The Wikileaks Punch and Judy Show

Julian Assange's Deal With the Devil, by Israel Shamir on Counterpunch, January 5th, 2011 is the best defense I've seen against the (really weird) charge that Wikileaks is an Israeli cutout because there has been nothing released, so far, that reflects poorly on Israel. As further evidence of this, it's reported that Netanyahu has said that "Wikileaks revelations were good for Israel".  Shamir--

"Simple-minded conspiracy junkies immediately concluded that Wikileaks is an Israeli device, or, in the words of a particularly single-minded man: a “Zionist poison”.

The truth is less fantastic, but much more depressing. The Guardian and the New York Times, Le Monde and Spiegel are quite unable to publish a story unacceptable to Israel. They may pen a moderately embarrassing piece of fluff, or a slightly critical technical analysis in order to convince discerning readers of their objectivity. They may even let an opponent air his or her views every once in a blue moon. But they could never publish a story really damaging to Israel. This is true for all mainstream media.

Furthermore, no American ambassador would ever send a cable really unacceptable to Israel – unless he intended to retire the next month. Yet even supposing this kamikaze ambassador would send the cable, the newspapers would overlook it."

It really looks like Assange can't catch a break, between the Nazis who condemn him for exposing their dirty laundry and not being loyal to a country of which he isn't even a citizen, and the global elite that consider it necessary to hide the truth from the rabble, joined in by those who would seem to be his natural allies but are convinced, for various reasons, that he can't be taken at face value. In the end, I'm glad that this mass-produced confusion of point/counterpoint may induce a political paralysis where every viewpoint is observed and the truth is revealed in a series of false moves and arguments obviously made in bad faith.

One point made by Shamir is important; that there is a deliberate attempt to make it seem as though wikileaks itself is producing these damning releases rather than simply showing the routine evil of the Empire, as if Assange was exposing, for instance, Hillary's order to get DNA and credit info on foreign diplomats, rather than reporting the exposure by Hillary's own team. 

"The second mode of attack on Wikileaks is to use it as a source of misinformation. These US State Department cables are double-edged swords. They are full of rumors, trial balloons, and hopeful thinking. Worse, the newspaper headlines often declare that Wikileaks is the source of the rumor, and leave it to the discerning reader to discover that an embassy staffer was the real source of the story. Readers often do not understand that headlines are little more than come-ons, and reflect a very loose interpretation of the article content."

Until now, I've had trouble understanding why I'm not in my usual cynical mode of understanding the WL phenomena. Shamir is used to watching the black cats fighting in the dark. You can only tell who is losing by the loudest shrieks.  I haven't heard so much as a moan from Assange while the cries of the Orcs are deafening. I don't believe it's about left or right at all, but Counterpunch might make a believer of me after all. If only Fidel and Hugo were Austrians!