Is latest Wikileaks disinformation?

[theaustinescorts]

1. None of the State Dept. cables are even classified; they are merely internal.

2. Supposedly the Chinese are so dismayed with the N. Koreans that they volunteer their opinion that everyone would be better off if the South took over everything.

3. Supposedly the Israelis are certain they can wipe out Iran's nuclear facilities even though the Israelis have no military ability to reach Iran with a single aircraft, much less take on Iran's air defenses once they get there.

4. Supposedly the Arabs are so panicked over Iran's nuclear program that they are willing to have the strait of Hormuz blocked by war so the U.S. can attack Iran.

Sorry but it looks to me like someone took a bunch of cables and mixed in a few phony ones and "leaked" it to convince the N. Koreans and Iranians that their neighbors really hate them and they're lucky we don't strike them at any moment.

We contacted the Germans, French and Italians beforehand to warn them that our unflattering comments about their leaders was just a ruse. These comments were really nothing more than criticisms borrowed from their own internal opposition press. They were nothing they haven't seen before.

[78704]

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/


Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.
The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.
The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.
Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington – the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment. Instead, the US Government has been warning governments -- even the most corrupt -- around the world about the coming leaks and is bracing itself for the exposures.
The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release).
The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.
Groups to contact for comment
How to explore the data

Search for events that you remember that happened for example in your country. You can browse by date or search for an origin near you.
Pick out interesting events and tell others about them. Use twitter, reddit, mail whatever suits your audience best.
For twitter or other social networking services please use the #cablegate or unique reference ID (e.g. #66BUENOSAIRES2481) as hash tags.
Key figures:

• 15, 652 secret
• 101,748 confidential
• 133,887 unclassified
• Iraq most discussed country – 15,365 (Cables coming from Iraq – 6,677)
• Ankara, Turkey had most cables coming from it – 7,918
• From Secretary of State office - 8,017

According to the US State Departments labeling system, the most frequent subjects discussed are:

• External political relations – 145,451
• Internal government affairs – 122,896
• Human rights – 55,211
• Economic Conditions – 49,044
• Terrorists and terrorism – 28,801
• UN security council – 6,532

[SGlass]

Is the latest Wikileaks disinformation? The only way to know would be asking the person who actually wrote the cables. Then there’s the “can you trust that person” thing.

When it comes to communications involving agencies like the State Department, NSA, CIA and others, trying to determine if something is information, disinformation or misinformation is next to impossible.

[Gump42]

If it's not dis/mis-information, I'm very surprised that Assange hasn't had an accident or disappeared.

[theaustinescorts]

It's impossible to know if some of these cables might be plants. The story of how they came to be in WikiLeaks possession is bizarre to say the least. Assange would not be assassinated for publishing though. Assassination is no longer used to silence dissent or opponants. Assassination today is restricted to targets who are "shooters."

[mastermind238]

John Bolton - no fan of HRC - has said quite publicly that he believes many of the State Dept cables are fakes, especially the ones in which HRC is supposed to be encouraging spying at the UN. Bolton has no inside info, but he knows very well how such cables are drafted and how the cable traffic is managed. I believe him. Hillary may be a scoundrel, but she's not evil. Well, OK, maybe she IS evil, but I still believe Bolton when he says those cables are fake.

[gnadfly]

May not be disinformation but just bad information. Haven't seen any 'revelations' being touted by the MSM from the wikileaks docs.

The Red Chinese are becoming businessmen. They know that having a large resource not producing (NKorea) is ludicrous.

Its been well known for some time that the Arabs don't want the Persians to have a nuke.

The Israelis supposedly still have permission to fly over Jordan airspace and have refueling planes. Haven't heard about blockading the Straits of Hormuz but wouldn't surprise me.

Ever since Arafat landed in the hospital I've read www.debka.com.

Wonder if the wikileaks 'suicide pill' is Obama's grades and Nigerian birth certificate.

[theaustinescorts]

...then whoever did it would have to be willing to expose a colossal amount of traffic just to further a couple of narrow goals. This would not be anyone in the United States government.

The Israelis are the only ones who come out the cables smelling like a rose, and their hacking/forgery history is legend. Nor would they give a damn about whatever other issues exposed cause us harm.

Even with overfly permission they still wouldn't have range and payload to strike Iran at anything more than one point [site or location], and the Iranian air defenses would bring them down. Any strike on Iran will close the straits...oil prices at $200 a barrel.

Whenever you're talking about the Israeli military you've got to remember that Israel has only has 5 million people, and their military capabilities are really very small. They don't even have sufficient money to buy fuel for their airplanes.

[DRorchia]

Feel free to correct me TAE but I'm pretty sure I recall reading that when Israel went after a Syrian site about a year ago, the Syrians had just brought online the latest Russian supplied anti-aircraft defenses. Ones very similar to what the Iranians possess. It was also rumored that that strike was a "test run" of sorts to see how well they could get through those air defenses in the future (against Iran) and how accurately they could strike. Personally, I never underestimate Israel. It seems however that for now they've chosen another route. Assassination of Iran's nuclear Scientists as well as attacking Iran's nuclear computer programs with viruses. According to reports both of these tactics have been fairly effective and managed to slow the program down somewhat.

[DRorchia]

You may also want to read the article below. It details not just Israel's drone aircraft capability which has the potential to reach Iranian nuclear sites but also their upgrading of existing aircraft with added fuel tanks making them capable of reaching Iran as well.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...s-uavs/4346921

[DRorchia]

"

According to Strategy Page, Iran is a bit upset over the alleged “failure” of Russian air defense systems during the raid. Both Tehran and Damascus have spent billions on radar and missile systems built in Russia, with the assurance that such equipment could defend against an Israeli attack. Complaints that have made their way onto Farsi-language message boards (presumably from Iranian military officers) suggest that the IAF was able to blind Syria’s defensive systems, rendering them useless. The Israeli strike package flew across hundreds of miles of Syrian airspace, strike the target and return, unmolested by air defense systems.
Iran’s concerns are three-fold. First, there is logical speculation that the recent raid on Syria was a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, although that raid would be larger and much more complex. Secondly, Tehran is footing the bill for Syria’s most recent upgrade, the acquisition of the Pantsir-S1 air defense system. Iran is also slated to acquire the system, although initial deliveries were made to Damascus.
Equipped with two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles, the Pantsir-S1 was supposed to provide point-defense for high-value targets–like that Syrian nuclear facility. The system’s on-board radar can detect medium-altitude targets up to 30 miles away; the Pantsir’s cannons are effective against targets up to 10,000 feet, and the missiles have a maximum range of roughly nine miles. In terms of close-in air defense, the Pantsir is supposed to be state-of-the-art, but it (apparently) proved ineffective against the Israeli raid.
Tehran’s third concern? The Iranian air defense network is far more chaotic than its Syrian counterpart. In recent years, there have been credible reports about Iranian fighters sent out in pursuit of mystery lights and “UFOs,” and near-fratricide incidents involving civilian airliners. If the Israelis were successful in blinding Syria’s more centralized system (which covers a relatively small area), then they should have little problem in creating mass confusion within the Iranian network. Assuming that Israel eventually attacks, Iranian air defense crews could find themselves operating in a de-centralized mode, chasing targets that don’t exist, and illuminating their radars with the knowledge that an anti-radar missile may be on the way."

[theaustinescorts]

Strategy Page is a highly ideological, uninformed and un-scholarly source.

The Israelis have been succeeding in air defense suppression in Lebanon for a long time, since the 1982 invasion at least, but it's a totally different situation than Iran.

In Lebanon there's ample opportunity to gain intl on the locations and characteristics of radar sites by flying over again and again. You can't do that in far away Iran. Air defense suppression requires intensive surveillance which isn't possible when sending an expedition into a distant land.

The Iranians will see them coming from a long way, and they will have to travel for a long distance over Iran before they reach their targets. This it totally different from the 1981 raid on Osirik, where the Iraqis were unprepared. But even then the Israelis only managed to lay one single bomb on target. I think their whole force was only five F-16s.

The biggest problems remain the number of points which must be destroyed, the limited payloads of Israeli aircraft, and the limits of re-fueling assets.

This so-called "mission" is actually so impossible for the Israelis to carry out that any informed person would think it's a joke. That's why I have serious doubts about those particular cables.

[DRorchia]

1. Not sure why you bring up Lebanon. The sites they hit were in Syria.
2. Do you dispute defense experts that say that Syria's air defense systems during the 2007 raid were more sophisticated and better coordinated than Iran's?
I'll be honest. I hope they continue to take out Iran's scientists, I hope they carry out a successful strike, and I look forward to re-visiting the issue with you at that point and time.

[theaustinescorts]

Suppression of air defenses requires the support of many additional aircraft dedicated to striking the radars. This is a mission Israel has done in Syria in support of their ground operations in Lebanon, but that's only because the targets are nearby. Seeking to undertake air defense suppression in someplace as far as Iran would be impossible.

Air defense suppression requires a whole campaign of it's own which must basically preceed the attack mission on the other targets of value.

You cannot do this and keep the bigger mission a surprise.

This is the reason why in the cold war U.S. strategic bombers dedicated to striking the USSR had to fly in on their own --- because there would be no opportunity to suppress air defense with anything they couldn't carry with them on board.

Additionally the radar sites near the target points are only one problem. There are probably other scattered air defense assets elsewhere in eastern Iran whose radars won't even be turned on until the Israeli's are seen crossing the border. How are you going to deal with those?

And what about Iranian air superiority assets? Will they just be sitting on the ground the whole time that the Israeli's are flying around to their targets and returning? And the Israelis would have to re-fuel the minute they left Iranian air space [not that they'd ever get out of their alive].

This mission cannot be done with any level of surprise at all. It would require numerous aircraft assigned to attacking each of multiple targets of value as well as radar sites - you're looking at well over a hundred planes, each of which would have to be refueled numerous times.

The fuel requirements alone would exhaust the Israeli defense budget at current prices of aviation fuel, not to mention that the Israelis just don't have the aircraft or refuelers to do the job.

If there were attrition of the Israeli planes they could not afford to replace them. And the Israelis really hate it whenever even one of their soldiers or pilots are killed or captured. The Israelis themselves would never permit such losses. It is out of the question.

I do not know of a single REAL defense analyst who differs from this. That guy here in Austin who writes on Strategy Page is an Army grunt pretending to be a defense expert. He's a phony, and also contributes his blather to the American-Statesmen. He's about as much a defense expert as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld.

For what it's worth the Iranians have first rate engineers today, and their intelligence services are formidable. Their operations in Iraq and Afghanistan outclass ourselves. It is the reason we've been having so much trouble over there despite the fact that we have Iran completely surrounded [or actually because of it].

A detente with Iran would go a long way to solving a lot of problems we have, and you don't have to like them to do such. The Israelis have done business with Iran for decades now, even as the Iraninan leaders were calling for Israeli's destruction. You can't take Iranian rhetoric too seriously. Politics is politics...that's all.

[DRorchia]

I don't for one second buy into Iranian military superiority of any kind, whether it be in their air defense capabilities, their ground capabilities or anything else for that matter. The ONLY thing that concerns me is them having multiple nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union during your time as a government employee in the 80's was thought to be the most formidable army in the world. After the collapse of the eastern bloc countries we sent numerous teams of experts over there to have an up close look. What we found was NOTHING like we had feared. Much of their equipments was unserviceable, had not been maintained and their technology was antiquated to say the least. Let's not forget that much of Iran's weapons purchases come from Russia. Every Arab country has bragged at one time or another about the prowess of their military. I remember my intel briefs before the first Gulf War. My God what we thought Saddam Hussein had. The most powerful Army in the middle east at the time. Surely we would loose thousands of troops to his "massive" defenses. Yeah, that lasted all of what....4 days? LOL! So has been the case of every single Arab Army and the Persian Iranians are no different. They suffer from the same shortcomings as the Soviets did. No trust in the Chain of Command. Superiors don't trust their subordinates and Unit Commanders are not allowed to think for themselves. You can give them technology that's 50 years ahead of ours and they still won't win a war against Israel or the United States without going nuclear and if they do that...well.....it won't end well for them.

"For what it's worth the Iranians have first rate engineers today, and their intelligence services are formidable. Their operations in Iraq and Afghanistan outclass ourselves. It is the reason we've been having so much trouble over there despite the fact that we have Iran completely surrounded [or actually because of it]."
Again you give Iran way too much credit. It's not rocket science. It's not that their intelligence services are "formidable"....it's that they may as well be Arabs themselves. They think alike, have much in common and are operating in their own back yard with people they have known for decades. We're the outsiders, plain and simple. The Afghans and Pakistani's were dealing with Iran during the Afghan Civil War in the 90's. They've been doing this awkward dance of shifting alliances much longer than we have and at the end of the day, it's really this simple....an Afghan will trust an Iranian (or use an Iranian I should say) much more readily than an American. Why? Because they know Iran isn't going anywhere. They are Muslims, we're not. We're from another Continent. We have a history or running when things get tough politically. The Afghans know they are stuck with Iran as their neighbor for the long haul. It's really that simple. I'm sure there's a million ways to complicate the picture but I like to break things down to their simplest form.

Go Israel!