A New York Republican Congressman wants the website WikiLeaks to be declared a terrorist organization in the wake of the Internet organization publishing over 250,000 classified documents on its website. As the full scope of international deceit, lies and arrogance are for the first time exposed to the cleansing light of public scrutiny WiliLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are now in the cross hairs of the Great Powers and their minions.
And not to be outdone by the global rage decibel the Obama Administration has joined the chorus of criticism and anger against WikiLeaks with Attorney General Eric Holder pointedly saying that "There's a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in the process of investigating those crimes." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs flatly declared WikiLeaks guilty without any investigation, saying, "WikiLeaks and people that disseminate information to people like this are criminals."
Holder's Justice Department has been given the green light to investigate by the Obama Administration now extremely embarrassed by the revelations found in the leaked documents. Holder is reportedly toying with the idea of charging WikiLeaks under the U.S. Espionage Act. Moreover, if the United States government designates WikiLeaks a terrorist organization then its open season on Assange, WikiLeaks and any country that "harbors" this online organization.
Already steamed up the Obama Administration is getting help from the U.S. right wing establishment to go in this direction with the Wall Street Journal declaring Assange and WikiLeaks enemies of the United States. Here is how that Journal put it: "As a foreigner (Australian citizen) engaged in hostile acts against the U.S., Mr. Assange is certainly not protected from U.S. reprisal under the laws of war."
So as stupid and overreaching as this sounds the Journal believes that Assange and WikiLeaks are now at war with the United States. Such ridiculous grandstanding and shameless jingoism over what amounts to sensitive Internet postings demonstrates just how the media/political complex is co-joined and in lockstep with an agenda of national intolerance and arrogance. Assange has committed no crime. He received information from a qualified source and posted it online. That is all.
The Obama Administration, embarrassed countries and leaders all over the world would have liked to keep this information private and secret. The angry hyperventilation over Assange now includes the customary stupid mouthing off by Sarah Palin who advocates going after him with the same gusto that the U.S. pursues Al Queda and the Taliban. New Fox 5 darling, Mike Hucakbee, called the leak a treasonous act and right-wing egotist Billy Krystal called for him to be "neutralized."
At the same time there has been no moral outrage against the New York Times and the British Guardian newspaper that Assange sent copies of the documents to way in advance of the leaks. Would the New York Times be designated a terrorist collaborator because it received information from a supposed terrorist organization? Indeed the first batch of 250,000 documents that Assange made available to the New York Times clearly expose the level of lying and deceit that the United States government engages in and its consistent deceiving of the American people.
The Guardian explains that the WikiLeaks documents "reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material."
The New York Times reports this gem as well: "When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal.' Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.'"
So the anger and consternation by the Obama Administration and both Republican and Democratic leaders are driven by one and only one consideration: outrage over the fact that for the first time the world is getting a look at its dirty operations; its lies and deceitful practices. And too, the hand wringing and holier-than-thou attitude by top U.S. officials that Assange and company has broken United States laws is laughable and clearly hypocritical.
The United States has attacked and destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan with scant regard for the rule of law since it does not feel bound by any international statutes. So in this context Assange and WikiLeaks have a moral responsibility to expose the excesses and illegalities that are happening in two unjust and illegal wars. And how is this for hypocrisy and lying: Among the apparent revelations not yet appearing in the Guardian or the Times , which are releasing the material piecemeal, is that the US has for years supported the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, an organization that both Washington and Ankara have placed on their lists of "terrorist" groups. Talk about double standards!
The imperial arrogance of the major western nations -" led by the United States -" has erroneously concluded that the world's people are stupid, ignorant and uninformed and that they will fall victim to more baseless lies and untruths. The WikiLeaks exposures are being spun and packaged as attacks against democracy and an illegal, unlawful series of actions that will jeopardize the freedom and security of nations.
This perverse attempt to equate coercive state secrecy actions with freedom and democracy--and the exposure of nasty little secrets in the public as antidemocratic and totalitarian--speaks volumes about the fraudulent character of "democracy" in the US and the rest of the industrialized world as well as the rabidly reactionary character of the attacks on WikiLeaks. Attempts to tag Julian Assange with the label of "terrorism" because he published information that he allegedly received from a United States serviceman is a knee-jerk reaction to the embarrassing bare backside caught in the illuminating glare of the public domain. It's not at all criminal since there is no censorship on the Internet or no rules governing the release of information.
But one would be naà ¯ve to believe that diplomacy and relations between the nations of the world are cordial, good-natured and fair. If anything the WikiLeaks documents have done is to rip off this long promoted veil and expose the truth to the world. Imagine, if you can, the arrogance and insulting, double-talking and backstabbing behavior by the diplomats of large, rich nations in dealing with each other and compare this with the unbelievable utter contempt that they have for small emerging nations -" all the time smiling and pretending to care. What hypocrites!
But I predict that this is going to blow over in a few days as the pliant media drops it for more salacious news. Maybe in the not too distant future Julian Assange would be found dead in some remote place at the hands of an indiscriminate criminal. If and when that happens and you believe that then please call me: I have the Brooklyn Bridge for sale.
