Storm Bridges

Conspiracy and Power

Storm Bridges — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:11:09 +0000

Foreign Policy has a great round-up of Wikileak news here. And here you can read Julian Assange’s take on conspiracy and government. He describes a conspiracy like any other system with inputs and outputs and linked power. By Assange’s definition, any organization is a conspiracy unless it practices total transparency when it makes decisions. So, does Wikileaks fall into that category? Or is the difference in the degree of power the organization wields? Isn’t Wikileaks more powerful than most states at this point? Doesn’t that kind of power only get used along networks that look a lot like a conspiracy?

Sleep of the Just

Storm Bridges — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 04:51:48 +0000

New York City: Foggy Bottom has gone about as far as he can go. I sent him home in a cab ten minutes ago and now I’m trying to put down what he told me before I try to find the airport. Before he hit bottom, my friend was going on about all the cyberattacks in support of Wikileaks. The Times are calling them an “army” here. Julian’s in jail in London, but all over the world, his allies are hacking into Mastercard, Amazon, and Paypal. Those are some interesting targets. Have to check with some more sources, but this is starting to sound an awful lot like an old case of mine. The way that one went down, we never found out who was pulling all the strings. Gotta get to the damn airport.

A Bigger Picture

Storm Bridges — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:37:19 +0000

New York City: The leaked documents are a set-up. Or at least 99% of them are. Not that they’re fake, just that there’s something else in the documents that is more important or dangerous or whatever than we’ve seen so far. I can’t get it straight, though, he keeps saying “It’s more than just the leaks. More!” He seems pretty upset about the whole thing and this from a guy who has stared down dictators and death squads. Something’s got Foggy Bottom spooked. Gotta go – he’s probably wondering why I’m going to the restroom so much.

Mystery Mission

Storm Bridges — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:59:59 +0000

New York City: Another bathroom update. My friend, let’s just call him Foggy Bottom, can drink a lot more than I thought. Here’s what I know so far: Assange works for some powerful people or maybe he’s just their puppet. My friend keeps talking about “Julian’s mission” but I don’t know what he means just yet. I get the impression Foggy Bottom doesn’t know exactly either. I’m going to play along like I know more than I do and hope he’s not playing the same game.

Leaking Lips

Storm Bridges — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:37:15 +0000

New York City: I fly back to the west coast in the morning, so I’m killing time catching up with some old friends. One of my friends used to throw his weight around Foggy Bottom, but right now he’s throwing it around a table at a restaurant downtown. Between mouthfuls of steak and baked potato, he’s telling me that Julian Assange, Lord of the Leaks, is not what he appears to be. Confession time: I’m in the bathroom posting this. When I get back to the table, I’m going to buy my friend another round … and another round and another until he spills his guts about the mysterious Mr. Assange. Stay put.

The Burma Test

Storm Bridges — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 21:42:13 +0000

Just got this tip from an anonymous source who calls himself Mycroft: “You might want to check out the Burma dry run.” I’ve got some good intel from this source in the past, so I looked into it. At first I thought it had something to do with the bad business out of Yemen, but then I found this. More info here.

OK, you got my attention. Now the questions:

Whose dry run is it? CIA, SVR or another hit from the folks who brought you Aurora?
If this isn’t a dry run, then why attack Burma now?
If this is a dry run, what happens when it’s for real?

All the Tea in China

Storm Bridges — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 04:24:59 +0000

America went to the polls yesterday and voted the bastards out. In two years, they’ll do it all over again.

Forget about the Democrats and Republicans for a minute; the big story is over a bigger divide. Tea Partiers aren’t the only ones celebrating: China is happy to see Washington distracted with its own problems…or so says The Wall Street Journal. This is one of those articles that cites its sources sparingly and casts its net wide. Back in the day, when I was pushing ink, we wrote stuff like this because it fit the story people already had in their heads: China vs. the U.S.

Obama sure had it in his head today. At his post-defeat presser, the President brought up the news that China now had the fastest supercomputer. “That used to be us,” he wistfully added. Us versus them. It may not have gotten through in America, but they got the message in India.

I’m sure they got the message in China, too. But the people I know in Beijing don’t know their Boehner’s from their Harry Reid’s. They wake up every day thinking about how they’re gonna make another million dollars, not whether they have too much government.

Americans voted for less government and more money, but there’s another, bigger story here, a story we don’t get to vote on. When it comes down to two economic gorillas going after each other, the only thing you can do is get out of the way.

You tell me, is there another way?