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Friday, December 3, 2010

Meet WikiLeaks' Likely First Victim

I would not want to be Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr right now.

As reported by The L.A. Times, a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut revealed by WikiLeaks alleges that Murr assisted the U.S. and Israel in the targeting of Hezbollah:
Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr told Americans the army would stay out of the way if Israel tried to wipe out Hezbollah, according to a secret March 2008 conversation revealed in a diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks.

[Updated at 7:53 a.m.: The cable originated from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and was sent to the State Department in Washington.]

"Making clear that he was not responsible for passing messages to Israel, Murr told us that Israel would do well to avoid two things when it comes for Hizbollah," the cable read.

"One, it must not touch the Blue Line or the UNSCR 1701 areas as this will keep Hizbollah out of these areas," the memo read, referring to the southern Lebanese area now patrolled by thousands of international troops.

"Two, Israel cannot bomb bridges and infrastructure in the Christian areas," Murr was cited as saying.
Murr is denying the assertions:
Defense Minister Elias Murr was reportedly giving U.S. diplomats advice to pass on to Israel for any Israeli attack on Hizbullah, the Los Angeles Times quoted a leaked WikiLeaks cable as saying.

Murr has dismissed the cables as "incomplete and inaccurate."

"The aim behind this is to sow discord in Lebanon," said Murr aide George Soulage.

Soulage said that while the minister did meet with Michele Sison, who was the U.S. ambassador in 2008, a cable published in Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on Thursday did not accurately reflect the tenor of their talks.
Murr's denials likely will have little impact on Hezbollah, which already is suspected of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harriri.  A likely indictment of senior Hezbollah officials in the Harriri killing has Lebanon gripped with fear of a renewed civil war, and possible Hezbollah takeover of Beirut.

WikiLeaks has exposed Murr -- a friend of the United States -- to grave danger, and puts all of Lebanon at risk.

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Related Posts:
The One Tactic We Haven't Tried Yet With Wikileaks
Wikileaks Completes Obama's Transformation Into Jimmy Carter
People Will Die for WikiLeak's Nobel Prize

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16 comments:

  1. http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/12/great-satan-lauds-assange-as-infidel-of-the-year.html

    Iowahawk has it EXACTLY RIGHT...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, starting this particular denial with "incomplete" seems odd at best and perhaps suicidal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You listen to the left go on and on about how the Wikileaks scandal is good because of its transparency but when it comes to the Climategate emails or finding out what was in the Obamacare or Tarp bills or why we were never told about 5 trillion - that's $5,000,000,000,000.00- in secret loans to overseas banks and corporations, why the Left have nothing to say then.

    ReplyDelete
  4. But: Why in hell was this information floating around where a PFC could dump it to a DVD?

    ReplyDelete
  5. First? not according to julian Assange, he claims 1300 deaths in Kenya due to his work

    http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/history_wikileaked/

    ReplyDelete
  6. If I were an informant, foreign diplomat or head of state, I'd laugh like hell at any request by Hillary's State Department to tip off, give the lowdown, let in on, give the skinny on, confirm, confess, divulge, drop a dime on, let the cat out of the bag, let on, let out, let slip, clue in or forewarn.

    If mis and disinformation were bad before, we're now not going to be able to trust much of anything we're told "in secret."

    How truly tragic about the prospects of Minister Murr and the good fight in Lebanon with this revelation.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Here's the money quote:

    “1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak,” says Assange. It’s a chilling statistic, but then he states: “On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya.”

    ReplyDelete
  8. And here is the source for the quote:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan

    (Thank you, Christopher Taylor for the original link.)

    ReplyDelete
  9. "WikiLeaks has exposed Murr -- a friend of the United States -- to grave danger, and puts all of Lebanon at risk."

    But what is Murr's predicament to Saint Julian The Ass? Or more accurately, "Huzzah!" - that's what Assange was aiming for all along.

    In another day, when moral clarity was not only possible but expected, when America knew what it was, where it stood, and why the good and decent people of the world needed the US to exist, Assange would have disappeared long before the first of his cowardly "leaks" were made.

    Even today, had America a leader less ambivalent and confused about what duty he owed this country, a day after the first document dump Assange's body would have been found with a bullet behind an ear. Missing its tongue.

    But no, in Obama's America we're much more morally sophisticated that that. And we recognize what a complex question this is. Heck, we aren't even sure America deserves to exist, so how can we punish someone for trying to destroy us, huh? Yes, the exposure and possible kidnapping, torture, maiming, mutilation and death of foreign nationals who assisted the US in anti-terrorism efforts is just the price we must pay for living such a morally ambivalent age. Oh, but we'll use words like "anguish" and "outrage", so we'll be fine in the media.

    And we'll send each of the widowed/widowered spouses a very nice cable, over the very genuine-looking Autopenned signature of the President along with a black-and-white of him flashing one of his brightest smiles. It will express our deep appreciation blah-blah-blah: "Tough break, but Good Luck in all your future endeavors!" It'll be plenty for 'em.
    ................................................


    Sometimes it's hard not to hate what we've become, and who we've allowed to act in our name.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The responsibility for this lies squarely on the State Department. Wikileaks may be to blame, but they're not the ones responsible for keeping this kind of information secret.

    What a tangled mess of a government, where secret international diplomacy is more transparent than the domestic budget!

    ReplyDelete
  11. So, do you want open, accountable government (Sunshine.)

    or...

    Do you want secretive, inept and corrupt bureaucrats to decide how you're going to live and how you're get along with the rest of the world? (Keep you in the dark and feed you bullshit.)

    It's not a false choice. You can't have it both ways.

    ReplyDelete
  12. If they can take down website as they did to two days prior to this info dump, they could have taken Wikileaks out. They being our massive federal government. The hype for this dump was weeks in the making, this whole thing is an obvious put-on. Julian is the fall guy, but the perps are probably on the federal payroll.
    I'll be impressed the day they release the records of the Federal Reserve.
    @Warren, I heard that!

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Warren.

    Diplomacy is the Constitutionally granted power of the Executive Branch.

    You sound ill-informed of the difference between diplomacy and domestic regulation.

    ReplyDelete
  14. @Warren...

    "You can have civil liberties...or you can have public safety.

    You can't have both. And that's not a false choice ('cus I said so...stop laughing!)"

    Idiot.

    ReplyDelete