BUSTED - Wikileaks Cable Proves That US Knew What Was At Stake For Ukraine Since 2008

A Wikileaks cable that was featured in the Greek press on Thursday and dated February 1st, 2008 under code 08MOSCOW265_a, clearly -and without a shadow of a doubt- proves that the United States was fully aware of what a pro-western pull on the Ukraine would mean in the long-term.

The message was sent as confidential by US ambassador to Moscow William J. Burns, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NATO – European Union Cooperative, the National Security Council, Russia Moscow Political Collective, the US Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. (quite interestingly, Burns had also served as US Ambassador to Athens in the early 90s.)

In the controversial message the ambassador notes that the situation has been spelled out by Russian FM Sergei Lavrov of what it would mean for the Ukraine to be drawn further into a western sphere of influence.

The document lists as its subject: “NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA'S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES.”

As explained in the document summary, “following a muted first reaction to Ukraine's intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit, Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.

Particularly for Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would in return force Russia to decide whether to intervene.

Additionally, the GOR and experts continue to claim that Ukrainian NATO membership would have a major impact on Russia's defense industry, Russian-Ukrainian family connections, and bilateral relations generally.

Basically it shows that Sergei Lavgrov warned the US -SIX YEARS AGO- that the Russian bear was convinced that enlargement was not based on security reasons, but was a legacy of the Cold War.

Burns:

     “tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

The cable basically proves that the West was well aware of what was at stake if they pursued NATO expansion towards the East, or in this case in the Ukraine, but they nonetheless continued to do so.

Read the full Wikileaks Cable By Clicking HERE

The following panel discussion on RT also touches this controversy.

New Wikileaks Movie - “We Steal Secrets” (VIDEO)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every documentary filmmaker begins with deciding on the story to be told, and, then, how to sustain audience interest. If your goal is to inform the public or take a stand on an important issue by explaining its origins and exposing wrong doers then you go one way. If your goal is to entertain and shroud your motives by exploring murky personality contradictions, you go another. We Steal Secrets, Alex Gibney’s latest documentary (or is it a docudrama?), skillfully made with the backing of major media company tries to do both.

By Danny Schechter
Global Research

Ironically, that company, Comcast-Universal, owners of NBC, is at the same time having a major success with another movie, Fast and Furious6, glamorizing a criminal gang that relies on speedy cars.

 You could say that Wikileaks, the subject of We Steal Secrets also began with a fury – a fury against war and secrecy, and was moving as fast as it could to challenge media complacency in the digital realm.

Now, it is being ganged up on by a media that invariably builds you up before tearing you down.

The docu-tract uses slick graphics to creatively report on the origins and impact of Wikileaks, the online whistleblower collective, but then, for “balance” and perhaps to pre-empt any criticisms ofany bias, especially too much ideological sympathy, opened the tap onendless criticisms by Wiki-dissidents who have turned on founder Julian Assange,  as well as the pathetic patriot hacker turned informant who ratted out Manning.

The movie revels in all the negatives that surround him, and his chief and gutsy leaker, Private First Class Bradley Manning who is on the eve of a trial that could land him behind bars for life under the 1917 Espionage Act.

On June 1st, Manning supporters will rally at the Virginia base at which he is being held.ABC News reports, “ABC News reports: “A large crowd is expected at Fort Meade this weekend for a mass demonstration in support of Army Private First Class Bradley Manning.” His trial begins June 3.

Says Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights:

    “The Manning trial is occurring in the context of perhaps the most repressive atmosphere for free press in recent memory. It was bad enough that the Obama administration prosecuted twice the number of whistleblowers than all prior administrations combined. Then it went after logs and records of journalists and publishers…”

Manning’s recent and widely unreported statement in Court explaining his reasons for making the secret documents public is not in the film.

The film mentions, but does not explore,Manning’s claim that he offered his data first to mainstream newspapers including the Washington Post that showed no interest.

Their failure to publish the story was one of the reasons the soldier turned to Wikileaks. And, also, one of the reasons that validates Wikileaks claim ofhaving a journalistic mission.

So, the stakes are high, and its surprising that the film’s very title, “ We Steal Secrets, an ideathatmany might be taken as a Wiki-boast, was really an admission by former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden about what the U.S. government, not Wikileaks, is all about. Balancing his espionage boosterism is a former Republican Justice Department hack.

It is very rare for an Indy filmmaker to land interviews with top intelligence honchos. Who had the juice to get this “get” as major interviews are called in the news world.

Supporters of Assange like civil libertarians, media freedom groups. Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, or critics like Noam Chomsky, are conspicuously absent.

As a result, We Are Secrets seems more like a case for the prosecution than the defense,  at least in the Court of Public opinion.

The film has had a big promotional push and is already playing in three theaters in New York, a success that masks some of its editorial failings including its in your face attempt at “fairness and balance,” the pretext the one-siders at FOX use as their claim to credibility.

The promotional hype for the film initially made it seem like an endorsement of Assange until you read it closely.

    “Filmed with the startling immediacy of unfolding history, Academy Award®-winning director Alex Gibney’s We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks details the creation of Julian Assange’s controversial website, which facilitated the largest security breach in U.S. history. Hailed by some as a free-speech hero and others as a traitor and terrorist, …”

So, there you are: the movie’s real question: Is Assange a good guy or not? And what about Manning? Why did he do what he did?  So, at the outset, Gibney leaves the political plane for a psychological, or even, a psychiatric one.  He is out to personalize and in the process depoliticize a very political issue forwhat’sknown in the news-biz as “character-based story telling.”

The mantra; stick with people, not their passions, individuals not ideas.

Yes, there’s lots of information about the goals and methods of Wikileaks,  but, that becomes in this movieasubtext to a more Shakespearean tragedy:  the rise and fall of idealists who turn into their opposites, or are using politics to work out their twisted personal issues.

Out goes more film time devoted to war crimes and information concealment; and, in comes juicy stories about sex without condoms, cross-dressing, and gender conflicts to soften the brew.

The “worthy” appearance of investigation quickly turns into the nasty reality of exploitation with the focus on their subject’sflaws, not their bravery, a theme I am sure playedwell in the conservative board room at Comcast

- The Village Voice asks in its review, “is a strong point of view really such a bad thing? The movie leaves you feeling lost and confused. Fix. Please.”

- The Washington Post seemed to celebrate its expose, not of government secrets—but of secret-hunter Assange, writing, “At best, Assange comes across as something of a noble jerk, a man who doesn’t care about embarrassing public figures who have done wrong. At worst, he comes across as a callous sociopath, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to publish unredacted details of military operations that might actually get people killed, only to lie about it after the fact by claiming that WikiLeaks had “systems” in place to prevent potentially harmful disclosures. There weren’t, according to several seemingly knowledgeable individuals, including Assange’s former WikiLeaks colleagues.”  (Doesn’t this reality show how bogus the oft-repeated fears of many in the media and government were?)

- The New York Times was also a bit perturbed - not too much, given the paper’s frequent trashing of Assange, (after milking the secrets he gave them) - describing it as a “tale of absolutist ideals that seemed somehow to curdle and of private torment in search of an outlet with drastic results.” Again, the theme is the personal more than the political,

The message:  You can’t trust anyone, much less anyone challenging power.

No wonder that Assange - who was not interviewed for this movie, perhaps sensing a hit job - has turned against the movie. Wikileaks even got its hands on a script before the film’s release and annotated it to challenge its veracity. You can read it on their website at Wikileaks.org.

Wikileaks says, “The film portrays Manning’s alleged acts as failure of character rather than a triumph of conscience. The portrayal of Manning’s alleged relationship to WikiLeaks and to Assange is grossly irresponsible and suggests - erroneously and when evidence is to the contrary - that Assange may be guilty of conspiring with Bradley Manning to commit espionage or similar offences. The film buys into the current US government position that journalists and publishers can be prosecuted as co-conspirators alongside their alleged sources.

    “This is a dangerous proposition for all journalists and media organizations — not just WikiLeaks. In the context of the US government’s attempts to prosecute journalists who communicate with confidential sources, Gibney’s film could have been an important and timely project. The film barely touches on the US investigation against WikiLeaks, never mentions the words “grand jury”, and trivializes the larger issues, perhaps because the film-maker could not secure an interview with Julian Assange?”

The film reports that Assange demanded millions for an interview - his way, no doubt, of mockingthe big bucks behind the production. He knew they wanted the big confrontational Q&A and wouldn’t give it them! He says there are two more Wikleaks films on the way that he has cooperated with.

I have been impressed with Alex Gibney’s work. He is a talented pro, and this film is worth seeing (and dissecting). I also admire the daring of Manning and Assange who are faulted for being paranoid, but,given the propaganda and legal broadsides launched against them, you can understand why.

Remember when the US government sent thugs to break into Vietnam whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office looking for ways to discredit him? Making your whistleblowers appear weird and crazy is an old technique used by the powerful against those who question power.

Kafka couldn’t of come up with a more byzantine legal process than the one that Manning faces. (Military justice is said be for justice what military bands are for music.) There are,for example,no official transcripts of the legal proceedings available. Prominent journalists are calling for more access and transparency. And while having Assange taking refuge in the Ecuador Embassy seems absurd, it is also a sign that there are people worldwide who respect and admire the work that Wikileaks does!

We Steal Secrets is now a high profile part of the media war that Wikileaks is fighting, a war that has often put whistleblower group at odds with the press whose freedom it champions. That press insists their way is the only way and is in the business of marginalizing dissidents.

So, first, there were the newspapers, who initially rejected the secrets of government abuse, and then used Wikileaks, before repudiating Assange as not a “real journalist,” as they apparently believe themselves to be. Then, collectively and arrogantly turned on him in masse.

Now, documentaries have become part of this contested terrain.

News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org and blogs at news dissector.net.  He is also an independent filmmaker. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org.

Wikileaks: The US Abandons Ioannides After Shambolic Coup Against Makarios

Below is an interesting Wikileaks cable (original here) sent from the US Embassy in Athens to the US State Department detailing a meeting on 16 July 1974, i.e. the day after the Athens-engineered coup that overthrew President Makarios in Cyprus, between Greece’s junta leader Dimitrios Ioannides and the US ambassador to Greece, Henry Tasca.

Hellenic Antidote

It’s clear from the cable that Ioannides believed he had American support for the coup and that he is infuriated when it becomes clear to him that, with Makarios alive and the coup a shambles, the Americans were now not prepared to defend Ioannides’ putsch in Cyprus, which meant, it must have been obvious to Ioannides, there was now nothing to stop a Turkish invasion of the island, that, indeed, the Americans were sympathetic to such a development. Ioannides desperately seeks to assure Tasca that the coup was in American interests, ranting about Makarios and the imminent prospect of Cyprus ‘falling into the hands of the communists’. The cable also confirms that, inasmuch as Ioannides had thought through the coup, his immediate aim was not annexation of Cyprus to Greece, but the removal of Makarios in order to facilitate an understanding with Turkey on the future of the island, i.e. partition of the island between Greece and Turkey.

FOR THE SECRETARY

1. I USED SECURE RELIABLE CHANNEL DIRECTLY TO GENERAL IOANNIDES TO DELIVER MESSAGE REFTEL [Reference Telegram]. HE BEGAN BY EXPLAINING HE HAD PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM USG [US government]. AFTER EMISSARY HAD READ TWO PARAGRAPHS, IOANNIDES COMMENTED MESSAGE MUST BE SAME AS THAT AMBASSADOR HAD GIVEN KYPREOS [Greece’s foreign minister],IN WHICH CASE EMISSARY WASTING HIS TIME SINCE HE WOULD RECEIVE MESSAGE ANYWAY. EMISSARY EXPLAINED HIS JOB WAS TO FINISH READING MESSAGE AND HAD IT TO HIM AND WOULD DO SO, TO WHICH GENERAL IOANNIDES SAID FINE.

2. AFTER EMISSARY COMPLETED MESSAGE, THE GENERAL LITERALLY BLEW UP, JUMPED UP, BACKED UP, KNOCKED OVER A TABLE, BROKE EMPTY GLASS AND UTTERED A STRONG OBSCENITY. HE CONTINUED THAT ONE DAY KISSINGER MAKES PUBLIC STATEMENTS REGARDING NON-INTERFERENCE IN GREEK INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND A FEW WEEKS LATER THE USG SAYS "CONSISTENT WITH THE ABOVE PRINCIPLES..." AND THREATENS INTERFERENCE. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED IN CYPUS I (IOANNIDES) WILL BE BLAMED. IF I HAD PULLED THE TROOPS OUT THE FORMER POLITICIANS WOULD HAVE BLAMED ME FOR TURNING THE ISLAND OVER TO THE COMMUNISTS. SOME DAY USG WILL REALIZE THAT ON 15 JULY 1974 CYPRUS WAS SAVED FROM FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF THE COMMUNISTS".

3. GENERAL THEN CALMED DOWN, CAME OVER TO WHERE EMISSARY WAS SITTING AND SAID HE KNEW HE UNDERSTOOD HIM: DIPLOMATIC TALK IS TIME-CONSUMING BUT HE WOULD ANSWER IN AS DIPLOMATIC FASHION AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE HE HAD DIPLOMATIC MISSION.

4. GENERAL STATED THAT GREECE ALSO BELIEVED IN NON-INTERFERENCE AND IN A FREE, INDEPENDENT, SOVEREIGN STATE OF CYPRUS; GREECE WOULD ABIDE BY THE DECISION OF THE MAJORITY OF THE GREEK CYPRIOTS, MOST OF WHOM WERE NATIONALISTS, AND THESE NATIONALISTS WERE THE ONES WHO HAD MOVED AGAINST MAKARIOS. IT WAS IMMATERIAL WHETHER THESE GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS MOVED WITH OR WITHOUT THE PRIOR BLESSING OF GREECE OR WHETHER GREEK OFFICERS SUBSEQUENTLY ASSISTED THEM. AT THIS POINT HE WENT OFF ON A TANGENT STATING THAT NEITHER GREECE NOR THE GREEK CYPRIOTS HAD ASKED FOR ENOSIS, THAT GOT [government of Turkey] HAD OBVIOUSLY ACCEPTED THESE DEVELOPMENTS IN CYPRUS, THAT TURKS UNDER STOOD THAT THE MATTER WAS AN INTERNAL GREEK CYPRIOT AFFAIR.

5. ACCORDING TO IOANNIDES ONLY REAL RESISTANCE LEFT ON CYPRUS WERE COMMUNIST SUPPORTS OF MAKARIOS IN PAPHOS;THESE SUPPORTERS WERE EVEN SINGING EAM/ELAS SONGS. MOST OF THE REST OF ISLAND WAS IN NATIONALIST HANDS. GENERAL IOANNIDES STATED THAT EVERYONE SHOULD FORGET THAT MAKARIOS WAS AN INTERNATIONAL FIGURE, THAT HE WAS A NATIONAL HERO, THAT HE HAD SERVED SEVERAL USEFUL FUNCTIONS AND THAT HE WAS A MAN OF THE CLOTH; MAKARIOS HAD BECOME A ROTTEN PRIEST HOMOSEXUAL; HE WAS PERVERTED, A TORTURER, A SEXUAL DEVIATE AND THE OWNER OF HALF THE HOTELS ON THE ISLAND. TO PRESERVE HIS POSITION AND TO CONTINUE HIS ACTIVITIES, MAKARIOS WAS WILLING TO SACRIFICE SEVENTY PER CENT OF THE GREEK CYPRIOT POPULATION (ONLY THIRTY PER CENT WERE AKEL) AND ENTIRE ANTI-COMMUNIST TURKISH CYPRIOT POPULATION. IOANNIDES ASSERTED GREEK CYPRIOTS IN NATIONAL GUARD REALIZED THESE FACTS AND HAD BEGGED MOTHERLAND FOR CHANCE TO ACT AGAINST MAKARIOS; GENERAL CLAIMED THAT HE ONLY ASSISTED AFTER BEING PRESENTED WITH A FAIT ACCOMPLI.

6. AT THIS POINT EMISSARY INTERJECTED AND TOLD IOANNIDES POINT-BLANK THAT, WITH COUP ONLY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER HIS REPORTING TO US REGARDING A POSSIBLE OVERTHROW OF MAKARIOS THIS WAS VERY DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE TO BELIEVE. AT THIS POINT THE GENERAL AGAIN BLEW UP WITH ARMS WAVING, KNOCKED OVER SAME TABLE, BROKE A SECOND GLASS AND, BETWEEN OBSCENITIES, STATED THAT HE DID NOT PLOT AND ARRANGE THE COUP; INITIAL PLAN AND APPROACH WAS FROM GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS ON 13 JULY, AFTER LATTER LEARNED THAT GOG [government of Greece] INTENDED TO ACCEDE TO MAKARIOS' DEMANDS TO REDUCE NUMBER OF GREEK OFFICERS IN NATIONAL GUARD.GENERAL STATED HE COULD NOT ACCEPT AT LEAST 85,000 GREEK CYPRIOT REFUGEES  FROM MAKARIOS' TYRANNY. THIS COUPLED WITH MAKARIOS' ANTI-REGIME EFFORTS, MADE HIM DECIDE TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS. THE GENERAL STATED THAT IF MAKARIOS SUCCEEDED IN KICKING  GREEKS OUT OF CYPRUS WHAT COULD KEEP HIM FROM THINKING HE COULD NOT KICK JUNTA OUT OF GREECE. AFTER DECIDING TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOTS, THE GENERAL CLAIMED THAT HE DID NOT TELL THE ARMED FORCES LEADERSHIP NOR ANY GREEK OFFICIAL. HE LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF HIS INTENTIONS TO FEW SELECT OFFICERS ON 13/14 JULY; NO ONE ELSE KNEW AND EVEN AFTER EVENTS UNFOLDED ON 15 JULY ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE WERE AWARE OF HIS ROLE. IOANNIDES JUSTIFIED THIS ACTION BY ASSERTING THAT IF HE HAD BRIEFED NUMEROUS PEOPLE THEY WOULD HAVE RAISED SUGGESTIONS, ADVICE, ALTERNATIVES, AND POSSIBLE PROBLEMS. HE ADDED THAT HE ACTED ON SPUR OF THE MOMENT.

7. IOANNIDES DECLARED THAT GAME WAS NOW OVER FOR MAKARIOS, THAT GREEK CYPRIOTS HAD BOOTED HIM OUT, THAT NATIONAL GUARD AND GREEK OFFICERS HAD ASSISTED NATIONALIST GREEK CYPRIOT BROTHERS, AND THAT ONLY RESISTANCE NOW WAS IN PAPHOS. IN REPLY TO EMISSARY'S DIRECT QUESTION IOANNIDES STATED THAT MAKARIOS WAS STILL ALIVE  "BUT WHO CARES; HE NOW HAS NO POWER AND NO ONE, IF HE BELIEVES IN PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERFERENCE IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF SOVEREIGN NATION WILL ASSIST HIM- NOT EVEN THE RUSSIANS UNLESS TURKS ASK THEM TO DO SO AND THE TURKS JUST DON'T CARE."

8. IN REPLY TO QUESTION WHETHER GREEKS WERE IN DIRECT TOUCH WITH TURKS, GENERAL STATED WE HAVE NOT BOTHERED THE TURKS; WE HAVE NOT DECLARED ENOSIS. TURKS AGREE THAT "THE PRINCIPAL THORN" (I.E., MAKARIOS) IS GONE AND, "I AM NOT IN TOUCH WITH THE TURKS." HE EXPRESSED VIEW THAT GREECE AND TURKEY COULD NOW PROCEED AT SOME FUTURE TIME TO SIT DOWN, TALK AND SOLVE THEIR DIFFERENCES. INDEED, ACCORDING TO IOANNIDES GREEKS MIGHT EVEN BE WILLING TO SHARE PROFITS OF PETROLEUM FINDS IN A JOINT EXPLORATION COMPANY; HOWEVER, GREECE WOULD NEVER SURRENDER AEGEAN CONTINENTAL SHELF BECAUSE THIS WOULD MEAN TURKISH CONTROL OF GREEK ISLANDS. HE ALSO EXPRESSED BELIEF THAT GREEK AND TURKISH CYPRIOTS COULD PROBABLY SOLVE THEIR DIFFICULTIES PEACEFULLY, QUIETLY AND AMICABLY. HE EVEN JOKED THAT IN A YEAR OR PERHAPS MORE REALISTICALLY TEN, THE TURKS MIGHT WANT TO SELL THEIR SHARE OF CYPRUS FOR INCREASED PERCENTAGE OF PETROLEUM RIGHTS. AGAIN IN REPLY TO DIRECT QUESTION, GENERAL IOANNIDES STATED THAT HE WAS NOT IN CONTACT WITH ANY TURKISH OFICIAL; HOWEVER, HE ADDED THAT TURKS WERE "OFFICIALLY AWARE" THAT ENOSIS WAS NOT THE OBJECTIVE AT THIS POINT AND THAT GREEK CYPRIOTS DID NOT INTEND ANY BLOODY ACTION AGAINST TURK CYPRIOTS.

9. WHEN ASKED FOR SPECIFICS ON MAKARIOS, IOANNIDES STATED THAT ACCORDING TO GREEK INFORMATION, MAKARIOS WAS ALIVE AND IN HANDS OF BRITISH AT EPISKOPI BASE, HE HAD GONE THERE WITH ASSISTANCE OF CANADIANS AND BRITISH ON ISLAND.

10. AT THIS POINT IOANNIDES SUMMED UP AS FOLLOWS:
A) HE STRESSED THAT HE TOO HAD A GOD; HE WAS DEFINITELY NOT ANTI-AMERICAN; "EVEN A JACKASS NEEDED A POST TO BE TIED TO" AND IN HIS CASE IT WAS THE U.S.

B) HIS HASTY DECISION ON 13 JULY MIGHT HAVE BEEN STUPID. INSTEAD OF ABANDONING CYPRUS AND LETTING U.S. WORRY ABOUT ITS FATE AND POUR MONEY DOWN ANOTHER RATHOLE, HE HAD ALLOWED LOVE OF COUNTRY, A MORAL OBLIGATION TO THE GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALISTS AND HIS "PHILOTIMO" TO OVERRULE LOGIC AND TO ASSIST GREEK CYPRIOTS.

C) GREECE WOULD DO WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY TO PRESERVE ITS NATIONAL IDENTITY AND TO STAY ANTI-COMMUNIST. IF THIS MEANT KEEPING YIAROS OPEN IT WOULD STAY OPEN AS LONG AS IT WAS NECESSARY AND HE WOULD ACCEPT NO STATIC FROM ANYONE ON THIS SCORE. INDEED,HE HAD INSTRUCTED A GREEK OFFICIAL TO TELL BRITISH OFFICIALLY THAT WHENEVER THE BRITISH LET IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS OUT OF BRITISH JAILS, HE WOULD FREE THE FORTY-TWO GREEK POLITICAL PRISONERS ON YIAROS.

D) HE PERSONALLY DIDN'T LIKE NIKOS SAMPSON, BUT THAT WAS GREEK CYPRIOT NATIONALIST DECISION. HE KNEW SAMPSON PERSONALLY AND IN HIS OPINION SAMPSON WAS "CRAZY." HE JOKINGLY REMARKED THAT NEW CYPRIOT MINISTER OF DEFENSE DIMITRIOU WAS VERY PRO-AMERICAN AND THAT OUR EMBASSY THERE WOULD SOON REALIZE THIS. HE ALSO KNEW DIMITRIOU PERSONALLY.

E) WHILE SHAKING HANDS AT CLOSE OF CONVERSATION IOANNIDES STATED "REMEMBER WE TOO BELIEVE IN A FREE, INDEPENDENT AND SOVEREIGN CYPRUS, WE TOO BELIEVE IN NON INTERFERENCE, ALONG WITH TURKS AND ESPECIALLY WITH KISSINGER. WE TOO BELIEVE THAT THE CYPRIOTS SHOULD BE FREE TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS, BE THEY GREEK CYPRIOTS, TURK CYPRIOTS OR BOTH." 

WikiLeaks Launches 'Kissinger Cables' Project

On Monday, the whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks began releasing more than 1.3 million US diplomatic cables from the period of the Cold War, 1973 – 1976 to the public. The project, dubbed "The Kissinger Cables" include records relating to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and cover a variety of diplomatic traffic including cables, intelligence reports and other correspondence.

A report on novinite said that these include more than 227,000 cables classified as "CONFIDENTIAL" and 61,000 cables classified as "SECRET". Perhaps more importantly, there are more than 12,000 documents with the sensitive handling restriction "NODIS" or "no distribution", and more than 9,000 labeled "Eyes Only".

The public can search the data by geographical region and theme - which means that by selecting the corresponding field conditions "GR" for Greece and/or "CY" for Cyprus, you will be able to find all the diplomatic documents relating to both countries. Interestingly, there are quite a few cables for the period 1973-1976, or specifically 19,910 for Greece and 11.189 for Cyprus.

HellasFrappe is going to be translating the cables as released by the "Ta Nea" newspaper in Greece which has first dibs into the information.

At around 700 million words, the Kissinger Cables collection is approximately five times the size of WikiLeaks' Cablegate. It includes significant revelations about US involvements with fascist dictatorships, particularly in Latin America, under Franco's Spain (including about the Spanish royal family) and also in Greece under the regime of the Colonels.

The documents also contain hourly diplomatic reporting on the 1973 war between Israel, Egypt and Syria (or the "Yom Kippur war"). While several of these documents have been used by US academic researchers in the past, the Kissinger Cables provides unparalleled access to journalists and the general public.

WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange has stated: "The collection covers US involvements in and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on every country on Earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published."

In a press release, Wikileaks said that most of the records were reviewed by the United States Department of State's systematic 25-year declassification process. At review, the records were assessed and either declassified or kept classified with some or all of the metadata records declassified. Both sets of records were then subject to an additional review by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Once believed to be releasable, they were placed as individual PDFs at the National Archives as part of their Central Foreign Policy Files collection. Despite the review process supposedly assessing documents after 25 years there are no diplomatic records later than 1976. The formal declassification and review process of these extremely valuable historical documents is therefore currently running 12 years late.

Wikileaks further report that the form in which these documents were held at NARA was as 1.7 million individual PDFs. To prepare these documents for integration into the PlusD collection, WikiLeaks obtained and reverse-engineered all 1.7 million PDFs and performed a detailed analysis of individual fields, developed sophisticated technical systems to deal with the complex and voluminous data and corrected a great many errors introduced by NARA, the State Department or its diplomats, for example harmonizing the many different ways in which departments, capitals and people's names were spelt.

All Wikileaks corrective work is referenced and available from the links in the individual field descriptions on the PlusD text search interface: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd

According to the whistle-blowing site, the CIA and other agencies have attempted to reclassify or withhold sections of the US National Archives. Detailed minutes of US State Department meetings show that these attempts, which originated under the George W. Bush administration, have continued on through until at least 2009.

A 2006 analysis by the US National Security Archives, an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at George Washington University, found that 55 000 pages had been secretly reclassified.

The censorship of the US National Archives was thrown into stark relief in November last year when the Archive censored all searches for 'WikiLeaks' from its records.

Assange says "the US administration cannot be trusted to maintain the history of its interactions with the world, but fortunately, an organization with an unbroken record in resisting censorship attempts now has a copy."

WikiLeaks' media partners will be reporting throughout the week on their findings. The official WikiLeaks partner for Bulgaria is site for investigative journalism Bivol.bg.

In addition to Bivol, other partners are: Australia - Fairfax (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Canberra Times and the Australian Financial Review), Argentina - Pagina 12, Brazil – Publica, Egypt - Al Masry Al Youm, Greece - Ta Nea, Guatemala - Plaza Publica, Haiti - Haiti Liberte, India - The Hindu, Italy - L'Espresso and La Repubblica, Lebanon - Al Akhbar, Mexico - La Jornada, Spain – Publico, Sweden – Aftonbladet, UK - Press Association, US - Associated Press and The Nation.

In our next post, we will be posting an article that was released on the Wikileaks site (and then in Ta Nea) about the oil and natural gas in the Aegean and the underground war that has been going on by the global elite who want to get their hands on this treasure for the past 40+ years.

Stay Tuned Frappers

Top 10 Most Influential Whistleblowers of All Time

The subject of insiders -- or "whistleblowers" -- is somewhat tricky; anyone on the inside is often presumed to be compromised by their former allegiance. Nonetheless, the nature of government work is rooted in compartmentalization. So, perhaps the best indication as to whether whistleblowers have something valid to say is the level of persecution they have endured. The following whistleblowers have endured a varying degree of pushback from the system, but are still around to reveal key points of information that make us all question what we are being told by our government and the corporate media. Please listen to the video presentations of the following insiders who have used their positions to educate those on the outside about the machinations of people far more devious than ourselves. These whistleblowers are not the criminals that the U.S. government increasingly charges them as. Rather, these whistleblowers represent the highest level of activism and courage.

1Jesselyn Radack
Jesselyn Radack --  Radack is a former ethics attorney and adviser to the Justice Department. She had been presented with the first case of a detainee in Afghanistan following 9/11. That detainee was John Walker Lindh, an American citizen labeled "The American Taliban." Lindh was set to be interrogated (tortured) without council. Her advice not to pursue that direction went unheeded to the point where her e-mails to the court were deleted, which she had to then resurrect from her computer and present to the media. She subsequently was put on the No-Fly list and was targeted for investigation. Rather than fold, she fought back and wound up going to work for the premier whistleblowing advocacy group, the Government Accountability Project at whistleblower.org, founded in 1977. After everything we have come to know about the torture apparatus overseas, and the subsequent arrival of that apparatus onto American shores embodied in the NDAA, Radack's work is more important than ever. She discusses in the video below her background and the intensified war on whistleblowers.

2Thomas Drake (NSA)
Thomas Drake (NSA) -- The world got an historical overview that shed quite a bit of light on the NSA through a former ABC News reporter, James Bamford, when he released two books The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, which lifted the veil and revealed a massive spying structure that far surpasses the capabilities of the CIA. The apparatus Bamford revealed was comprised of programs like Echelon that were suspected of not only massive international spying and data collection, but also domestic operations. Now those suspicions are being confirmed by high-level insiders such as Thomas Drake, who appeared in a Baltimore Sun article that highlighted a $1.2 billion program called "Trailblazer" which Drake submitted was a program of "fraud, waste, and abuse." He was subsequently charged under The Espionage Act and was facing 35 years in prison. Drake's defense team actually hired James Bamford as an expert witness. The case for 10 felony charges against Drake could not stand up, and he reached a misdemeanor plea deal.  Drake was the first to come forward under a new climate of aggressive formal indictment for whistleblowers that equates their truth-telling with real espionage such as selling state secrets.

3William Binney (NSA)
William Binney (NSA) Former top NSA mathematician and code breaker, William Binney, has gone on record to publicly reveal the scope of a top-secret surveillance program that has directly targeted everyday Americans following 9/11. He is sounding an alarm about the massive scope of this project that engages in 24/7 warrantless wiretapping of the American population. Thomas Drake's testimony was revealing, but Binney was a 32-year, top-level veteran of the NSA who reveals in the video below the domestic component of a program code named "Stellar Wind." With the NSA working to complete its $2 billion fortress of surveillance by September 2013, which can store 100 years worth of electronic information, Binney's concerns that we are heading down the road to totalitarianism ring true.

4Mark Klein (AT&T)
Mark Klein (AT&T) A veteran of twenty-two years as an AT&T technician, Mark Klein left no doubt about the veracity of an NSA domestic spying program when he revealed how he found secret rooms at a switching center in San Francisco. And he had the documents and blueprints to prove it:

    Klein says he collected 120 pages of technical documents left around the San Francisco office showing how the NSA was installing 'splitters' that would allow it to copy both domestic and international Internet traffic moving through AT&T connections with 16 other trunk lines. 'It’s gobs and gobs of information going across the Internet,' Klein says. President Bush has acknowledged he authorized the NSA to intercept the communications of people with known links to terrorist organizations 'into or out of the United States,' but that 'we’re not trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.' Intelligence experts say the NSA has the means to filter out suspect communications with sophisticated machines that spot key words, names, addresses or patterns. Eventually, Klein says he decided to take his documents to the Los Angeles Times, to blow the whistle on what he calls 'an illegal and Orwellian project.' (Source)

Yet, the LA Times' editor Dean Baquet killed the story after speaking with Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and Director of the NSA Gen. Michael Hayden. The story later appeared at the New York Times. Mark Klein recounts his version of events below and how he came to realize that he was "being forced to connect the Big Brother machine." It is worth noting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has spearheaded lawsuits to reveal just what is being done to the American people, but courts recently ruled that warrantless wiretapping can continue.

5Sibel Edmonds (FBI / 9/11)
Sibel Edmonds (FBI / 9/11) In the wake of 9/11, Edmonds was enlisted as a translator in the FBI language division to interpret wiretaps conducted inside the United States, having been born in Turkey and speaking several key languages. She describes the language division as "the highest security unit in the FBI." She has since become the most classified woman in history, and her efforts to uncover FBI criminality that included, "money laundering, narcotic activities, and nuclear black market converg(ing) with terrorist activities" led her to be pursued and persecuted to an incredible degree by the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller invoking "state secrets." Her story is harrowing, to say the least; however, she sparked serious doubts among the general population regarding the 9/11 Commission Report -- and she hasn't stopped. To get a glimpse of the energy and tenacity of Sibel Edmonds, see the video trailer below for the whistleblower documentary "Kill The Messenger" which can be viewed in 5 parts starting HERE. More of her work can be found at Boiling Frogs. She also set up the National Security Whisleblower Coalition. And what is The American-Turkish council?

6Susan Lindauer (CIA / 9/11)
Susan Lindauer (CIA / 9/11) Susan was a former CIA asset who worked with the Libyan and Iraqi embassies prior to 9/11. Following that day, she began to reveal CIA complicity in Middle East heroin trafficking.

    Lindauer also talked candidly about how Israel tried to buy U.S. Intelligence officers and Assets. For the first time on record, she revealed that a known Mossad agent tried to bribe her into handing over Iraq’s collection of banking records on Al Qaeda’s financial pipeline by phoning her home in Maryland while she was traveling in Baghdad, and promising to deliver a suitcase full of cash to any city in the world in exchange for the papers. (Source)

Susan subsequently became the second non-Arab citizen to be arrested under the Patriot Act, which culminated in a five-year indictment and near total prison lockdown for one year.

    While in prison Susan was subjected to harsh conditions that would be considered torture in multiple countries. Contrary to what most Americans think, Susan and the other inmates in solitary confinement were only allowed outside once every TEN days and even then the actual amount of time outside was closer to thirty minutes. (Source)

In the video below she discusses her revelations about pre-9/11 warnings and all that followed, which eventually got published in her book Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of  the Patriot Act and the Cover-ups of 9/11 and Iraq.

7Col. Anthony Shaffer (US Military)
Col. Anthony Shaffer (Military) -- Shaffer is an intelligence agent who claimed that there was deliberate stonewalling of information prior to 9/11 as part of what came to be known as Able Danger. Beyond that, he revealed a culture of infighting between intelligence agencies that, even taken at face value, is concerning for the American taxpayer. Shaffer published his account in Operation Dark Heart. The Department of Defense responded by purchasing the book's first, uncensored, 10,000 copy print run (with U.S. taxpayer dollars, by the way). He might have had something important to say. The video below touches upon what that might have been.

8Joe Banister (IRS)
Joe Banister (IRS) -- In our article 10 Ways to Stop Being a Slave and Bring Down The Pyramids of Control, IRS resistance was presented last. Here are the questions we asked:

    How can a machine be built without the funding to build it?  The entire prison system we see around us has been built with our own money. Did you authorize it? Did you authorize the preemptive wars, bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, the high-tech surveillance grid that enslaves you?

Special agent, Joe Banister, exposed the mechanics of what the IRS is and how fundamentally illegal and unconstitutional their tax collection policies and methods are. The system came down HARD on one of its own. His story is instrumental in understanding what happened to the next IRS whistleblower, Sherry Peel Jackson, who took exposure to a whole new level and was pursued ruthlessly for her revelations. The income tax we have been told to believe is a patriotic obligation is itself a complete fraud. The current tax code is 72,000 pages. It is complicated for a reason. If we can wake up to the foundations of this nightmare coercive system, we stand a great chance of restoring power into the hands of the people instead of a tiny few at the top of the pyramid. Caution is warranted, however: the IRS is ready, willing and able to lock you up for a longer term than human trafficking and child porn. So, proceed with caution, but keep courage close at hand.

9Bradley Manning  (Military)
Bradley Manning  (Military) allegedly transmitted state secrets to WikiLeaks:

    Manning was arrested at forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad on 27 May 2010 on suspicion of being the source of the biggest leak of confidential state documents in US history. He faces 22 charges relating to the transferal of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, videos and war logs to the whistleblowing website.
    Under the US military rule book, a soldier must be arraigned and his trial officially started within 120 days of him being put into captivity. (...)
    Should the trial kick off on 4 February next year, as it is currently scheduled to do, he will have been held for 983 days. (Source)

Bradley Manning's case and treatment is at the heart of a new U.S. government mission that equates the revealing of truth as aiding an abetting the enemy, which should serve as an indictment upon the system which pursues truth-tellers like Manning so vehemently. He only sought to expose the horrific "collateral damage" of the war in which he was enlisted, which has been properly retitled into "Collateral Murder." Due to his total lockdown, there is no video we can present of Bradley Manning speaking for himself, but the video he brought out to the public through WikiLeaks says it all:

10Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks -- Assange is in a category all his own due to heading up the whistleblower repository of WikiLeaks. It has been argued that Assange and WikiLeaks are controlled opposition, much the same as Anonymous; or is it just a global chess game?  Given the subsequent persecution of Assange that continues on without relent by the establishment, he seems to have more likely been a patsy who has served to demonize all manner of whistleblowing and intimidate anyone who would take center stage in an effort to bolster people such as those documented above. Very well-respected alternative news voices such as Max Keiser and Paul Craig Roberts insist that Assange is legitimate and should be given the Nobel Peace Prize rather than warmongers and corporate financiers.

Despite whistleblowers' explosive disclosures, the surveillance state has been normalized, as the House has voted to reauthorize the 2008 FISA Amendment Act. And, sadly, many whistleblowers who might have had even more to say have been assassinated by the system they were employed to serve. That alone should serve as a warning to those who have chosen to enter such employment, knowing the level of evil they contract with. The control structure is massive, and growing, so we must listen to the voices who courageously come forth to issue their concerns, especially when those of good conscience are being persecuted as never before.

(source - Activist Post)

Missing Greek Cables From Wikileaks

wikileaks (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

These are some of the missing Greek cables from Wikileaks which were not really posted in the press.Certainly some of these do not satisfy anyone and are not that interesting, nonetheless there are others that are real whoppers!

For instance: What happened with the German submarine deal. What happened with Siemens and ex-Minister Tsochatzopoulos. What was said about the Aegean and what is in store with this area of Greece, or what are the surprises that we have yet to see and learn about.

Some might say that Wikileakes  reveals nothing more than what a common tabloid paper has already, and in some cases this is true, but let us not forget that they have revealed information that has rocked the news world.

In our case, the Syrian files were released including a helluva of Greek corporate names, but where the hell is the proof? This indeed is puzzling. Where are the Alcatel Cables?  Where are the Syrian Assad communication cables with the Italo- Greek communication Services?


Whoever decided to hide those cables he should be considered an accessory to PEACE crimes.

Greece Cables

- US Cables – EMBASSY ATHENS – WikiLeaks -

Arms Procurement Plan 2006-2010 approved – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/08/06ATHENS2031.html

    “On July 25, the GoG announced plans to spend an estimated EUR 27 billion for arms procurement over the next decade
    The government’s handling of defense procurement, Papoutsis said, increases costs, “mortgages” the future of the welfare state and pushes up the overall defense budget instead of economizing with the view of offering more funds for education, health care, and social security”

Students Protest proposed University Reforms, Shut down Athens Center – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/06/06ATHENS1507.html

    “Many who oppose the amendments have focused on what they call the “commercialization” of the public university education or “surrender of public universities to private interests.
    Comment [US]: “We have long pushed for the GoG to recognize degrees from private institutions, which would, among other things, benefit private U.S. higher learning institutions already here"

Government caves to Student Protests, postpones proposed University Reforms – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/06/06ATHENS1556.html

    “In the face of continuing, mass student protests and demonstrations, Education Minister Yiannakou announced on June 13 that she would postpone submitting the draft bill on education reforms during the summer parliament recess as originally planned
    Comment [US]: “The government’s postponement in the face of student protests is disappointing to us: a number of U.S.-based private, non-profit universities operating here would benefit from these reforms”

Southern Corridor Energy Conference examines European Energy Security – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/08/06ATHENS2078.html

   “Gazprom’s growing stranglehold on European energy supplies, particularly in the area of natural gas, has the potential to reduce these countries’ diplomatic freedom of movement in support of U.S. diplomatic goals
   Improving these countries’ energy security and diversity of supply options can therefore improve U.S. national security.
   One key element of this overall strategy is maximizing the opportunity provided by the new Turkey-Greece-Italy natural gas interconnector, currently under construction, to bring Caspian gas to Europe”

The U.S. Strategy:

    “All agreed that it is imperative to promote energy diversification strategies that encompass the development of additional energy sources and suppliers to provide vulnerable SE and SCE countries with alternatives to Gazprom
    To confront Gazprom domination, there must be a concerted effort to diversify and develop multiple gas pipelines from the Caspian to Europe

“Turkey’s Role — as Transit Country or as Reseller — Must Be Clarified”

    “During the conference it became clear that the key problem vis-a-vis Turkey is its aspirations to become an energy reseller, extracting (it hopes) greater profits from gas trade than it would as a simple gas transit country"

“The Russian Strategy: Gazprom”

    “Firstly, what kind of a company is Gazprom? According to conference participants, Gazprom's risk-averse business model seeks to consolidate all aspects of gas production, transportation, and delivery into a vertically integrated operation”
    Moreover, Gazprom’s predatory behavior towards potential competitors seeks to expand its reach horizontally. The result is the creation of a “super” monopoly
    Once the deal is struck, however, Gazprom has been utilizing its market power to extract concessions from the customer, whether in new pricing agreements, increased preferential access to transit capacity, or frequently, in majority or strong minority control of local gas companies”

Putin and Purvanov in Athens: the long Road to Burgas-Alexandroupolis – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/09/06ATHENS2324.html

    “The Burgas-Alexandroupolis Project: “The B-A project was originally conceived in 1994 as a project to relieve tanker traffic through the congested Bosporus strait
    The 285-kilometer cross-border pipeline is designed to carry Russian oil from the Bulgarian port of Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis in northern Greece
    The project has an estimated investment cost of 750-800 million US dollars with an annual capacity of 35 million tonnes of oil

Greek PM in Moscow: Rhetoric (Apparently) Unmatched by Deeds – Cablegate – 2007: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/12/07ATHENS2375.html

    “During a December 17-18 visit to Moscow, Greek PM Karamanlis signed with Russian President Putin and Bulgarian President Parvanov an agreement establishing a company to construct the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline through Bulgaria and Greece”

    “We have told the Greeks the U.S. has no problem with better Greek-Russian ties. At the same time, we continue to ask how Greece can reconcile its support for the Turkey-Greece-Italy gas inter-connector with the competing South Stream project — a question to which we have yet to receive an adequate reply”



P.M. Karamanlis Trip to Russia: Energy – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/04/08ATHENS598.html

    “The IGA, he said, includes provisions that: an international holding company (Societe Anonyme) will be established for the portion of South Stream that passes through Greek territory, jointly and equally owned by Gazprom and the Greek Pipeline Transmission Operator (DESFA)”

Energy: Greeks see Baku ready to Cooperate, Ankara standing in the Way – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/03/08ATHENS438.html

   “Minister of Development Folias told the Ambassador he had found a spirit of “excellent cooperation” in Baku during his March 17 trip there
   He noted that “The Azeris are as keen to work with us as we are with them. Moreover, they have a huge supply of gas.
   Folias said Azerbaijani officials had told him that the country had gas for 100 – 200 years, and that it had extracted 28 bcm of gas this year alone”

TFGG01: Greece’s Business-as-Usual with Russia undermines strong NATO Statements – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/08/08ATHENS1216.html

    “Despite strong statements at NATO and the EU by FM Bakoyannis supporting Georgian territorial integrity and condemning Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, the GOG at the same time is moving ahead with several “business-as-usual” events with Russia, including a visit this week of a Russian defense industry team to discuss arms purchases, the impending Parliamentary ratification of the South Stream gas pipeline deal with Russia, and co-sponsorship with Russia of a major cultural event marking 180 years of Greek-Russian diplomatic relations

    Embassy will continue to press the GOG to delay or cancel these events to avoid undercutting NATO and EU positions”

U.S./Greece Mil-to-Mil Cooperation: the Good, the Bad, and the Necessary – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/06/08ATHENS896.html

   "The Greeks currently tend to overstate both their contributions and their importance to the United States, and there is no need to accept the Greek hyperbole. But some of the facts of this cooperation speak for themselves
   The GOG has proven to be a very cooperative partner at Souda Bay, though it does not advertise this for domestic political reasons”

MOD Venizelos lays out Views before Parliament – Cablegate – 2009: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/09ATHENS1563.html

    “New Minister of Defense Evangelos Venizelos recently told Parliament that he will take an “extremely cautious” view towards NATO’s Strategic Concept, that he wants to avoid Aegean tensions but will resist flagrant Turkish violations of international law and threats of violence, and that he wants to reduce defense spending to average OSCE levels”

Source - insomniacs2

Lawyer: Raid on Embassy to Arrest Assange Would Be "Unprecedented" Breach of Diplomatic Immunity

Britain is refusing to give Julian Assange of WikiLeaks safe passage out of the country even though Ecuador has granted him political asylum. On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assange would be arrested if he left the embassy. Britain has also threatened to raid the embassy in order to arrest Assange. "Under British law we can give them a week’s notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," said a British foreign spokesperson. In response, Ecuador has asked the Organization of American States to hold a meeting Aug. 23 to discuss the diplomatic crisis. "The latest announcements by the British government are alarming," said Jennifer Robinson, legal adviser for Julian Assange. Source - democracynow

Wikileaks: Angela Merkel, Greece, the IMF and the Bailouts

The following cable from US ambassador to Germany Philip Murphy ("Ambassador Murphy spent 23 years at Goldman Sachs and held a variety of senior positions, including in Frankfurt, New York and Hong Kong, before becoming a Senior Director of the firm in 2003, a position he held until his retirement in 2006") "CONFIDENTIAL: 10BERLIN181" tells us all we need to know about what has been really happening behind the smooth, calm and collected German facade vis-a-vis not only Greece, but all of Europe, and what the next steps are: "A EUROZONE CHAPTER 11: DB Chief Economist Thomas Mayer told Ambassador Murphy he was pessimistic Greece would take the difficult steps needed to put its house in order.  A worst case scenario, says Mayer, could be that Germany pulls out of the Eurozone altogether in 20 years time.  In 1990, Germany's Constitutional Court ruled that the country could withdraw from the Euro if: 1) the currency union became an "inflationary zone," or 2) the German taxpayer became the Eurozone's "de facto bailout provider."  Mayer proposes a "Chapter 11 for Eurozone countries," which would place troubled members under economic supervision until they put their house in order.  Unfortunately, there is no serious discussion of this underway, he lamented." This was In February 2010. The discussion has since commenced.

Full cable, created on February 12, 2010, presented with no comments, and just the occasional highlight, as all of what Germany is really saying has already been said by us as well.  

Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
10BERLIN181 2010-02-12 19:04 2011-08-30 01:44 CONFIDENTIAL Embassy Berlin

VZCZCXRO2951
PP RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHRL #0181/01 0431904
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 121904Z FEB 10
FM AM EMBASSY BERLIN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6548
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHTH/AMEMBASSY ATHENS PRIORITY 0015
RUEHFT/AMCONSUL FRANKFURT PRIORITY 0008
RUEHMZ/AMCONSUL MUNICH PRIORITY 2247
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BERLIN 000181

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EEB (NELSON, HASTINGS), EEB/IFD/OMA
(WHITTINGTON), DRL/ILCSR AND EUR/CE (SCHROEDER, HODGES)
LABOR FOR ILAB (BRUMFIELD)
TREASURY FOR SMART, ICN (NORTON), IMB AND OASIA
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/12/2020
TAGS: EAID EFIN ECON PREL EUN GM GR PGOV
SUBJECT: GERMANY RELIEVED BY EU SUMMIT OUTCOME ON GREECE

Classified By: ECONOMIC COUNSELOR INGRID KOLLIST, REASONS: 1.4 (B) AND
(D)

¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government
welcomed the decision taken at the EU’s February 11 informal
summit in Brussels not to provide financial assistance, for
the moment, to cash-strapped Greece. German officials
believe a bailout is not needed at this time, and that
extending a lifeline to Greece would have carried too many
risks. One major fear in Germany is that “saving” Greece
would lead to other needy Eurozone members expecting the same
treatment. Another concern is that extending an explicit
guarantee for Greece could weigh on Germany’s own good
standing in the markets, ultimately raising its borrowing
costs. While German government officials do not totally rule
out an IMF program for Greece if push came to shove, most
consider this eventuality highly unlikely, especially in
light of the European Central Bank’s strong opposition. In
fact, the German government, the ECB and private German
economists are downplaying the seriousness of Greece’s
predicament and its potential impact on stability of the
Euro. They agree, however, that the crisis could have
longer-term consequences for EU institutions and how they
interact with member states that stray off course. END
SUMMARY.

NOT IN THE MOOD
—————

¶2. (C) Prior to the February 11 EU Summit in Brussels, there
was much hair pulling in Berlin over the wisdom of
participating in some sort of Greek rescue. No one savored
the idea of explaining to German taxpayers, already concerned
about Germany’s record deficit, that they would be footing
the bill for the irresponsible behavior of another country.
A Finance Ministry official explained to us that many Germans
felt disgusted by the situation in Greece: “While Germans
have spent the past decade tightening their belts and
improving their competitiveness, Greek civil servants still
earn 14 months’ salary per year.” A recent editorial in the
German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) asked
rhetorically whether Germans would need to work until age 69
just to finance early retirement for Greek workers. With
important upcoming elections in the state of North
Rhine-Westphalia, bailing out Greece would not be a vote
winner.

OFF THE HOOK
————

¶3. (C) The German government was, in fact, “relieved” that
the European Council meeting on February 11 decided not to
put concrete assistance on the table at this time. Wolfgang
Merz, Director for European Financial Affairs, German
Ministry of Finance, told us that while Germany stands ready
to throw a lifeline if the Greek government truly runs
aground, Greece currently has access to capital markets and
needs no outside assistance. The key to overcoming the
crisis will be the Greek government’s implementation of the
planned austerity measures, said Merz. Bernhard Speyer, Head
of Banking, Financial Markets and Regulation at Deutsche Bank
(DB) Research, agreed that the EU struck the right balance:
“The decision gave reassurances that Greece would not be
abandoned, but kept the pressure on the Greeks by not yet
putting cash on the table.”

¶4. (C) Stepping in with assistance at this point carried too
many downside risks, according to Merz. Legal questions
aside, a German or EU bailout of Greece might have harmed
Germany’s credit worthiness, thereby raising its own
borrowing costs. Merz added that a bailout would certainly
have set a bad precedent for other Eurozone countries, such
as Spain and Portugal, experiencing similar stresses. (Merz
acknowledged, however, that these two countries’ problems
were less acute — a sentiment echoed by Speyer.)

¶5. (C)Still, there is some skepticism that Greece’s austerity
program will get the country’s finances on the right track,
even if fully implemented. Merz said an IMF bail out
remained on the table, despite the official line that the

BERLIN 00000181 002 OF 003

situation in Greece could be addressed within the EU.

IMF RESCUE? RESOUNDING NO FROM ECB
———————————-

¶6. (C) According to Karlheinz Bischofberger, Deputy Head of
the Financial Stability Department at the European Central
Bank (ECB), the likelihood that the IMF will be asked to bail
out Greece is “zero.” Greece does not have a balance of
payments crisis, so there is first and foremost no basis for
the IMF to step in. Bischofberger added that apart from the
damage to the ECB’s reputation an IMF intervention would
inflict, it was uncertain that the IMF could even succeed in
doing the “political dirty work” of forcing Greece to
implement a structural adjustment program. DB Research’s
Speyer concurred, adding that it would undermine the
credibility of EU institutions to manage a crisis.

REPORTS OF MY DEATH ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED
——————————————-

¶7. (C) Talk of a possible break-up of the Eurozone is
“absurd,” according to Moritz Kraemer, Managing Director,
Standard and Poor’s. He noted that Eurozone membership is
still seen as highly desirable, and there was absolutely no
incentive to exit, despite the allure of devaluation. Any
country that tried to leave the Eurozone would get hammered
in the credit markets, exacerbating any underlying structural
problems. S and P estimates that Greece’s rating in the case
of an exit would drop to “BB ” or lower, i.e. below
investment-grade. Even today, Greece’s rating of “BBB ” is
higher than it was in 1997 (“BBB-”) before joining the common
currency.

¶8. (C) While the current crisis may have revealed an
“Achilles heel” of the Eurozone, it may present
opportunities, according to Klaus Masuch, Head of the EU
Country Division, Directorat General of Economics, ECB. The
crisis is a “healthy warning signal” that Eurozone members
must conduct “sound national policies in line with the agreed
rules.” It also underlines the necessity of better
integration and coordination of member state fiscal policies.
The Euro will come out of this crisis strengthened, he said.
Better and stricter early warning and surveillance systems
will be in place, and the Stability and Growth Pact will
ultimately be reinforced. DB Research’s Speyer agreed, adding
that the crisis could make EU member states proceed more
cautiously with enlargement.

A EUROZONE CHAPTER 11
———————

¶9. (C) DB Chief Economist Thomas Mayer told Ambassador Murphy
he was pessimistic Greece would take the difficult steps
needed to put its house in order. A worst case scenario,
says Mayer, could be that Germany pulls out of the Eurozone
altogether in 20 years time. In 1990, Germany’s
Constitutional Court ruled that the country could withdraw
from the Euro if: 1) the currency union became an
“inflationary zone,” or 2) the German taxpayer became the
Eurozone’s “de facto bailout provider.” Mayer proposes a
“Chapter 11 for Eurozone countries,” which would place
troubled members under economic supervision until they put
their house in order. Unfortunately, there is no serious
discussion of this underway, he lamented.

COMMENT
——-

¶10. (C) Chancellor Merkel is clearly relieved she does not,
for now, have to explain to the public why the German
government is running up its own deficit to bail out
debt-laden Greece. Still, the German government appears
prepared to step in as a last resort if needed and is
cognizant that German banks (such as Hypo Real Estate and
Deutsche Bank) and insurance companies (Allianz) have
significant exposure to Greek sovereign debt. The crisis is
also viewed — within the German government as well as within
the ECB — as a way to exert greater influence over the
public finances of profligate Eurozone members. Some

BERLIN 00000181 003 OF 003

Christian Social Union (CSU) politicians are even using the
crisis to promote the candidacy of Bundesbank President Axel
Weber as next ECB President, arguing that Weber’s selection
would send a signal that Eurozone stability is paramount.
One way or another, the consequences of the Greece crisis
seem likely to outlive the immediate situation. One strong
possibility is that German influence over policy in the
common currency area will grow.

¶11. (U) Embassy Berlin and ConGen Frankfurt co-drafted this
cable.
Murphy

Sources
insomniacanonymous
zerohedge

Wikileaks: "Greece Is A Guinea Pig"

Scenarios about a possible Greek default were elaborated by rating agencies and analysts three months before the memorandum, according to Tuesday's edition of TA NEA newspaper, which in cooperation with WikiLeaks is continuing to publish the confidential (and controversial) emails by Stratfor, or the US intelligence company known as the "shadow" CIA. According to the report, analysts said in January 2010 that Greece was being used as a "guinea pig" to give a clear message to unruly southern nations.

According to the newspaper "TA NEA", the Troika knew the first bailout package would not solve Greek debt crisis, but went ahead with it anyway in order to use Greece as a "guinea pig" to give a clear message to other unruly southern countries. Indeed, when on January 12, 2010 the European Commission began to criticize Greece's statistics as being "unreliable" which fired up the spreads, an analyst from Stratfor noted that characterizing Greek statistics as being "nonsense" is a very cheap way to lower the price of bonds and push for reforms in Greece.

The main focus of this particular email was whether or not the Greek crisis would effect other EU countries that were also experiencing fiscal problems. At the end of January 2010, another Stratfor analyst spoke in favor of Greece, advocating for its rescue, noting that if the crisis continued then it would spread to Portugal as well as to other stronger economies. However, the same analyst also said that Europe might possibly allow Greece to go bankrupt, when referring to information from his Greek informant.

A few days later, another analyst at Stratfor began emailing Lisa Hindis, an analyst from the ratings agency Moody's, to discuss capital markets. The Moody's analyst said that it was important to find out who was holding Greek bonds apart from the Greece's banks. Hindis told the Stratfor analyst that she suspected that German and Austrian banks (with the exception of Deutsche Bank) had purchased Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds. The Stratfor analyst agreed.

When the Stratfor analyst asked her if JP Morgan could buy Greek debt and use it as collateral to the European Central Bank (ECB), she responded positively but then said that BNP or JP Morgan would find it "too small" and might not think it would be worth it.

Concluding their discussion, both analysts from Stratfor and Moody's said that most of the Greek debt is held by Greece's banks and because of this they could already be characterized as being bankrupt. Specifically the article in TA NEA quoted them as saying that roughly 99 percent of the debt is owned by Greeks "which makes it easier to allow Greece to explode." The analysts also underlined that Greeks apparently lied about their statistics and cannot set their accounts in order and now therefore owe to themselves. "Why should Greece be saved? concluded the email.

WIKILEAKS - Greek Shipowners The "Illuminati" Of Greece?

Still think the term Illuminati is only used by wacky conspiracy theorists? Think again! In a recently released Wikileaks cable, published by the Italian zazoom blog, there is a clear reference to the word 'Illuminati' and described as being the "key player" in Greek politics. Interestingly enough, the "key players" in this case (meaning in Greece) are our very own shipowners. The cable apparently addresses a meeting by the author with a newly appointed ambassador to Greece a little after George Papandreou won the 2009 national elections. It apparently addresses the issue of piracy, but the word "Illuminati" sticks out like a sour thumb!

The cable doesn't hide the US's satisfaction over Papandreou's victory either, and shockingly describes the administration of former prime minister and leader of the New Democracy party as Costas Karamanlis as being "moribund".

Andrew: Welcome to Greece. Your visit comes at a time calm between two storms; the first being the recently concluded Parliamentary elections in which PM Papandreou scored a decisive victory over the moribund Karamanlis administration, and the second being Greece's dismal economic situation which will limit Papandreou's hand internationally, and create a tough domestic political environment for him when his post-electoral "honeymoon" is over. You will also be meeting with Ministers and officials new to their portfolios and offices and in some instances, working in new hybrid ministries created through the mergers and combing of responsibilities of existing ministries. Remember our bureaucratic challenges in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security only now "a la Greece" immediately following a transition in power - and you will have a picture of the unsettled nature of many components of Papandreou's new government.

2. (C) That said, we have an excellent opportunity to ingrain our piracy message early into the minds of our new interlocutors in the government, and the AMVR Awards ceremony where you will speak affords a prime venue to deliver that message t the Illuminati of the Greek shipping sector - a key player in ultimately moving any Greek governmental policy on the issue. I believe you will find that your interlocutors value their cooperation both with the US and the broader international community on counter-piracy, but will respectfully disagree with you on thorny legal issues such as prosecution and the relevance of the New York Declaration. If you can help the Greeks understand where we want to be bilaterally and multilaterally on piracy over the coming six months, gain some traction on the Declaration, and launch a dialogue that we can continue on the ground here, your visit will have been a success.

Source - http://www.zazoom.it/blog_rsc/post.asp?id=6678

SPECIAL REPORT - Wikileaks - IMF Monitoring Greek Economy Since Early 2009

Please carefully watch the video... and then tie it in with the story.

Officials are concerned over a peculiar news report that was published in "TA NEA" newspaper on Tuesday claiming that the US strategic and intelligence group STRATFOR – or “the shadow CIA“-  was monitoring Greek economic affairs ten months before our country sought economic aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and several months before George Papandreou began having private tet-a-tet talks with former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan.

The news was apparently leaked by WikiLeaks, and said to be part of the more than five million communication e-mails that were conducted by STRATFOR employees and their informants in various countries around the world.  The article in "TA NEA" found it odd that the intelligence agency was so fixated on whether or not Greece would or would not result to the IMF for aid. So much so, that according to Wikileaks STRATFOR and the IMF were in direct communication on several occasions. 

The WikiLeaks Internet website has published hundreds of emails that might have come from a larger collection of documents stolen in December from STRATFOR, a global intelligence analysis company based in Austin, Texas.  The underground group that calls itself “Anonymous” claims to have hacked STRATFOR's servers, taking customer information as well as emails and internal documents. Source - voanews

According to the report WikiLeaks partnered with 25 different media organizations from various countries around the world to investigate the emails from STRATFOR, including outfits in Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tunisia and Russia. Publications from several Western countries, including the US, Greece, Germany as well as Spain were also on the list.

The information discovered that the intelligence agency has many informants in Washington, Brussels, Turkey, Iran, Israel, China, etc. Two such informants, said a similar report in the "Imiresia" economic newspaper, were also said to have been operating in Greece, and were even dubbed with the code names GR001 and GR101 so that the real identities of the informants would not be revealed.

Interestingly this report said that on June 19, 2009 an official from STRATFOR, responsible for Central European, Baltic and Balkan issues apparently sent an attached file to his colleagues -in charge of the Eurasian region- entitled "Detailed Instructions Europe - Tier 3." In the attached file, added the report, informants were advised on how to better monitor economic events in Greece as well as on how to act if/when Greece would apply for IMF aid. Specifically it warned them that a complete economic collapse of the Greek economy was looming and their attention should immediately turn to any movement in the tender of bonds. "Greece has a large debt, their (Greek government) moves will depend on what happens with their debt".

In a separate email dated sometime in November 2011, the relationship between STRATFOR and the IMF is even more profound since this email reveals that an employee of the International Monetary Fund advised the intelligence service that Greek cash reserves were running low and would more or less dry up by mid-December of the same year.

The reports in both dailies only come to confirm the reports that had begun being published on olympia.gr in 2010 when the news site began to expose the international economic conspiracy against Greece. In one such report, dated June, 2009 (the date is a coincidence?) the former leader of the New Democracy party Costas Karamanlis was apparently quoted by his associates as telling George Papandreou that he was not going to sacrifice the lives of his family because of his (and his late father's) antics (meaning the borrowing spree that the government of Andreas Papandreou was charged of during the 80s).

Two years later, and while Greece is getting set to receive a second mammoth bailout package from Europe and the IMF, Monday's report in TA NEA only comes to confirm that Greece's course to the IMF was not by chance, but rather it is becoming more apparent that it was well "planned".

And without a doubt, the reports today also debunk, AND TOTALLY CRUMBLE, Papandreou's (and PASOK's) argument that it did not plan to "ask" for aid, but were rather forced to take this difficult decision because of the responsibilities of "others".

The reason we posted the above video is because it is directly linked to our theory as to why our country is now in the clutches of the Troika. Look at how our "allies" were operating against Greece before during and a little after the introduction of the memorandum -with the involvement of George Papandreou ofcourse- and draw your own conclusions.

• 1. PASOK leader George Papandreou's "semi-secret Exploratory" talks for the Aegean, as opposed to former conservative leader Costas Karamanlis' decision to only engage with Ankara periodically. According to what was just revealed Papandreou argued that "daily nurturing" was required to strengthen Greek-Turkish relations and the cables reveal that for this to happen, PASOK had a new national strategy that was ready to be deployed for this very purpose. Click here to read this story

• 2. One of the major subjects discussed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last weekend in Greece was apparently the topic of energy. Accompanying the US Secretary of State was none other than special envoy for Eurasian Energy Ambassador Richard Morningstar. According to a revealing article in the Epikaira magazine, which was released today, he was apparently present at the discussions with Hillary Clinton and Greek government officials, including Prime Minister George Papandreou.

• A law on privatization of public property passed by the government recently, has left open the possibility of liquidating assets to creditors of all of Greece’s mineral wealth, including its proven reserves, says the article, as well as those that may be discovered in the future and the total potential revenue from them. Click here to read this story

• 3. According to the latest Wikileaks cable as presented by the ETHNOS newspaper today Chancellor Angela Merkel's government welcomed the decision taken by an informal summit in Brussels in 2010 (prior to Greece’s entry to the IMF) which did not to provide financial assistance, for the moment, to cash-strapped Greece. Click here to read that story

• 4 When Giannoulas asked him what his plans were for the Greek debt crisis… Papandreou said Greece lacked of competitiveness, and this could be dealt with through modernization, including moving toward a green economy. He noted that Greece was made more vulnerable to the global financial crisis because its banks had invested heavily in the Balkans… (Ah ha!… So the Greek crisis was not the fault -as you kept noting in Greece prior to the 2009 elections- of the former Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis it was/is a "global crisis" because Greek greedy bankers lost a lot of their money in the Balkans... ) Click here to read that story

• 5. A new report on the Epikaira website featuring this week's issue (scheduled to be released on Thursday) claims that the US think-tank Stratfor wants Greece to give half of the Aegean to Turkey, in other words for natural gas and oil. The report largely reflects the plans and intentions of Washington at geo-strategic level, the article on Epikaira added. Click here to read that story

• 6.Our country's wealth under the sea, and below the ground is apparently under the microscope and eyed by many vultures. In fact our creditors have included this wealth, said to be more than 1 TRILLION EUROS in their list of demands - beyond reproach called "English law" - and the possibility of it being confiscated is as real as real can get if we as a nation cannot repay our debts. Click here to read that story

• 7.  Most of the news sites and blogs have been in a frenzy over the past two days with the article entitled "Schöne Waffen für Athen" from Germany's "Zeit online" publication claiming Greece is getting set to purchase aircraft, frigates as well as submarines, etc. In Greece it was said that our allies are bulleying us into agreeing with this defence spending so that we can avoid bailout and finally receive the sixth tranche of the bailout plan. Also, it was noted that the equipment that they want to sell us either does not exist, is over priced and of questionable quality and usefulness! Clearly, the Germans and all our other so-called allies who produce and sell weapons are basically doing their job... the question is what the hell are we doing about this as a nation and what have we done about this for the past 30 years Click here for that story

• 8. In an unprecedented move which goes against our national foreign policy, the Deputy Minister for the Environment, Energy and Climate Change, (PECA) Y. Maniatis on Thursday went on a rant about Greece's EEZ and spoke about "undefined zones" and "unclear" areas in the Aegean. Maniatis -who is a member of the PASOK party- more or less left it to be understood that he recognizes the claims of Turkey in the Aegean and in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as the claims on the EEZ and the rights to its exploration and exploitation!The statements even shocked the writers at defencenet who said in one report that the declaration by Maniatis goes beyond logic and is totally against Greece's foreign and national policies. "Not even Turkey would dare to make these types of statements" said a relevant report. Click here to read this story

• 9. The speech made by main opposition New Democracy MP Panos Kammenos in Parliament this past week revealed many truths. The Greek mainstream media barely touched the subject since Thursday for reasons which are obvious (maybe they are in on the cut) and the only little bit of information that is being released to the public is from the olympia website, as well as two alternative news television channels. According to Panos Kammenos Prime Minister George Papandreou "staged" the announcement of the referendum since the following day billions of dollars/euros were lost on the international markets. And what's more... there were a few that banked in on a lot of money. with this inside tip... A LOT OF MONEY! Click here to read this story

• 10. After enjoying his holiday's our beloved George Trangas is back and he pulled out all the stops on last night's show "Choris Anaisthitiko" by slamming the present government, and especially George Papandreou, and his predecessor Costas Simitis. After speaking about the Greek debt, and explaining why we should proclaim it as odious he also commented on the recent remarks by publisher Stavros Psycharis. The latter is the President of the Lambrakis Publishing Group (DOL) which publishes many Athens newspapers including the long-standing journal "To Vima". Slamming Papandreou, Trangas asked what do private jets and corn have to do with one another? What does a lavish apartment in Knightsbridge have to do with all of this? (Knightsbridge is a London  district  that is home to many of the world's richest people, and has some of the highest property prices in the world. In 2006, a four bedroom apartment in this area sold for over £25,000,000, and according to Wikipedia street car parking spaces sell for £300,000 on a 94 year lease! This area is so exclusive that the principal landowners in the area are the Duke of Westminster and Earl Cadogan!) Click here to read this story