It’s official. Wikileaks has fallen from the last graces of the benefits of doubt. No, the organization is not comprised of journalists seeking the truth. They are not seeking freedom and liberty for all. Actually, they aren’t seeking anything but causing chaos, disunity and untimely deaths. And the ones responsible for the leak to begin with? We already have pretty grim laws for dealing with their kind, and I don’t think I need to opine on the issue other than stating my support for full prosecution.

Sure, diplomacy is messy, and yes, I’m encouraged to know that other Middle Eastern states stand both with us and Israel on the issue of Iran. Actually, it upsets me that more action is not being taken, but I’m not naive enough to think that something won’t be done in the near future that may or may not have the Uncle Sam seal brandished on the cover (it’ll be on page 192 of the commission report in fine print). But I digress.

The only thing keeping me from considering WikiLeaks to be a propaganda arm of some secular terrorist organization, or a terrorist organization itself, is the fact that I don’t know what their ultimate goal is.  Maybe I should give it more thought, because I’m having an epiphany of sorts.

Stay with me here. Just because they don’t conduct beheadings on YouTube doesn’t mean that they aren’t terrorists.

See, terrorism has been around for a long time. (Thank you, Captain Obvious, that will be all). This means that it wasn’t always about being a martyr for virgins. Believe it or not, suicide terrorism came about as a matter of being cost-effective for the terrorist groups seeking a political goal. I kid you not. Most terrorists are not crazy, fanatical maniacs. They tend to be thoughtful intellectual types who use terrorism as a “last resort” to obtain their objectives.

I’m not arguing the sanity of the objectives here. I’m just stating that they think this stuff through. That being said, for something to be classified as “terrorism”, there are a few requirements that must be present.

For one, there has to be a political objective in mind. Terrorist acts always have a purpose behind them, which is the only reason why we can really ever prevent them. There are no random guys sporting Hezbollah tattoos who pick up some C4 at the QuickieMart on the way to work and think it would be a good time to toss it in that Corolla across the street. It all takes planning, strategy and, yes . . . the biggest bang for the buck. It’s the planning process that lets us catch ‘em.

Second, there is the psychological goal of instilling fear that comes from using either violence or the threat of violence to bring attention to the political cause and preferably make some kind of reaction happen. The “violence” part is actually not as simple to define as you’d think. Even if the threat is only in reaction to another threat, like, say, “If the government invades my house, I’m going to bomb the FBI building and therefore plan to do so in self-defense,” you’re still threatening violence. The law does not distinguish between defensive terrorist threats and offensive ones since it still causes reaction (perhaps hesitancy to invade your house).

Finally, terrorist acts are devised to gain the maximum amount of attention with the least amount of cost. That means media attention is the sought-after treasure. There have even been terror groups who brought on media and communication consultants while plotting attacks and events. The more media, the more attention, the more legitimacy their cause is given, possibly more recruits and sympathizers, and possibly an objective can be realized. Just think hijacked airplane with hostages held at gun point. Lots of media, threat of violence, and the objective is probably to release some political prisoners.

I might add that it’s not terrorism if the motivation is purely economicl. Like, a bank robber might have an objective, use violence, and seek media, but he wants money. He’s not a terrorist unless he’s shouting “freedom for [BLANK]“.

So back to Wikileaks…

“Transparency for a better society”, “reduce corruption through the free press”, and other such Wikileaks tag lines are great on paper and hey, that stuff is pretty important to Americans, no? But where’s the line drawn? What is “need to know” and what is “shouldn’t know”? The only way we’ll ever know the answer is if we know why they’re publishing classified information.

For the purpose of analysis, I’ll summarize the political objective of Wikileaks with a line from their “About” page: “It is only when the people know the true plans and behavior of their governments that they can meaningfully choose to support or reject them.” So essentially, the political objective of Wikileaks is to expose corrupt governments so people are better informed about who their leaders are.

Wait. Make that “governments Wikileaks deems corrupt”, because corruption can be found everywhere. Their own page states that they may decide to withhold names or information to “protect” affected parties if they so choose, therefore, it’s not all about total information availability. They get to pick and choose based upon, yep, you guessed it, their agenda. Hey! We have a bonafide political motivation!

This is still shaky, you might say, since the definition is not so clear because there’s no ultimate solution.  For example, Hezbollah, the PLO, al Qaeda, etc. all have some pretty clear objectives whether its a) wipe out Israel; b) create a Palestinian state; or c) kill everyone that isn’t Muslim and set up a Caliph state.

Ah! Have we heard of anarchists? Or how about our buddy William Ayers and The Weather Underground (yes, a terrorist organization)? The whole point of those organizations was just to destroy the system. No one really knew what would happen after that, point being that anything was better than the “wage labor” of capitalist pigs and so forth. Thus, Wikileaks doesn’t need an ultimate objective. They just want to destroy the system as it is by releasing documents that they claim “expose” but in fact have incredibly destructive outcomes.

Just for kicks, I’ll make note that they probably do sympathize with most secular terrorist organizations (socialist/anarchist/communist groups, etc.), being that they don’t seem to like capitalist corporations very much. Here’s another quote from their “About” page for show: “Through governmental corruption, political influence, or manipulation of the judicial system, abusive corporations are able to gain control over the defining element of government the sole right to deploy coercive force.”

OK, now onto Wikileaks and violence. Since actual violence is not required for the “terrorism” classification, we’ll look at the threat. Remember the Iraq leak and the informants that were killed as a result? There’s an example of potential violence by these tactics. The threat? Again, from Wikileaks page, “It is telling that a number of government agencies in different countries (and indeed some entire countries) have tried to ban access to WikiLeaks. This is of course a silly response, akin to the ostrich burying its head in the sand. A far better response would be to behave in more ethical ways.”

Oh look at that! A threat of violence yet again? Behave more “ethically” or face further institutional destruction through our leaks. If we’re talking Somalia and genocide, OK, we can sympathize. However, if you don’t agree with the war a nation is fighting, every dead body is going to be deemed “unethical” and therefore any leak that will harm the war effort is going to be given the Wikileaks seal of approval. I think we’re defining the political objective of Wikileaks better and better as we go along here. A sort of world domination through information dissemination.

Finally, the media and publicity aspect. This is where Wikileaks has an advantage over other terror groups. They have information that every media outlet wants to report on for ratings. And lots of it. Why would they go on a big tour of declaring what information they’re about to release? Yeah, publicity. So for our third rung of terrorism definition requirements, if it walks like a duck…

Just to distinguish between Wikileaks being criminals vs. terrorists, as I stated before, their motivation is political, not economic. They say so themselves and are additionally a “non-profit” group.

There you have it. By definition, Wikileaks is a terrorist organization. I rest my case.

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