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26 Aug, 2010 21:26

WikiLeaks leak lame, alleged CIA assassin accidentally shoots self

WikiLeaks strikes again, releasing a classified CIA report that alludes to the US as an exporter of terrorism. The ‘Red Cell’ memo details cases of Americans engaging in terrorists acts abroad.

Meanwhile, the website’s founder is to be questioned by the Swedish authorities over allegations of molestation.

In comparison with the scandalous release of 75,000 secret documents, this exposé is much smaller at is just three pages. It is a secret document from inside the CIA, whereas the Afghan diaries came exclusively from the US military.

Each document of the “Afghan diaries” was concrete evidence of an incident taking place, civilian deaths and casualties, whereas this – although an internal CIA document – describes a hypothetical situation, which looks at what would happen if the international community perceived the US as an exporter of terrorism. It was written by a department in the CIA called the Red Cell, which is specifically charged with coming up with hypothetical scenarios and looking at what might happen.

This report takes a couple of examples of US citizens taking terror abroad. It talks about five young Muslim Americans who traveled from North Virginia to Pakistan and allegedly were hoping to join Islamic militants. It also looks into a case from November 2008, when a man called David Headly, Pakistani American, took part in surveillance leading up to the Mumbai bombings that killed more than 160 people. He changed his name in order to facilitate travel between Pakistan, India and the US.

The question this report is asking is – is Al-Qaeda looking to recruit Americans for its operations?

“Looking at it, it’s a big yawner,” said RT contributor Wayne Madsen.

The information and examples cited in the document are not groundbreaking and merely lay out a list of individual Americans who were involved in terrorist acts on their own accord; not US governemnt sponsored or sanctioned activities. Madsen said this leak would have little to no effect on US agents or the government.

“I think they took this document to try again to gain more publicity,” said Madsen.

The United States is not a breeding ground for terrorism, Madsen argued.

“More people are interested in what’s going on on American Idol or what their local football team is doing,” he said.

Some critics say the motivations of WikiLeaks remain unclear and its founder may be a simple cog in the wheel.

“It could just be a front organization and he could just be not the mastermind that he is made out to be by much of the media, maybe not even the founder of the Wikileaks, who knows,” said independent journalist John Rosenthal.

“Until we know more about him, I think the most plausible hypothesis is being this guy is just a kind of a front man,” he added. “I think there are very, very serious questions to be asked about the motivations of the group. And even what is the group? The point is, we know nothing about Wikileaks and until we know more about them we really do not know what they are up to.”

In other spy related news, Roland W. Haas was found dead near his car over the weekend with a mysterious gunshot wound to his leg. Investigators have ruled the injury accidently self inflicted.

Hass is a former intelligence officer in the US Army Reserve and claimed in a 2007 memoir to be a CIA assassin. Others disputed his claims, calling him a fraud and his book false.

In the UK a British intelligence officer was found stabbed to death and stuffed into a sports bag.

It’s much more sexy to talk about Russian spies and Russian femme fatales and bodies being found dismembered in London flats near MI6 headquarters,” said Madsen. 

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