In the early Summer of 2004, I was visiting my late mother in San Jose, and we went to see Farenheit 911 on opening day. We weren't in the dark about what was happening with the Iraq War. My mother had been a campaign volunteer for Helen Gahagan Douglass in her senate race against Richard Nixon in 1950, when I was one year old. She was still plugged into a network of activist friends, even though she wasn't able to be as active as she'd once been. And, of course, I'd been on the Internet continuously for a decade. But we were in a distinct minority, possibly even amongst the crowd assembled there that day. There was certainly no tv news source one could turn to for anything remotely reliable. Indeed, the whole reason that F 911 existed was because the daily news media had left such a gaping hole in the most important story of the day for almost three solid years. And so Michael Moore stepped up to fill the gap.
More than six years later, many others have joined him. Countless lies have been exposed, a Democrat is in the White House. And yet, the same basic policies remain in place, as do the same fundamental lies about why we fight, who our enemies are and why. Our former President and war-criminal-in-chief is all over the place on the tv machine, hawking books and telling lies. It's like Kafka in Wonderland. Nothing has changed, even though everything has. That's why WikiLeaks is so necessary. As before with Michael Moore and Farenheit 911, all the "normal" means of communication have failed. All the "normal" means of truth-telling have been corrupted. All the "normal" means of acting and thinking sanely have been ridiculed and despised. And a lawless government stands unchallenged, lying through its teeth every day--without even having a clear sense of why it is doing so.
Can there be any doubt at all why WikiLeaks is so necessary? Will any of those who are supposed to hold our government accountable do anything remotely related to that job?
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower.
Carne Ross, a British diplomat for 15 years who resigned before the Iraq war. He is the founder and head of a non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat
Greg Mitchell, writes the Media Fix blog for The Nation. He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine and is the author of 10 books including The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics.
As'ad Abu Khalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley. He's the author of "The Battle for Saudi Arabia" and runs the Angry Arab News Service blog.
Above all, what Goodman and crew demonstrated today is that it's not enough just to have previously hiddent information, you also have to have informed and truly independent observers to help make sense of the hidden informaition, explain its significance, along with the significance of its being hidden in the first place.
Amy Goodman started off with a tape of Admiral Mullen issuing a dire warning of blood on WikiLeaks' hands, and then asked Daniel Ellsberg for a response:
DANIEL ELLSBERG: First of all, we have Admiral Mullen there who is the interesting position of sending American troops- men and women- into harm's way. So when it comes to blood on hands, he's really has got a lot to answer for. From another point of view, he's quite an expert on that. At the same time, you have to realize that he has almost unlimited resources on his side to minimize that damage by assigning people to find out who is in danger in these documents. He has had months and months to look at them and how to protect them. His command in Kabul has reported they have not felt it necessary to protect or inform any individual, nor has any individual been harmed. And you can believe that if their plumber's operation- to the tune of more than 100 men working on this- had been able to find one mutilated body, that one would be on the cover of Newsweek by now. So we've had a pretty good test of how well the process of sanitizing these documents by the newspapers- and by WikiLeaks- has operated and the answer is, the proof is in the pudding: No harm has been done; Admiral Mullen's fears are groundless.
Carne Ross is not as unambiguous a WikiLeaks supporter. But given how far out of whack things have gotten, what other alternatives are there?
AMY GOODMAN: In the United States, the mainstream media is basically just talking about the ways this will damage the United States, yet you- a British diplomat- are saying this could be beneficial. Why?
CARNE ROSS: Well, I resigned from the Foreign Office over the Iraq War. People were not told the truth about the reasons for going to war in Iraq. I was our Iraq expert at the UN Security Council for many years. I personally think that far too much in diplomacy is kept secret. There is this kind of-
AMY GOODMAN: And you testified.
CARNE ROSS: I did. I've testified twice at two official inquiries. Uh-
AMY GOODMAN: And presented information about weapons of mass destruction.
CARNE ROSS: Yes. And when I first presented it, I was attacked by my government. Now what I said is more or less accepted as, you know, the understood truth of what happened- you know, the government did not tell the truth about WMD, they ignored all available alternatives to war. The trouble with all of this is we tend to place government in this sort of superior, elite position; that they know things we do not know; that governments are entitled to know things that the public do not know. I think the balance is way too far in the government's favor. Far more information should be released and made transparent. I'm not sure, however, that the way WikiLeaks has done this is the right way. This is a very random, blunt instrument to attack the problem of a lack of transparency of government. This should ideally be done through the mechanisms of democratic accountability. Of course, it's not been done that way so far. Hence, WikiLeaks.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Yemen. The revelations around Yemen.
CARNE ROSS: [unintelligible] there will be very, very many unhappy people in the government right now. The telegram recording General Petraeus's conversation with President Saleh is hugely damaging to the government of Yemen and it makes clear that U.S. aircraft and UAV's are carrying out strikes inside Yemen against Al-Qaeda- or militants perhaps, we don't know who they are. But the Yemeni government is claiming these strikes as its own. The fact the U.S. is doing this, and that this has now been confirmed- many people speculated that this was the case, because Yemen itself didn't have this capability- but the fact that this is now confirmed in writing is enormously damaging to the Yemen government.
The battle of truth vs. lies goes on. We already know which side our government is on. Which side can we be on?
And Greg Mitchell weighs in:
AMY GOODMAN: .... Greg Mitchell, what is your take on this?
GREG MITCHELL: It's interesting how the different news outlets have handled it. As you mentioned, in The Guardian it's one of their featured articles, and it went into great detail about the UN angle. [The unsurprising fact that the US is spying on everyone at the UN it possibly can.] Whereas The New York Times had a much, much less detailed, softer, gentler version of that. Maybe The New York Times is trying say that they are not babes in the woods, and that they know this is going on. It's hard for me to believe-
AMY GOODMAN: The just stuck with the iris scans, didn't mention the fingerprints and the biometrics.
GREG MITCHELL: Right, it's hard for me to believe that the long list of this is not something that is new- the full extent of it. And as someone pointed out, even if it's not that shocking, it must be exhausting asking these diplomats around the world to do this work instead of the important work they're supposed to be doing. They have a long checklist to go through of what they're supposed to do to contribute to this intelligence gathering.
And finally, As'Ad Abukhalil:
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring in As'ad AbuKhalil into this conversation. Professor of political science at California State Stanislaus, visiting professor at UC Berkeley, he is the author of the book The Battle for Saudi Arabia which is what I want to go to that right now. The diplomatic cables around Saudi Arabia calling for the attacking of Iran. Can you summarize what the cables said, and then your response?
AS'AD ABUKHALIL: Much of the cables about Saudi Arabia shows a very high degree of control by the U.S. government over the policy decisions made in Saudi Arabia. At one point, there is an American specific request, issuing what reads like a command, asking the Saudi government to go to China and to undertake a certain mission on behalf of the United States vis-à-vis the situation in Iran. I think the extent to which the Saudi government- and all Arab governments in the Gulf- are embarrassed by these leaks, is evidenced by the clampdown that is being exhibited throughout the Saudi-controlled Arab media. And even the so-called "independent" Al Jazeera- which is, contrary to it's reputation here in the West, is the most serious news organization in Yemeni- is also trying to cover up the embarrassing revelations about the way Arab governments operate vis-à-vis the United States. You have to take into consideration much of the discussions and the utterances and the statements that are made by Arab leaders at the highest levels of these documents are in direct contradiction with their publicly declared policies, which are made in Arabic to their people`.
Go read or listen to the whole thing. There is much to be learned.
