Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is officially a wanted man. After the arrest of whistleblower Bradley Manning for leaking the Collateral Murder video, the Pentagon announced it is hunting Assange “to talk to him” about 260,000 diplomatic cables which Army Specialist Manning is purported to have passed along as well. Appealing for fans to create Wikileak support groups worldwide, Assange confirmed possession of sensitive material to which he could only allude earlier: the US military’s own video of the “Garani Massacre” (sic), its 2009 airstrike and coverup of the killing of over 140 Afghan civilians, most of them children. Within hours, the claim and Assange’s appeal, were removed from the Wikileaks website.
Assange’s announcement has been propagated by journalists in the Wikileaks email circle, but strangely the call for creating a network of support groups, “Friends of Wikileaks is being given no traction.
The hasty typo of “Garani,” uncorrected, doesn’t serve the cause either. As a keyword, Garani brings up only Assange’s recent Tweet. All news references of the original incident are indexed under “Granai.” Or of course Julian Assange’s earlier codeword, Project G.
That the media is so casual about describing the Wikileaks founder as subject of an “international manhunt” is unfortunately disarming. Assange has had to cancel an appearance in Las Vegas, and a later keynote engagement for 2600 in NYC. Oh hw funny. Pentagon Papers whisleblower Daniel Ellsberg is warning the Assange is facing very real danger of rendition, interrogation, disappearance, even assassination by US drone. The excitement builds?
You can do more than watch Assange dodge missile strikes like Flash Osama. Contact Wikileaks about enlisting as friend or supporter, not just spectator.
Below is the original email from Julian Assange:
WikiLeaks may be under attack.
You were generous enough to write to us, but we have not had the labor resources to respond.
Your support is important to us. Please read all of this email to understand what is going on. We apologize for not getting back to you before. It is not through any lack of interest on our part, but an enforced lack of resources.
One of our alleged sources, a young US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has been detained and shipped to a US military prison in Kuwait, where he is being held without trail. Mr. Manning is alleged to have acted according to his conscious and leaked to us the Collateral Murder video and the video of a massacre that took place in Afghanistan last year at Garani.
The Garani massacre, which we are still working on, killed over 100 people, mostly children.
Mr. Manning allegedly also sent us 260,000 classified US Department cables, reporting on the actions of US Embassy’s engaging in abusive actions all over the world. We have denied the allegation, but the US government is acting as if the allegation is true and we do have a lot of other material that exposes human rights abuses by the United States government.
Mr. Manning was allegedly exposed after talking to an unrelated “journalist” who then worked with the US government to detain him.
Some background on the Manning case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-chat/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/state-department-anxious/
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/06/143011.htm
[ note that there are some questions about the Wired reportage, see: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/13/video-wikileaks-foun.html#comment-809677 ]
WikiLeaks a small organization going through enormous growth and operating in an adverserial, high-security environment which can make communication time consuming and the acquisition of new staff and volunteers, also difficult since they require high levels of trust.
To try and deal with our growth and the current difficult situation, we want to get you to work together with our other supporters to set up a “Friends of WikiLeaks” group in your area. We have multiple supporters in most countries and would like to see them be a strong and independent force.
Please write to friends@sunshinepress.org if you are interested in helping with Friends of WikiLeaks in your area. You will receive further instructions.
We also have significant unexpected legal costs (for example flying a legal team to Kuwait, video production. Collateral Murder production costs were $50,000 all up).
Any financial contributions will be of IMMEDIATE assistance.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Support
Please donate and tell the world that you have done so. Encourage all your friends to follow the example you set, after all, courage is contagious.
Julian Assange
Editor in Chief
WIKILEAKS