• 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, Condoleezza 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).

• 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. 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 funneled 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.

• 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).

• 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.

There is much more in the article, and we would encourage people to read it. Chossudovsky points out that "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' … 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." What Chossudovsky does not suggest is that the elite in its desperation to control a freedom-oriented Internet conversation has put itself in the position of sponsoring a controlled opposition that cannot, ultimately, be controlled. (This is in part because as we understand it Chossudovsky, apparently a progressive of sorts, does not believe in an Anglo-American elite.)

When the Gutenberg press came on the scene, the elite of the day apparently contemplated Assange-like strategies. Eventually – some believe – the Venetian banking elite sponsored Martin Luther and funded the Reformation to reduce the power of the Catholic Church. But one could make the case that the Reformation itself got out of hand, causing religious schisming that created more headaches for the powers-that-be than they ever intended; eventually what the Reformation began would contribute to the settling of the New World and the creation of a new and formidable opposition to elite, one-world aspirations.

After Thoughts

Even if the elite through its controlled intelligence agencies manages to control WikiLeaks, the evolution of the Internet may spawn other variants that are unexpected and potentially uncontrollable. Whatever Assange is or is not is probably not ultimately the issue (and hopefully WikiLeaks shall do some good). However, the entropy of the Internet is the real concern, and one that the Anglo-American axis has yet to solve in our humble view.

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