A.Loewenstein Online Newsletter

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Israel knows military strike against Iran futile Posted: 10 Apr 2011   Wikileaks breaks through Zionist propaganda that has long threatened Tehran with annihilation:   Senior defense officials ruled out an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites as early as five and a half years ago, telegrams sent from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv in 2005 and 2006 indicate. The cables, which were revealed over the weekend, are among hundreds of thousands shared exclusively with Haaretz by the WikiLeaks website. In the first telegram, sent on December 2, 2005, American diplomats said their conversations with Israeli officials indicate that there is no chance of a military attack being carried out on Iran. A more detailed telegram was sent in January 2006, summing up a meeting between U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman (a Democrat for New York ) and Dr. Ariel Levite, then deputy chief of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission. “Levite said that most Israeli officials do not believe a military solution is possible,” the telegram ran. “They believe Iran has learned from Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, and has dispersed the components of its nuclear program throughout Iran, with some elements in places that Israel does not know about.” Later on in the conversation, Levite told the Americans that Iran could obtain nuclear weapons within two to three years, but admitted the estimate could be inaccurate as “Israel does not have a clear or precise understanding of Iran’s clandestine program.” Without citing any sources, Levite noted that there are rumors that Iran has already obtained “some warheads from Ukraine,” the telegram added. He claimed that, “Israel knows that Iran has acquired cruise missiles from Ukraine.”

Wikileaks is noble art in tradition of information sharing Posted: 09 Apr 2011   Julian Assange is damn right:   WikiLeaks is part of an honourable tradition that expands the scope of freedom by trying to lay ‘all the mysteries and secrets of government’ before the public. We are, in a sense, a pure expression of what the media should be: an intelligence agency of the people, casting pearls before swine.   He also rightly sees the New York Times as a paper of the establishment, rarely willing to seriously challenge the underpinnings of the state.   The latest Assange missive is released at the same time as an open letter in defense of Wikileaks publishing what it wants, signed by Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushdie and many others:   We believe that free societies everywhere are best served by journalism that holds governments and corporations to account. We assert that the right to publish is equal to, and the consequence of, the citizen’s right to know. While we believe in personal privacy and accept a need for confidentiality, we hold that disclosure in the public interest is paramount. Liberty, accountability and true democratic choice can only be guaranteed by rigorous scrutiny. We defend the right to publish the truth responsibly without obstruction and persecution by the state. The primary duty of journalists everywhere is to advance the cause of understanding, not to assist governments and powerful interests in suppressing information, and never to defer to ingrained habits of secrecy.   With these principles in mind, we declare our support for the publication of documents released through leaks. They have cast significant light on the behaviour of governments and corporations in the modern world. WikiLeaks has done the world great service. We strenuously denounce the threats of death and criminal prosecution of its director for publishing, together with many organisations throughout the world, information that is clearly in the public interest.   Those in authority routinely oppose such disclosure, as they have done since the struggle to publish the proceedings of the British Parliament over two hundred years ago right through to the release of the Pentagon Papers. We believe no democracy has ever been harmed by an increase in the public’s knowledge and understanding.Therefore, we, the undersigned, declare our unyielding support for the principles of journalistic inquiry and openness, and condemn the forces that threaten both.