Originally posted by Beefcake

Originally posted by Hadrian

Well, it seems to me that Wikileaks offers context-free information that is real data. To me, this is not propaganda.

The propaganda is the info itself.

It is impossible to prove that any of the data is real. I agree with you and said in my post that I do not know for certain if Assange is a fed or if wikileaks is disinfo but it is very feasible that the Pentagon could very easily plant disinfo in the documents and then leak them themselves. There is a clear advantage to having wikileaks disseminate the info as apposed to the standard whitehouse press conference.

I kinda realized I pretty much agreed with most of your post (theoretically) after I had responded to you. But that's why I put the caveat in there about arguing that the release of any information can be deemed "propaganda" by anyone, for any reason ... 'cause I figured that's where you were coming from and I don't disagree with that.

I reject, though, the admonition of Wikileaks simply because certain parties may or may not benefit from the leaked information. Somebody is going to benefit, somebody's not. It's the nature of this kind of relevant information.

Wikileaks is a whistleblower site. Any information they release is obviously going to be relevant; otherwise, they wouldn't bother releasing it. That the information Wikileaks has released in regard to Iraq, Iran, et. al., is advantageous to some, disadvantageous to others is a given.

What if there was information suggesting Osama was dead? Wouldn't people be arguing that's propaganda and somebody wants us out of Afghanistan? So he's not dead ... what? is that propaganda that we must redouble our efforts? Either way, it works as propaganda, so to me, that minimizes the sureness in questioning Wikileaks' motives.

Information that didn't fit into some scope of propaganda wouldn't seem to have the relevancy to release it, would it?

I disagree with assuming that Wikileaks sponsors some sort of hyper-political propaganda platform simply because they have released information. Is it possible? Of course, but again, I have seen zero evidence that Wikileaks is anything other than what it claims to be. So, neither do I contemplate Wikileaks' cooperation with the NSA, CIA, Pentagon, whatever. When evidence shows this to be the case, then I'll believe it (and be very sad ... but it won't be the first time).

By the way, I trust you saw the thread about the Pentagon claiming CIA-involvement in Wikileaks?

I've looked at a lot of their stuff and it's crap. Page after page of it.

So, with so much cloak and dagger stuff going on around the globe today it's always wise to ask the question "who benefits"?

This is all obviously egg on the face of the US military and State Department, so who benefits from stirring up the sh*t in that area of the world?

Funny how it always seems to be most advantageous to our staunch ally (gag, wretch!) Israel. You know, our buddies who tried to sink the USS Liberty.

For my money Wikileaks is a Mossad operation. My only question is whether Assange is a willful player or a dupe? Either way he's just as dangerous.

I know our military and intelligence agencies do rotten stuff and have for a long long time. This isn't "news" and it's certainly no secret so what's the big deal? Call me weird but this isn't what disturbs me.

What disturbs me is that we've reared a generation of miscreants that can fly around in gunships turning fellow human beings into hamburger with 30mm Gatling guns laughing and joking the whole while.

Assange may be brilliant and for all I know sincere but the bottom line is that he's a lazy drifter who's found a way to make an easy buck and jet around the world as the 007 type Spy Who Shagged Me- scratch that last and insert "Saved Me". Well, wait a minute, I may have been right the first time.

Assange's a bum and his leaks are garbage.

Originally posted by antonia

The most glaring problem? The lack of security for it's informants. Both the source for the leaked documents and the massacre video were arrested after the leak. Both of these sources were outed by hackers. Wikileaks does a very poor job of protecting it's sources. Is this on purpose?

I think you're misinformed.

Bradley Manning got outed because he started discussing what he did with Adrian Lamo, a snitchy-minded script kiddie. Lamo then turned around and told everyone in their mom about what Manning did.

Really had zero to do with Wikileaks not protecting him. In fact they maintain they don't even know exactly who the source was for that military video.

So with that first point basically wrong and the fact that there are thousands of people who have blown the whistle and submitted documents and stuff to Wikileaks (big ones too, remember Swiss banking fraud and Iceland banking stuff?) without reprisal, I'm gonna call no go on the rest of your points as well.

I also tend to believe that Wikileaks is just one of many social experiments being run on the people of the world.

Originally posted by EternitysDream
I also tend to believe that Wikileaks is just one of many social experiments being run on the people of the world.

That has crossed my mind. I don't know what to make of it. Can't decide if this is all a charade or it's genuine. Seems too obvious to be genuine.