Michael Collins: Chris Floyd Skewers Wikileaks

Wednesday, 28 July 2010, 10:03 pm
Column: Michael Collins

"So once again, and for the last time, we ask the question: How does this alter the prevailing conventional wisdom about the war?" Chris Floyd, Leaky Vessels: Wikileaks "Revelations" Will Comfort Warmongers, Confirm Conventional Wisdom, Empire Burlesque, July 26, 27

Wikileaks head honcho Julian Assange may be annoyed with the 911 Truth movement and all those conspiracy theories. But he may be appalled when he reads that one of the leading authors and researchers on imperialism and the Iraq war, Chris Floyd, has taken him to task for making much ado about nothing.

Floyd makes his case early on in the article, with maximum effect:

"Is there anything in these breathless new recitations that we did not already know? For example, the NYT offers a few short vignettes from the leaked documents concerning botched raids and errant missiles that slaughter civilians. But in almost every case, these have already been extensively reported -- in the Times itself and other mainstream venues -- in much greater detail, with quotes and evidence from the victims and local eyewitnesses, and not just the self-interested, ass-covering perspective of official occupation reports. And the "revelation" that occupation forces are killing "an amazing number of people" who have "never proven to be a threat" at checkpoints was confirmed months ago by no less than Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the erstwhile commander of the whole shebang." Chris Floyd, July 26, 27

Floyd points out that regular readers of the three media outlets that received the leaks would know much of the material presented in the maze of documents touted as news. He makes a clear distinction between the Wikileaks data dump and previous national security leaks:

"These are not the Pentagon Papers or the Downing Street Memos; they do almost nothing to alter the public image of the war, and tell almost nothing that we don't already know." Floyd

Wikileaks quotes a US embassy cable from Kabul claiming that Iran is a key player in the Afghanistan opposition. Floyd's response shows the bias of the leaked material:

"Wow, that's heavy stuff, man. An apparatchik in the US embassy says that the political opposition to America's man in Kabul is just Iranian puppetry. Obviously, those Afghan ragheads couldn't possibly put together an opposition by themselves. (It's just like that Civil Rights stuff back in the day; it was all a Communist front. You know our docile darkies would never have tried to get above their raising if the Commies hadn't stirred them up.)" Floyd

After a comprehensive summary of the not-so-newness of the material release, Floyd concludes his devastating indictment with this judgment:

"I believe they will supply plenty of ammunition to those bent on further murder and plunder." Floyd

Some questions

Question: How do we know that the Wikileaks material is the only material being used by the New York Times?

George Friedman of Stratfor made an interesting point in his analysis of the Wikileaks materials:

"The Times reports that (former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Hamid) Gul’s name appears all over the documents, yet very few documents have been released in the current batch, and it is very hard to imagine intelligence on Gul and his organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, being classified as only secret. So, this was either low-grade material hyped by the media, or there is material reviewed by the selected newspapers but not yet made public. Still, what was released and what the Times discussed is consistent with what most thought was happening in Afghanistan." George Friedman, Stratfor Global Intelligence, July 27

Friedman's points are of real interest. Was the government so careless as to mention a critical U.S. intelligence contact, Gul, in secret, as opposed to top secret communication? If that's not the case, how did material that would presumably be classified as top secret end up in the Wikileaks documents, which were supposedly classified secret?

Is the Times inserting other material from unspecified sources in the Wikileaks commentary?

Does the Times have yet another of its political agendas embedded in the handling of the leaks?

Who is watching the leakers?

Question: Why did Wikileaks choose the New York Times, of all papers, as the news and editorial source for the U.S. audience?

The Times is, after all, the newspaper that brought us Judith Miller's fantasies about weapons of mass destruction and withheld the illegal wiretapping story until well after the 2004 election. That made "the paper of record" complicit in the effort to lie us into an illegal Iraq invasion and perpetuate the Iraq occupation and war. By withholding the illegal wiretapping story until December 16, 2005, the hugely negative impact of Bush illegal wiretapping was assured to have no influence on the election. This helped Bush and Cheney to four more years to inflict their pain on the country and the world.

Question: Why did Wikileaks' Julian Assange make this gratuitous remark on July 19?

"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." Julian Assange, July 19

Isn't Assange aware that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees routinely go after 911 Truth and that the mainstream media is never far behind? Why is he piling on? Which conspiracy theories is he talking about? How does he know that any one of them is false? Has Assange read the entire body of evidence based research and theories on 9/11(or any of it)? Finally, why does Assange have such contempt for the consistently high percentage of U.S. citizens, particularly in New York City, who voice serious doubts about the truth of the 9/11 Commission and other pronouncements by the bipartisan rulers who do their best to make sure that nothing leaks out or gets investigated regarding 9/11?

Chris Floyd's analysis of the latest Wikileaks production is required reading for those interested in navigating The Matrix of modern media manipulation.

END

This article may be reproduced in part or whole with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

© Scoop Media