Wikileak Baloney
A big question in the mass media right now is whether wikileaks represents a threat to national security, as the Pentagon states, or if it's an agent of democracy, which many others espouse.
(http://blogs.abcnews.com/nightlinedailyline/2010/10/wikileaks-threat-to-security-or-agent-of-democracy.html). Quite the divide, as usual. This Assange guy is either a hero or a villain, it would seem. But is he either? Isn't it more likely that he's just a pawn?
A few notable facts regarding wikileaks:
(1) As a "threat to national security", what implications might wikileaks have for civil rights? First ammendment rights? How about internet freedom (net neutrality)?
(2) According to wikileaks, "Iran provided extensive aid to Iraqi militias," ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-23/pentagon-documents-show-u-s-ignored-torture-abuse-reports-guardian-says.html ) Pretty convenient, given the President's very hawkish stance on Iran: (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=obama+on+iran&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8). Remember too that just a few weeks ago, Bloomberg suggested that Iran may have missiles from North Korea -
Fantastic.
This could go in a number of
directions (or in several
directions simultaneously) but one thing is pretty certain, wikileaks
is no whistleblower. What we have here is yet another wedge being
gussied up in the mass media, like the tea party hysteria (and so many
other things...) which not only divide people but also soften the
target for some upcoming legislation which would otherwise be
unpopular. Front page news doesn't get there against the
establishment's wishes. In all likelihood, wikileaks is
an intelligence operation, which will build up to more
encroachment on civil rights, control of the internet, or something
else along those lines, all in the name of "grave national security",
much in the same spirit as Bush's Patriot Acts, Military
Commissions Act or Defense Authorization Act, the Emergency Economic
Stabilization Act of 2008, etc .................................
But it could also be worse.
It could also be part
of an build-up to invade Iran, which would be disastrous, by all sane
accounts. Of course,
the sane accounts did not prevail during the Bush build-up to Iraq.