12.15.10

Conflating WikiLeaks and Cyberwar

Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 1:10 pm by George Smith

Fox News network “experts” and pundits, as well as others in the mainstream media, have been very busy conflating WikiLeaks with cyberwar. They do this while willfully ignoring the obvious — that if WikiLeaks were actually conducting a cyberwar against the US, then the newspapers also publishing its materials are doing the same.

And that when Michael Moore went on MSNBC last night to say he was offering his servers to WikiLeaks if they were needed, then he was also lining up to conduct it against this country.

So a Sunday opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer, brought to my attention by Pine View Farm, is typical in its stupefying quality.

In a more intelligent world, one where critical thinking and rigor were valued, its writer, Trudy Rubin, would be someone to be ridiculed. Not someone empowered to blurt whatever received wisdom has been placed in front of her during the past week.

Rubin begins (try not to laugh):

WikiLeaks has woken Americans up to the concept of “cyberwar.”

“Cyberanarchists” are attacking the websites of multinational companies that cut off services to WikiLeaks after it published classified State Department cables.

What follows is a push for Richard Clarke’s last book on cyberwar, now a bit stale in sales terms.

DD covered it, most notably here and here.

Rubin also delivers the standard Clarke argument, now well over ten years old in the public domain, that our enemies — hackers, terrorists, nation states — will strike across the Internet, blowing things up, turning other things off. Airplanes will fall from the sky, pipelines won’t pipe, and the most recent addition (gasp!) — banks will fail as Wall Street is struck.

The latter is so attractive as a meme, let’s savor it again. Banks will fail. Wall Street will get hit.

And what, exactly, would be wrong with that, all things considered?

And this is how the WikiLeaks document dump has been transformed into a cyberattack on the United States.

Any real or potential threat against the aims and desires, or business conducted as usual by big American agencies, is deemed to be evidence of a global attack, something that needs to be met with vigorous force, hysteria and advertising. As well as increasing levels of stupidity and hostility.

At which point the American government chooses not to lead, but to pander, either by being reactionary, unthinking and always willing to find ways to quickly toss taxpayer dollars into businesses which return very little in basic value to the middle class.

“Air Force Blocks Sites That Posted Secret Cables,” reads one headline in the New York Times today.

Incidentally, Clarke’s appearance in Philadelphia was part of his usual peddling, this at a speech/seminar for the locals.

“Clarke also recommended a bigger government commitment to cyberresearch and an effort to craft an international accord banning cyberattacks on civilian institutions such as banks,” concludes Rubin.

Heavens, yes, we gotta protect the banks from cyberwar — like that promised by Assange for the new year. After all, look how much they’ve done for us.

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