WikiLeaks 'struck a deal with Israel' over diplomatic cables leaks

[Deega]

Hi All Avalonians, Guests,

Getting deeper still, Israel now!, whose next...!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/07/18665978.php

All my blessings.

Deega

[Teakai]

Geez, doing a deal with Israel would be doing a deal with the devil. (Israel as in the zionistic gvt - not the people living there)
J.A.comes across as an intelligent man - would he be so stupid?

Feels like a smear.

[Deega]

Geez, doing a deal with Israel would be doing a deal with the devil. (Israel as in the zionistic gvt - not the people living there)
J.A.comes across as an intelligent man - would he be so stupid?

Feels like a smear.

Thanks Teakai,

Hmm!, I think that when money is involved, strange things happened. And I don't know if Assange is wealthy enough to stay clear of the power of money...?

All my blessings.

Deega

[witchy1]

Im with you T - ja said in the vid that astrid put up that information still to come effects EVERY country. I think the article is a tad premature and do not beleive that WL will purposefully endanger people as intimated in the video. No-one has been able to confirm that anyones life has been endangered as a result of the release of the "historical" information. Nothing as I understand discloses "future" plans.
IMHO, I doubt that they would take bribery money. That does not appear to be their purpose.
Dont forget they are far from finished this release..................stay tuned anything could happen.

[Teakai]

True dat, Deega.

To some people principle has far greater worth than money - I'm one of those people, so I know they exist :)
And I'm not a bit financially wealthy, by western standards, and have no interest to be.

So, here's hoping he's a principles man.

[Deega]

True dat, Deega.

To some people principle has far greater worth than money - I'm one of those people, so I know they exist :)
And I'm not a bit financially wealthy, by western standards, and have no interest to be.

So, here's hoping he's a principles man.

Thanks Teakai,

Think the same!

All my blessings.

Deega

[fifi]

Hmm!, I think that when money is involved, strange things happened. And I don't know if Assange is wealthy enough to stay clear of the power of money...?

How about death threat to JA or his family? JA may be willing to be martyr, but almost everybody would have to step back if their family's well-beings are threatened.

[Carmody]

Well, I'll tell you you can talk about just about anyone, but if you talk out publicly against any country and in that list is Israel, they are seemingly the first to reach out, and kill. This much is known. It is rather easy to figure that out. They do it directly or they have someone do it for them.

I've also heard this from people - who would know.

[Deega]

How about death threat to JA or his family? JA may be willing to be martyr, but almost everybody would have to step back if their family's well-beings are threatened.

Thanks fifi,

Yes!, you are right!, but death threat came after making information available, not before that I aware of!, do you have information to that effect...?, may you shared...!

All my blessings.

Deega

[bluestflame]

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?ID=220467


I found it interesting that Qatar was awarded the next FIFA world cup renewing allegations of corruption among its officials

there were just a few, to say the least disgruntled countries and citizens of those countries that could not believe the decision to "award" Qatar hosting rights



"WikiLeaks: Mossad chief sees Qatar as ‘real problem’
December 3, 2010

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The chief of Israel's spy agency Mossad warned the United States that Qatar, which is to host the 2022 football World Cup, poses "a real problem," in a US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks on Friday.

It says Meir Dagan issued the warning in a July 12 meeting with a senior US counter-terrorism official, Francis Fragos Townsend.

Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, tries to please all parties in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, to underline its independence while hosting a major US base, he said.

The result is that he is "annoying everyone," according to Dagan, who pointed to frequent fallout from damaging coverage of Arab states by Qatar's satellite news channel Al-Jazeera.

The station could even provoke the Middle East's next war because Arab leaders hold Sheikh Hamad personally responsible for the coverage, according to the Mossad chief.

"I think you [the United States] should remove your bases from there ... seriously," Dagan, who retires in December, is quoted as saying.

"They have confidence only because of the US presence."

Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad al-Thani, chief executive of the Qatar 2022 bid committee, told reporters in Zurich on Thursday after the World Cup announcement that his country would also host Israel if it qualifies for the finals.

-AFP/NOW Lebanon


just bringing forward more dots to see if and where they connect

¤=[Post Update]=¤

I get a lot of soccer fans are fanatical about thier beloved game , many remember the soccer riots at various times and places around the world attributed to outcome of games

¤=[Post Update]=¤

*some say fanatical , others would be more comfortable with the term passionate

[witchy1]

I thin they should wait for this before making any plans http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?9062-3-very-large-object-flying-to-the-Earth!

[Ahkenaten]

OK Deega and fellow Avalonians, here is my detailed analysis on this IndyBay Article which makes the general allegation that Wikileaks ‘struck a deal with Israel over diplomatic cable leaks, and moreover took money for it.

FACT FIND RESULTS ON THE INDYBAY ARTICLE - Note: no author for this article is listed –the article appears under a section entitled “Palestine”

Link to Indybay article:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/07/18665978.php

Allegations [1] – [8] and Sources – and links

The first and most damaging allegation in the Indybay piece (Indybay is affiliated with Indymedia and has links to Indymedia on its web page bnner, but is not synonymous with that organization) is that Wikileaks struck a secret deal with Israeli authorities to insure that any documents that could damage Israel’s interests would be ‘removed’ before the rest of the documents became public. The source for that allegation, included as footnote [1] is a Wired Article, see link below. This article provides nothing to corroborate and verify this damaging allegation, rather the article focuses on disgruntled former Wikileaks employee Daniel Dorrsheit-Berg, why he left Wikileaks and internal politics within the Wikileaks organization.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/wikileaks-revolt/

The second and very damaging allegation is that Assange accepted money from ‘semi-official Israeli officials’ and that he specifically agreed in exchange in a secretly taped interview not to publish any documents that would hurt Israeli interests. This allegation links to an article in Syriatruth and it is printed in Arabic, and cited as footnote [2] in the article, with no reliable verbatim translation from Arabic to English provided.

http://www.syriatruth.info/content/view/977/36/

Because the entire Syriatruth article is completely in Arabic it is impossible for non-Arabic readers or speakers to confirm whether the article in fact makes these allegations, let alone go any further with fact-checking on this issue, due to formidable language barriers that the authors of the Indybay article do nothing to assist readers concerned about the truth to surmount.

The third, fourth and fifth allegations footnoted [3], [4] and [5] link to articles in the German Press, as follows, NOTE the first link to taz is in German and thus non-German readers cannot check for veracity, let alone follow-up for further fact-checking.

http://www.taz.de/1/netz/netzpolitik/artikel/1/vom-hacker-zum-popstar/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,732212,00.html

and

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,719619,00.html

The last two Der Spiegel articles linked directly above again relate to the saga of disgruntled former Wikileaks’ employee Daniel Dorrsheit-Berg, why he left Wikileaks, internal squabbles in the organization, and Dorrsheit-Berg’s opinions about Julian Assange’s leadership skills. The one article that includes quotes from an interview with Dorrsheit-Berg cited as [1] includes a section that relates to internal decisions about Wikileaks decision-making concerning information is the Wired Article, previously referenced, but nothing specific is said in that article about internal issues or decisions to corroborate the damaging allegations in the Indybay article, specifically that Assange made an agreement with Israel and accepted money from them in exchange for an agreement not to publish anything damaging to Israel’s interests. In fact the Wired piece quotes from Dorrsheit-Berg only serve to illustrate the sour grapes fired Dorrshiet-Berg had and due to Dorrsheit-Berg being at odds with Assange over decisions concerning organizational priorities that prevented what he felt was a much-needed reorganization. Nothing in any of these three articles in the German Press, therefore, as presented, substantiate the general damaging claims made in the Indybay article.

The sixth allegation in the article, accusing Assange of engaging in a secret meeting in Geneva with Israeli officials and agreeing to expung any leaked documents related to the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, in 2006, and 2008-9, references as [6] a piece in Haaretz in which, not surprisingly, Israeli leaders said that Wikileaks helped them because the leaks underscored that Arabs themselves were calling on the US and Israel to take care of the problem with Iran. Though this information is sourced ostensibly to ‘Al-Haqiqa sources’ – no footnote is provided.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-wikileaks-revelations-were-good-for-israel-1.327773

No one can control what any government leaders say about anything and naturally they will put whatever spin serves their purpose on any news and will extract from an information dump whatever serves their interests and emphasize it. This Haaretz article does not prove that Assange arrived at a prior agreement with Israel concerning leaks of documents, or that he took money from Israeli officials in exchange for that agreement or that he in fact expunged such documents.

Allegation seven concerns Assange “praising Netanyahu as a hero of transparency and openness.” [7] linking to an article in Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040-2,00.html

Nowhere does this article quote Assange as saying that Mr. Netanyahu is a “hero of transparency and openness” as alleged so this article does not verify accusation #7. There ARE some areas of ambiguous language in the piece, however, that COULD be conflated to infer something. But what, is unknown from the actual language in the piece. In fact the interviewer,(I am not able to provide you his name because the link [7] is only to page 2 of 4 pages in the Time article.) was the one who suggested that the information in the leaks underscored Israel’s position with respect to Iran by revealing that certain Arab leaders wished to decapitate the Iranian government.

The last allegation in the article is that Assange met twice with a left-leaning Lebanese newspaper who offered him money to obtain documents related to a secret war meeting ostensibly held between the US, Israeli and Lebanese parties at the US embassy in Beirut in July 24, 2006. According to source [8] the documents received by Al-Akhbar Editors left a gap and only covered information from 2008-forward, according to the Indybay article, thereby “supporting the Israeli deal allegations.”

Unfortunately again, footnote [8] links to an article in a Syrian paper that is entirely written in Arabic so it is completely impossible for a non-Arabic speaker or reader to verify whether in fact this article actually corroborates the allegations in the Indybay article, let alone enable one in search of the truth to take their fact-checking any further.

This is the second link to Syria Truth here:

http://www.syriatruth.info/content/view/986/36/


Conclusion:

The Indybay article does not meet even the most rudimentary journalistic standards. Aside from being riddled with conditional adverbs like “appears” – it is basically a hack-job. The sources cited DO NOT corroborate the damaging allegations being made, i.e. that Julian Assange of Wikileaks arrived at an agreement with Israel to redact any damaging documents prior to release, let alone that he accepted secret payments from them or from the newspaper Al-Akhbar for special dispensation. Moreover, knowing full well that the readers who will read the Indybay article are English readers, the article links to non-English publications, two in Arabic and one in German, as legitimate sources for its “news” reporting, further obscuring the truth.

If anyone thinks this analysis is helpful, please distribute it via Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks!

[karelia]

Ahkenaten, my little researcher's heart is bouncing! If we all read media "information" that way, they would soon stop daring to post any lies. ~applauds you~

[Ahkenaten]

Why thanks Karelia - I used to work as an Asst. to Exec. Editor years ago and did lots of this kind of stuff. It is kind of fun, really. Separates the wheat from the chaff so to speak! Akh

[fifi]

Yes!, you are right!, but death threat came after making information available, not before that I aware of!, do you have information to that effect...?, may you shared...!

Hi Deega, I don't have information to that effect. It's just a guess, because I came from a country where any hint - just hint - against the government will bring punishment not only to the dissident, but also to his/her family/relatives. I also read this:

"Assange denies being anti-war, but is vehemently against a government lying to its people to drag them into needless war. He reminds those that have called him a traitor that he is an Australian citizen. He also points to several other measures which are being taken against him in the United States which are nothing short of diabolical, including a call to have his 20-year old son kidnapped."

from:
http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/wikileaks-julian-assange-his-own-words

[Ahkenaten]

These people are DESPARATE! Anyone who believes otherwise in my opinion, is off their rocker!! I mean look at the stupid article in Indybay, supposedly affiliated with Indymedia............THAT is a credible piece of journalism? PUHLEEEESSEEEE! The malice and deliberate intention to do a character assassination is so blatantly obvious - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots and figure out where THAT came from!!

[witchy1]

Ahkenaten, WOW what a great effort. :clap2: Thank you

[Ahkenaten]

As an update on my Indybay analysis I e-mailed Indybay to complain about the abysmal editorial policies that would permit an article like this to be posted without fact-checking and suggested they have a little talk with the anonymous submitter.

[Deega]

OK Deega and fellow Avalonians, here is my detailed analysis on this IndyBay Article which makes the general allegation that Wikileaks ‘struck a deal with Israel over diplomatic cable leaks, and moreover took money for it.

FACT FIND RESULTS ON THE INDYBAY ARTICLE - Note: no author for this article is listed –the article appears under a section entitled “Palestine”

Link to Indybay article:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/07/18665978.php

Allegations [1] – [8] and Sources – and links

The first and most damaging allegation in the Indybay piece (Indybay is affiliated with Indymedia and has links to Indymedia on its web page bnner, but is not synonymous with that organization) is that Wikileaks struck a secret deal with Israeli authorities to insure that any documents that could damage Israel’s interests would be ‘removed’ before the rest of the documents became public. The source for that allegation, included as footnote [1] is a Wired Article, see link below. This article provides nothing to corroborate and verify this damaging allegation, rather the article focuses on disgruntled former Wikileaks employee Daniel Dorrsheit-Berg, why he left Wikileaks and internal politics within the Wikileaks organization.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/wikileaks-revolt/

The second and very damaging allegation is that Assange accepted money from ‘semi-official Israeli officials’ and that he specifically agreed in exchange in a secretly taped interview not to publish any documents that would hurt Israeli interests. This allegation links to an article in Syriatruth and it is printed in Arabic, and cited as footnote [2] in the article, with no reliable verbatim translation from Arabic to English provided.

http://www.syriatruth.info/content/view/977/36/

Because the entire Syriatruth article is completely in Arabic it is impossible for non-Arabic readers or speakers to confirm whether the article in fact makes these allegations, let alone go any further with fact-checking on this issue, due to formidable language barriers that the authors of the Indybay article do nothing to assist readers concerned about the truth to surmount.

The third, fourth and fifth allegations footnoted [3], [4] and [5] link to articles in the German Press, as follows, NOTE the first link to taz is in German and thus non-German readers cannot check for veracity, let alone follow-up for further fact-checking.

http://www.taz.de/1/netz/netzpolitik/artikel/1/vom-hacker-zum-popstar/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,732212,00.html

and

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,719619,00.html

The last two Der Spiegel articles linked directly above again relate to the saga of disgruntled former Wikileaks’ employee Daniel Dorrsheit-Berg, why he left Wikileaks, internal squabbles in the organization, and Dorrsheit-Berg’s opinions about Julian Assange’s leadership skills. The one article that includes quotes from an interview with Dorrsheit-Berg cited as [1] includes a section that relates to internal decisions about Wikileaks decision-making concerning information is the Wired Article, previously referenced, but nothing specific is said in that article about internal issues or decisions to corroborate the damaging allegations in the Indybay article, specifically that Assange made an agreement with Israel and accepted money from them in exchange for an agreement not to publish anything damaging to Israel’s interests. In fact the Wired piece quotes from Dorrsheit-Berg only serve to illustrate the sour grapes fired Dorrshiet-Berg had and due to Dorrsheit-Berg being at odds with Assange over decisions concerning organizational priorities that prevented what he felt was a much-needed reorganization. Nothing in any of these three articles in the German Press, therefore, as presented, substantiate the general damaging claims made in the Indybay article.

The sixth allegation in the article, accusing Assange of engaging in a secret meeting in Geneva with Israeli officials and agreeing to expung any leaked documents related to the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, in 2006, and 2008-9, references as [6] a piece in Haaretz in which, not surprisingly, Israeli leaders said that Wikileaks helped them because the leaks underscored that Arabs themselves were calling on the US and Israel to take care of the problem with Iran. Though this information is sourced ostensibly to ‘Al-Haqiqa sources’ – no footnote is provided.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-wikileaks-revelations-were-good-for-israel-1.327773

No one can control what any government leaders say about anything and naturally they will put whatever spin serves their purpose on any news and will extract from an information dump whatever serves their interests and emphasize it. This Haaretz article does not prove that Assange arrived at a prior agreement with Israel concerning leaks of documents, or that he took money from Israeli officials in exchange for that agreement or that he in fact expunged such documents.

Allegation seven concerns Assange “praising Netanyahu as a hero of transparency and openness.” [7] linking to an article in Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040-2,00.html

Nowhere does this article quote Assange as saying that Mr. Netanyahu is a “hero of transparency and openness” as alleged so this article does not verify accusation #7. There ARE some areas of ambiguous language in the piece, however, that COULD be conflated to infer something. But what, is unknown from the actual language in the piece. In fact the interviewer,(I am not able to provide you his name because the link [7] is only to page 2 of 4 pages in the Time article.) was the one who suggested that the information in the leaks underscored Israel’s position with respect to Iran by revealing that certain Arab leaders wished to decapitate the Iranian government.

The last allegation in the article is that Assange met twice with a left-leaning Lebanese newspaper who offered him money to obtain documents related to a secret war meeting ostensibly held between the US, Israeli and Lebanese parties at the US embassy in Beirut in July 24, 2006. According to source [8] the documents received by Al-Akhbar Editors left a gap and only covered information from 2008-forward, according to the Indybay article, thereby “supporting the Israeli deal allegations.”

Unfortunately again, footnote [8] links to an article in a Syrian paper that is entirely written in Arabic so it is completely impossible for a non-Arabic speaker or reader to verify whether in fact this article actually corroborates the allegations in the Indybay article, let alone enable one in search of the truth to take their fact-checking any further.

This is the second link to Syria Truth here:

http://www.syriatruth.info/content/view/986/36/


Conclusion:

The Indybay article does not meet even the most rudimentary journalistic standards. Aside from being riddled with conditional adverbs like “appears” – it is basically a hack-job. The sources cited DO NOT corroborate the damaging allegations being made, i.e. that Julian Assange of Wikileaks arrived at an agreement with Israel to redact any damaging documents prior to release, let alone that he accepted secret payments from them or from the newspaper Al-Akhbar for special dispensation. Moreover, knowing full well that the readers who will read the Indybay article are English readers, the article links to non-English publications, two in Arabic and one in German, as legitimate sources for its “news” reporting, further obscuring the truth.

If anyone thinks this analysis is helpful, please distribute it via Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks!

Thanks for the indepth analysis, interesting!

All my blessings.

Deega

[Deega]

OK Deega and fellow Avalonians, here is my detailed analysis on this IndyBay Article which makes the general allegation that Wikileaks ‘struck a deal with Israel over diplomatic cable leaks, and moreover took money for it.

Conclusion:

The Indybay article does not meet even the most rudimentary journalistic standards. Aside from being riddled with conditional adverbs like “appears” – it is basically a hack-job. The sources cited DO NOT corroborate the damaging allegations being made, i.e. that Julian Assange of Wikileaks arrived at an agreement with Israel to redact any damaging documents prior to release, let alone that he accepted secret payments from them or from the newspaper Al-Akhbar for special dispensation. Moreover, knowing full well that the readers who will read the Indybay article are English readers, the article links to non-English publications, two in Arabic and one in German, as legitimate sources for its “news” reporting, further obscuring the truth.

If anyone thinks this analysis is helpful, please distribute it via Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks!


Thanks Ahkenaton for your indepth (?) analysis, here a few comments on your conclusion.

You must be a specialist in journalism to conclude "The Indybay article does not meet even the most rudimentary journalistic standards", are you such a specialist...? And how may you come to this conclusion if you were not able to read the Arabic Articles, think about it...!

You say that it is a "hack-job", don't we see, often, some of these in the formal journalistic world...?, and we tend to let it slide in, don't we...?

I'm not sure, you may conclude that the allegations are not factual if you were not able to read the Arabic Articles...!

I should point out that I opened up the Tread on "WikiLeaks 'struck a deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks l" as an informational gesture, I didn't qualified it, I felt that we were at the beginning of an interesting saga!

All my blessings.

Deega

[Ahkenaten]

Thanks Ahkenaton for your indepth (?) analysis, here a few comments on your conclusion.

You must be a specialist in journalism to conclude "The Indybay article does not meet even the most rudimentary journalistic standards", are you such a specialist...? And how may you come to this conclusion if you were not able to read the Arabic Articles, think about it...!

You say that it is a "hack-job", don't we see, often, some of these in the formal journalistic world...?, and we tend to let it slide in, don't we...?

I'm not sure, you may conclude that the allegations are not factual if you were not able to read the Arabic Articles...!

I should point out that I opened up the Tread on "WikiLeaks 'struck a deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks l" as an informational gesture, I didn't qualified it, I felt that we were at the beginning of an interesting saga!

All my blessings.

Deega

Deega good points, every one. I actually do have a journalistic background in the distant past that although not rising to the level of a NY Times reporter, and dealing with arcane subject matter such as we find on Avalon, none the less my job was journalism such as it was! I agree that the entire informational field is basically a mine field of disinformation sprinkled with bits of truth. I took on the Indybay piece as an example, as I was interested in seeing what 'facts' the article based their allegations on. Unless the articles printed in German or Arabic substantiated the serious allegations, which I could NOT verify, nor could the typical reader encountering this piece - the allegations are baseless. IF I were a lawyer, which I am not, I would have those pieces translated and if they contained no hard facts, I would initiate a lawsuit against the authors on behalf of my client for defamation of character with damages. With respect to the issue of footnoting back-up information provided in foreign languages, while that has the COLOR of proper attribution, inasmuch as the general English-speaking reader cannot determine for themselves the veracity of the allegations by reading the sources, especially when it comes to inflammatory and damaging allegations like these, that attribution does not meet high levels of journalism. (which are much lower than standards required of academic scholarship in my opinion) Of course I cannot vet the pieces in German and Arabic myself, not being a native speaker and not having access to anyone who can translate the articles. I know that you didn't post the piece because you agreed or disagreed with it and were posting it as information, period and I am not presuming you and I are in lock-step in our views. I welcome diversity of opinion in all things as long are certain core values (i.e. truth, freedom, the inestimable value of living things) is honored.

[karelia]

Okay, I've finally had some time to read the article in taz. Will try to get to the Spiegel ones later as time permits. The taz one, in a nutshell, is almost exclusively from the point of view of ex-wikileakers (it makes it sound like there is an entire group that left because they didn't like the way JA concentrated on the cables involving the US, which I personally haven't actually noticed). Here is what I found interesting:

(Disclaimer: I translated this to the best of my knowledge; however, I am human and therefore imperfect.)

It is established that a shift of the ethical frame took place at Wikileaks: Away from unconditional data sharing towards impact; for this, less relevant-considered information falls under the table. This reminds of the practice of classical media as well as that of the pop music business. The public is given one hit after another. Not even 300 of approximately 250,000 documents are currently in the public domain—further chart stormers will follow. It's not for nothing that JA is consistently compared to the pop figure of Neo, the hero of The Matrix movies.

The question is: Is that so bad?
Many ex-Wikileaks members say yes. Therefore they will go public with a project of their own in mid-December, which they expressively do not see as competition to the Assange network but rather as a different approach.
Aim of the new project: less power, less spectacle. "As many people as possible shall access as many documents as possible, says Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who wishes to be perceived as someone offering a service to whisleblowers to pass on information without being discovered. To which address should be decided by the source, not the network.

I guess it'll be interesting what D-B is going to do in a week or so, though he comes across as a bit of a whinge-bag. ;)

[Ahkenaten]

Karelia thanks so much for this valuable translation from German. You seem to be verifying that there was nothing in taz to corroborate the serious allegations made in the Indybay article. I got that there were internal problems at Wikileaks, which often happens in small organizations. No wonder - given the pressures and kinds of information they deal with. I would imagine like many not for profits, many of the people who work for Wikileaks have strong beliefs and are very idealistic - you don't work at a not for profit to make lots of money! It appears many were disgruntled at JA's personal style and some key choices he made, i.e. going for the big kahunas and of necessity, no doubt, due to lack of staff and resources, neglecting the smaller stories that could have very large impacts on other human communities. These kinds of decisions really seriously tick dedicated staff off. Thus the exodus...................and there is nothing more distracting and vicious than internal organizational politics especially when it gets toxic, which is clearly the case here.

Now I wish we had someone who could translate those arabic pieces in Syria truth!!

That still wouldn't resolve of course the key question of whether J.A. is somehow controlled or working for the bad guys, but at least we could totally close out one fact-checking exercise.

[karelia]

Most of the article was about Daniel with double name whining about how wikileaks went down the drain, so, no, absolutely nothing that even remotely confirmed the allegations from the Indiebay piece.

I think on the key question about JA, only time will perhaps tell. But here are a few thoughts. I've watched people for a long time, and of course, I couldn't help but notice that whenever a true accusation is made, people tend to fall into two broad categories: one, they attack, often ill-mannered, immediately driving attention from the accusation away to something that is likely utterly irrelevant; two, they respond calmly and admit their mistake or whatever. Every politician of importance (no matter how self-perceived) falls into the first category (cue Palin, Clinton et al). JA, on the other hand appears to neither have lost his temper nor his manners at any time. I may be wrong; I've not seen every clip showing him, nor have I read every single article. But I perceived it correctly, I'm tending to lean towards respect for him.

Another thing: is anyone keeping a very close eye on what's going on in the government? What laws are being passed right now, the information of which is being swept under the table while everyone talks CableGate? No matter whether JA is the real deal or not, I would fully expect TMastardsTB to take advantage of this, whether they saw it coming or not.

[karelia]

But I perceived it correctly, I'm tending to lean towards respect for him.

It won't let me edit. *points up* This should have read But IF I perceived it correctly.