"You Need to Know What's Really Going On": WikiLeaks Julian Assange on the Fight for the Truth

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/story/147734/"you_need_to_know_what's_really_going_on"%3A_wikileaks_founder_julian_as


Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty / By Ron Synovitz and Christopher Schwartz

"You Need to Know What's Really Going On": WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on the Fight for the Truth

Assange: "In order to make any just decision you need to know and understand what abuses or plans for abuses are occurring."
August 4, 2010

Australian founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, speaks to the press in London. The Pentagon has warned that the disclosure of classified US military files on the site has put the lives of informants at risk and threatens to undermine intelligence work in war-torn Afghanistan. Assange, however, has insisted that it was "extremely important" that the files were in the public domain.


Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, says his work is based on the "ancient vision" of uncovering the truth. And he says sources would rather turn over their information to him than to traditional news outlets because he can protect them better. Assange spoke with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Ron Synovitz and Christopher Schwartz on July 27 by phone from London.

What is your response to those in Pakistan who doubt the veracity of WikiLeaks' "Afghan War Diary?" In particular, Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, has said he thinks the reports are fabrications.

Julian Assange: We need to look at these reports in a subtle way. A lot of material is included there. There are 91,000 reports from units in the field, from embassies in relation to Afghanistan, intelligence officers, and from informers. The informers make their reports for money. They are paid by the United States government for making serious allegations. They make reports to knock out a competitor -- a detested neighbor or family enemy -- and they make reports for legitimate reasons.

In looking at the ISI material by informers, we see that the U.S. military puts a sort of label on each informer as to how reliable they believe they are. If we just look , we do see an extensive number of reports about the ISI. Now, any one of them may be incorrect, any two of them may be correct. It's really in the such large numbers and figures involving so many different circumstances and/or involving the ISI that we start to become very suspicious of the ISI .


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[NJmaverick]

1. Is he addressing the Taliban and their need to know who is informing on them?