or, leaked now to "prove" that Wikileaks isn't playing a biased or politically motivated game?
In Information Warfare, it's a common tactic to lightly attack ones' allies to help stave off criticism.
As others have mentioned, we may eventually that find Wikileaks is just a propaganda or espionage clearinghouse, where nations dig up, steal or manufacture items to hurt their enemies. It's impartiality and opportunistic access to secrets seems in doubt when you take into account what "leaks" and when. For example, it's a bit ironic that within days of the incidents in Korea we find a Wikileak that pretends to exonerate China from any "puppet master" responsibility for the North's actions, isn't it?
Wikileaks then functions to allow a "plausible deniability" to stolen state secrets. If the Russians, for example, started broadcasting classified American or Chinese documents, there would be some explaining to be done as to how they were obtained. Accusations of espionage would rightfully be made. Wikileaks allows this to be avoided almost completely. The blame goes from foreign intelligence to "unidentified leakers", away from the "thief" to the "victim".
As an added bonus, propaganda agents and lazy media types get a whole "confirmation bias" source to hide behind. Documents that are "believable" on wikileaks don't need independent review for Media and governments that find the propaganda useful. If Wikileaks said it had "secret documents" of Bush eating Afghan babies, that would be enough "proof" for mainstream dissemination. If Wikileaks pops up with Obama's "kenyan birth certificate", that'll be all the "proof" opposing factions need.
With classified operations, in order to prove or disprove a wikileaks claim, the government would have to release *more* classified information surrounding the propaganda incidents. Either the propaganda goes unchallenged, or foreign intel gains more info. Win-win right there for the opposition.
Now with the site being down, you get another level of propaganda. Is it a real attack? A false-flag operation? Routine maintenance where someone forgot to submit a change request? Or a self administered shutdown in order to garner more sympathy and make themselves appear "victimized": "Look at me! I'm so dangerous the CIA/USA/KGB/MIB are out to stifle me!"?
The new war is fought with words. Cameramen and "reporters" are the soldiers. HAMAS understands, and did well with world opinion even with rather amateurish mistakes against Israel. Al-Queda supporters purchase airtime on their enemies' own satellites to run Al Jazeerah. Hugo Chavez gets it, by controlling his own media and by pandering to celebrities. Germany made it into a science by the late '30's. America needs to get it's game on, because we're falling behind both here and abroad. Otherwise, we'll lose our own hearts and minds to those who realize that it *is* a war, and are playing with the highest stakes in mind, without the risk of physical retaliation or the costs that even a single cruise missile launch would incur.
Now, if Wikileaks was truly about freedom of information, then it should be able to provide answers to the real tough questions. What I wanna know, is where the Wikileaks release on UFO's is at...and what's really in the Colonel's Secret Blend..where's the thermal exhaust port on the Death Star, and how many licks it *really* takes to reach the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. *There's* the secrets that many Bothans will die for.
Any possibility that this leak was orchestrated to make the Obama Administration look bad, regardless of the fact that virtually everything being leaked wasn't on his watch?
