The Curious Case of Wikileaks

Depends on the timeline, but as an offhand guess, I would hazard "friends of McChrystal".

I'm smiling — another grim smile — seeing the phrase "the Afghan resistance." Resistance to what? To the US war-making machine. Let's connect the dots again. This Afghanistan thing began with the US hunting Osama Bin Laden to revenge the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The dots are getting very pale.

George,

I guess you have seen this by now;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/wikileaks-war-logs-back-story

"It was not until late May that the Pentagon finally closed in on a suspect, and that was only after a very strange sequence of events. On 21 May, a Californian computer hacker called Adrian Lamo was contacted by somebody with the online name Bradass87 who started to swap instant messages with him. He was immediately extraordinarily open: "hi... how are you?… im an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern bagdad … if you had unprecedented access to classified networks, 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?"

For five days, Bradass87 opened his heart to Lamo. He described how his job gave him access to two secret networks: the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, SIPRNET, which carries US diplomatic and military intelligence classified "secret"; and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System which uses a different security system to carry similar material classified up to "top secret". He said this had allowed him to see "incredible things, awful things … that belong in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … almost criminal political backdealings … the non-PR version of world events and crises.""

I think it does sound suspicious. I don't usually spend much time speculating on others state of mind, but this scenario sounds more convenient than plausible. How did someone that clueless get that kind of access without being under far more security? Lady GaGa tapes and he's just blabbing about it to someone he doesn't know?

The military surely understands they are in an untenable situation and that calls for a strategic retreat. Who is really the most screwed over here? The administration that feels compelled to push a policy no one with any sense believes in anymore, for blatantly political reasons. I think they were just fragged. An IED, information explosive device.

[Thanks, John. I've no doubt that a fifty something could leak just as well as a twenty something — in fact, it happens all the time, usually at the higher levels. g.]

So then, does the scenario go like this?

Wishing for a politically uncompromising way out of the obvious morass, they (choose your poison) intentionally leak a rough equivalent of what helped to get us out of our last morass, intended to sway public opinion (? doesn't fit, but then it doesn't really need to; it only needs to give the hawks a plausible reversal), planting stories of an out-of-control intelligence establishment in which almost anyone could have performed said leak?

I very much doubt the military would engineer such a thing. The military exists for what we have now, it seems to me. Of course, that assumes there are no actual charactered patriots of rank.

The executive, on the other hand, I could see in this conspiracy. Why not? If he wants out, then demonstrating the futility and brutality on a public stage would be the obvious ploy to defuse vitriol from the right.

Further, I have very little faith in mainstream media that they would pursue this thing as strongly as they are purporting to, without some ulterior motive or incentive. NPR was doing a long show the other day regarding the afghan Wikileaks stuff, and the main thing they kept harping upon was "how does Wikileaks interest journalists — by promising scoops". I may be overly cynical, but it was a bit apologetic, I guess is the closest word to what I felt.

Anyhow, it is of course a plant for someone, for some reason, whether some grand scheme or simply a lone actor. Interesting to speculate, though.

George,

I'd be much less suspicious if it had been a fifty year old. This stuff started when this kid was 15. The story is that he tapped the pipeline, but this stuff is archival. It's like saying the kid at the cash register could access the entire transaction history of the store. Why is it all Afghanistan. He was in Baghdad, but he only leaks one questionable incident from there. Consider the time period; Afghanistan was ignored and under-resourced, which the military would view as the fault of the politicians, but we were trying to make Iraq an American territory, so the same kind of files out of Iraq would likely be far more embarrassing and open things lots of people would like be forgotten.

DP,

The military are not stupid. They can see it's a shitshow and they are not going to get what they need, just get strung along until the politicians decide to pull the plug. I don't think it's anyone in this administration. They give me the impression of doing more waiting for instructions than giving them. The Republicans would like nothing more than to pin it all on Obama and this just shows what a mess it was under Bush.

Well, I didn't realize I was implying the military was stupid. It is just that, during wartime, there is funding, new equipment and greater rank mobility, as well as practical application of training. Why should they wish for it to end?

[This is true, but there's an interesting twist — most people in the Pentagon assume, per their interests, that the war, any war, won't end, but never question those assumptions. It's similar to the problem whether Brian Williams questions his own journalistic objectivity when, in fact, he never thinks about it. g.]

DP,

Paradigms have a nasty habit of shifting. Yes, there are a lot of people on the periphery who are profiting immensely and would be happy to see it go on forever. On the other hand, those actually running things can see the resources are limited and there are serious long term threats out there, from economic collapse and all the chaos that might well entail, to things blowing up in Asia/Koreas/China, to the usual armchair generals trying to push the same buttons to start a war with Iran. So throwing a little strategic sand in their own gears, to be able to pull back and reset is not a bad idea.

Much of the discussion over what was released seems to show it is ideally suited to push the conversation towards a re-evaluation of Afghanistan, without really embarrassing the core military.

I think it's a staged event to gain control of the internet.

I see your points, I think.

However, when you, G., wrote this:

"This is true, but there's an interesting twist — most people in the Pentagon assume, per their interests, that the war, any war, won't end, but never question those assumptions. It's similar to the problem whether Brian Williams questions his own journalistic objectivity when, in fact, he never thinks about it."

While I understand what you've said, I am having trouble seeing how it applies practically? I'm interested, if obtuse.

[I'm merely observing — and this may not have been entirely to your point — that inside the Pentagon critical thinking skills are not highly valued. The large majority of officers and managers pretty much accept things the way they are. So, for example, even though it may be obvious that continual real dollar increases in Pentagon spending cannot continue forever, it's people outside that system who must bring it under control. More to your point on leaks, btw, I was talking last week with a former Army MP who was in Operation Desert Storm and, for what it's worth, he agreed with me that it's unlikely low level NCOs are leaking on their own. g.]