{"id":530,"date":"2016-10-26T20:04:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T03:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgiagreenparty.org\/?p=530"},"modified":"2016-10-26T20:04:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T03:04:28","slug":"us-cyber-war-is-against-wikileaks-not-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/?p=530","title":{"rendered":"US Cyber-War Is Against Wikileaks, Not Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by<\/span> SRE\u0106KO HORVAT<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Originally published at CounterPunch <\/a>Oct 3, 2016<\/em><\/p>\n

When the ruling class is in panic, their first reaction is to hide\u00a0the panic.<\/p>\n

They react out of cynicism: when their masks are revealed, instead of running around naked, they usually point the finger at the mask they wear. These days the whole world could witness a postmodern version of the infamous quote \u201cLet them eat cake\u201d, attributed to Marie-Antoinette, queen of France during the French Revolution.<\/p>\n

As a reaction to WikiLeaks publishing his emails, John Podesta, the man behind Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign, posted a photo of a dinner preparation<\/a>, saying \u201cI bet the lobster risotto is better than the food at the Ecuadorian Embassy\u201d.<\/p>\n

A similar version of vulgar cynicism emerged earlier this month when Hillary Clinton reacted to the claim that she reportedly wanted to \u201cdrone\u201d WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (\u201cCan\u2019t we just drone this guy?\u201d) when she was the US Secretary of State. Instead of denying her comments, Clinton said that she doesn\u2019t recall any such joke, \u201cIt would have been a joke if it had been said, but I don\u2019t recall that\u201d.<\/p>\n

One doesn\u2019t have to read between the lines to understand that if Hillary Clinton had\u00a0said that, she would have considered it a joke. But when emperors joke, it usually has dire consequences for those who are the objects of their \u201chumor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cyber-war Not with Russia<\/strong>\u2026but WikiLeaks<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the last few months I have visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London several times and each time I came out of the Embassy, where he is\u00a0spending his fifth year in political asylum under legitimate fear he might be extradited to the US, my thought was the following one: although he lives, without his family, in a postmodern version of solitary confinement (even prisoners are allowed to walk for up to one hour a day), although he has no access to fresh air or sunlight for more than 2000 days, although the UK government recently denied him safe passage to a hospital for an MRI scan, if his access to the internet would be cut off this would be the most severe attack on his physical and mental freedom.<\/p>\n

The last time I saw him, which was only two weeks ago, he expressed the fear that, because he had\u00a0already published leaks concerning US elections and with more\u00a0to come, the US might find various ways to silence him, including pressuring Ecuador or even shutting down the internet.<\/p>\n

What seemed a distant possibility only two weeks ago, soon became a self-fulfilling prophecy.<\/p>\n

When the Obama administration recently announced that it is, as Biden said, planing an \u201cunprecedented cyber covert action against Russia\u201d, the first victim was not Putin, but precisely Julian Assange<\/a>whose internet was cut off just a day after Biden\u2019s self-contradictory proclamation.<\/p>\n

No wonder Edward Snowden reacted immediately<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0saying that \u201cnobody told Joe Biden what \u2018covert operation\u2019 means.<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Department of Defense\u2019s Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,<\/em> a covert operation is \u201can operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is no secret anymore that the Ecuadorian government has come under extreme pressure since Assange leaked the Democratic National Committee email database<\/a>.\u00a0We don\u2019t know yet whether the US pressured Ecuador to shut down the internet, but it is clear that the present US government and the government to come is fighting a war with WikiLeaks which is all but \u201ccovert\u201d. Is it really a coincidence that Julian Assange\u2019s internet access was cut off shortly after publication of Clinton\u2019s Goldman Sachs speeches?<\/p>\n

If at the beginning we still had a \u201csoft\u201d version of postmodern McCarthyism, with Hillary calling everyone opposed to her campaign a Russian spy (not only Assange, but also Donald Trump and Jill Stein), then with Obama\u2019s recent intervention it became more serious.<\/p>\n

With Obama\u2019s threat of a cyber-war, the \u201csoft\u201d McCarthyism didn\u2019t only acquire geopolitical significance, but at the same time a new mask was revealed:\u00a0Obama is obviously trying to cement the public debate and make the Russian threat \u201creal\u201d, or at least to use it as a weapon in order to help\u00a0Clinton to get elected. Moreover, this new twist in something that has already become much more than only US elections (US elections are never only US elections!), shows not only how Obama is ready to strengthen Hillary\u2019s campaign, but it also reveals that a cyber war is already in the making.<\/p>\n

It is not a cyber war with Russia, but with WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n

And it is not the first time.<\/p>\n

What would Clausewitz say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2010, when the Collateral Murder video<\/a> was published, the Afghan and Iraq war logs were released, and we witnessed one of the most sinister attacks on freedom of speech in recent history. VISA, Mastercard, Diners, American Express and Paypal imposed a banking blockade on WikiLeaks, although WikiLeaks had not been charged with any crime at either state, federal or international level. So if the US government successfully convinced\u00a0payment companies representing more than 97% of the global market to shut down an independent publisher, why wouldn\u2019t they pressure Ecuador or any other state or company to cut off\u00a0the internet?<\/p>\n

The US is not only rhetorically trying to \u201cget\u201d Assange (it is worth to check out the Assassinate Assange video<\/a> for evidence of the verbal masturbation of US officials), he poses a serious threat to the major elite factions\u00a0in the US to remain in power. No wonder panic is rising in the US, which is now going even so far that a 16-year-old boy in Britain<\/a> has been arrested on criminal charges related to the alleged hacking of email accounts used by CIA director John Brennan, which WikiLeaks published in October 2016.<\/p>\n

What WikiLeaks obviously successfully\u00a0challenged\u2013and maybe one day (\u201chistory is written by the victors\u201d, remember?) it will be learned in military strategy\u2013 is what the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz would call the \u201ccentre of gravity\u201d (Schwerpunk<\/em>t), which is the \u201ccentral feature of the enemy\u2019s power\u201d.<\/p>\n

Instead of speaking about the Russians, we should start speaking about the Schwerpunkt <\/em>of the actual leaks, their real essence. Just take the following quotes by Hillary Clinton exposed by WikiLeaks, which reveal her true nature and the politics behind her campaign: \u201cWe are going to ring China with missile defence\u201d, \u201cI want to defend fracking\u201d and climate change environmentalists \u201cshould get a life\u201d, \u201cyou need both a public and a private position\u201d, \u201cmy dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders\u201d.<\/p>\n

What WikiLeaks has shown is not only that Hillary is a hawkish war-monger, first it was Libya (over 1,700 of the 33,000 Clinton emails published by WikiLeaks reference Libya), then it was Syria (at a Goldman Sachs conference she explicitly stated she would like to intervene in Syria), tomorrow it will be another war.<\/p>\n

It is now clear \u2013 and this is the real \u201ccentre of gravity\u201d where we should focus our attention \u2013 that the future Clinton cabinet<\/a> may already been filled with Wall Street people like Obama\u2019s was. No wonder WikiLeaks revelations create utter panic not only in the Democratic Party itself but also the Obama administration.<\/p>\n

One question remains, isn\u2019t WikiLeaks, by leaking all these dirty secrets, influencing the US elections? Yes, it certainly is, but the current criticism misses its point: isn\u2019t the very point of organisations such as WikiLeaks to publish the material they have and to influence public opinion?<\/p>\n

The question should finally be turned around:\u00a0isn\u2019t the US mainstream media the one influencing the US elections? And isn\u2019t Obama, by announcing a cyber-war with Russia, influencing the elections?<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks is not only influencing the US elections, but transforming the US elections \u2013 as they should have been from the very beginning \u2013 into a global debate with serious geopolitical consequences at stake. What WikiLeaks is doing is revealing this brutal fight for power, but, as the old saying goes, \u201cwhen a wise man points at the Moon, the idiot looks at the finger\u201d. Instead of looking at the finger pointing to Russia, we should take a look at the leaks themselves.<\/p>\n

If democracy and transparency means anything today, we should say: let them leak!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n