{"id":11545,"date":"2011-09-11T07:59:24","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T15:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=11545"},"modified":"2011-09-11T07:59:24","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T15:59:24","slug":"wikileaks-has-no-blood-on-its-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/11\/wikileaks-has-no-blood-on-its-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"WikiLeaks Has No Blood on Its Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cassandra Vinograd and Bradley Klapper of the Associated Press conducted a partial review<\/a> of US State Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks focusing on the sources the State Department \u201ccategorized as most risky.\u201d The findings in the report cast further doubt on the official party line the government promotes when commenting on anything WikiLeaks and concludes, US examples of threatened sources have been \u201cstrictly theoretical.\u201d The review found \u201cseveral of them\u201d are \u201ccomfortable with their names in the open and no one fearing death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story highlights the reactions of several sources, whose names have now been exposed. One is Ferrari Bravo, who worked for the Italian Foreign Ministry\u2019s Iran desk and was a \u201cveteran of her nation\u2019s embassy in Tehran.\u201d She openly discussed \u201cher government\u2019s view of the Iranian nuclear standoff\u201d and \u201curged continued dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her reaction to her name being \u201cprotected:\u201d<\/p>\n

There is nothing that we said that was not known to our bosses, to our ministers, to our heads of state,\u201d she said. On having her identity protected, she said: \u201cWe didn\u2019t ask. There is nothing to protect.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A 73-year-old Bosnian refugee, Hadzira Hamzic, according to AP, \u201cwasn\u2019t bothered about being identified as one of thousands of victims from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. She told AP, \u201cI never hid that\u2026It is always hard when I have to tell about how I had been raped, but that is part of what happened and I have to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former Malaysian diplomat Shazryl Eskay Abdullah had an \u201cunofficial lunch meeting\u201d years ago with a US official. His name is in a report in the cables. Abdullah \u201cwas shocked\u201d that his name was in a cable. But, \u201chis role in southern Thailand peace talks was well known, and he doesn\u2019t \u201csee why anyone would come after\u201d him.<\/p>\n

All raises the question: What is the State Department\u2019s process for deciding what names deserve strict protection and what names do not? The US State Department told AP they have \u201ctwo criteria for sensitive sources\u201d:<\/p>\n

The first deals with people in totalitarian societies or failed states who could be imprisoned or killed, or perhaps denied housing, schooling, food or other services if exposed as having helped the United States. The State Department has also sought to censor names of people who might lose their jobs or suffer major embarrassment even in friendly countries, if they were seen offering the U.S. candid insights or restricted information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second criteria is not a criteria WikiLeaks adopted. Nawaat <\/em>in Tunisia agreed <\/a>to help WikiLeaks redact names of individuals \u201cat risk of either persecution or prosecution resulting in death or serious injury.\u201d Those who were seen as able to \u201cdefend themselves either through an impartial legal process or through their political or financial power\u201d were not to have their names protected.<\/p>\n

The motivation behind such a decision being if transparency were to hold people in power accountable names of people involved in blackmail, coercion, deceit, secret planning and underhanded business dealings would have to be made public. Take for example Arnold Sundquist, a Swede who \u201cprovided the US Embassy with sensitive details on an Iranian attempt to buy helicopters.\u201d Even though Swedish media didn\u2019t use his name when covering the helicopters story, he would probably be someone WikiLeaks would expose as he likely has \u201cfinancial power\u201d to defend himself.<\/p>\n

This investigation, although admittedly incomplete, follows up on a story Vinograd published <\/a>on August 30, when WikiLeaks released 130,000 US State Embassy cables. The AP went through over 2,000 cables and allegedly found \u201cmore than 90 sources who had sought protection and whose names the cable authors had asked to protect.\u201d<\/p>\n

PJ Crowley, former State Department spokesperson, who helped set up a \u201ccrisis management team\u201d to mitigate the impact of the leak, told AP the release \u201chad the potential to create further risk for those individuals who have talked to US diplomats.\u201d He claimed a \u201chandful\u201d of people have been \u201crelocated.\u201d And, the releases \u201ccould be used to intimidate activists in some of these autocratic countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

People like Crowley have fiendishly emphasized<\/a> the fact that no US policy has changed as a result of WikiLeaks. The reason, of course, is the government as a whole believes nothing exposed, no corruption, no war crimes, merit investigation.<\/p>\n

The recent AP story notes, \u201cThe State Department has steadfastly refused to describe any situation in which they\u2019ve felt a source\u2019s life was in danger.\u201d The State Department will not \u201cprovide any details on those few cases\u201d of individuals that have been relocated.<\/p>\n

The State Department\u2019s secrecy means we take them at their word, which is as legitimate as the fact that the department may not have been \u201cscouring the documents\u201d for details on sources exposed with the vigor they have led the world to believe. Hamzic, Sharzyl and Ferrari Bravo, according to the AP. were not contacted by the department.<\/p>\n

Their official line is as legitimate as the fact that some of these \u201csources\u201d have no idea why their names would need to be kept secret. Diplomats did not inform these \u201csources\u201d they would be included in a cable. Now, \u201csources\u201d may ask to not be included in cables because they might fear another security breach to government databases could put them at risk.<\/p>\n

It is as valid as all previous instances of fearmongering and hyperventilation on the part of the US government. Robert Mackey of the New York Times<\/em> blogged <\/a>in January the State Department found the leak \u201ccaused only limited damage to US interests abroad.\u201d Crowley had said there had been \u201csubstantial damage\u201d and \u201chundreds of people\u201d had been put at risk. The State Department did a complete reversal.<\/p>\n

Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, in the aftermath of the release of the Afghanistan War Logs, said, \u201cMr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier.\u201d Gates suggested the leak disclosed \u201cintelligence sources and methods.\u201d Months later that official line became \u201cthe review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure.\u201d And in November, McClatchy reported<\/a>, \u201cU.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government hopes every time it cries WikiLeaks the American people will respond in such a reactionary way that they do not consider whether the charges are true or not. This is the same reaction they expect from Americans when they claim the country has to go to war or continue to occupy a country or else the country might face some \u201cimminent\u201d threat.<\/p>\n

From the moment WikiLeaks began to make a splash, the government has deployed its propaganda to ensure the American population does not shift its beliefs on certain programs and policies that are key to waging empire. They have targeted the media organization and intimidated WikiLeaks supporters, who are now caught up in a grand jury investigation in Alexandria, Virginia, because they did not want \u201cunity,\u201d a sense of shared purpose post-9\/11, to be eroded.<\/p>\n

The danger for US government has never involved endangered informants or sources. The US government knows if those individuals die they could easily turn another group of people into informants or sources and use them. If an informant\u2019s cover is blown, that informant is on his or her own because there are only so many resources government can invest in protection. As a propaganda tool, however, the notion of transparency putting innocent lives at risk seems ghastly and crying wolf about informants at risk has been the most persuasive argument the government has had to delude Americans into believing WikiLeaks is some \u201cinfo-terrorist\u201d outfit.<\/p>\n

The threat has never rested upon risks to diplomacy. A shuffling of diplomats or officials here and there and a new fig leaf offered here and an olive branch extended there can easily take care of any short-term problems. The real threat is and has always been that WikiLeaks would force America to suspend its entire project, abandon a good portion of its 800-plus military bases around the world and stop carrying out secret programs of torture, rendition and targeted killing of which the government enjoys great impunity.<\/p>\n

The real threat is and has always been that, one, people now know their government\u2019s secrets and, two, they might think they have a right to know those secrets, because up to now government has been able to convince Americans they should \u201ctrust\u201d their government and many have forgotten what investigative journalist I.F. Stone said, \u201cGovernments lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real threat is and has been that a citizenry might grow disenchanted with American foreign policy and challenge the agendas of both neoconservatives and neoliberals who write the policies, craft the theories, and design the global scenarios that Americans are made to understand in terms of \u201cus vs. them.\u201d And so, in a classic case of \u201ckill the messenger,\u201d Americans have been (pretty successfully) made to believe that Assange has committed espionage against America (even though he isn\u2019t a US citizen) and WikiLeaks might pose such a threat that a JSOC raid ending in the kill or capture of Julian Assange might be justified.<\/p>\n

Originally posted at FireDogLake<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cassandra Vinograd and Bradley Klapper of the Associated Press conducted a partial review of US State Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks focusing on the sources the State Department \u201ccategorized as most risky.\u201d The findings in the report cast further doubt on the official party line the government promotes when commenting on anything WikiLeaks and concludes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11545"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11553,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545\/revisions\/11553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11545"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}