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The New York Times Again Censoring WikiLeaks
The New York Times Again Censoring WikiLeaks - by Stephen Lendman
On November 28, WikiLeaks began releasing over 250,000 leaked State Department and US Embassy cables (many designated "secret"), dating from 1966 through end of February 2010. Their content ranges from embarrassing to important revelations about US spying on allies and the UN, ignoring corruption and human rights abuses in "client states," corporate lobbying, backroom dealmaking, disparagements of foreign leaders, and overall revealing a much different America than its public persona. Most of all, it offers more proof of a sham democracy, a lawless imperial state rampaging globally though little, if anything, of a smoking gun nature was disclosed.
Unsurprisingly, the London Guardian said the documents "reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material. Classified 'human intelligence directives' issued in the name of Hillary Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA."
Washington's "most controversial target was the leadership of the United Nations." One document requested "the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top UN officials and their staff and details of 'private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, (and) personal encryption keys."
Candid comments also revealed disparaging assessments of world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was called weak, describing her as "risk averse and rarely creative." Her Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, got even harsher treatment, described as incompetent, a man with an "exuberant personality" but little foreign policy experience.
Christopher Dell, US ambassador to Zimbabwe, called President Robert Mugabe "ruthless," "clever," and "to give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactician." He "will not go down without a fight....he will cling to power at all costs."
Elizabeth Dibble, US charge d'affaires in Rome, called Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi "feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader." Another document described him as a "physically and politically weak (leader whose) frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest," the implication being to do his job properly. Still another document said he appears "increasingly the mouthpiece of (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin" in Europe.
Der Spiegel reported more, including:
-- America's disdain for Keynan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga;
-- Turkey's Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan was called an unreliable "fundamentalist," governing with "a cabal of incompetent advisors in a country....on a path to an Islamist future;"
-- America must "endure the endless tirades of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, who claims to have known that the Iraq war was the 'biggest mistake ever committed' and who advised the Americans to 'forget about democracy in Iraq,' " recommending a military coup once US forces leave; and
-- Middle east cables "expose the superpower's weaknesses....the world power is often quickly reduced to becoming a plaything of diverse interests," including Arab leaders using their Washington ties to their own advantage.
Other documents expressed high level concerns about Pakistan's growing instability, a clandestine effort to combat Al Qaeda in Yemen, and shifting China/North Korean relations.
Grave fears were revealed about Pakistan's nuclear capability, officials warning of a potential economic collapse and risk of smuggling nuclear material to suspected terrorists.
Another cable discussed Afghan corruption, one alleging that vice president Zai Massoud was carrying $52 million in cash with him when he was stopped during a United Arab Emirates visit.
In still another, Secretary of State Clinton questioned the mental health of Argentina's president.
The Financial Times reported that "The leaks will reinforce suspicions that Israel is considering an attack on Iranian facilities. According to reports of the cables, Ehud Barak, the defense minister, warned in 2009 that the world had six to 18 months to deal with Iran's nuclear programme."
Israel, like Washington, is notorious for crying wolf. If an attack was planned, neither nation would announce it.
An expected revelation ahead is that America for years supported Turkey's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an organization Washington and Ankara designated a terrorist group. Regional expert, Mehmet Yegin from the Center for American Studies at the USAK research organization, told the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet that "US support for the PKK could have been a result of Turkey's decision in 2003 not to allow the United States to enter Iraq through Turkish soil."
Still more cables about:
-- a senior Politburo official orchestrating hacker attacks that forced Google to leave China;
-- allegations about Russia giving Silvio Berlusconi lavish gifts and lucrative energy contracts;
-- others about Russian intelligence using mafia bosses to conduct criminal operations, one cable describing "a virtual mafia state;"
-- sharp Pentagon criticism of Britain's military in Afghanistan;
-- inappropriate British royal family member comments about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country;
-- criticism of UK Prime Minister David Cameron and requests for intelligence information on individual MPs;
-- various corruption accusations;
-- US Honduran ambassador Hugo Llorens calling the June 2009 coup "illegal and unconstitutional;"
-- Russia offering Israel $1 billion for drone technologies, saying it would also cancel its sale of advanced S-300 missiles to Iran;
-- harsh criticism of US embassy staff in the Caribbean, China, Russia and elsewhere;
-- saying Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia;"
-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called another Hitler; so is Hugo Chavez, Saddam Hussein before his capture and hanging, and other leaders earlier so vilified to hype fear about them;
-- various Arab leaders, including Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, urging Washington to bomb Iran to destroy its nuclear capability;
-- Saudi donors named as the biggest financiers of terror groups;
-- discussion of a Washington/Yemen coverup over using US planes to bomb suspected Al Qaeda targets;
-- a description of a rogue enriched uranium shipment causing a near "environmental disaster" in 2009;
-- technical details of US/Russian secret nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva; and much more besides new material to be released.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange provided the documents to the London Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, France's Le Monde, Spain's El Pais, and The New York Times.
Censorship - Standard New York Times Practice
After last July's "Afghan War Diaries" release, The Times collaborated with White House officials to sanitize it, clearing it in advance before publishing. Its Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet, confirmed that he and two reporters (Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt) "did in fact (tell them) what we had," Obama officials "prais(ing) us for the way we handled it, giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible."
Afterwards, editor Bill Keller wrote this to readers:
"The administration, while strongly condemning (the release), did not suggest (we not) write about them. On the contrary, in our discussions....while challenging some of (our) conclusions....thanked us for handling the documents with care (read sanitizing disturbing truths), and asked us to urge WikiLeaks to withhold information that could cost lives. We did pass along that message."
In addition, he concealed daily war crimes, including mass civilian deaths, many willfully committed. Also, Task Force 373, death squad assassins killing suspected insurgents, cold-blooded murder The Times suppresses, collaborating with imperial lawlessness.
Instead, it focused on "Pakistan's Double Game," a July 27 editorial "confirm(ing) a picture of Pakistani double-dealing that has been building for years," saying "If Mr. Obama cannot persuade Islamabad to cut its ties to, and then aggressively fight, the extremists in Pakistan, there is no hope of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan." The Times, of course, supports US imperial wars, including the Afghan and Iraq quagmires.
On November 29, The Times published "A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents," saying:
Released documents are either marked "secret," "noforn" (not to be shared with other countries' representatives), "secret/noforn," "confidential," or unclassified. "Most were not intended for public view, at least in the near term."
"The Times has taken care to exclude, in its articles and in supplementary material, in print and online, information that would endanger (read expose) confidential informants or compromise national security (read reveal Washington's imperial agenda). The Times redactions were shared with other news organizations and communicated to WikiLeaks, in the hope that they would similarly edit (read sanitize) the documents they planned to post online."
"After its own redactions, The Times sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national interest (again reveal America's true agenda - global imperial destructiveness). After reviewing the cables, (officials) suggested additional redactions. The Times agreed to some, but not all."
The Times said it will post only about 100 cables, some redacted, others in full, "that illuminate aspects of American foreign policy," but will follow White House instructions in do doing.
The "newspaper of record," of course, is a longstanding imperial tool, the closest equivalent in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda, what Times editors and bosses know but won't say.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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Am I ever glad that the NY Times is interested in not "costing lives." Someone needs to tell the editors that we have ongoing wars that they hyped in Iraq and Afghanistan that have cost lots and lots of lives. Somehow I don't think that the NY Times or the administration are really all that concerned about lives (sort of like the "pro-life" crowd).
Don't worry about needing to think. Instead, you can [know], you can be [certain] that they definitely are not concerned about other peoples' lives; well, except for the lives of their own ilk and masters, of course. There's absolutely no reason to doubt. They [definitely] don't care about innocent people. They [definitely] don't care about deliberately lying to and thereby deceiving those of us gullible enough to swallow the poisonous baits, spins from Washington and its media network.
Their lies are not accidental mistakes. And there's plenty of highly criminal conspiracy. One example illustrating that there was conspiracy is from when Colin Powell spoke before the UNGA in Feb. 2003 and claimed that trailers in the middle of some desert area in Iraq were used for making WMD, with no visible evidence of this; for all we could see wad desert sand and the exterior shell of the trailer(s). It was reported that he initially opposed doing this or opposed the idea of war on Iraq, but was then persuaded to coem back into the "fold". Another example is the whole Bush administration performing as a trained or prepared choir, prepared for claiming the lies about Saddam Hussein having WMD, that he was a threat to the countries of the Middle East and also to England, even, in addition to him having been involved in 9/11 through his (non-existant) relationship with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. This choir was prepared conspiratorially.
That was not accidental. They knew what they were doing.
It can take some thinking to formulate an argument, but we don't have to waste any time with thinking about whether, or not, Washington and its media network pundits are concerned about innocent people, because they clearly are definitely not concerned.
I won't be shy about it. Instead, I'll call an ace an ace, a spade a spade, Washington evil, and so on.
"Gerald Celente on WikiLeaks - Cablegate" (4:51)
GeraldCelenteChannel, Nov. 30, 2010
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk_yDwa-J3Q
He's interviewed on Russia Today or some RT program anyway and he strongly defends Wikileaks releasing the over 200,000 diplomatic, embassy cables; very strongly defends this and emphasizes that it's information that [must] be provided to the public. And he's definitely persuasive. He says the government of the US claims to be transparent, but acting as it is presently doing regarding the new Wikileaks release proves that the government's claims about being transparent are lies, which everyone should've already realized, but while there evidently have been many who didn't. For transparency of real kind Wikileaks must be supported in the release of the over 200,000 cables.
He also says what we can be expecting and which is that people are threatening to kill Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, blowing his brains out, and that the US Congress calls this release terrorism.
I don't see a problem with the release of these cables, so far, and am not expecting that we'll get anything truly news-revealing. Everyone should already have known for a very long time now that the government is full of lies, hypocrisy, racket, and so on. But what the release of the cables will evidently provide is [concrete] evidence, as opposed to us stating our observations and our analyses or deductions based on our observations. The latter could be treated as "conspiracy theories" and/or merely speculation, but now we should have some good concrete evidence with the release of these cables; I think or guess.
Many people will surely learn things newly (for themselves) from these cables, and I'd surely learn of things that I did not previously know; with enough reading of these cables. But we've had people who've greatly become whistleblowers who risked exposing "black" covert ops and other crimes and criminal corruption of the US; John Maxwell, Philip Agee, Ralph McGehee and a few or several other former CIA agents and officers; Michel or Michael Levine, formerly an agent of the DEA; Mike C. Ruppert, formerly of the LAPD; and John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and a subsequent book, if not more than one, on US empire, etc. And there've been some other people.
Plus, common sense, some real "street smarts" would permit us to discern when there's foulness in what political leaders tell us. This was all I needed to be immediately opposed to talks of war on Kosovo in 1999, Iraq in 2003, and Afghanistan in 2001. The reason for that mixed chronological ordering is because of the more special nature of the war on Afghanistan. While it was, according to Bush et al and what most Americans believed, due to the 9/11 attacks, I was against it, and Bush had said that the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11, but the war was being launched on them. Common sense sufficed to be opposed, immediately so, to all three of these wars. I didn't know about the GHW Bush war on Iraq in 1990-1991 until after it was launched, so couldn't have been immediately opposed to it during run-up talks about if; if there were any mentions of it before the war machine of the US was launched, anyway. I'm always against war. Defense can be necessary, but war absolutely [never] is.
"War is a Lie" - David Swanson. "War is a Racket" - Major General Smedley Butler. "Politics is full of hypocrisy" - some real or imaginary philosopher of ancient times, perhaps Greek.
Nevertheless, this new Wikileaks release should make for some interesting reading and news over the coming months. They'll spice "things" up a bit. Variety is the spice of life, some people have said, and we'll now be getting some variety.
Watch the Washington spin machine function in high gear. Writers for NYT and so on will be very busy writing up and publishing spin for Washington. It shall be [entertaining]; occasionally angering, also, but always entertaining. What isn't entertaining is when members of the public blindly believe the spins of deceit.
Update: Also see my last post further below, post #5 when adding this update. That additional post has links to and excerpts from several articles and some are [defense] for what Wikileaks is doing. There are also some videos.
Excellent article, btw!
Wikileaks says over 15,000 are of "secret" classification and that's certainly many. It might not seem like many when considering the total number of cables that'll be released by Wikileaks, but over 15,000 "secret" cables has to nevertheless be many for this level of classification.
The statistical breakdown of the number of cables by classification is given in Wikileaks.org's Cable Viewer page under the subheading of "Key figures".
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org
Stephen Lendman correctly says that the total number of these cables is "over 250,000", but some people are saying 300,000 and/or more. The above Cablegate page's "Key Figures" provides a total of 251,287; roughly 250,000.
Now what purpose is there for the US to know "vehicle details of political leaders"? Might it be for plotting assassinations; perhaps like happened with former Lebanese PM Rafiq al-Hariri in Lebanon, f.e.? What other reason could the US possibly have for wanting to know details of the vehicles of political leaders?
"Iris scans, fingerprints and DNA" of who; political leaders, again? If for political leaders, then what's the purpose? There's no valid reason, I believe.
Re. using US embassies for spying:
US consulates are sometimes also used for bringing people the US State Department alleges are terrorists or members of terrorist groups, organizations to the US. See videos with Michael Springman, sometimes spelled Springmann, at Youtube. People who have not listened to what he's exposed definitely need to view some of these videos and very carefully listen to what he says. Choose the longest ones findable.
If in doubt about what he says in those videos, then also make sure to listen to videos at Youtube, maybe some longer ones at Google, with Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, former member of the former Able Danger team that was specifically mandated to track Al Qaeda worldwide and the team included the US in this tracking.
People who carefully learn what both of those two people say and still don't believe what they say are "lost causes", "beyond hope" (or redemption).
That was reported some years ago, though maybe that reporting was only about the US spying, technologically, on communications of representatives of state members of the UN, rather than on all UN officials, who, I guess, would include directors of the UNHRC, UNICEF, and other UN agencies or departments. Or maybe they're they only ones meant by "UN officials", so excluding rep's of states that are members of the UN, in which case the reporting of years ago and the new Wikileaks release combine for a more complete "picture" of all of this spying by the US.
Conservative, iow? It's good to not be hasty when risks are involved, so being averse to risk is good, as long as it doesn't get to the point that it psychologically blocks a person from making good, beneficial decisions. The US has little to complain about her though. She got and kept the German military part of NATO involved in the criminal war on Afghanistan, f.e.
And if Washington was less "creative", in its way of being "creative", then it would be less [criminal], rogue. What'd be wrong with that?!
That's alright, let the US say that, because in referring to him in the above way the US "leadership" makes a serious mockery of itself. US "leadership" clearly doesn't know the first thing to know about "foreign policy", which is to co-operatively work with other countries, to not be a hegemonic, hypocritical, imperialist, and so on, superpower, et cetera.
These so-called "disparaging" views US "leadership" has been concretely exposed of having about other countries political officials will give us material for laughing at, rather than with, the US "leadership"; and laughter is good.
We could and should have already known that US "leadership" was this way, but the cables being released by Wikileaks will provide proof for people who refused to realize what was rather obvious, before. It's been obvious for a very long time, decade[s] (plural!) that US "leadership" is extremely arrogant, egotistical, and so on, and these types of people usually don't have great views of people they try to use as puppet allies.
Use the following line in the search box at Google and then click Search. You'll get plenty of articles, while I'll refer to a couple of Keith Harmon Snow's articles.
"Robert Mugabe" site:allthingspass.com
"Blood Diamond:
Double Think and Deception Over Those Worthless Little Rocks of Desire"
Rick Hines and keith harmon snow
Part One appeared June 1, 2007 in Z Magazine (link)
Minor corrections and adjustments July 20, 2007
www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2007/07/blood-diamond
Reference 9 in the third-to-last paragraph excerpted, above, is for the following article.
"THE GREAT BETRAYAL:
Mugabe’s Gang and Genocide in Zimbabwe"
by keith harmon snow, undated
www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-16Great Betrayal ZIMBABWE.htm
That article is undated, but was apparently written in either 2000, during or after June 2000, or early 2001, for he writes of "recent coverage of the 2000 parliamentary elections in June" and a more recent year is not specified in the whole piece, which is relatively short. Anyone wanting to read the article, however, would be much better off using the .doc file copy obtainable from the following page, which provides the html link for the above copy, and a link for the .doc copy, which is obtained by clicking on the title of the piece in this next page (an index of two of his old articles on Zimbabwe).
http://allthingspass.com/journalism.php?catid=15
Plenty of articles at globalresearch.ca refer to Robert Mugabe, who's being demonized by the US since relatively recently, but only for reasons that are customarily evil of the US. It definitely isn't because the US has become noble; [far] from it.
Commenting a little more on Stephen Lendman's article:
Well, that's both good and bad news. It's good, because we certainly don't want to be a superpower capable of always getting its way and always wanting to do everything US "leadership" desires without being at all impeded. The bad is that the US must not be serving the interests of anyone, except Americans, and true defense of human rights, the UN Charter, this sort of reality that should exist, but doesn't.
Clinton, actually both Clintons, need to question their own mental health. How can sociopaths, or psychopaths, be entrusted with evaluation of other people's mental health? Certainly not according to my book of health guidelines.
The latter paragraph is surely reality-based, but if Israel attacks Iran, then the US will be rightly blamable, for there presently are only two routes that Israeli bombers could fly to Iran, one route being over Iraq, which is air space directly and totally controlled by the US, the other route being through Turkish air space. And the latter air space is not controlled by the US, but the US would know that Israel is going to commit an aerial attack on Iran, and if the US didn't know this before the attack planes took off from the ground, then the US would quickly learn of it once the planes were in flight and on route through Turkish air space. That would give the US, and its European allies, sufficient time to notify Israel to call off the attack and if this was not done, then all of these countries, certainly the US, could be held as responsible parties, rather complicit, for they have the legal obligation to demand Israeli call-back or stand-back, stand-down, how ever people wish to call it.
Imo, it would be right to hold the US as complicit in either case, regardless of which of the two routes Israeli attack planes took or flew, for it is because of the US that Israel has been repeatedly protected from UNSC resolutions being applied, the US is the biggest financial and probably military supplier, and there are possibly other aspects or relational aspects that I'm not thinking of and, therefore, not mentioning.
And if that happens and Iran does retaliate, while believing as above about the US, then not only will Israel be hit, US forces in Iraq and the Persian Gulf will also be hit, which is surely something US "leadership" would want to avoid. Even if the US could then destroy Iran, the US "leadership" surely wouldn't want to be hit as hard as Iran can strike. Iran apparently has quite a weapons arsenal that could be immediately used.
Also, and according to articles, news and feature articles, at www.globalresearch.ca over the past few days, the US leadership might be presently more focused on North Korea and if this so-called leadership is and they do escalate to outright war on NK, or do it through SK and then come to SK's "rescue", to back it up, then perhaps this US leadership definitely wouldn't want simultaneous war actions committed against or on Iran. That would give this so-called leadership more motive for ordering Israel to not attack Iran and the Israeli so-called leadership would surely comply, because they most definitely [need] the corrupt US government's backing.
If Israel ever lost or loses the protection, et cetera, guaranteed by the US, so far, then surely all European governments and the Canadian one that have been backing the US in this would also withdraw their support and protection for Israel. Israeli leadership strategically couldn't take this risk.
Of course, the NYT is an "extension" of the government, the or one of the government's propaganda agency outlets. I don't recall who the author was or is, perhaps John Pilger, but read a piece over the past two or three months in which the author referred to the corporate media in the US as an [extension] of the government, and the media really does work that way; often.
The NYT publishing only 100 cables out of over 200,000 is a blatantly sick joke. The NYT should simply not publish any records, if it's going to publish this little.
Another sick joke is as I once read, about the NYT being the corporate media of the American "left". It's not that statement of observed reality that is the sick joke; the NYT and the so-called "left" are.
"Leaked document: Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak tells US to attack Iran, N. Korea"
by JPost.com, Nov. 30th, 2010
It's a very short, tiny article.
Now that's a real LAUGH after having read what Stephen Lendman's article reports about the NYT on this Wikileaks release of roughly 250,000 cables.
"Wikileaks and the New Global Order: America’s Wake-up Call"
by Jonathan Cook, Nov. 30th, 2010
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22158
He's a very good reporter and writer, btw; for people who don't know of his articles. He lives in Nazareth, unless he's moved to a different location in Israel. And he doesn't specifically refer to the cables being released by Wikileaks, but some of them evidently are about or related to the US and/or South Korea escalation of tensions with North Korea, and this would increase tensions with China; possibly also Russia.
"New WikiLeaks Documents Expose US Foreign Policy Conspiracies"
by David Walsh, WSWS.org, Nov. 29th, 2010
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22157
Some of this above article is redundant after reading Stephen Lendman's piece, but I think it contains some additional information.
And I think Uruknet.info provides articles that are more worthwhile.
"Interpol Issues ‘Red Notice’ for Arrest of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange"
by Kevin Poulsen, Wired.com, Nov. 30th, 2010
www.uruknet.info/?p=m72365
From what I recall of what Julian Assange said in a video about these "sex charges", he literally or explicitly said it's a "smear campaign", which the US rather obviously would be very much keyly behind, we can easily deduce.
If he was with the two women referred to, however, then he better learn to be much more careful about women he frequents. He's a wanted man, by imperialists, and any woman he meets with privately and wishes to make a sizable bundle of money under the table, covertly, is a risk factor for him.
"PRESS RELEASE: US proxy war in Yemen exposed by Wikileaks revelations"
by Cageprisoners Editor, Cageprisoners.com, Nov. 30th, 2010
uruknet.info/?p=m72364
Video: The following article has a video with it.
"Julian Assange Says Document Dump Targets 'Lying, Corrupt and Murderous Leadership'
Wikileaks Chief Promises to Reveal Many More Government Secrets."
by JIM SCIUTTO, RUSSELL GOLDMAN and LEE FERRAN, abcnews.go.com, Nov. 29th, 2010
uruknet.info/?p=m72362
What Robert Gates says, according to the above excerpt, regarding Saudi political leadership wanting the US to strike Iran is, I believe, not to be believed in blind fashion. It could be only more Washington fabrications. Until we have concrete proof that Saudi so-called leadership really has said, behind closed doors, that they want the US to strike Iran or for the US to allow Israel to do this, I won't believe that Gates was doing anything unusual, which, for him, would be speaking truthfully.
And what's omitted from the above excerpt(s) is mostly of value, but ABC writers or news pundits should not write or speak, in their own words, as if Washington is right. There's little of that in the article, but even a little of such bs is unfitting for truthfulness or being truly neutral, truly analytical in honest terms, and so on.
Video: The following article, for which the link was obtained from a copy at Uruknet, has two embedded videos and the first one (0:30) is "a clip from South of the Border, in which Scott Wilson, formerly foreign editor of the Washington Post, describes the "involvement" of the US in the coup in Venezuela". The second video is a very short clip, 1:10, "from South of the Border in which President Morales talks with Oliver Stone about the role of the media". The first video is about the coup in Venezuela, 2002, and Scott Wilson says that he certainly believes that the US was involved. John Pilger's film, "War on Democracy", is stronger on that topic, if recalling correctly; and there's a 94-minute videos for it at Google, veoh, and some other Web sites.
"WikiLeaks Honduras: State Department Busted on Support of Coup"
by Robert Naiman, truth-out.org, Nov. 30th, 2010
www.truth-out.org/wikileaks-honduras-state-deptartment-busted-support-co...
Now the above is a very interesting and excellent article, and it looks like the NYT included at least one important diplomatic cable in the tiny set of leaked cables the Times has opted to restrict itself to publishing. Even if the NYT chiefs chose very badly in restricting the Times to publishing only 100 out of over 250,000 of the diplomatic cables, they're publishing at least one that's important or certainly can be put to very important use, as illustrated with the above article.
People would probably still learn from "South of the Border" if they had dedicated serious time to [educating] themselves by reading many good articles and viewing important videos for documentaries, such as John Pilger's "War on Democracy", and videos with Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who had worked in Latin America, covertly, and quit to become a "whistleblower" when he learned of what the US was doing there, extreme criminality; as well as reading very good articles like plenty that have been posted at globalresearch.ca, among some other Web sites. But "South of the Border" will, I am guessing, educate people who haven't done any serious amount of [qualitative] reading much more than it'll educate the rest of us. I would definitely want to view this film anyway and if I gained nothing for newly gained knowledge from viewing the film, then I'd certainly know much more about a film that I evidently would be recommending to other people.
It's similar with this cable regarding the US vis-a-vis Honduras, Hondurans, and the the coup that happened there, as well as many other cables in the dataset that Wikileaks has started to release. If people had dedicated a serious amount of time to reading from [qualitative] sources over the past several years, or more, for those people who've been reading for longer, then we'd all be able to see that there's not really any "bombshell" being released through Wikileaks. But, again, while there evidently aren't any "bombshells" from this, yet, the above article on the cable regarding the coup in Honduras and Washington's actions in this regard provide concrete evidence that I will guess could be used in a prosecution of the guilty people in Washington.
We have real proof, facts. The cable about the coup in Honduras and what the above article on this says can not be written off as only speculation or "conspiracy theory".
"Wikileaks: US nuclear weapon sites in Europe revealed"
Channel 4 News, Nov. 30th, 2010
uruknet.info/?p=m72349
As if Russia would attack western Europe if there were no nuclear weapons in western Europe! It's ludicrous to even consider thinking that Russia would do that and it takes extremely brainwashed people to believe that Russia would.
"Will Wikileaks kill the Official Secrets Act?
It will still be used to control individuals, but these leaks expose the Act's weaknesses"
by Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, UK, Nov. 29th, 2010
uruknet.info/?p=m72322
That article begins with a picture and the caption for it reads, "The British government failed to prevent publication of Spycatcher, by former MI5 officer Peter Wright, using the Official Secrets Act. The US embassy cables released by Wikileaks is another nail in the coffin for the Act. ...".
The following FAS piece is not totally, but nevertheless is very critical of Wikileaks leaking the so-called diplomatic cables.
"The Race to Fix the Classification System"
by Steven Aftergood, Nov. 29th, 2010
www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/11/race_to_fix.html
I posted an excerpt from the above fas.org article in post #2 in the following page yesterday, the last article referred to in the post; if readers of this post prefer to see if the excerpt is enough for them, first, before reading the full article.
warisacrime.org/content/wikileaks-faucet-has-opened
The following article by Arthur Silber is defense of the work of Wikileaks that some people might want to refer to when reading, considering or wanting to argue against arguments presented by people opposed to what Wikileaks is doing and that includes "leftists" criticizing Wikileaks.
"On WikiLeaks: You Force Me to Repeat Myself"
by Arthur Silber Once Upon a Time..., PowerOfNarrative.blogspot.com, Nov. 29th, 2010
www.uruknet.info/?p=m72318
The original article is linked where it says "Once Upon a Time..." preceding the date.
I'm not discomforted at all by the Wikileaks releases, but, and so far, there hasn't been an "bombshell" leakage through Wikileaks, which has leaked what serious readers about the present wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and more, would've mostly known for years, already. What is discomforting is the fact that [many] people have not dedicated serious time to such readings.
I got the following DN! interview video based on a copy at Uruknet.
"Video: "We Have Not Seen Anything Yet": Guardian Editor Says Most Startling WikiLeaks Cables Still To Be Released
Nov. 30th, 2010
www.democracynow.org/2010/11/30/we_have_not_seen_anything_yet
And I got the links for the following two DN! interviews, below, from "related links" in the above DN! page. None of the other related links in the above page are related to the new release being made by Wikileaks.
"Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership""
Nov. 30th, 2010
www.democracynow.org/2010/11/30/noam_chomsky_wikileaks_cables_reveal_pro...
This is the first time that I've read or heard of Noam Chomsky having helped Daniel Ellsberg to release the Pentagon Papers and this is an interesting bit of history.
Re. the polls Chomsky is citied about in the above excerpt, I believe he's surely speaking of the populations and not the political "leaderships". The populations are certainly not for supporting any war or military strikes on Iran.
"U.S. Facing Global Diplomatic Crisis Following Massive WikiLeaks Release of Secret Diplomatic Cables"
Nov. 29th, 2010
www.democracynow.org/2010/11/29/us_facing_global_diplomatic_crisis_follo...
Some articles by and referring to Carne Ross:
I had not heard of independentdiplomat.org, before, so just checked the home page and there are several articles linked there related to this new and huge release by Wikileaks. The following is one of four presently linked in the home page and this one says that Carne Ross was a diplomat, British, at the UN. And I'll disable automatic hyperlinking by removing the "www." prefix in case there'd be too many of these links. There used to be a limit for hyperlinks in a post at AfterDowningStreet.org.
"Guardian - US Embassy Cables: UN Seeks Answers From Washington"
by Robert Booth and Ewen MacAskill, Guardian, UK, Nov. 30th, 2010
www.independentdiplomat.org/news/guardian-us-embassy-cables-un-seeks-ans...
"Washington Post - Leaks Undercut Relations With U.S., Nations Say"
by Edward Cody, Washington Post, Nov. 30th, 2010
independentdiplomat.org/news/washington-post-leaks-undercut-relations-with-u-s-nations-say-30-november-2010
"Daily Mirror - We Need More Transparency, Says Ex-British Diplomat to UN"
by Carne Ross, Daily Mirror, mirror.co.uk, Nov. 30th, 2010
independentdiplomat.org/news/daily-mirror-we-need-more-transparency-says-ex-british-diplomat-to-un-30-november-2010
"Wikileaks Could Have Freezing Effect on Diplomacy"
by Barney Porter, ABC News 24 Australia, abc.net.au, Nov. 29th, 2010
independentdiplomat.org/news/abc-news-24-australia-wikileaks-could-have-freezing-effect-on-diplomacy-29-november-2010
Carne Ross: Video interview for a profile of him:
The home page of Independent Diplomat also has a link for an AlJazeera video for a profile of Carne Ross and the link is for part 2 of 2, rather than part 1. I checked the text with boths parts at Youtube and they're the same, but will only provide the link for part 2. Part 1 must be entirely about the riot(s) in Denmark, for part 2 is entirely for the profile of Carne Ross and begins as it should in terms of introductory words; not as if it continues from part 1.
It's a good video, interviewing him, and it's interesting, certainly worth listening to. He was a British diplomat at the UN, but says he worked for Britain in the UNSC, Security Council, and he eventually realized that there was a lot wrong with what was going on. That applies with respect to the sanction years against Iraq and then the present war on Afghanistan, where he worked while doing this as a British diplomat at the UN. His years as a diplomat also involve Africa.
People who care will appreciate this video.
"People & Power- Something Rotten?- 23 Jan 08- Part 2" (11:08)
AlJazeeraEnglish, Jan. 23rd, 2008
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL_E5KRhE7k