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| India-Pakistan | |
| Wikileaks: Stratfor Affairs | |
| 2012-03-03 | |
Wikileaks has begun publishing millions of emails from global espionage and intelligence contractor Stratfor, dating between 2004 and 2011.
In another email, about the 19 Pakistani brigadiers promoted to major generals, Stratfor member and journalist Kamran Bokhari says: "We have a source among these 19 and he is a rising star within the hierarchy, and is seen as having a really good shot at the top job." In a conversation with Kamran Bokhari, Fred Burton said "mid to senior level ISI and [Pakistani military officers] with one retired [Pakistan Army] general" had "knowledge of the OBL arrangements and safe house." He said their names and ranks were unknown. "But, I get a very clear sense we know names and ranks. I also do not know if we have passed this info to the [government of Pakistan]. If I was in command, I would not pass the info to the GOP because we can't trust them. I would piece meal the names off and bury in a list of other non-related names for internal ISI traces in a non-alerting fashion, to see what the [Pakistanis] tell us. I may also trade one or two names for the captured tail rudder." Bokhari wrote in response: "You know this reminds me of a discussion I had on NPR's Diane Rehm Show back in July '07. I was on with Peter Brookes (former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs in the second Bush administration) and the State Dept's current CT Coordinator, Daniel Benjamin. These two guys kept saying how ObL was in the tribal belt while I argued that he was much deeper in K-P province. God knows how many years were wasted chasing [him] in the tribal belt." Pakistan Army strongly denied the statements. According to a news agency, its spokesman Major Gen Athar Abbas said in a statement that he rejected the "so-called leaks" and that "they are nothing but a baseless fabrication". "These kinds of charges are not new," he said in the statement. "These leaks are actually old wine in new bottle." The emails also contain information about the US government's attacks on Julian Assange and Wikileaks, and Stratfor's own attempt to subvert Wikileaks. There are more than 4000 emails mentioning Wikileaks alone. The leaked information shows how private intelligence agencies works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men" for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, and affected more than half a million people, with lasting environmental damage. Stratfor did realise that its routine use of secret cash bribes to get information from insiders is risky. In August 2011, Stratfor CEO George Friedman confidentially told his employees: "We are retaining a law firm to create a policy for Stratfor on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I don't plan to do the perp walk and I don't want anyone here doing it either." | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 "Believing everything you read in Stratfor is like believing everything you read in Debka." I'll second that. Both pretty much make up plausible scenarios out of thin air but even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again. Stratfor was a bit less likely, though, to make stuff up and post it is "fact". They would label speculation as such more often than Debka does. Every time a carrier group is relieved in the Persian Gulf region, Debka has us ready to attack Iran. Maybe some day they will be corrrect, but not by any feat of intelligence, but simply through repeating the same thing often enough. It is sort of like "predicting" a stock market crash every day. Eventually you will be correct. But nobody is going to pay much attention to it. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2012-03-03 16:17 |
| #1 Believing everything you read in Stratfor is like believing everything you read in Debka... I believe that. ;-) But, and it's a big but, can the Pakistanis, who believe as firmly in conspiracies as they do in Mohammed, and whose religion requires magical rather than logical thinking, afford to assume that anything revealed is in any way untrue? A leak among the new brigadier generals, Stratfor passing on to clients the idea that senior men in the army (and the ISI contains very senior army men, indeed) have been lying about knowing about Osama bin Laden... And if Hamid Gul was indeed connected with Stratfor, as either a source or a client, as is claimed elsewhere, that could make things even more interesting for the generals of the Army of the.Pure, whether from the troops, the Pakistani people, or the Americans. The people of Pakistan loathe their corrupt politicians, as far as I can tell, and legitimately resent that nothing on the civilian side works even after paying the necessary bribes. But up 'til now at least the army could be trusted to take care of whatever it deemed within its area of responsibility -- except actually winning wars, but still. The Stratfor cache, however riddked with forgeries it may be, reveals for all to see that there are those within the leadership of the Army of the Pure who cannot be trusted by their peers. Paranoia, conspiracy mongering, back stabbing, ass covering...it's going to get considerably more interesting within and without the Pakistani halls of power. I suspect the fallout will spread widely, contaminate many, and may well seriously degrade the ruling oligarchy, one way or another -- which could not happen to a more deserving bunch of miscreants, in my opinion. . |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-03-03 13:37 |