How Julian Assange's Private Life Helped Conceal the Real Triumph of WikiLeaks

[KoKo]


How Julian Assange's Private Life Helped Conceal the Real Triumph of WikiLeaks
Without the access to the US secret cables, the world would have no insight into how their governments behave


Gagged: A poster of Julian Assange at a demonstration outside London's Ecuadorian embassy on Friday. (AFP/Getty Images)


As Julian Assange evades arrest by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge to escape extradition to Sweden, and possibly the US, British commentators have targeted him with shrill abuse. They almost froth with rage as they cite petty examples of his supposed gaucheness, egotism and appearance, as if these were criminal faults.

These criticisms tell one more about the conventionality and herd instinct of British opinion-makers than they do about Assange. Ignored, in all this, is his achievement as founder of WikiLeaks in publishing US government cables giving people across the world insight into how their governments really behave. Such public knowledge is the core of democracy because voters must be accurately informed if they are to be able to chose representatives to carry out their wishes.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, more information has become available about what the US and allied states are doing and thinking than ever before. The only competing revelations that come to mind were the publication by the victorious Bolsheviks in 1917 of secret treaties, including plans to carve up the Middle East by Britain and France. A more obvious parallel was the publication of the Pentagon Papers thanks to Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, revealing systematic lying by the Johnson administration about Vietnam. In similar fashion to Assange, Ellsberg was reviled by the US government and threatened with the severest punishment.

An extraordinary aspect of the campaign against Assange is that op-ed writers feel free to pump out thousands of words about his alleged faults, with never a mention of far more serious state crimes revealed by WikiLeaks. All these critics, and readers who agree them, should first switch on YouTube and watch a 17-minute video film taken by the crew of an Apache helicopter over east Baghdad on 12 July 2007. It shows the helicopter crew machine-gunning to death people on the ground in the belief that they are all armed insurgents. In fact, I cannot see any arms and what in one case was identified as a gun turned out to be the camera of a young Reuters' photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, who was killed along with his driver, Saeed Chmagh. The video shows the helicopter coming in for a second attack on a van that had stopped to pick up the dead and wounded. The driver was killed and two children wounded. "Ha! Ha! I hit 'em," shouts one of the US crewmen triumphantly. "Look at those dead bastards."

More at..........

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/02-5

[snot]

1. K&R'd!

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[JDPriestly]

4. I note that when a person begins to succeed in either exposing the crimes

of our government or big business, the crimes they commit in our names, supposedly on our behalves, or if a liberal proposes measures that would challenge the increasing corporate dominance over our lives, some scandal in their life comes to light.

Now, with Assange, it appears that he has a problem with committing and loving a woman. He seems to be able to attract women, but he doesn't seem to be able to keep one. He is a disloyal lover.

Absolutely titillating. And such an unusual quality in today's young men. If he had married one woman and had an affair with another, we would hear endlessly about that. If he had never married and never had a girlfriend, now wouldn't that be shocking? Raises eyebrows? Sexual orientation????? Think of all the twitter tweets. Yum. Juicy. Gossip. Yum.

And if he were happily married and had six kids, then everyone would criticize his family. Too many kids. How can he be liberal and have so many kids?

The right-wing used to assassinate leaders on the left, kill them outright, end their mortal lives. But that is just so '60s and '70s.

Now they just assassinate the reputations of the people on the left. And of course all of us goody, goody two-shoes liberals would never want to admit that our leaders are so human as to have unhappy personal or sex lives or overly active libidos.

That Assange is being ravaged on this personal level is not surprising.

But that liberals who claim to be so much more intelligent than Republicans don't see through this tired old strategy to weaken our trust in our liberal activists is pretty disgusting.

Don't fall for this. Assange is a loser with women. Let him be. So is Limbaugh. So is Gingrich.

The right is full of men who have no ability to commit to or love a woman. There was a lot of conjecture about Karl Rove just a few days ago. I say we just forget these stories on both sides. They have nothing to do with anything. They are just a distraction.

[Luminous Animal]

6. +1

[KoKo]

7. No...not surprising. Plus the sex was consensual..

but, in Sweden a "broken condom" is against the law. The two women knew each other. Both were friendly with him afterward. Consensual sex and one claims a "broken condom." Sounds like set up to me.

I should have posted the article about it...but, don't have time to dig. Anyway...that's what the whole things is about. He didn't rape anyone which is being alluded to by some folks who want to disparage him.

Thanks for your views on this...

[magical thyme]

5. K&R

We need to keep our eye on the BALL, not the SQUIRREL.