Sunday, November 28, 2010

Wikileaks Watch

JoeSettler at 11/28/2010

A Joint Jameel/JoeSettler headline post being updated over the next 12-24 hours.

This post will be updated as new Israel related Wikileaks updates (and related events) appear.

Wikileaks has announced they will begin posting documents today consisting of communications from the US to its embassies regarding its allies. For the past week, the US has been trying to do damage control. The US claims that the release of this information will "place at risk on-going cooperation between countries".

Latest leaks and rumors on top. 4:49 PM Speculations abound that the WikiLeaks will reveal that Israeli officials have been providing classified information to the USA in exchange for money (rotter.net)

4:42 PM The JPost reports the USA's spin control:

The Obama administration on Sunday told whistle-blower WikiLeaks that its expected imminent release of classified State Department cables will put "countless" lives at risk, threaten global counter-terrorism operations and jeopardize US relations with its allies. [Jameel: by telling us what the State Department really thinks of Israel? We've been writing it on the muqata blog for years...]

In a highly unusual step reflecting the administration's grave concerns about the ramifications of the move, the State Department released a letter from its top lawyer to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his attorney telling them that publication of the documents would be illegal and demanding that they stop it.

The letter from State Department legal adviser Harold Koh was released as US diplomats around the world are scrambling to warn foreign governments about what might be in the secret documents that are believed to contain highly sensitive assessments about world leaders, their policies and America's attempts to lobby them. [Jameel: The USA wants Tzippi Livni as Prime Minister? What a shock.]

In the letter, Koh said the publication of some 250,000 secret diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, which is expected on Sunday, will "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals," ''place at risk on-going military operations," and "place at risk on-going cooperation between countries."

"They were provided in violation of US law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action," he said. Koh said WikiLeaks should not publish the documents, return them to the US government and destroy any copies it may have in its possession or in computer databases.

4:24 PM Washington specifically warns Israel of "potentially embarrassing" leaks (Breitbart) Rotter.net reports that the US has pulled CIA spy operatives out of Israel so that Israel can't retaliate and imprison "Pollards" for spying on Israel for the USA.

4:15 PM Rumors that Wikileaks contain detailed personality profiles of Israeli leaders, details of meetings with Mossad chiefs, and intel from army intel unit "Aman."

2:37 PM Already theories abound surround the latest Wikileaks.

The US has spent the last weekend taking down file-sharing and bit-torrent sites and seizing domain names. A theory behind that is to slow down the proliferation of the Wikileaks documents. A little over the top for my taste.


Others say that local leftwing Israelis are going to be named as sources for much information.

And one particularly interesting theory is that it will reveal what the US knows about secret Israeli operations, and officially link them to Israel (Syria nuclear plant strike, Abu Dhabim Stuxnet, etc.)

Personally, we're expecting at least one remark about the Muqata being an obstacle to peace (and a voice of reason).

As the Wikileaks released we'll let you know of anything important we (or others) find.

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