Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank (12/19/10) derides WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for being “insufferable”—apparently because he emerged from prison talking about prison conditions. Milbank sarcastically noted, “As if nine days in an English jail fighting extradition to Sweden on sex charges made him a regular Nelson Mandela.”
You can decide for yourself whether that’s insufferable. (Assange said, “I had time to reflect on the conditions of those people around the world also in solitary confinement, also on remand, in conditions that are more difficult than those faced by me. Those people also need your attention and support.” Milbank ended this quote after the word “confinement.”)
But one thing is indisputable—Milbank’s column is inaccurate. Specifically when he writes: “Assange’s indiscriminate dump of American government secrets over the last several months—with hardly a care for who might be hurt or what public good was served.”
One more time: The release of the WikiLeaks cables has been extremely discriminate, actually. The documents are mostly released on schedule with various news outlets, with certain information redacted.
The atta-boy for Mr. Assange redacting portions of the documents he is leaking assumes that he has the a priori knowledge of what pieces of information are actually threats to the lives of people.
Mr. Assange is not God, nor is he even well-informed about the elements of secure communications that may have consequence.
Mr. Assange is interested in one thing: Mr. Assange.
I have waited for Mr Assange to come forward and promise that these dumps will hurt no one.With a side bet that if it does…… he will accept the consequences.Curmudgeon is right on.He cares about one person…himself.
Actually, Mr Curmudgeon, Assange’s crew consults closely with editors and journalists at the NYT, Der Spiegel, the London Guardian, et al., who have decades of experience in, and established guidelines for, handling the kinds of documents in question. There is no claim of, nor any need for, any kind of “a priori knowledge.” Those involved deal solely in hard work, research, and, once more, long experience. The guidelines they follow are drawn from consultations with government officials and independent analysts.
We need to clone Assange into 100 whistle blowers revealing criminality in our foreign affairs, particularly the military fiascos that appear epidemic or is it pandemic? I believe E.B. White wrote about truth being an elusive little rabbit (â┚¬Ã…“Second Tree from the Cornerâ┚¬Ã‚Â). Truth is always the first casualty of war.