Wikileaks - a false myth

Wikileaks portal, as well as its founder Julian Assange, has caused a lot of confusion within last year and has become a specific fight icon for freedom of speech. Is it really so? I have been examining this service for some time and everything indicates that there is a a clear discrepancy among declarations and facts. As a result, Wikileaks inspires restriction of freedom against declarations. 

Julian Assange 

Both a controversial and secret figure. He himself does not want to allegedly disclose information about him due to security reasons. One can understand that things that get out make others think, though. First of all, information about his relations with a scientological church, with which he allegedly broke off. Wikileaks is not Assange only but also some hackers, who are not of anyone’s interest by a strange twist of fate, who do not shine in media. If one asked a question about things that are very inconvenient for establishment, then it would appear that his views do not diverge from popular opinions presented in so-called mainstream, which completely ignore even meetings of the Bilderberg group. 

Who finances Assange is a question which is a matter of much vagueness. His activity and everyday move from and to the hotel, as well as his changes of the phone number cost. The portal is supported declaratively from the voluntary means, indeed but has anyone seen a statement of this voluntariness? 

A lawyer, who represents the company’s problems before the British Court is Mark Stephens, a famous London lawyer, who has become famous for many spectacular cases (among others defending Greenpeace, acting against McDonald's and Royal Dutch Shell but also defending Wall Street Journal and he has represented Charles Dawkinson in the process against Benedict XVI lately), he is also associated with a well-known financier George Soros. Stephens has represented his clients for free many times, so probably his help for Assange is alike. Nevertheless, are all “fighters for freedom of speech” supported in the same way? Does Wikileaks itself defend the oppressed defenders of freedom? 

“Wikileaks” 

The date of creating Wikileaks can be found in Wikipedia and on tens of other websites. However, if one thinks since when we can hear about the portal, then a serious clash appears. It seems to be for a short time. Majority of people heard actually about the portal only last year, after media distributed the alleged scandal when the film from Iraq had been published by Wikileaks, where two Iraqi employees of the Reuters agency die during the attack of the Apache helicopter. 

Other curiosity - Daniel Domsheit-Berg, the former Assange’s employee, started a new Openleaks service in April 2011, which is supposed to be a platform for free placing of different leaks types on them that come from very different sources. How does it differ from Wikileaks? First of all, it is a true portal form, which stopped working for some time in December 2009 and came back in a new form, where data is “verified” by the Wikileaks team and placed on servers later. The information was earlier verified by the readers themselves. Does it build declarative freedom of speech? 

Unusual access to the greatest media in the world 

Criticism of all so-called trackers of conspiracy theories and alternative media representatives is certainly justified in this issue, even if it is caused by jealousy. After all, years of a strenuous work, searches and laborious collection of documentation gives only a Sisyphus’ label to many - a madman or Don Quixote fighting windmills. Doesn’t it verge on the miraculous, when a completely unknown “hacker” representing a niche portal, breaks through to the biggest media concerns? 

A well-known Austrian journalist Jane Bugermeister noticed rightly that when “German journalists such as Harald Schumann state that such magazines as Der Spiegel censor his articles concerning financial crimes and censorship is a common practice, Assange’s face is visible on the Spiegel website main page as a fighter for freedom of speech”. 

Assange himself never wastes an opportunity to give an interview or talk with media. The only thing that misses are T-shirts with an image of a slim grey-haired fighter for freedom of speech. A number of interviews and attention given to the creators of Wikileaks, media already place him on shelves among the most popular celebrities. One can win the world having such support, let’s think who and why stands behind Wikileaks? 

Middle East revolution - example 1 

Information published by Wikileaks concerning local leaders’ corruption was the ignitor of Middle East revolutions, especially in Northern Africa (Tunisia, Egypt). It led to protests, and as a result made Ben Alego leave Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak fled from Egypt. These countries belonged to the fiercest opponents of the USA or Israel. However, people who did not have much in common with Egypt itself came to the country during the revolution but especially such people as Mohammed ElBaradei were active on the international arena. As a result, there is still nothing of democratization on the horizon and the only result is that these countries became de facto dependent on the West countries. 

Chip for every European - example 2 

A surprising coincidence took also place in case of publication of witnesses’ testimonies who were kept in the Guantanamo base. They were disclosedmore or less a week before the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden and they contained among others the assassins’ announcement in Europe in case of the Al-Kaida leader’s death. This information constitutes a pretext for sharpening of control in the area of European Union that is plunged in crisis. As a result, it is a step towards mass but very “justified” surveillance of the Europeans. 

Nuclear domino - example 3 

Wall Street Journal referring to Wikileaks wrote: 

“Just after the Americans withdrew missile defense shield from the project and after the Washington - Moscow talks about disarmament system, Russia has located an atomic warhead in the Kaliningrad Oblast.”  

As a result, Wikileaks inspires spreading the information, which strengthens existing dependencies in which Poland remains, via one of the most opinion-forming newspapers in the world. 

Seemingly reliable information acts against declared freedom. 

Importance of information 

The last thing that indicates that Wikileaks and Julian Assange are not these as they are created, is the fact that their activity has brought almost nothing that would not already be known to more curious researchers. In principle, these are only details, additions to information which was earlier written about. 

There are lots of arguments, I will allow myself to quote these that were stated by George Friedman (STRATFOR): 

“Everyone, who was close to battles or who read history of the II World War, will be surprised not by the presence of war crimes but by the fact that there is so few of them among documents concerning this subject available on the Wikileaks servers. A war is controlled violence and when control fails - as it happens without any doubt - uncontrolled and potential criminal activities appear. In the meantime, the publicized cases published by Wikileaks do not clearly show criminal actions of the American soldiers as much as it happens in case of consequence on the part of the insurgents, who break the Geneva Convention”. 

(..)”A similar situation concerns diplomatic leaks. There was much disclosed information that was known to the informed observer. For example, everyone who reads analyses seriously, knows that not only the Israelis but also the Saudis were especially anxious about Israel’s power and pressed the USA to do something in this case. While media treated it as significant news, in fact it required deep ignorance of the Persian Gulf’s geopolitics to treat the American diplomatic notes concerning this subject as surprising”. 

Summary 

The organisation that postulates the implementation of complete transparency in international relations, which let’s be honest, is completely undoable, remains itself extremely mysterious. Instead of dealing with information, it conducts propaganda above all and the question is for whom? 

I am listing the examples of Wikileaks and Julian Assange’s activities today, which do not have much in common with its declarated, how very noble mission - protection of freedom.