Wikileaks' Julian Assange and Conspiracy Theories

By Michael Collins

"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." Julian Asange, Wikileaks, July 19 (Image right)

John Young was one of the co-founders of Wikileaks. He quickly left the organization in disagreement with some of its policies (CNET). Young was a natural choice for Wikileaks since he has operated a leak website, CRYPTOME, since 1996. His site just released two articles on July 31 attributed to Wikileaks' Julian Assange (me@i.1.org). The announcement read:

"These essays on conspiracies by Julian Assange (me@iq.org) were retrieved today from his website iq.org. The first from the currently active site, dated November 10, 2006, and the second at archive.org, dated December 3, 2006." CRYPTOME - 31 July 2010 (author's emphasis)

The essay titles indicate an entirely different take on conspiracies than that indicated by Assange in his 9/11 comments. In fact, in these two essays from 2006, Assange defines conspiracies as the critical state function to maintain power. The titles are:

State and Terrorist Conspiracies me @ iq.org November 10, 2006

Conspiracy as Governance me @ iq.org December 3, 2006

In the second essay, Conspiracy as Governance, Assange outlines the centrality of conspiracies to maintaining elites.

"Conspiracy as governance in authoritarian regimes

"Where details are known as to the inner workings of authoritarian regimes, we see conspiratorial interactions among the political elite, not merely for preferment or favor within the regime, but as the primary planning methodology behind maintaining or strengthening authoritarian power.

"Authoritarian regimes create forces which oppose them by pushing against a people’s will to truth, love and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce further resistance. Hence such schemes are concealed by successful authoritarian powers until resistance is futile or outweighed by the efficiencies of naked power. This collaborative secrecy, working to the detriment of a population, is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial." Julian Assange, Dec. 3, 2006

Assange proceeds to define conspiracies as "cognitive devices" that are able to "out think the same group of individuals acting alone." He argues that "deceiving conspiracies" operate by distorting reality to achieve some specific goal. The outcome is of these conspiracies is likely to be "misplaced. Programmers call this effect garbage in, garbage out."

After defining the dangers and centrality of government conspiracies in the first and second essay, Assange proposes the following:

"Attacks on conspiratorial cognitive ability.

"A man in chains knows he should have acted sooner for his ability to influence the actions of the state is near its end. To deal with powerful conspiratorial actions we must think ahead and attack the process that leads to them since the actions themselves can not be dealt with. We can deceive or blind a conspiracy by distorting or restricting the information available to it." Julian Assange, Dec. 3, 2006

"Distorting or restricting the information available" to conspiracies is the justification for dis-intermediating the flow of information, as Wikileaks has done in the past. Gather raw data and simply post it. The strategy most recently with the Afghanistan leaks involved choosing three mainstream media news organizations as intermediaries - The New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel.

Assange closes by suggesting turning the tables on conspiracies as a means of forming public opinion and policies by the governing elites.

"We can reduce total conspiratorial power via unstructured attacks on links or through throttling and separating.

"A conspiracy sufficiently engaged in this manner is no longer able to comprehend its environment and plan robust action.

"Usually the effect runs the other way; it is conspiracy that is the agent of deception and information restriction. In the US, the programmer’s aphorism is sometimes called “the Fox News effect”. Julian Assange, Dec. 3, 2006

Despite his remarks about 9/11 conspiracy theories, in 2006 Assange clearly outlined how conspiracies are used to shift government policy through justifications based on deliberate deception. False flag operations like those exposed in Turkey in just the past two years are perfect examples. His theory elaborates how deception was used in the Gulf of Tonkin incident.


Claiming an attack on United States Navy vessels by North Vietnam's navy, President Lyndon B. Johnson got all the justification he needed start the Vietnam War that brought so much pain and loss. After the false flag incident, the U.S. Senate approved massive troop build ups and aggressive war making for years.

The government finally admitted that the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fraud in 2005. Will we have to wait 41 years after each suspected "deliberate deception" to find out that major policy changes and war making efforts were formed by false flag attacks?

END

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Very interesting

And we will stay tuned.

The Two Essays Are Not Necessarily Beef

Assuming the two essays were in fact written by Julian Assange, they do show a deep understanding of the nature of conspiracies and their use by the power elite. They also discuss theories to reduce the conspiratorial power of a conspiring group. But they don't necessarily affirm that Assange is on the side of truth seeking. Indeed, how do we know if Assange is not another Zelikow-like betrayer who is just using his deep-thinking to bolster some of the conspirators he writes about? Just because he understands conspiracies, it doesn't mean he is not being used by them. We still need to see the beef. Until that time, nothing will change.

I agree

I said this elsewhere but it speaks to your very well taken point:

"I do not agree with Assange's emphasis on conspiracies as outlined in the two papers. It represents process over content at the expense of reality.

The repressive economic system, failure to enforce the law for the elite, perpetual war, etc. end up operating as dynamic forces of control in their own right. Controlling information flow and creating self-serving story lines is important but not the core problem. Conspiracy processes require something to conspire about. This makes the conspiracy concept that Assange presents a derivative than primary problem."

"garbage in, garbage out."

"The outcome is of these conspiracies is likely to be "misplaced. Programmers call this effect garbage in, garbage out.""

Indeed : it’s a Hollywood cyber-reality for most of us, except it is used to justify white phosphorus bombs over civilians in Fallujah and Gaza, multiple un-necessary wars that bankrupt the common US citizens, and kill 3000 citizens to create "Shock & Awe" "catastrophic terrorism" enough to create the elite's desired "transforming event". “Garbage in, garbage out.", that sounds like the motto of every journalist I hear giving the latest spin on the « War on Terror » of the main stream media. It is very urgent to stop this nonsense, and unclothe the garbage delivery men that litter our air-waves. Cut the frivolity: what are the facts ? Where are the truth-tellers who adhere to the Dharma, the LAW (of ecology, of the path towards better (economic) health and less suffering for all). (Non Dharma related information is frivolous "garbage".)

The latest releases of WikiLeaks have the benefit of giving an unvarnished, unredacted image of the ridiculous war in Afghanistan. I agree with John_Parulis : Let us let Assange proceed with what he does well, while we concentrate on getting the unvarnished truth out about how the three skyscrapers in New York were pulverized symmetrically straight down by sol-gel-nano-thermate. Together we will soon have the truth shining through all our actions, and, let us at-least hope, our media!

An interesting post to better understand how Assange ticks! “Let's all sit back and watch how this plays out.” as John_Parulis said. Yes, apparently he understands how the power elite uses myths and conspiracies to increase control, but unlike Philip Zelikow and most main-stream journalists, he doesn’t add to the sugar glazing, he publishes the recipe, including an unredacted list of the toxic ingredients!

Eric in Brussels

Leakers Not Necessarily Bright

After all, the man behind the "Pentagon Papers" stated on Larrry King last week that he voted for Obama and plans to do so again.

Amazing that so many people we assume to be intelligent cannot realize that the version of political "reality" depicted on TV is little more than a WWE-like skit.

People like Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama are merely pitchmen for the military/industrial complex.

There was a response

to the Weiner YT video with a guy using that comparison as well, i.e. a WWF style show: everything is choreographed and discussed beforehand, and then the "opponents" perform their stage play, with lots of theatrics. Weiner certainly is an opportunist, and while his rant was justified, given the totality of his policies, he's a typical opportunist politician. He's trying to build a reputation among his constituents. That doesn't take away anything from the fact that the Republicans, and the Republicans alone, are fully responsible for nuking the Zadroga Act with partisan anti-immigrant nonsense. It's mind boggingly offensive.

About Ellsberg, I must point out that you paraphrase him out of context.

Left-Wing Icon Daniel Ellsberg - 'Obama Deceives the Public'

No, he shouldn't be voting for Obama. He seems to be voting against the Republican Party. Typical two party problematique. He should vote for Cynthia McKinney, if she's running.

By the way, I'm a fan of your work.

Vince McMahon would have a much better story line

And he and the WWF admit up front that it's a show. The take on Weiner is excellent. I remember him when he said that progressive House members would not vote for health care reform without a solid public option ... like that happened.

Worked for Grayson...why not Weiner?

Connect the dots will ya?

Congress is controlled by a small minority who work at keeping the membership at about 50-50...52-49...48-52...47-53-ish. Then this small group who, care not one bit about this country, work clandestinely behind the scenes to cleverly swing their votes in any direction that suits the reasons that they are in congress in the first place...to take care of, support and protect their country.

CONSULTANTS?...the FIRST meeting between the infamous "election consultants" that the Republican and Democratic parties hire, are with each other. And their first goal is to dwindle down size of the gap between party's popularity should one party get too far ahead of the other. Accomplishing the first goal accomplishes their second goal...to be able to get hired again because they "almost" pulled it off...but need just a bit more money next time and then they will REALLY be able to gain some space between the parties. Which of course, as noted above, is not desired anyway because then the TINY but influential minority in congress would no longer be able to control the majority. I'm not talking about the filibuster non-democracy deal. That's a scam on its face.

9/11 Truth for World Peace and Justice

Robin Hordon
Kingston, WA

Assange himself reposted this just today

FYI, this seems to have been submitted by Assange himself today:

http://www.thecommentfactory.com/exclusive-the-wikileaks-manifesto-by-ju...

That is an old text of Assange from Nov 10th 2006.

See this link : http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf

His posts on iq.org are still consultable, to better get to know him : http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org

With all that, I still don't know where I have this man : he is intelligent, yes, but what's the point about tip-toeing about the blunt and evident fact that the three sky-scrapers in New-York were taken down by pre-planted sol-gel-nano-thermate on September 11th 2010. www.AE911Truth.org We very urgently need a BIG CHANGE on the public perception of this. THAT would tilt the spot-lights to start understanding who has been actively covering-up this horrific act of treason and authoritarian take-over of the executive reign, against the interests of the People of the United States. (see also SCAD research papers, including a comment I made on page 2 http://911blogger.com/news/2010-03-03/entire-february-2010-issue-american-behavioral-scientist-devoted-state-crimes-against-democracy-case-9112001 .

I would very much welcome seeing his chalk-white hair among us at our "Chalk-Event" comming up in Brussels, on September 11th 2010.
http://www.wacbelgium.be/nl/video/september-11-2010-chalk-event . More about this SOON !

Best regards from Brussels,

Eric http://patriotsquestion911.com/medical.html#Beeth

Something hidden here

Hmm. It would appear that theorizing about conspiracies confers no practical benefit on the brain of one called upon to identify the elephant-sized conspiracy directly in front of him.

I think that moral discrimination, which arises out of the maturity of one's individual development as a human being, is required to fully see truth. Otherwise one has no relative compass to distinguish and contrast the various rights and wrongs in a situation. It is no good trying to convince someone who has a deep hatred of Muslims that the 911 hijackers may have been intelligence agency operatives or patsies. You can't rationally convince someone consumed by money greed that sharing makes more sense.

We know that Mr Assange has a rational thought process, that he is well educated and intelligent. We know that he grasps the notion of conspiracy. He purports to be living a life in service to a humanitarian agenda, that of openness and freedom of information.

But suddenly he is blinded into total acceptance of the official story of 911 in spite of the mountain of anomalies?

I don't accept this. It stinks. It cannot be for lack of reason or brainpower. So what is interfering with his judgement?

I could think of a couple of possibilities.

Lot's of people with rational thought process

can't accept 911 truth. Well informed people with a great deal of knowledge about politics, current events, government corruption and cover-ups still are unable to get their head around the fact that 911 was an inside job. I was very much interested in conspiracies for years and I couldn't believe it at first. It is my feeling that many people on this site have lost touch with how hard it is to believe what we all here now know. Assange and wikileaks have promoted the idea of war crimes, unjust warfare, the slaughter of civilians and we still want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Maybe he is a limited hangout or maybe we are just getting too paranoid. Time will tell.

Indeed, I still have friends who still don't get it.

Unfortunately, often the more "intellectual" they get, like university professors, they take themselves seriously, and would be very offended if they ever discovered that their tightly held thoughts had been wrong all this time. A 7 year-old who is shown a picture of one of the WTC exploding has no difficulties identifying that it is an image of a building exploding : http://www.flickr.com/photos/98317230@N00/529379220 but you ask a US congressmen, a main-stream journalist or NIST researchers, and they will say it is structural damage due to fire and weight making the building "pancake down".

We will be using Dan Krit's Flickr image above, on which we will paste Magritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" for our posters concerning our upcoming "Chalk Event" in Brussels, on September 11th. http://www.wacbelgium.be/nl/video/september-11-2010-chalk-event

Eric in Brussels

Some one I know ( a 911 novice) just mentioned to me that

even if the planes knocked down the towers what would be the chance that each tower would fall in exactly the same way.

Have you ever seen historical pictures of WWII, have you ever seen two buildings which had the exact same damage? Ever? Anywhere?

I thought it was a great point from someone with an unbiased perspective.

I really cannot believe

Assange can't get his "head around" 9/11. Sure, still lots of people either don't know, or don't want to know. But for someone who gets around in the web like him, who is into politics, conspiracies in special, who's presenting himself like skeptical on governments by nature, i find it really hard not to get the head around 9/11.

Nobody said, it has to be an inside job -- but if there's no conspiracy, how to explain "Able Danger"? What about Stand-Down-orders? What about eye witnesses to explosions? What about Building 7? And how to explain the government is keeping all this covered up? By now, even the comissioners themselves confirm this -- so if this is a "false" conspiracy, what's a conspiracy anyway?

I'm sure, Assange knows just as much as we do, at least. He denied the 9/11 thing for a reason. Maybe, he just wanted to save his project's credibility, avoid to get labeled a "nut" by the public which is deaf, blind & dumb. Which reason he had, don't know.
Even possibly, he just wants to earn credibility, get integrated into mainstream -- just to come out with the bomb later, when his word is stronger. But i hardly believe this. By what i got to know so far, i'd rather consider him an opportunist. Whatever. As you said. Time will tell.

Sure an interesting essay

...and it shows, Assange is an intelligent, well educated guy, who made his mind up. Though, kind of abstract, about conspiracies in general. To me, some practical avail seems hard to find, due dealing with governmental conspiracies, throttling/ weaken the links is quite hard. Though, in the last paragraph, he proposed to show how "new technology and insights into psychological motivations" could give "practical methods for preventing or reducing" conspirators' communication, so is there a sequel? Or is it classified? ;-)

Anyway, just to disclose about the topic, doesn't point out which side you're on.
I bet, Cheney or Rumsfeld could have a lot of interesting stuff to provide about conspiracies, too.

I don't see an entirely different take here. Given the knowledge shown with this essay, his statement on 9/11 is even worse.

I'm far from assigning him to CIA, and the "Afghan War Logs" may have been a good job, anyway, something about him makes me very suspicious. He c/o Wikileaks got some attitude, reminds me pretty much of governments itself, like dramatic phrases, claiming to be down for the greatest values...
This insurance file thing -- looks to me like hollywood at it's best.