Showing posts with label WikiLeaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WikiLeaks. Show all posts

Sunday, February 24, 2013

1,000 days in jail for Bradley Manning ; 1,000 days of silence from Christine Quinn

1,000 days in jail for Bradley Manning ; 1,000 days of silence from Christine Quinn

Today, LGBT Army PFC Bradley Manning marked his 1,000th day imprisoned without a trial, reported Raw Story. PFC Manning is "suspected" of being the source of making government transparency disclosures to WikiLeaks.

PFC Manning is an LGBT service member, and many groups and leaders have been advocating for justice for PFC Manning. But New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has been eerily silent.

"It has taken him from the desert of Iraq, where he was arrested at a military operating base outside Baghdad, to a prison tent in Kuwait. From there he endured his infamous harsh treatment at Quantico Marine base in Virginia, and for the last 14 months he has attended a series of pre-trial hearings at Fort Meade in Maryland, the latest of which begins next week," reported Raw Story.

Among the violations of due process, government transparency, torture, and other charges, the government's prosecution of PFC Manning includes blatant acts of censorship.

No statement of support from LGBT leader Christine Quinn, who has her own murky history of redacting government documents.

What kind of an LGBT leader is Speaker Quinn if she remains quiet about the government's violations of PFC Manning's constitutional rights ?

Sunday, December 16, 2012

U.S. Demands to Assassinate Assange

High-level U.S. government officials, including Clinton and Biden, demand for the assassination of Assange and to list WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization. In this country, do we prosecute whistleblowers ?

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Accused WikiLeaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning Testifies He Thought He Would "Die in Custody"

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has testified for the first time since he was arrested in May 2010. Speaking on Thursday, November 29, 2012, at a pretrial proceeding, PFC Manning revealed the emotional tumult he experienced while imprisoned in Kuwait after his arrest in 2010, saying, "I remember thinking, ’I’m going to die.’ I thought I was going to die in a cage."

Read more : Accused WikiLeaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning Testifies He Thought He Would "Die in Custody"

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Nobel Peace Laureates Slam The U.S. Over Bradley Manning Case

Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Northern Irish activist Mairead Maguire, and Argentine artists Adolfo Pérez Esquivel have authored a statement to be published in an upcoming issue of The Nation that condemns the United States’ persecution of the 24-year-old Army private and implores the rest of America to question the country’s secretive torture of a soldier that the prize winners say defended democracy.

“As people who have worked for decades against the increased militarization of societies and for international cooperation to end war, we are deeply dismayed by the treatment of Pfc Bradley Manning,” the laureates write.

Left unaddressed by the Nobel laureates was why supposedly progressive, LGBT politicians, such as Christine Quinn, are questionably silent about the persecution of PFC Manning.

Read more : Nobel laureates slam the US over Bradley Manning case

Hilarious Parody of Petraeus Scandal

Buy #Cypherpunks By Julian Assange directly from : O/R Books

FRONTLINE:WIKISECRETS BY FRONTLINE (DVD) (Google Affiliate Ad)

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Save Bradley Manning Rally Outside Obama NYC Campaign Headquarters

On the Evening of President Obama's Acceptance Speech at the Democratic National Convention, Activists Demand Freedom and Liberty for PFC Bradley Manning.

A coalition of activists and members of groups, like World Can't Wait, Veterans For Peace, and others, showed up for a rally outside of President Barack Obama's NYC campaign headquarters to demand freedom for LGBT service member and whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning. PFC Manning faces 22 charges in an unjust court martial, which denies him due process and other basic civil rights. PFC Manning faces government accusations that he released government documents and videos to WikiLeaks.

For more information, please visit : BradleyManning.org or CourageToResist.org or WorldCantWait.net

If you believe that whistleblowers should not be prosecuted, please ask President Obama to release PFC Manning -- send Tweets to the White House at : @whitehouse and @BarackObama

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Britain And Ecuador In Diplomatic Crisis Over Julian Assange

British authorities threaten to raid the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to get Assange

The wire services of Reuters is reporting that a major diplomatic crisis escalated on Wednesday in London over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after UK authorities indicated that they would storm Ecuador's London embassy if Ecuadorian diplomats did not turn over Mr. Assange, who has been taking refuge there for two months.

In response, the Ecuadorian government quickly raised legal and diplomatic concerns over the British threats. Reuters reported that Ecuadorean government officials said such a raid would be considered a "hostile and intolerable act," and it would violate the sovereignty of Ecuador's government, and, by extension, its Embassy in London.

"We want to be very clear, we're not a British colony. The colonial times are over," Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said in an angry statement after a meeting with President Rafael Correa, Reuters reported.

The Ecuadorian Embassy in London posted the following statement yesterday on it's mission's website :

“We are deeply shocked by British government’s threats against the sovereignty of the Ecuadorian Embassy and their suggestion that they may forcibly enter the embassy.

This is a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention.

Throughout out the last 56 days Mr. Julian Assange has been in the Embassy, the Ecuadorian Government has acted honourably in all our attempts to seek a resolution to the situation. This stands in stark contrast to the escalation of the British Government today with their threats to breakdown the door of the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Instead of threatening violence against the Ecuadorian Embassy the British Government should use its energy to find a peaceful resolution to this situation which we are aiming to achieve.“

The Associated Press wire service has already reported that British police have made arrests of peaceful activists outside the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

ASIO Spied On Julian Assange


Quoted entirely from The Age :

Assange told of ASIO snooping

Philip Dorling
March 16, 2011

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange is believed to have been tipped off more than seven months ago about Australian intelligence scrutiny of his whistleblowing activities.

Senior government ministers yesterday claimed to have no knowledge of co-operation between Australian intelligence agencies and the United States government concerning Assange after WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of secret documents leaked from the US Defence Department.

But sources within Wikileaks have told The Age that an Australian intelligence official privately warned Wikileaks on August 11 last year that Assange was the subject of inquiries by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and that information relating to him and others associated with Wikileaks had been provided to the US in response to requests through intelligence liaison channels.

The Australian intelligence official is also claimed to have specifically warned that Assange could be at risk of ''dirty tricks'' from the US intelligence community, including the possibility of sexual entrapment.

The information is said to have been provided to WikiLeaks by means of a submission through the website's electronic ''drop box'' on the day Assange flew from London to Stockholm to speak on freedom of the press.

Nine days later, on August 20, a Swedish newspaper reported that Assange was wanted by Swedish police for questioning in relation to sexual assault allegations involving two women in Stockholm. Assange immediately tweeted on the WikiLeaks Twitter page: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one.''

Subsequently, on August 23, Assange said in a telephone interview with Arab news channel Al Jazeera: ''We were warned on the 11th [of August] by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing.''

Assange is appealing a British court decision to uphold an arrest warrant for him to be extradited to Sweden for questioning about the sexual assault allegations. He and his lawyers have retreated from earlier claims that the allegations are the product of a conspiracy involving foreign intelligence agencies.

WikiLeaks also learnt its Australian intelligence source was aware of the group's intention to seek legal advice from a prominent Melbourne lawyer - information not public at the time and known only to people within WikiLeaks.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard was confronted with a video message from Assange when she appeared on ABC TV's Q&A program on Monday.

Assange asked the Prime Minister whether her government had exchanged information about Australian citizens, specifically people linked to WikiLeaks, with foreign powers.

He asked that if she could not give a straight answer to the question, whether the Australian people should consider her to have engaged in treason.

Ms Gillard replied ''I honestly don't know what he's talking about,'' adding that no one had asked her about Assange during her recent visit to Washington.

''So I'm afraid I can't help him with a full and frank exchange about people who work with WikiLeaks.''

Mr Gillard did acknowledge Australia regularly exchanges information about Australian citizens with other countries in relation to law enforcement matters, but she said in regard to WikiLeaks, ''to my knowledge, it hasn't happened''.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister yesterday declined to say whether Ms Gillard had initiated any inquiries to determine whether Assange's claim was correct.

A spokesperson for Attorney-General Robert McClelland said that the Attorney-General was unaware of information sharing concerning Assange, but said it was ''entirely appropriate'' for the US to investigate the leakage of classified information.

Julian Assange Appeared by Video on Q&A News Program with Prime Minister Julia Gillard


Julian Assange grills Julia Gillard on live television

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard appears on live Australian television program ''Q & A'' and is surprised with a video question from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Epic win. Clip aired on 14 Mar 2011.

Check out an article from The Age, which reports that ASIO was spying on Mr. Assange -- and then sharing that intelligence with the United States.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Bank America Leaked Emails


OperationLeakS : Bank of America ''mortgage fraud'' documents have been released

Anonymous, an online activist group, has published documents, which it claims can prove mortgage fraud at Bank of America. With this latest document drop, the new site is already experiencing heavy traffic.

The group had previously released documents obtained from Bank of America and HBGary. The main home page for the new website can be found at : http://bankofamericasuck.com/

The latest publication followed several announcements posted on Twitter.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Twitter WikiLeaks Legal and Subpoena Update

In violation of due process rights, U.S. Magistrate Theresa Buchanan backs U.S. Department of Justice request for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's friends' online records.

The U.S. Magistrate with judicial power over the U.S. government investigation into WikiLeaks has issued a new court order, which affirms a previous secret court order demanding WikiLeaks-related discovery from user accounts on social media journalism sites, such as Twitter, which have no known connection to WikiLeaks other than for typical online social networking activities, such as ''following.''

The Hon. Buchanan denied legal challenges to her previous court order by prominent owners of Twitter accounts. The magistrate said that U.S. government prosecutors were not seeking the "content of the communications," according to Reuters.

Even though Twitter account owners may follow each other on the website, it does not mean that the account owners are, by association, automatically engaged in questionable online behaviour, some online privacy activists say. There is a freedom of assembly in the United States, whether it be in an assembly hall or over a social media website.

In a further worrisome development, the magistrate also invalidated legal arguments that if Twitter were to provide to prosecutors the Internet Protocol addresses of Twitter account owners, then the act of unreasonable disclosure would constitute a "violation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure because it revealed their location," reported Reuters.

"Buchanan originally signed an order for prosecutors seeking about seven months of information from Twitter, including who they communicated with, who they followed, and who followed them. They also requested information about how they logged in, which could identify their location at the time," wrote the Reuters reporter Jeremy Pelofsky.

As reported before, what would the U.S. government be gaining from conducting a court-sanctioned surveillance for this kind of social media account information? Not for nothing, by focusing on subscribers and connection records, among other things, the U.S. government is casting a wide, indiscriminate net into cyberspace, and it is hoping to pull in something -- legal or otherwise, relevant or otherwise, applicable or otherwise. There is no focus to the court order ; its only objectives are to spy and to collect surveillance over both foreigners, over which the U.S. may have no jurisdiction, and citizens, who are being denied due process.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

DreamWorks options movie rights to WikiLeaks books


From Yahoo! News :

The DreamWorks studio has optioned movie rights to a pair of books about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his controversial Website that is bent on revealing government secrets, company officials said on Thursday.

One of the books is "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy" by journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian, the British newspaper said in an article. The other is "Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website" by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a defector from the organization. Read more.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Egypt And The U.S. : Interference With The Internet #LeakSpin

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak :
The Countdown To Regime Change

The right to Internet access is so critical to citizens' participation in their own governments that the revolution taking place in Egypt has implications for the United States. Tonight, U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the bloody crackdown on the protests in Egypt.

From The New York Times :

Mr. Obama also said that Egyptian officials should "reverse the actions that they have taken to interfere with the Internet, cellphone service, social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century." He added, "going forward, this moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise."

In a 2007 editorial ABC News online, Internet access was described as an important underpinning to democracies. When the governments of Burma and China restricted Internet access, the consequences to freedoms were indisputable. ''Democratic governments understand the connection between human rights and Internet freedom. They have been quick to condemn the Internet crackdown in Burma and China and the lack of Internet freedom in much of the world,'' wrote Leslie Harris.

Remember that before the Egyptian government suspended Internet access inside its country, ''President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States ... .''

Remember that before the Egyptian government shut down cellphone service, President Obama ordered the Justice Department to obtain a secret court order to demand that Twitter turn over, among other things, the ''subscriber names'' of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks, an act that would blatantly deny subscribers their rights to due process.

Earlier today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made a statement to express her request that the Egyptian government restore Internet access.

''Mrs. Clinton also urged the government 'to reverse the unprecedented steps it has taken to cut off communications,' referring to its decision — apparently unprecedented — to cut off all Internet services in the country, as well as mobile phone networks in some areas,'' reported The Times.

For the U.S. government to actualise the exceptionalism that we know it to have, and for the U.S. government to truly support democracy in Egypt, it must be more honest about the dishonesty of the Egyptian government (''GOE''). Today, WikiLeaks published new U.S. Embassy cables, including one that gave some perspective into the inside information available to the U.S. government.

''The GOE has not begun serious work on trying to transform the police and security services from instruments of power that serve and protect the regime into institutions operating in the public interest, despite official slogans to the contrary.''

#CableGate, #LeakSpin, #09CAIRO79

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Michael Moore Discusses WikiLeaks On Rachel Maddow Show

On the December 21, 2010, episode of the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel sat down with Michael Moore in front of a live audience at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, to discuss U.S. Embassy cables that discussed the documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. Their interview also included the subject of WikiLeaks.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Secret FBI Subpoenas

The NYTimes doesn't believe that the U.S. Justice Department is conducting an illegal investigation of WikiLeaks. Oh, really ?

Running contrary to the characterisation of Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks activist who is also a member of Iceland’s Parliament, that U.S. prosecutors were using a court order to collect ''personal information from an elected official without having any case,'' The New York Times has reported that the scope of the court order was not unlawful.

''The news that federal prosecutors have demanded that the microblogging site Twitter provide the account details of people connected to the WikiLeaks case, including its founder, Julian Assange, isn’t noteworthy because the government’s request was unusual or intrusive. It is noteworthy because it became public.''

Let's examine just a couple of aspects of the court order :

(i) ''The order asks for subscriber names, user names, screen names, mailing addresses, residential addresses and connection records along with other information related to the accounts.''

(ii) ''Stating that information held by Twitter was "relevant and material" to the WikiLeaks investigation, the district court ordered the startup to hand over:

  • session times and connection records
  • telephone numbers
  • credit card information
  • e-mail and IP addresses
  • correspondence and notes of record''

What would the U.S. government be gaining from conducting a court-sanctioned surveillance for this kind of social media account information? Not for nothing, by focusing on subscribers and connection records, among other things, the U.S. government is casting a wide, indiscriminate net into cyberspace, and it is hoping to pull in something -- legal or otherwise, relevant or otherwise, applicable or otherwise. There is no focus to the court order ; its only objectives are to spy and to collect surveillance over both foreigners, over which the U.S. may have no jurisdiction, and citizens, who are being denied due process.

On a blog of a WikiLeaks supporter, someone asked, ''Is this not the same type of action that you, DOJ, find reprehensible in other countries?''

(As an aside, I wonder if The Times even appreciates the fact that, after the U.S. government's secret investigation of WikiLeaks has become ''public,'' those being targeted by the court order can now reasonably fight the unreasonableness of the indiscriminate scope of the court order. The owners of the social media accounts, on Twitter, Facebook, and Google, have legal rights, according to the law. How would the owners of the social media accounts know to fight the government's court order, if the government doesn't even serve the court order on the account owners? Look at how wikipedia gives context to due process violation : ''When a government harms a person, without following the exact course of the law, then that is a due process violation which offends the rule of law.'')

Saturday, January 8, 2011

WikiLeaks Twitter Subpoena Denies Subscribers Their Right To Due Process

The First item listed in the secret Order signed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia demands that Twitter turn over ''subscriber names'' of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks.

On Saturday night, the WikiLeaks Twitter feed included this ominous message : ''Too late to unfollow; trick used is to demand the lists, dates and IPs of all who received our twitter messages.''

Not only have U.S. Justice Department prosecutors cast the data mining aspect of their court order on Twitter to include foreigners, but now prosecutors are trying to ensnare mere subscribers (or, in Twitter jargon, ''followers'') of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks.

Whereas, the three foreigners, who are targets of the prosecutors' surveillance, have the option to object to the court order served on Twitter, the fact that followers have no say in fighting the reasonableness of the U.S. government's court order call into question the true scope of the legal witch hunt.

Since there appears to be a weak legal underpinning to the court orders, then, more and more, the investigations by U.S. prosecutors appear to be mere acts of retaliation against foreign political dissidents and WikiLeaks.

And caught in the middle are the followers on Twitter. If the followers are foreigners, then a U.S. court may have no jurisdiction over the free speech activities of those foreigners. And if the followers are Americans, then the Americans should be given due process, namely, an opportunity to challenge the court order. Except for harassment or retaliation, what is the purpose for the U.S. government to know who are the Twitter followers ? Certainly, there is no legal reasoning for the U.S. government to know who are the Twitter followers.

WikiLeaks Twitter Subpoena Targets Foreigners

A U.S. Court in Virginia issues Order for Production of Information that Ensnares Citizens of Australia, Iceland, and The Netherlands.

The issuance of a court order to Twitter confirms that prosecutors working for the United States Department of Justice are investigating WikiLeaks over the publications of thousands of classified U.S. embassy cables.

The court order specifically names three foreigners. It is unknown if a domestic U.S. court may extend its jurisdiction to cover the internet accounts of foreigners.

According to an analysis published by The New York Times on the subject of the application or validity of the U.S. court order on foreign individuals, Justice Department prosecutors might be violating the right of free speech of the foreign individuals. The three foreign individuals, who are the target of the Twitter court order, are : Julian Assange, the spokesperson and editor-in-chief for WikiLeaks; Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks activist who is also a member of Iceland’s Parliament; and Rop Gonggrijp, a computer programmer.

''This raised the possibility of a diplomatic quarrel between the United States and allied nations whose citizens were among those covered by the subpoena. They could argue that American laws were being used to stifle free communications between individuals who were not American citizens, and who were not in the United States at the time of the messages.''

It is unclear whether court orders pursued by Justice Department prosecutors in their retaliatory persecution of WikiLeaks can apply U.S. law to foreigners. Indeed, according to The Times, in the case of Ms. Jonsdottir, ''Iceland’s foreign minister ... has requested a meeting with the American ambassador to Iceland to ask, among other things, whether a grand jury inquiry prompted the subpoena.''

If the legal underpinning of the court orders can be called into question, then do the investigations by U.S. prosecutors constitute acts of retaliation against foreign political dissidents and WikiLeaks ?

WikiLeaks Twitter Subpoena Scandal

UPDATE : The Guardian newspaper : WikiLeaks Demands That Google And Facebook Unseal U.S. Subpoenas

WikiLeaks is reportedly demanding that Google and Facebook unseal any secret court orders that the websites received in connection with the U.S. government's retaliation against WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks' demand followed news that was reported that a court in Virginia had issued a secret order to Twitter to produce personal information belonging to accounts of five individuals associated with WikiLeaks.

All of the secret court orders are providing ''strong evidence'' that the U.S. government has empaneled a grand jury to begin a broad, large-scale data mining operation that seeks to collect surveillance in a retaliatory act against WikiLeaks. In late November, WikiLeaks began a coördinated reporting collaboration with several respected journalism outlets, including The New York Times, to publish thousands of United States embassy cables.

In A Clear First Amendment Violation, The U.S. Government Has Issued A Judicial Order To Twitter In An Effort To Collect Information About WikiLeaks And Its Supporters.

Officials from the United States Department of Justice have applied for, and received, a judicial order that has been issued to the social media website, Twitter, in an effort to collect information about political dissidents. In some countries, activists are under constant harassment from their governments.

In growing numbers of mainstream media reports, the news has been reporting that the U.S. government has served Twitter with what are being described as ''subpoenas'' for the private messages, contact information, and other personal forms of information belonging to Julian Assange, who is the spokesperson and editor in chief for WikiLeaks. Other targets of the subpoenas include Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, and Birgitta Jonsdottir, who is a member of parliament in Iceland. Ms. Jonsdottir was also a former WikiLeaks volunteer. Also mentioned in the judicial order are other individuals currently or formerly associated with WikiLeaks, including Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp.

According to Salon.com, the information demanded by the WikiLeaks subpoenas issued by the U.S. Department of Justice is ''sweeping in scope.'' Salon.com has posted online the Department of Justice order for the Twitter information.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Of Benazir Bhutto #LeakSpin

After The WikiLeaks Publications, What Needs To Be Explained About The Assassination Of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007 to prepare for the 2008 Pakistan national elections ; the BBC reported that Ms. Bhutto's return was the result of a ''power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf.'' She was assassinated on 27 December 2007. One day after the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, Hana Levi Julian published a report in IsraelNationalNews.com that the governments of each of Israel, the U.S., and Great Britain had ignored Ms. Bhutto's appeals for protection. Yet, after the publication by WikiLeaks of U.S. State department diplomatic cables, the exact role of the U.S. in Ms. Bhutto's October 2007 return to Pakistan, and her obvious need for protection, needs to be explained. For, in one of the cables, Asif Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower, recounted how Ms. Bhutto ''had returned despite the threats against her because of support and 'clearance' from the U.S.''

Moreover, several months following Ms. Bhutto's assassination, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had kicked the proverbial hornet's nest after it came to light that Mr. Khalilzad was providing advice and counsel (in some form or another) to Mr. Zardari. In the diplomatic confusion that played out in the news article published in The New York Times, it was reported that :

''Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf, and there is concern within the State Department that the discussions between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, could leave the impression that the United States is taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.''

If the U.S. was, indeed, remaining ''neutral,'' as The Times had reported, then what did Mr. Zardari mean when he said that his late wife ''had returned despite the threats against her because of support and 'clearance' from the U.S.?''

The foreign policy in play by the U.S. during the time leading up to, and following, Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan, and her subsequent assassination, reveal the doomed U.S. strategy in Pakistan, and, to some extent, in Afghanistan. After having invested billions of dollars in planning a strategy of the war in Afghanistan on an expectation of a partnership with Pakistan, and in particular with then-President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration was surely already ''taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.''

Militants Set The Agenda

Following the coördinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush became obsessed with causing regime change in Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. After it became apparent that the president did not believe that diplomacy alone was going to lead to regime change in Iraq, the president mobilised a unilateral first-strike in March 2003 against Iraq, in spite of opposition from the United Nations. This, and other belligerent examples of U.S. foreign policy under the Bush administration, would leave no cause to doubt that the Bush administration wanted to single-handedly ''control'' the circumstances of individual countries, during the prosecution of the war on terror. So, naturally, in August 2008, when John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, became ''angry'' over news that the U.S. United Nations Ambassador Khalilzad was offering counsel to Mr. Zardari in the time leading up to the Pakistan national elections, it was precisely because the aim of U.S. involvement in Pakistan was never to promote democratic elections, but to reserve the channels of communication and assistance between Pakistan and the U.S. solely at the hands of Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Boucher, Anne W. Patterson, the American ambassador to Pakistan, and Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State.

Notwithstanding Ambassador Patterson's remarks to Mr. Zardari, wherein she said that, ''we continue to support the [Pakistan People's Party] and our shared struggle against extremism and in favor of the democratic process in Pakistan,'' the U.S. couldn't even tolerate any kind of assistance or counsel that was being provided to Mr. Zardari or to the Pakistan People's Party, as evidenced by the backlash faced by Ambassador Khalilzad.

On the one hand, the U.S. wanted regime change in Iraq, but it could not, on the other hand, support democracy-building in Pakistan.

A Limited Strategy Of Containment

Many members of the U.S. Congress maintained close relations with Ms. Bhutto, according to one of the cables. Not only that, but three unnamed U.S. Senators also interceded on behalf of Ms. Bhutto's safety, when she requested President Musharraf for '' 'basic security,' including vehicles with tinted windows and private guards in addition to police guards. '' What is more, even as Ms. Bhutto's life was in danger, the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was in possession of information about the danger Ms. Bhutto was in, but he chose not to report about it until after she was killed.

If it was true that the Bush administration did not want any non-State Department channels of communication or support to be involved in the Pakistan national elections, then how did the Bush administration react, officially or unofficially, with the 3 U.S. Senators and the reporter, Mr. Blitzer ?

Beyond that, now that we are in the midst of the Cablegate news cycle, will the Obama administration deal with Julian Assange's role in the publication of the State Department cables the same way that the Bush administration dealt with the trading of sensitive information regarding Ms. Bhutto's safety, which would no doubt have risen to be considered, at the very least, sensitive State Department information, by the 3 U.S. Senators and the reporter, Mr. Blitzer ? Whatever the approach that the Obama administration takes in respect of Mr. Assange, it will look like a selective and arbitrary application of restrictions that would apply to Mr. Assange, but not to Mr. Blitzer.

The Predictable Election Cycle Offensive

Even though the Bush administration was conveying, through The New York Times article about Ambassador Khalilzad, that the Bush administration did want to be seen being involved in the Pakistan national elections, in one of the State Department cables, we find that Mr. Zardari was thanking the visiting Congressional Delegation of U.S. Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) for U.S. government ''support of credible national elections'' in Pakistan. Further, the U.S. government should have reasonably expected, even without Mr. Zardari's mentioning, that ''what happens in Pakistan has a spillover effect in Afghanistan, Iran, and India.''

Indeed, not only was Mr. Zardari requesting ''U.S. blessing for his leadership,'' but, at the time of his meeting with the U.S. Congressional delegation, Mr. Zardari was also ''struggling'' with how to explain to ''rank and file'' of the Pakistan People's Party the ''idea of continuing to work with a superpower which supported Musharraf.''

Whereas the ''official'' narrative of the U.S. State Department was that the U.S. had ''remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf,'' in reality, the fingerprints of the U.S. government were all over Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan -- and on the meetings Mr. Zardari had, in an effort to build support for his campaign.

The ''official'' U.S. State Department narrative was a sham.

Scenesetter For The Rest Of The World

One day after Ms. Bhutto was killed, Ambassador Patterson filed a cable in which the U.S. was assessing the qualifications of Chaudhry Pervais Elahi, the Pakistan Muslim League's presumed candidate for Prime Minister. About one month later, on January 25, 2008, Mr. Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower, met with Ambassador Patterson. During the meeting, Mr. Zardari described the US as Pakistan's ''our safety blanket.''

But this meeting of 25 January 2008, and the intelligence and requests that were being gleamed from it, were coming too late, if one were to believe that the U.S. would be taking action to support democracy and a stable government in Pakistan. Otherwise, this meeting was coming right on time, if one were to believe that the U.S. would remain ''neutral,'' meaning that the U.S. would be taking no action to support democracy and a stable government in Pakistan.

Little more than one week later, Ambassador Patterson dispatched a cable to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen. In the cable, Ambassador Patterson expressed a need for Adm. Mullen's help with setting the scene for ''necessary reforms'' in Pakistan's military. She added :

''A year ago, Musharraf's popularity was high; we were working together to support a smooth transition to a civilian government. Beginning with his decision to fire the Chief Justice in March 2007, Musharraf has made repeated political blunders culminating in a state of emergency (SOE) and temporary suspension of the constitution. He is increasingly isolated after firing long-time advisors who disagreed with some of these decisions.''

After all of the hemming and hawing, we find out from Ambassador Patterson that, ''We can work with any of the likely candidates for Prime Minister. But it may take weeks or even months after the election before a new Prime Minister is chosen and Pakistan again has a functional government that can focus on tackling extremism and necessary economic reform.'' Too bad that Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari believed, during the time that it mattered to Ms. Bhutto's safety and to the integrity of the Pakistan national elections, that Ms. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan with any real '' 'clearance' from the U.S.''

In his meeting with the Congressional Delegation, Mr. Zardari expressed the motivating fear of the Pakistani people : '' Zardari described the general distrust of the U.S. by the public and in political circles, 'fearing you will leave us again.' '' To the detriment of the democratic elections of our partners in the war on terror, the U.S. was playing both sides of the involvement coin. And this would not have been known, either officially or unofficially, by U.S. taxpayers, some of whom are paying the ultimate price for the war on terror, until Mr. Assange published the State Department cables.

#CableGate, #LeakSpin, #10ISLAMABAD416, #07ISLAMABAD5388, #08ISLAMABAD405, #08ISLAMABAD525, #08ISLAMABAD1998, #09ISLAMABAD236, #09ISLAMABAD1438

Author's Notes

This analysis is the first edition of research, based on a review of cables released as of 17 December 2010, which originated from Islamabad. A future edition may be published, provided that further releases of related cables are made. Please check here for a link to the publication of any subsequent editions : (placeholder intentionally left blank ; no updated edition is yet available). If no updates are yet available, you will not yet see a hyperlink in the immediately-preceeding placeholder. Not all of the listed cables are referred to in this analysis, but they were considered in the composition of this analysis.

This analysis and research is published under the constitutional right of freedom of the press, which allows for communication and expression of ideas and thoughts. As a blog that operates as a form of social media journalism, this blog posting is made under the rights and freedoms afforded under the First Amendment.