Just what the Pentagon wants. Don't get suckered by them!
Seems like the Pentagon's plan for undermining Assange is getting some help.
Wake up, guys, Wikileaks scored a major hit against the Pentagon, so don't get taken in.
Criticism of Wikileaks mouthpiece Julian Assange is growing, with more voices joining the chorus calling for him to step aside while his various Swedish legal problems are sorted out. Prosecutors in Sweden last week reopened a rape investigation centred on allegations by two women. Assange has claimed this is part of a …
...as it is a rare occasion when a media mouth piece appears on the TV without Satan's black jism leaking/eating it's way down the side of their face. (And if there is no mark on their face it is only because you are about to watch them suck it and cast your phone vote accordingly).
Who would want to meet most of the people that are interviewed on TV? Most people appearing on TV have well rounded personalities, some might even be decent and honest people, but you would have to take all this on faith since almost everyone on TV comes across a complete tit/arsehole/wanker/moron/gob-shite/sycophant/etc.
While it seems most likely that the overall smear campaign has us.gov all over it, there might be some "woman scorned" thing happening as well. Don't know either of them from Adam, but they have certainly worked rather closely together. I can't see him getting any other member of parliament to cut his hair, for example. There might be a personal element to this, is all.
I won't claim these allegations are false, I don't know. But it's true, the gov't has used this technique before with someone they aren't happy with, they either dig until they find real charges to bring*, or allegations kind of pop up out of the woodwork, then when the person in question is out of their position of power the allegations just kind of go away.
*This is what they did with the CEO of Qwest, after he refused to allow illegal wiretapping like the other US telecoms did. He got taken down by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Comission) right afterwards.
... and some of it will stick.
WikiLeaks is an amazing effort, and unfortunately, it has become synonymous with it's founder.
Whether the allegations are true or not, some form of decentralization has to be done to ensure WikiLeaks's survival.
Of course, all this attention on Assange only serves to further promote WikiLeaks.
[Previously published in http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/09/02/wikileaks_founder_charges/ (Reproduced with permission) ;) ]
Wikileaks should just be a point of dissemination and not a oint of personal prestige.This is not the reason to leak documents.Pushing back those who want to deprive us of our freedoms is.
By itself , Wikileaks is just that. A website with links to documents.It does not need public relations period. Those who pretend otherwise are looking themselves for career enhancement.An outlet.
A server where people come looking for documentation. To be effective as a tool , a tool shall remain nameless.At most a list of people behind the site.Public relations should be left to other entities and not to anyone aboard. You can be sure at 99% that the secret services want to take assange out but they got a very real pr nightmare if they go for taking him out outright.A method just as efficient to take someone out is to have him accused on sex grounds that he's a monster.Being one or not is irrelevant, it does the job of making people wonder and claim his head on a platter and have him taken out the loop by his own people . Cant beleive that it actually has a chance to work for them and they get him through the backdoor.
Ric
It seems WikiLeaks "supporters" have access to the police reports on Assange, so can we expect them to be published on WikiLeaks soon? Somehow I doubt it.
If you read Jonsdottir's comments, and what has come out so far, it seems quite unlikely that this could have been some sort of US-backed smear, although I don't imagine the Pentagon is unhappy at this turn of events. Nevertheless, the allegations don't seem very serious and it will probably all blow over; but what has become clear is that Assange hasn't handled this at all well and is using the tried-and-tested "spooky" method of denying all allegations and making up counter-allegations in order to create a distraction. Jonsdottir has evidently realised this, and understands that Assange's conspiracy theory has the effect of delegitimizing the complaints of these two women whom he slept with, and being a left-winger and presumably a feminist she is probably a bit irritated at being played as a pawn in that game. Whatever one's view of the conspiracy angle, it's clear that Assange doesn't have much nous when it comes to relationships with women -- not a very good sign for someone who mixes in leftie circles ;-)
It's not a conspiracy any more than the dirty tricks vs. 'communists' in the '50s and civil rights leaders in the '60s were. It's a pretty well known tactic in politics and at the FBI when there aren't normal means of taking someone down.
In fact, El Reg ran a story on that very thing with regard to wikileaks; a document from the Pentagon described options for reputation attacks and other options where a foreign internet based adversary couldn't be otherwise dealt with.
It would be a conspiracy if someone said El Reg was in on it for posting an article suggesting Assange is really guilty. It's not a conspiracy if it's the Pentagon doing their jobs in an entirely normal and precedented, if distasteful, way.
Cruddy timing for insurrection. United we stand , or is the idea to divide and conquer. As an "outsider" it looks like mutiny and of a perfectly good crew. Maybe the crew has become less than perfect? Time to quietly do your own internal leaking to see what is happening in your midst.?
If your leader has been entrapped , you appear a disloyal bunch.
Frankly,Julian Assange has done one hell of a job at boosting wikileaks credibility and explaining your mission.