WikiLeaks operatives bear down on Radio Azattlyk editor in Bishkek.
For an eye-full of the thuggish bullying tactics WikiLeaks uses on vulnerable Central Asian news reporters, tune into Mediastan, their new propaganda film, at least while it's free, on Vimeo.
I regrettably paid $2.99 to rent it, and I hate giving a dime to these losers.
The Central Asian region is one I know well, having followed it closely for the last decades when I worked at various human rights organizations and websites including RFE/RL and EurasiaNet as a freelancer.
I was appalled at how the WikiLeaks team -- including the disgraced journalist Johannes Wahlstrom, son of the notorious antisemite and provocateur Israel Shamir, close to Russian intelligence, narrated this film and seemed to run the show -- with Sarah Harrison, Snowden's fellow traveller to Moscow, waiting in the wings in London.
The crew lurches through Central Asia, descending on news rooms with false pretexts about interviews and then suddenly springs on them the demand to sign agreements to take the WikiLeaks cables about their country and publish them. They are pressured to sign the agreement instantly. When they don't, they are portrayed as cowards and tools of American imperialism.
I've made a full study here at Different Stans, my Central Asian blog.
The film isn't really about what's happening in these countries, and WikiLeaks shows no knowledge or sensitivity about these countries, and doesn't bother to go to the real independent press, i.e. for Turkmenistan, which would mean traveling in Europe to meet the editors of Chronicles of Turkmenistan in exile. They completely ignore Uzbekistan -- likely it just wouldn't fit their theories, as brave exile publications have covered the WikiLeaks cables. They go to RFE/RL in Kyrgyzstan, which provides exemplary material under difficult conditions, but naturally isn't going to publish cables that were stolen from the US government; it is funded by Congress and can't be expected to join WikiLeaks in their unethical antics. They don't bother to look up AKIpress or 24kg or others that might have considered the cables - but that's not the point. None of these outlets should be judged by whether they can instantly agree to buckle to Assange's pressure on what he thinks should go in their papers.
By the time we get to the end and see the contrived scenes with the Guardian's editor Rusbridger and Bill Keller of the New York Times, we realize what this film is really about -- not the content of the cables and what it might mean for better governance of the troubled nations of Central Asia, but a power struggle between the 5th Estate, as it is being called -- hackers and anarchists who dump materials and challenge the entire system of democraticy societies -- and the old 4th estate, which exercises better judgement.
Sorry, I'm with Bill Keller on this one -- he says the reason he discussed the cables with the State Department and other US agencies was because he didn't want to enable America's enemies to harm us.
Julian Assange shows no such care, and is the least credible to judge what is or isn't damaging (WikiLeaks agitpropsters are re-upping their claim that the Pentagon "admitted" there was no damage, but that's ridiculous, they did no such thing)
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