Spinning exposure of imperialist lies and secrets
Media try to minimize impact of WikiLeaks
By
John Catalinotto
Published Dec 8, 2010 10:02 PM
Imperialist diplomacy is constructed on lies and secrets. No one is surprised
by the secrets. Few are surprised by the lies. Still, a sudden exposure of the
lies and secrets can arouse a strong political reaction.
WikiLeaks is a group dedicated simply to releasing state and corporate secrets.
Last spring it released a dramatic video exposing some of the daily murderous
activity of U.S. helicopters in Iraq. In November WikiLeaks released 251,287
U.S. diplomatic cables to four major corporate media in four imperialist
countries. It has also released about a thousand of these cables to the public
via the Internet.
Spain’s El País, Germany’s Der Spiegel, Britain’s
Guardian and France’s Le Monde set up teams to search the cables. The
Guardian shared the data with the New York Times, which in turn passed it back
to the U.S. government.
A quarter of a million cables is an avalanche of data. To do its reporting, Der
Spiegel created a team of 50 people, half researchers and half document
experts. Similar teams worked for the other four media, searching for key words
and then reading the cables. Most popular organizations not only don’t
have access to the complete files, they don’t have the forces to quickly
evaluate all the documents.
These five corporate media outlets are all loyal to imperialism in general and
even more loyal to their own ruling classes, which own them and pay their
editors. Like the Times, the four in Europe can and do spin the interpretation
of the raw cables so as to minimize the damage to the strategic interests of
the European Union countries and the U.S. and to harm the interests of states
and movements that oppose these imperialist powers.
Thus some of the Times’ earliest reporting twisted the information in an
attempt to purportedly show the following: China had sharp differences with
north Korea and would put pressure on Pyongyang; the kings and other
undemocratic leaders of some Arab states were aggressively pushing the U.S. to
bomb Iran; and Russia agreed that Iran had obtained rockets capable of reaching
Europe.
A closer look shows that the Times often disregarded the facts and used a false
interpretation of the cables to promote U.S. policies.
Some key exposures
Whatever crimes might or might not be exposed, it is immediately apparent that
the leaks are an enormous embarrassment to the U.S. government and especially
its diplomats. Allegedly secret, U.S. data are insecure. This was central to
Der Spiegel’s coverage on its website on Dec. 6. A large photo showed a
concerned Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with a story entitled,
“Washington fights to rebuild shattered reputation.”
Regarding information useful to progressive or anti-imperialist forces, the
leaks revealed the following:
• The U.S. Embassy in Honduras was fully aware that the June 28,
2009, removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was a military coup, even
though the Obama administration refused to define it as such. The false
definition allowed the U.S. to continue sending aid to the coup regime and
recognize the rigged Honduran election.
• NATO last January agreed to defend the Baltic states and Poland
against Russia. “Nine NATO divisions — U.S., British, German and
Polish — have been identified for combat operations” should there
be war in that region. (Guardian, Dec. 6) But in public NATO called Russia a
“partner.”
• The cables show the U.S. using its diplomatic corps to spy on both
allied and other governments and U.N. officials. This is unsurprising news, but
now it is official.
• At the December 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, according to the
Guardian, “Embassy dispatches show [the United States of] America used
spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen
accord.” This accord, which wasn’t reached, would have protected
the interests of the big U.S.-based energy monopolies.
Exposing the spin weavers
Regarding how the Times spun its coverage of WikiLeaks stories on Iran, the
Arab states and Russia, Inter Press Service reporter Gareth Porter, with help
from Jim Lobe, wrote an article Dec. 6 showing that the alleged quotes from
Arab kings about the U.S. bombing Iran were made in the context of constant
pressure from the George W. Bush administration to condemn Iran.
The cables showed that the “Gulf Arab regimes — including Saudi
Arabia itself — have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a
strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel’s
open advocacy of such a strike.”
Regarding Russia and Iran, Porter wrote Nov. 30 that the cables showed that
“Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the
U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or
intends to develop such a capability.” This completely contradicts the
way the Times spun the story.
Regarding China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, regardless
of what U.S. informants claimed, China has continued to criticize the
aggressive maneuvers of the U.S. military with its Japanese and south Korean
allies in the region.
All the media outlets that received the full set of WikiLeaks cables gave them
their own spin, not always aimed at defending Washington’s particular
interests, but always loyal to imperialism. El País, for example, which
has waged a relentless propaganda war against socialist Cuba, Hugo Chávez
of Venezuela and other progressive Latin American leaders, used information in
cables from U.S. diplomats to continue to demonize these leaders.
U.S. war against WikiLeaks
On Dec. 7 the founder and main spokesperson for WikiLeaks, Julian Assange,
turned himself in to British authorities to answer charges stemming from an
alleged sexual incident in Sweden. These same charges, which were made only
after Assange became a high-profile critic able to embarrass the U.S.
government, had earlier been dropped. However, they reappeared in a European
warrant. Assange was refused bail and Sweden is asking for extradition.
This followed a week of government and media demonizing WikiLeaks and Assange,
including actual threats of assassination from government officials in Canada
and completely unfounded charges in the U.S. that WikiLeaks was a
“terrorist” organization.
During that week, a cyber attack on the WikiLeaks website made it unusable. The
U.S. also pressured Amazon.com and PayPal to stop doing business with WikiLeaks
and got the governments of Iceland, Switzerland and Sweden to join in
persecuting Assange and his organization.
By Dec. 7, in response and solidarity — and this is still possible under
the current use of the Internet — more than 700 website owners had
“mirrored” the WikiLeaks site, meaning they now have sites with the
same content as WikiLeaks and are linked to a full file of diplomatic cables.
This story is far from over.
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