Quite a few internet articles have popped up, although absolutely nothing in the mainstream media. Here is one from Dandelion Salad:
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/wikileaks%e2%80%99-julian-assange-accepts-intelligence-experts%e2%80%99-whistleblower-award-on-behalf-of-our-sources/
Which leads me to an interesting observation. The Wikileaks press conference was attended by at least 30 TV crews and hundreds of journalists, from all over the world. But I did not see any other high profile bloggers there. Given that Wikileaks is in itself a prime example of the way that new media can get the truth out as mainstream media can’t, that was peculiar. Did Wikileaks not invite any bloggers?
Did you know that these three groups have been set up by ACPO I guessed that they might exist but thought they would be informal. Remember that ACPO has no legal status and is a private company.
National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), essentially a giant database of protest groups and protesters in the country and within it a section of the NPOIU called the Confidential Intelligence Unit.
National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (Netcu)
National Domestic Extremism Team
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/25/police-surveillance-protest-domestic-extremism?intcmp=239
“Wikileaks Docs Underestimate Iraqi Dead”
‘For all their value, the newly leaked documents will, unfortunately, reinforce the inaccurate lower estimates of Iraqi mortality.’
Alternet
http://tinyurl.com/35bt2jw
Why invite any bloggers who have limited time to give to the subject? would be my question.
I repeat, how about re awarding the award at a specially arranged press conference, inviting bloggers, NGO’s, indymedia and leave the mainstream media to either attend or not, who cares these days, the news travels faster on the net.
What we are digesting already is only now being tentatively looked at by the pretenders and appeasers of this horrible war.
Blair and Bush must be s…..g themselves seeing all this data mess up their carpets.
Blair should be declared ‘vogelfrei’, an old german term from the nmiddle ages, leaving those condemned without protection and without justice, anybody could have a go at them without regress.
Such punishment was only dealt out to the worst of offenders.
whop would have known that taking the ‘biscuit’ can be so dangerous. Cropped up on Al Jazeera today
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/10/20101022144542531174.html
“…attended by at least 30 TV crews and hundreds of journalists, from all over the world”, and yet “absolutely nothing in the mainstream media”.
Assange put the mainstream media clearly in the spotlight, and they completely failed to perform.
I switched off Dispatches Ch 4 on the ‘leaks’ last night as soon as the IBC numbers were repeated.
This will give B£iar something to think about over the intervening months or perhaps psychopaths don’t turn a hair. Probably old Chilcot doing some window dressing anyway.
a~~
Tony Blair ‘to be called back’ to Iraq war inquiry to answer questions about ‘gaps’ in his evidence
Tony Blair is to be recalled by the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War to answer new questions about ‘gaps’ in the evidence he gave earlier this year.
The former Prime Minister is likely to be asked to clarify the political build-up to the 2003 American-led invasion.
He is also expected to further explain the legality of Britain’s participation in the controversial war.
Sir John Chilcot will write to Mr Blair next month to ask him to attend a public hearing in early 2011, reported The Times.
During his six-hour testimony earlier this year, Mr Blair mounted a vigorous defence of the invasion and insisted he had no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein.
He denied he took the country to war on the basis of a ‘lie’ over the dictator’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.
At the end of his session one member of the audience shouted: ‘What, no regrets? Come on’ while others heckled ‘You are a liar’, ‘And a murderer’.
Sir John has previously explained that as his team pores through thousands of secret government documents relating to the Iraq invasion, should they find ‘conflicts or gaps within the evidence’ then they will recall witnesses.
Liam Fox, the current Defence Secretary, asked Sir John to recall Gordon Brown to the inquiry earlier this year after he was forced into an humiliating admission that he had slashed defence spending while British troops were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The then-PM told MPs he had been wrong to tell the inquiry that defence spending under Labour was ‘rising in real terms every year’.
In January, an unrepentant Mr Blair was heckled and jeered by families of Britain’s war dead as he declared he had ‘not a regret’ about invading Iraq.
He made it clear he would do the same again and warned world leaders they may soon have to take similar decisions over Iran.
Despite the deaths of up to 700,000 Iraqis and 179 British troops, Mr Blair said he felt ‘responsibility but not a regret’ at the end of his six hours of evidence. There was no hint of remorse.
Saddam had been a ‘monster’ and it had been right to remove him even to prevent the ‘possibility’ that he could acquire weapons of mass destruction, Mr Blair said.
He warned that Iran’s nuclear weapons programme now poses an even greater threat.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323798/Tony-Blair-called-Iraq-war-inquiry-explain-gaps-evidence.html
A dissenting view about Wikileaks from Gordon Duff of Veterans Abroad.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/10/23/gordon-duff-ho-hum-more-wikileaks-chickenfeed/
PS When I looked at this site just now there was an ad on there for the Univ of St Andrews and their Terrorism Studies course!!
Sorry that should be Veterans Today.
Does Assange deserve this award? I doubt it. All the evidence points to him being a nasty piece of work who runs his organisation like a Stalin wannabe- brooking no dissent and driving colleagues away. He leaks information without discrimination, ignoring all the conventions that journalists would agonise over before publishing a story. There is also every likelihood that he is a serious sexual predator. His recent “Walk” from a CNN interview exposes his real self. The company you keep!
‘US troops beheaded Iraqi detainee’
The troops operated under the command of an unnamed US major, who had been involved in the rape of an Iraqi female, showed one such document posted on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
The incident took place after the victim, the brother of the raped female, reportedly killed a military official in reprisal for the indecent assault.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/148265.html
“There is also every likelihood that he is a serious sexual predator.”
and how in hell’s name would you know that, eddie.
Muckspreader.
“All the evidence points to him being a nasty piece of work who runs his organisation like a Stalin wannabe- brooking no dissent and driving colleagues away”–eddie
What’s your source, eddie? And even if that were true, you consider it far more worthy of comment than all of those innocents who died horribly, or Iraq being turned into a state of violent chaos, worse than it ever was under Saddam? Well done.
Perhaps you agree with this opinion piece from ‘Christian Whiton’ at FoxNews.com, which suggests among other things that ‘could/should be’ done about Assange:
1. Indict Mr. Assange and his colleagues for espionage, regardless of whether he is presently in a U.S. jurisdiction, and ask our allies to do the same.
2. Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them.
http://tinyurl.com/3a3gu25
We all know what ‘rights of non-judicial action’ the American President has taken unto himself, even for American citizens.
Hard to feel that they they deserve sympathy, but worth noting.
http://www.baycitizen.org/veterans/story/after-service-veteran-deaths-surge/
Out pops eddie, larry’s on holiday, so he’s takin over by re-warming old stories.
I’m suprised he’s even want to give an interview to Fox. Well thinking about it, he’d probably had a vision of Rupert Murdoch in the lift.
The assumption Eddie gives is that the Fox interviewer would have asked Julian about the malicious and false allegations thrown at him at the last Wikileaks revelations, but Julian never turned up.
So how did Eddie know what the interview was going to be about? Hmm, we’d better ask Larry.
you have got to leave a comment on this Grauniad thread of Jack Straw, a vain attempt,imho, at diverting the wikileaks evidence from his smudgy self.
Craig might want to leave a comment too, well, how could he possibly resist?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/oct/26/lets-bring-human-rights-home?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments
BBC includes Lancet author’s comments on Wikileaks..
Posted by The Editors on October 26, 2010, 2:25 pm
… after email from Media Lens:
Hi Paul
You write:
“So 120,000 might well become the standard accepted figure for civilian deaths in the Iraq invasion and its aftermath, unless an examination of all the new logs shows otherwise.”
It might. But the leaks tell us that the occupying military force has done everything in its power to keep the real number of civilian deaths secret. Does that not have obvious implications for IBC’s figure based largely on a media count? After all, it depends on the work of journalists who have had to try and function +under+ that heavily controlling, restrictive and highly deceptive military power in a country where huge numbers of journalists have been murdered, injured, abducted and threatened? Is it reasonable to just add a few thousand to the total and leave it at that? You write:
“Some of course will stick to alternative figures, which are larger. The highest of these came in a report in 2006 in the Lancet medical journal, which reported on an estimate based on population surveys.”
Shouldn’t you be asking questions to find out which figure is most likely to be accurate? Have you thought about asking Les Roberts and Gilbert Burnham what they think the leaks tell us about the total death toll? Journalists often have reservations about the Lancet studies but the source of most of these doubts is located in a conscious and determined government smear campaign that has since been exposed (See Prof. Brian Rappert’s scholarly study here: (www.landmineaction.org/resources/A%20State%20of%20Ignorance.pdf).
Why don’t you find out what the Lancet authors have to say?
Best
David Edwards
For David Edwards
Calm down, David. I used the word “might” and so do you.
I have e-mailed Les Roberts and have added his reply. He says that the
600,000 figure is too low. What he told me in 2006 probably remains true
– the only way to find out is for someone to go into the cemeteries and
do a count, but still easier said than done.
I am disappointed you do not come out more strongly in favour of the
main point of the article which was about future conflicts and the
pressure on governments to keep track of civilian casualties.
Paul Reynolds
This has been added to the BBC article we complained about: (www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11613349)
Call for change
Some of course will stick to alternative figures, which are larger. The highest of these came in a report in 2006 in the Lancet medical journal, which reported on an estimate based on population surveys.
“We estimate that, as a consequence of the coalition invasion of 18 March 2003, about 655,000 Iraqis have died above the number that would be expected in a non-conflict situation, which is equivalent to about 2.5% of the population in the study area. About 601,000 of these excess deaths were due to violent causes,” the Lancet study asserted.
Update: Les Roberts of Columbia University and author of the Lancet report has told me following the Wikileaks revelations: “I remain confident that because people are systematically prone to under-report deaths, our 600,000 violent death estimate by mid-2006 was too low!”
He picked out these points as the major ones:
“A) It is likely that the IBC and Wikileaks reports tend to have the same lens (many reports coming from the Government of Iraq, oversampling of Baghdad, oversampling of the largest events and missing single killings).
B) We have shown that most violent deaths in the press over the first 4 years of the war are not in IBC because they (cautiously) required multiple press reports and (unavoidably) used a few search terms that did not capture all events. (see attached)
C) In Baghdad where we believe the press coverage was by far the best, we showed that most violent deaths reported in phone and Skype interviews were not in IBC.
D) There are just so many things that are not consistent with 120,000 deaths! The ORB 11/07 and BBC (see: news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/19_03_07_iraqpollnew.pdf) polls that are completely at odds with the IBC implication that 1 in 20 or 1 in 25 Iraqi households have lost someone to violence. The ORB implication that 1 in 4 households have lost someone matches all the ground reports I hear. You cannot have the Iraqi Ambassador reporting half a million new war widows or UNICEF speculating that there are a million orphans if there are 120,000 war deaths.”
However, this argument goes beyond numbers.
Response
Hi Paul
It’s very much to your credit that you are willing to respond by taking up my suggestion to contact Les Roberts. You are one of very few journalists willing to respond that way to criticism – many thanks.
John Tirman of MIT has written an excellent article here: (www.alternet.org/story/148622/wikileaks_docs_underestimate_iraqi_dead?page=entire)
Best wishes
David
Sorry if I am overdoing it here today but thought you would be interested.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Megrahi motion before Scottish Parliament
A motion in the following terms has today been submitted to the Scottish Parliament by Christine Grahame MSP:
*S3M-7251? Christine Grahame: Megrahi Petition?”That the Parliament notes the lodging of a petition by the Justice for Megrahi Committee, led by Dr Jim Swire, Iain McKie, Robert Forrester and Professor Robert Black, urging the establishment of an independent inquiry into the 2001 conviction of Mr Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988; notes that the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which reported that there may have been a miscarriage of justice in the case, have still to be tested in a legal forum; would welcome the establishment of an independent inquiry in Scotland to consider all the circumstances that led to the conviction, and considers that there should be widespread international co-operation with such an inquiry.
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2010/10/megrahi-motion-before-scottish.html
Sibel Edwards, also SA Award winner, in an interview about information which she leaked about intellegence service foreknowledge and involvement in the 9/11 attacks and the media cover up and lack of proper investigation and prosecution after:
http://baltimorechronicle.com/050704SibelEdmonds.shtml
“I can tell you that there is so much involvement, that if they did let this information out, and if they were to hold real investigations–I’m not talking about this semi-investigation they’re holding under this “Joint Inquiry”–the pure show of the 9/11 Commission that has been getting the mass media’s attention. If they were to do real investigations we would see several significant high level criminal prosecutions in this country. And that is something that they are not going to let out. And, believe me; they will do everything to cover this up. And I am appalled. I am really surprised. I’m taken back by seeing the mass media’s reaction to this. They are the window to our government’s operation and what are they doing?”
Julian Assange, interview statement:
“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
Wikileaks amaturish, misleading, untrue interpretation of the Iraq war records – maintained for days now on their only introduction to the material (front page)
“For comparison, the ‘Afghan War Diaries’, previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivallent population size. ”
The comparison is not valid and is as misleading as IBC claims that their tally of media reports is some kind of mortality estimate.
If Assange is such a hero why have so many senior figures in Wikileaks resigned citing his dictatorial management style? Including his co-founder. Why are corroborated rape allegations still under investigation in Sweden. Why has he been refused residency in Sweden? No smoke without fire eh? Look into his eyes – is that the face of a trustworthy man? Strange to see alleged feminists supporting an accused rapist.
This Wikipedia page on Casualties in Iraq makes grim reading, and seems to include all (known) sources, including the ORB Survey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
It’s one of the most detailed and heavily-footnoted pages that I’ve seen.
*****
“Strange to see alleged feminists supporting an accused rapist.”
Does ‘feminists’ include me, eddie? And how did you deduce that I’m a feminist? In the same manner that you’ve deduced that Assange is a sexual predator although he has had no trial?
“No smoke without fire eh?”
Delightful. Especially from someone who claims to be a member of Amnesty International.
I suppose you’ve never heard of smear tactics, despite the fact that that’s exactly what you’re indulging in.
Julian Assange, interview statement:
“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
I suppose that this is what worries me about Assange – it’s the bog standard, move-along-nothing-to-see-here, left-gatekeeper position. There is plenty of substantive evidence that 9/11 did not unfold as the Bush administration describes, and those sceptical of the findings of the Kean Commission include quite a number of its senior members. Assange describes the concerns of these people as ‘constantly annoying’. I’m sure it is – but to whom?
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/09/anniversary-of-911.html
My apologies to all for dropping the search strings that will attract larry and angrysoba.
hello, eddie. Are you being remotely serious? Why are you trying to run with the current craze for celebrities and personalities? Are you somehow suggesting that the figure of Iraqi deaths is *less* than the Wikileaks/IBC total?
In fact I remember a very long webversation with you about IBC. I had to keep pointing out to you that they themselves stated that their figure was an undercount. Admittedly, I remember, they stated this in a very small paragraph on about the 3rd page of their website, but they stated it.
Meanwhile I saw no serious refutation of the Lancet and ORB reports. As Les Roberts says, this goes beyond words. But it does include them and I’m sorry to see yours wasted, firstly on lame attempts to muddy already putrid waters and secondly on attacking dreoilin for heaven’s sake.
Mind you, what else is one to say? I too worry that this will leave people here comfortably protected from the reality. 70,000 dead and-that’s-it-now-move-on. Even the headline of Craig’s interview reads “Wikileaks release showed US turned a blind eye to Iraqi abuse”.’Turned a blind eye’ to ‘abuses’, indeed.
Still, this way we can all forget about Fallujah, say, unless we live there.
Exactly, technicolour, exactly.
Julian Assange gave an extensive interview on Democracy Now! today:
Part 1:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/26/wikileaks_founder_julian_assange_on_iraq
Part 2:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/26/continued_wikileaks_founder_julian_assange
Rumour has it that Eddie is a serial murderer and a rapist.
But do I mean ‘comfortably protected from the reality’? In fact, I’m sure the majority of people know exactly what has happened in Iraq. They may not have the ORB stats, but *know*; just as they know that corporations are not operating in humanity’s best interests, without having to research it.
PS crab, thanks for posting Dispatches review, v interesting.
Wow! Look at that above, at 6:20PM – well Eddie, what do you have to say for yourself? “No smoke without fire” as you so rightly point out!
“Did Wikileaks not invite any bloggers?”
LOL
Why on earth would Trikileaks invite bloggers to the annointment of St. Julian?
Assange requires adulation plus $5 million, not a lot of annoying bloggers who say 9-11 was an inside job.
Did anyone watch ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ BBC2 Monday Oct. 25th. late.
“Badly beaten Zaafir is discovered at Heathrow with harrowing recollections of having been transported to an unknown country where he has been tortured for information.”
A powerfully moving film that’s been kept under wraps until recently.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0826613/