October, 22 2010, 02:16pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Can WikiLeaks Save Lives?
WASHINGTON
WikiLeaks has posted on its Twitter feed that it will be holding a news conference shortly.
The program Democracy Now reported this morning that "WikiLeaks is
preparing to release up to 400,000 U.S. intelligence reports on the Iraq
war. The disclosure would comprise the biggest leak in U.S. history,
far more than the ... Afghanistan war logs WikiLeaks released this
summer." The program interviewed Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the
Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam war.
Ellsberg (who will reportedly be participating in the WikiLeaks news
conference) stated his support for Bradley Manning, who is being
detained by the military, allegedly in connection with the WikiLeaks
documents. See interview with Ellsberg
COLEEN ROWLEY
Rowley, whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI's pre-9/11
failures, was named one of Time magazine's people of the year in 2002.
She recently co-wrote a Los Angeles Times oped titled "WikiLeaks
and 9/11: What if? Frustrated investigators might have chosen to leak
information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the
terrorism attacks."
RAY McGOVERN
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff,
claimed on July 29, following the release of the Afghan war logs, that
WikiLeaks "might already have on their hands the blood of some young
soldier or that of an Afghan family."
McGovern recently wrote the piece "How Truth Can Save Lives,"
which states: "If independent-minded websites, like WikiLeaks or, say,
Consortiumnews.com, existed 43 years ago, I might have risen to the
occasion and helped save the lives of some 25,000 U.S. soldiers, and a
million Vietnamese, by exposing the lies contained in just one
SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Saigon."
McGovern was for two years an Army infantry/intelligence officer,
then a CIA analyst for 27 years. He now serves on the Sam Adams
Associates for Integrity in Intelligence nominating committee, which is
giving this year's award to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
Rowley, McGovern and Ellsberg released a statement on Wikileaks in June.
Background: Pentagon head Robert Gates claimed on July 29 that as a
result of the leak of the Afghan war logs, "intelligence sources and
methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures will
become known to our adversaries." However, in a letter dated Aug. 16,
Gates wrote that "the review to date has not revealed any sensitive
intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure." See
Glenn Greenwald's piece: "How
propaganda is disseminated: WikiLeaks Edition -- On the eve of a new
leak, widely trumpeted Pentagon accusations about the whistleblowing
site have proven false".
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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Dec 12, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
While Israel argues that its invasion of Syria does not violate a 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries because the Assad dynasty no longer rules the neighboring nation, Dujarric said Guterres maintains that Israel must uphold its obligations under the deal, "including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the cease-fire and stability in Golan."
Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
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"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
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"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
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In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
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When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
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