The WikiLeaks Hoax, Part II
In part I of “The WikiLeaks Hoax,” I adduced a number of reasons for concluding that the much vaunted “whistleblower organization” WikiLeaks is, in fact, just a facade. This was not always the case. The original WikiLeaks website was, as I have put it, an “equal opportunity” platform for leaks of all sorts. It did not share the current site’s single-minded focus on alleged American misdeeds. The original site went offline in December 2009. Despite the new site’s common logo and “branding,” in substance, the old site has never returned.
Just who or what stands behind the WikiLeaks facade is not clear. But what is clear is that WikiLeaks has a special relationship with Germany, a country that spearheaded the opposition to the Iraq war and that — despite the avowed Atlanticism of its current chancellor — has continued to take a generally dismal view of America’s war on terror. Indeed, Germany has done much not only to malign, but even to obstruct the war on terror. (For related links, see here.) In a recent documentary on The Hunt for Bin Laden, Germany’s ZDF public television went so far as to insinuate that American authorities purposely allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from his mountain hideout of Tora Bora in December 2001.
The special relationship of WikiLeaks with Germany is manifest in the inclusion of the German weekly Der Spiegel among the new site’s chosen three “media partners.” It is also manifest in the site’s maintenance of a special account for donations at the Berlin-based Wau-Holland Foundation. (The WikiLeaks donations pages note that “this may be the best choice for German residents” and, furthermore, that donations to the Wau Holland account are even tax-deductible for the latter!) And it is manifest, finally, in the sketchy details that are available about the “structure” of the supposed WikiLeaks “organization.”
For if the reportedly Australian-born Julian Assange is the WikiLeaks spokesperson for the rest of the world, WikiLeaks also has a special dedicated spokesperson for Germany — or “that region,” as Assange put it in a testy comment on a September 2009 Wired exposé about the site. The German spokesperson is named Daniel Schmitt. But “Schmitt” has admitted — to Wired, as well as several German publications — that his last name is a pseudonym.
In an interview with the German daily Die Welt, Schmitt was asked who has decision-making power in WikiLeaks and how many people were at his “level in the organization.” Schmitt’s head-spinning response was as follows:
Five people, I’m one of them. Though I am left out of all technical decisions. You can’t get hold of me to find out something. I don’t know anything. We are doers. None of [us] has a lot of time to discuss and to over-democratize everything. The only way to build up a reputation and trust within the organization is to collaborate: to show that one is competent. Around the inner circle, there are about 1000 experts with whom we work and whom, of course, we test in advance.
Schmitt’s logorrhoea hardly inspires confidence in the reliability of his account of the “organization.” In any case, one may be permitted to wonder what exactly “1000 experts” contribute to a site that, despite its association with two publicity-generating coups, has essentially been inactive. One thousand “experts”… and WikiLeaks could not manage to renew a SSL certificate.
As discussed in my “The Strange Career of WikiLeaks,” the “old” WikiLeaks had a somewhat conflictual relationship with Germany and, in particular, with the German foreign intelligence agency, the BND. Perhaps ironically, arguably the biggest genuine scoop produced by the old site involved blowing the agency’s online cover. In November 2008, the site published a list of IP address ranges that had been assigned to the BND under a disguised domain name by the German telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom.
At the time, the WikiLeaks submissions form was still functional, and it is presumably via the form that the document was uploaded to the WikiLeaks servers. The story became even bigger when it was discovered that the outed BND-linked IP addresses had been used to edit Wikipedia entries. In the most astonishing of the known edits, a presumptive BND employee added advice on how to build a “dirty bomb” to a German-language Wikipedia entry on “Nuclear Weapons Technology.” The same IP address was used to edit the German-language Wikipedia entry on the BND itself, editing out a reference to the “open secret” that the agency uses branches of the Goethe Institute in foreign countries as its “unofficial headquarters.”
Oddly enough, the WikiLeaks editors somewhat downplayed the significance of their scoop. The WikiLeaks “summary” on the matter suggests that the BND contributor to the “Nuclear Weapons” entry “apparently had second thoughts” and quickly deleted the advice on “dirty bombs.” Simple consultation of the relevant Wikipedia user logs shows, however, that this is false: the contributor had added the same passage twice and merely eliminated the redundancy. Otherwise, the WikiLeaks “summary” page tells us that the BND personnel made “a lot of standard edits.”
Why is ths not in the National Newspapers??? It is good investigative reporting. Ohhh, the MSM does not investigate….:)
That was a whole lot of nothing. Are you trying to imply, in a very circumspect way, that the German government, or more specifically, the German intelligence service has a hand in running Wikileaks now? And that, furthermore, the entire purpose of this is to discredit and sabotage the US war effort in Afghanistan, despite the fact that there are, in fact, almost 5,000 German troops in Afghanistan? I mean really, where are you going with this article?
Interesting that you answered your own questions. Do you have any actual substantive comments?
Agreed.
There’s a story here, he just didn’t get it, and that last paragraph, “What the world needs now are some useful leaks about WikiLeaks.”
Ouch.
I remember when the wikileaks server farm was sabotaged (they had backups, and well designed plans to relocate, and so were back up again quickly, and it *could* have been an accident), following the story on http://slashdot.org. Unfortunately, the search function on slashdot doesn’t seem to go back that far. To me, it seemed that that was the point at which Julian became the main guy.
BTW, I can sympathize with the German position – especially before starting the war, but not to the point of sabotaging efforts once the best hope for Afghans became a stable government (just about any kind would be better than the Taliban).
I know there has to be a wikileaks connection to Soros somewhere
In case anyone is wondering how Julian Assange, the apparent leader of WikiLeaks, is feeling about the recent batch of leaks, we have this item: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/16/wikileaks-founder-describes-possibility-casualties-acceptable-risk/.
In short, he doesn’t give a rat’s behind about any of the local informants in Afghanistan. He’s already rationalized any guilt away with the calculation that whatever happens to the informants named in the documents is sure to be outweighed by the lives saved by the leaks.
I’m still waiting to hear how lives will be saved by these leaks. I’m guessing that he assumes an outraged public will demand the US leave Afghanistan and thus save the Taliban from further loss of life.
I seem to remember that he gave assurances that all information about informants had been edited out before he posted them on WikiLeaks. It sounds like he missed a few edits, assuming he bothered to edit at all….
Has this guy ever leaked ANYTHING about people, groups or countries that might be considered enemies of the West like the Taliban, Al Qaida, North Korea, etc.? Or is he another one of those hypocrites who claims to be against all injustice, while making disclosures on only Western countries?
I remember a lot of that kind of hypocrisy over the years. I’m thinking of the people who opposed the US involvement in Vietnam on the grounds that it was an internal matter to be settled strictly between the Vietnamese. They demanded that the US leave Vietnam while remaining utterly silent about the Soviet and Chinese assistance that was vital to the North Vietnamese war effort.
And then there were the protestors who claimed to be against all nuclear weapons but who only ever protested American or British weapons and never once so much as sent a POSTCARD to the Kremlin complaining about THEIR nukes, let alone demonstrated in the streets of Moscow.
I’m getting a distinct impression that Assange is one of the same kind of hypocrites.
“Or is he another one of those hypocrites who claims to be against all injustice, while making disclosures on only Western countries?”
Change “Western Countries” to “America” and what you have is the garden variety liberal democrat.
“Conceitus Ignoramus”
Mr. Rosenthal has the special gift of being able to track back to German origins pretty much every mischief that happens in the world should he so desire (check his earlier articles published on this site).
While of course one cannot exclude that he occasionally may get something right, his overall approach is obsessive and paranoid, and his attitude similar to that of the knee-jerk anti-Israeli Muslim or the visceral leftist anti-American.
I learnt recently from a book talk about a Mosque in Munich that that was the first foothold ever the Muslim Brotherhood established in the West. http://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/a-mosque-in-munich-nazis-cia/id130062462?i=83351526
also I wonder whether the Icelanders don’t aspire to become the ultimate safe heaven for outfits like Wikileaks
and thanks to Mr. Rosenthal for explaining why Nick Cohen said that Wikileaks provided great service to him in the past
Given that our entire disaster of a government is being driven off the cliff by former members of the SDS and Black Panther groups, I would think it would be pretty to guess what is going on with the Wikileaks crap:
…certain parts of the German government and media are being run by descendants or former members of the Bader-Meinhoff gang that was connected just as the SDS to the old USSR.
It’s just the same batch of punk-a$$ commies who want to kill off the West, put the whole world under the jackboot of elitist commie scum, and who have been planning and working to get themselves in position to do so for the last 40 years.
Joe McCarthy was righteous. So was Reagan.
We just let them guilt-trip us into blindness about the truth long enough for them to take over.
Turning the Middle Eat into a soldier-killing bloody debacle that is totally mismanaged on our side and totally supporting our enemies is a part of getting rid of the US military – especially if it means that some bunch of nuts like Iran gets and uses the bomb against the West can be promoted – the whole THERE MUST BE REVENGE FOR HIROSHIMA thing.
All of the “noble desires” of the Ayers-Dourne crowd of pampered, stupid, violent, self-hating/worshipping 60′s kids are being brought to fruition.
…pretty easy to guess…
hm.. i have forgotten. do you remember the second of the vid when the heli shooter said “look at these bastards there…” http://wp.me/psdI6-O3