Smear, CounterSmear - The London
Smear, CounterSmear - The London Observer went public with an email it claimed was a smoking gun, "proving" the National Security Agency (our ultrasecret crypto-eavesdropping organization) is spying on UN members.
The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia.
But almost immediately, the Drudge Report raised questions about the language used in the memo.
Here it is. See if you can spot the clinkers:
To: [Recipients withheld]
From: FRANK KOZA@Chief of Staff (Regional Target) CIV/NSA
on 31/01/2003 0:16
Subject: Reflections of Iraq debate/votes at UN - RT actions and potential for related contributions
Importance: High
TOP SECRET/COMINT/XL
All,
As you've likely heard by now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/ negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies, etc - the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises. In RT, that means a QRC surge effort to revive/ create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters.
We've also asked ALL RT topi's to emphasise and make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/ debates/ votes. We have a lot of special UN-related diplomatic coverage (various UN delegations) from countries not sitting on the UNSC right now that could contribute related perspectives/ insights/ whatever. We recognise that we can't afford to ignore this possible source.
We'd appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar, more in-direct access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines. I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels - especially as this effort will probably peak (at least for this specific focus) in the middle of next week, following the SecState's presentation to the UNSC.
Thanks for your help
I added the italics. Look at them. They are British spellings (or, in the case of the 31/01/2003, European date formats).
Drudge adds:
GOVERNMENT SOURCES TELL DRUDGE CLASSIFICATION LEVEL WRONG ON MEMO -- 'TOP SECRET/COMINT/XL' -- IS BOGUS, DOES NOT EXIST.
Then, Drudge asks:
HOW ABOUT IT, GUYS, LET'S SEE A SCAN OF THE ORIGINAL 'MEMO' NOT YOUR RECREATED ONE.
My question isn't so much "is it a hoax". The real question is, how long after it's proven a hoax will elements of the left be treating it as gospel truth?
Like, for example, here - on Democrats.com, a hysterical Democrat-party linked hate site on which Minnesota democrat campaigns have bought thousands of dollars worth of advertising? (Scroll down - they link, with utter ingenuity, to the Observer article).
UPDATE: The Observer is now claiming that it altered the spelling in the email. So - where's the original?
Note To Franken - Al Franken, in talking about a potential all-liberal talk-radio network, famously said ""People on the left -liberals- don't want to hear simplistic demagoguery."
Someone needs to tell the good folks at Democrats.com. We've spotlighted these people before - a site that would challenge the hate-mongeriest fever dreams of the fringiest ultra-right web scribblers.
But Democrats.com isn't the fringe! They're quite proud of how connected they are with the Democrat mainstream! And among their biggest supporters was...the campaign of the late Paul Wellstone!
So read the site. Tell me how simplistic and demagogic these people aren't. Look at the list of media and politicians - mainstream as well as lunafringe - who link to Democrats.com.
Then tell Al Franken.
Sometimes I think I could do an entire blog on nothing but Democrats.com's content.
Posted by Mitch at
March 2, 2003 09:33 AM
