A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Handy reminder of reporter’s role in the Wikileaks story
• Israel can handle killed Iranians to end regional threat
• The inside workings of a paranoid super-power
• The Wikileaks cable drop begins
• Who is really the bad guy in the Wikileaks story?
• Turkey first major nation to embrace one-state?
• IAJV November newsletter
• How scared are Western governments over Wikileaks?
• US aims to destroy Wikileaks

Handy reminder of reporter’s role in the Wikileaks story 28 Nov 2010 Great piece by Simon Jenkins at the UK Guardian that reminds journalists our job is to expose secrets and not protect governments. Unless, of course, you’re on the official drip-feed: Is it justified? Should a newspaper disclose virtually all a nation’s secret diplomatic communication, illegally downloaded by one of its citizens? The reporting in the Guardian of the first of a selection of 250,000 US state department cables marks a recasting of modern diplomacy. Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing’s snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms. Anything said or done in the name of a democracy is, prima facie, of public interest. When that democracy purports to be “world policeman” – an assumption that runs ghostlike through these cables – that interest is global. Nonetheless, the Guardian had to consider two things in abetting disclosure, irrespective of what is anyway published by WikiLeaks. It could not be party to putting the lives of individuals or sources at risk, nor reveal material that might compromise ongoing military operations or the location of special forces. In this light, two backup checks were applied. The US government was told in advance the areas or themes covered, and “representations” were invited in return. These were considered. Details of “redactions” were then shared with the other four media recipients of the material and sent to WikiLeaks itself, to establish, albeit voluntarily, some common standard. The state department knew of the leak several months ago and had ample time to alert staff in sensitive locations. Its pre-emptive scaremongering over the weekend stupidly contrived to hint at material not in fact being published. Nor is the material classified top secret, being at a level that more than 3 million US government employees are cleared to see, and available on the defence department’s internal Siprnet. Such dissemination of “secrets” might be thought reckless, suggesting a diplomatic outreach that makes the British empire seem minuscule. The revelations do not have the startling, coldblooded immediacy of the WikiLeaks war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan, with their astonishing insight into the minds of fighting men seemingly detached from the ethics of war. The’s disclosures are largely of analysis and high-grade gossip. Insofar as they are sensational, it is in showing the corruption and mendacity of those in power, and the mismatch between what they claim and what they do. Few will be surprised to know that Vladimir Putin runs the world’s most sensational kleptocracy, that the Saudis wanted the Americans to bomb Iran, or that Pakistan’s ISI is hopelessly involved with Taliban groups of fiendish complexity. We now know that Washington knows too. The full extent of American dealings with Yemen might upset that country’s government, but is hardly surprising. If it is true that the Pentagon targeted refugee camps for bombing, it should be of general concern. American congressmen might also be interested in the sums of money given to certain foreign generals supposedly to pay for military equipment. The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment. If American spies are breaking United Nations rules by seeking the DNA biometrics of the UN director general, he is entitled to hear of it. British voters should know what Afghan leaders thought of British troops. American (and British) taxpayers might question, too, how most of the billions of dollars going in aid to Afghanistan simply exits the country at Kabul airport. No harm is done by high-class chatter about President Nicolas Sarkozy’s vulgarity and lack of house-training, or about the British royal family. What the American embassy in London thinks about the coalition suggests not an alliance at risk but an embassy with a talent problem. Some stars shine through the banality such as the heroic envoy in Islamabad, Anne Patterson. She pleads that Washington’s whole policy is counterproductive: it “risks destabilising the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and the military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis without finally achieving the goal”. Nor is any amount of money going to bribe the Taliban to our side. Patterson’s cables are like missives from the Titanic as it already heads for the bottom. The money‑wasting is staggering. Aid payments are never followed, never audited, never evaluated. The impression is of the world’s superpower roaming helpless in a world in which nobody behaves as bidden. Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the United Nations, are all perpetually off script. Washington reacts like a wounded bear, its instincts imperial but its power projection unproductive. America’s foreign policy is revealed as a slave to rightwing drift, terrified of a bomb exploding abroad or of a pro-Israeli congressman at home. If the cables tell of the progress to war over Iran or Pakistan or Gaza or Yemen, their revelation might help debate the inanity of policies which, as Patterson says, seem to be leading in just that direction. Perhaps we can now see how catastrophe unfolds when there is time to avert it, rather than having to await aChilcot report after the event. If that is not in the public’s interest, I fail to see what is. Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets. Were there some overriding national jeopardy in revealing them, greater restraint might be in order. There is no such overriding jeopardy, except from the policies themselves as revealed. Where it is doing the right thing, a great power should be robust against embarrassment. What this saga must do is alter the basis of diplomatic reporting. If WikiLeaks can gain access to secret material, by whatever means, so presumably can a foreign power. Words on paper can be made secure, electronic archives not. The leaks have blown a hole in the framework by which states guard their secrets. The Guardian material must be a breach of the official secrets acts. But coupled with the penetration already allowed under freedom of information, the walls round policy formation and documentation are all but gone. All barriers are permeable. In future the only secrets will be spoken ones. Whether that is a good thing should be a topic for public debate.

Israel can handle killed Iranians to end regional threat 28 Nov 2010 How many dead Iranians is an acceptable price to pay for Zionist ambitions? A 2009 American government cable released Sunday by the WikiLeaks website quotes Defense Minister Ehud Barak as telling visiting American officials that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was viable until the end of 2010, but after that “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.”

The inside workings of a paranoid super-power 28 Nov 2010 The latest Wikileaks news here, here, here, here, here and here.

The Wikileaks cable drop begins 28 Nov 2010 This is how the US views the world (reporting by the Guardian): The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year. At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated “secret” – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership. These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers’ website, also reveal Washington’s evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues. These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high level concerns over Pakistan’s growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen. Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail: • Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb. • Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan. • How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally. • The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of “lavish gifts”, lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. • Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a “virtual mafia state”. •  Devastating criticism of the UK’s military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country. • Inappropriate remarks by a member of the British royal family about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country. The US has particularly intimate dealings with Britain, and some of the dispatches from the London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and Westminster. They range from political criticisms of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs. The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an “alpha-dog”, Hamid Karzai as being “driven by paranoia” while Angela Merkel allegedly “avoids risk and is rarely creative”. There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler. The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: “We’ll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours.” Other revelations include a description of a near “environmental disaster” last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse. Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan. US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential. As the cables were published the White House released a statement condemning their release. “Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the US for assistance in promoting democracy and open government. By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals.” In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said: “We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK. They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the US have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the US Government. That will continue”. The state department’s legal adviser has written to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that publication would place at risk “the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and cooperation between countries”. The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier earlier this year and passed to WikiLeaks. Assange made them available to the Guardian and four other news organisations: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to “dump” the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department’s fears, it also initially intends to post only limited cable extracts, and to redact identities. The cables published today 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 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. The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of “private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys”. PJ Crowley, the state department spokesman in Washington, said: “Let me assure you: our diplomats are just that, diplomats. They do not engage in intelligence activities. They represent our country around the world, maintain open and transparent contact with other governments as well as public and private figures, and report home. That’s what diplomats have done for hundreds of years.” The acting deputy spokesman for Ban Ki Moon, Farhan Haq, said the UN chief had no immediate comment: “We are aware of the reports.” The dispatches also shed light on older diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, reveals, that Nelson Mandela was “furious” when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher shortly after his release from prison to explain why the ANC objected to her policy of “constructive engagement” with the apartheid regime. “We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it,” according to the cable. It continues: “Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC’s objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn’t materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela’s plans.” The US embassy cables are marked “Sipdis” – secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, would be automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military’s Siprnet internet system. They are classified at various levels up to “secret noforn” [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn. More than 3 million US government personnel and soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to have potential access to this material, even though the cables contain the identities of foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in dictatorial regimes. Some are marked “protect” or “strictly protect”. Last spring, 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was charged with leaking many of these cables, along with a gun-camera video of an Apache helicopter crew mistakenly killing two Reuters news agency employees in Baghdad in 2007, which was subsequently posted by WikiLeaks. Manning is facing a court martial. In July and October WikiLeaks also published thousands of leaked military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. These were made available for analysis beforehand to the Guardian, along with Der Spiegel and the New York Times. A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier had told him in chat messages that the cables revealed “how the first world exploits the third, in detail”. He also said, according to Lamo, that Clinton “and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in searchable format to the public … everywhere there’s a US post … there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed”. Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a network accessible to thousands of government employees, the state department spokesman told the Guardian: “The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental information sharing. Since the attacks of 9/11, the US government has taken significant steps to facilitate information sharing. These efforts were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs.” He added: “We have been taking aggressive action in recent weeks and months to enhance the security of our systems and to prevent the leak of information.”

Who is really the bad guy in the Wikileaks story? 28 Nov 2010 US investigative journalist Michael Hastings tweets: Thought experiment: if [Wikileaks’ Julian] Assange had exposed thousands of secret docs from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc, would we consider him a hero or villain?

Turkey first major nation to embrace one-state? 28 Nov 2010 The Israeli press is reporting the following and if true a very reasonable call from Ankara to not tolerate Zionist racism against Palestinians. After all, one-state is almost inevitable in the Middle East. One day: Israel will not be able to remain over time an independent country, and a bi-national state will be established on all of the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River in which Jews and Palestinians will live,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a number of meetings that he held with journalists and academics, including a number of Israeli academics.  Davutoglu’s vision, which he revisited a number of times, is for Turkey to become a dominant force in the Middle East and further, that it will be the protector state of the above-cited bi-national state within a number of years.

IAJV November newsletter 28 Nov 2010 The following newsletter was sent out today: Dear friends, We are sending our occasional newsletter here and would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has been so supportive of our efforts; both with their willingness to sign our recent statement and donations. You will be aware that we are very limited in our resources and so it is both very heartening and practically helpful to receive so much ongoing encouragement and support. Above all, it indicates clearly that we are helping to fill an important gap in the public dialogue. Our recent IAJV advertisement appeared prominently in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian and Australian Jewish News with around 120 signatures (http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/10/09/australian-jews-say-enough-is-enough/) and highlighted the importance of Jews speaking out for peace and justice in the Middle East. The ad was attacked by the Australian Jewish News’ columnist Mark Baker (http://jewishnews.net.au/news/2010/10/07/saddened-by-the-sense-of-censorship/15800) and a number of Jewish writers in the letter’s pages of the AJN (http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/10/21/myopic-jews-berate-iajv-for-caring-about-human-rights/). We are pleased with the more than 130 Jewish signatories (and growing) and very generous financial support that made the advertisements possible. We continue to receive many emails and letters from across the community including both Jewish and non-Jewish supporters who express gratitude and encouragement for our public stand as Jewish voices. We are planning to maintain the momentum with new initiatives and will inform you all soon of IAJV events in the pipeline. We want to express our thanks to all who contributed in various ways to our efforts and thereby to add to the growing pressure on the Australian government to take a more enlightened view of the Middle East crisis. In other news, American Jewish writer and activist Anna Baltzer recently toured Australia and attracted large crowds across the country. She received great media coverage (Eg. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s3047744.htm andhttp://www.smh.com.au/national/activist-questions-contract-20101026-172eo.html). Her visit was sponsored by Australians for Palestine, Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine and IAJV and we are again pleased to work together with these groups to promote human rights in the Middle East. Anna was attacked by the mainstream Jewish community and defended by IAJV’s Peter Slezak on J Wire: Alan Gold on Baltzer http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/anna-who/12558 Peter Slezak reply to Gold http://www.jwire.com.au/featured/who-is-anna-baltzer-peter-slezak-replies/12635#more-12635 David Singer reply to Slezak http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/anna-who-david-singer-adds-his-view/12662 Alan Gold again http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/and-over-to-alan-gold/12643 Peter Slezak reply to Gold and Singer http://www.jwire.com.au/letters/response-to-gold-and-singer/12997 David Singer again http://www.jwire.com.au/letters/david-singers-reply-to-peter-slezak/13026 Anna appeared at Canberra’s Parliament House and made a presentation to 20 Federal parliamentarians among many others including diplomats and journalists. As in her many talks, Anna presented some of the troubling aspects of human rights violations in the West Bank and the need for governments and individuals to act on behalf of the principles of justice, international law and human rights for all. Finally, the following links are some recent news from the Middle East: – Antony Loewenstein, Western politicians prefer to ignore Israel’s inherent racism, Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/western-politicians-prefer-to-ignore-israels-inherent-racism-20101027-173p8.html – Gideon Levy, Israel is proud to present; the aggressor-victim, Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-is-proud-to-present-the-aggressor-victim-1.322053 – Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on abuse of Palestinians in Israeli detention: http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/201010_Kept_in_the_Dark.asp – Israeli human rights group Gisha on the real situation with the Israeli blockade of Gaza: http://www.gazagateway.org/2010/10/the-ban-on-student-travel-between-gaza-and-the-west-bank-fatma-sharifs-story/ Thanks again for your support and ongoing interest in our efforts. Best wishes for now, Independent Australian Jewish Voices Peter Slezak James Levy Antony Loewenstein Eran Asoulin http://www.iajv.org/

How scared are Western governments over Wikileaks? 28 Nov 2010 US blogger firedoglake reports: Skdadl, who has been tweeting up a storm on the upcoming WikiLeaks dump, noted that the British government hasissued D-notices regarding the upcoming dump, which is basically a non-binding request on editors to brief the government before doing a story. “The news came to light in two Tweets from WikiLeaks one of which said, “UK Government has issued a “D-notice” warning to all UK news editors, asking to be briefed on upcoming WikiLeaks stories.” The follow up pointed out that the notices were “Type 1″ which relates to “Military Operations Plans and Capabilities”, and “Type 5″ which relates to “United Kingdom Security and Intelligence Special Services.”” Here’s the content of the D-notice: Subject: DA Notice Letter of Advice to All UK Editors – Further Wikileaks Disclosures To All Editors Impending Further National Security Disclosures by Wikileaks I understand that Wikileaks will very shortly release a further mass of US official documents onto its internet website. The full scope of the subject matter covered by these documents remains to be seen, but it is possible that some of them may contain information that falls within the UK’s Defence Advisory Notice code. Given the large number of documents thought to be involved, it is unlikely that sensitive UK national security information within these documents would be recognised by a casual browser. However, aspects of national security might be put at risk if a major UK media news outlet brought such information into obvious public prominence through its general publication or broadcast. Therefore, may I ask you to seek my advice before publishing or broadcasting any information drawn from these latest Wikileaks’ disclosures which might be covered by the five standing DA Notices. In particular, would you carefully consider information that might be judged to fall within the terms of DA Notice 1 (UK Military Operations, Plans and Capabilities) and DA Notice 5 (UK Intelligence Services and Special Forces). May I also ask you to bear in mind the potential consequential effects of disclosing information which would put at risk the safety and security of Britons working or living in volatile regions where such publicity might trigger violent local reactions, for example Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan? [my emphasis] Of course, there’s something odd about this effort. The intertoobz don’t have national boundaries. So even if the Brits are successful at getting the British press not to cover these stories, that doesn’t prevent media outlets outside of the UK from reporting on them, making them available to be read within the UK (or, given that the concern seems to focus on our war zones, Pakistan). Mind you, the D-notice seems to be particularly concerned about major outlets and the “prominence” they can accord. And since with the last dump, at least, WikiLeaks actually did a great deal of redacting before releasing the documents via its public site, it would suggest the British government would be most worried about the one British outlet that got advance copies — presumably unredacted ones — of the latest dump. So, the Guardian.

US aims to destroy Wikileaks 28 Nov 2010 Looks like it’s game on: The United States has rejected talks with WikiLeaks over its planned release of confidential US documents, saying the whistleblower website is holding them in violation of US law. The US State Department set out its position in a letter to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his attorney that was released to the media. “We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained US government classified materials,” State Department legal adviser Harold Koh wrote. “As you know, if any of the materials you intend to publish were provided by any government officials, or any intermediary without proper authorisation, they were provided in violation of US law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action. “As long as WikiLeaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing.” WikiLeaks is expected to put online 3 million leaked cables covering US dealings and its confidential views of other countries. Many fear it will embarrass the United States and its allies and reveal sensitive details about US relations with other countries.