Verbal

Is this Boxing Day or YOUR Boxing Day?

As for another (would-be) US president, Sarah Palin likens Assange to Al Qaeda, and has criticised the Obama administration for failing to use 'all necessary means to respond to and defeat Wikileaks.' (Twitter) Doesn't quite have the Jeffersonian ring about it, does it?

Too right. And as a certain Thomas Jefferson (US president and main author of the Declaration of Independence) once said: All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

No, the limitations are the usual ones I think. Interesting this afternoon to watch a learner driver, with instructor sat next to him, glide effortlessly into a lamppost. I don't suppose they do that in Europe either - crowd the snow-covered roads with people who can't really drive in normal conditions.

Now a Canadian government adviser calls for Assange to be 'assassinated' - and it turns out (Special K - specially for you) that, according to ITN, Huckabee wants both Manning and Assange executed - 'anything less would be too kind'. We're currently witnessing one of the most sickening displays of rage against whistleblowers ever seen by the political classes, who, in recent years have grown comfortable and cynical in their manipulations, lies and ruthless profiteering. By rights, and law, anyone threatening someone's life is potentially committing a crime and should be arrested and charged. Don't hold your breath though.

Ah the 'people will die' clarion call again. Look at the leaks themselves. Names of informants were redacted. And you miss the point I was making about the OSA. The smug are those who hide behind it to conceal wrongdoing; and whistleblowers should be applauded. Blair fought tooth and nail to prevent Attorney General's findings being made public on the legality - or not, as it turned out - of British participation in the invasion of Iraq. Thankfully he lost - and has ever since borne an almighty grudge against the FOI Act. On your argument, Blair should have been able to get away with the downright lies he peddled to the public while the truth remained an 'official secret'. A presumption of openness, whatever the cost, is far healthier than a presumption of secrecy - unless you'd be happier living somewhere like N Korea.

Well yes, Assange is the most at risk, certainly. Too many people in powerful positions, who feel threatened by his organisation, want him rubbed out or silenced for a very long time, and have openly, and probably less openly, said so. As for others, who knows. I do know that the loud chorus of military and political figures yelling 'people will die as a result' is self-serving PR drivel. But can I be certain that Assange helped reveal grotesque illegal acts under the watch of these and other political and military figures, that led to murder? Yes - and I do believe it alters behaviour among those who otherwise think they can get away with it.

Some of it is interesting, revealing, shocking - some isn't. Again, the point is, we decide, not some smug git who's signed the Official Secrets Act. Surely you're not suggesting that it ALL is meaningless gossip - and in any case, how can it be so trivial AND 'put certain people at risk in certain parts of the world.' Name ONE person who's died as a result of these leaks.

Why isn't it? I don't understand your question. Healthy democracy is not premised on state secrecy and manipulation. Are you suggesting that breaking down layers of secrecy is some kind of suspicious political stance?

Quite so - I'm a bit further north than you and it's like Siberia on a bad day. Those living in t'south have no idea what real weather is.

Well not you obviously.

Ah, you're right, my little munchkin - it refers to Manning, not Assange. Huckabee merely wants Assange 'hunted down' and he loves the idea of seeing Manning fry in the electric chair, 'nothing less"! But just think about that for a second. Espionage is by definition on behalf of a state. Who was Manning 'spying' for? Wikileaks and, ultimately, us, the public. So WE are the enemy. Interesting concept don't you think? On that argument, Huckabee et al should also hunt down and murder Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers, secret documents which revealed that the US government had deliberately expanded the Vietnam war into Laos and Cambodia, with horrific consequences; and Deep Throat, a deputy FBI director, for helping bring down Richard Nixon. The world would be so much better for not knowing that Watergate was ever more than a rumour, right?

But don't worry, they're still going ahead with lifting 'don't ask, don't tell' - so everyone will be happy.

A case in point: now a Republican presidential hopeful is calling for Assange to be executed. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/us-embassy-cables-executed-mike-huckabee

I'm not being defensive especially - more offended by what I see as the lack of principle and consistency in your earlier post. And once again, you say he's 'innocent' but that there's 'no smoke without fire'. So he's both innocent AND guilty! But behind this lurks what seems to me a pretty abject position vis-a-vis authority. Governments aren't always right (!), and the best way to call them to account in a democratic society is through the free dissemination of information. (Blair recalls that the worst decision he ever made was the FOI Act - not invading Iraq or committing British troops to the hopeless killing fields of Afghanistan, but letting the public in on what his government was doing.) Be very careful when you retail the aspersions of those who want Assange rubbed out.

Manning gave the files to Wikileaks himself. He didn't do it in the hope that they WOULDN'T release the information. The fact that he faces the punitive action of his government merely reinforces the point he himself has made - that the information SHOULD be in the public domain. As for the fatuous and self-serving claim made by Hillary Clinton and others about 'endangering lives', the balance sheet is hardly in their favour is it, since so many of Wikileaks' leaks expose a ruthless murderousness directed at civilians that breaches as many war conventions as you can find. Incidentally, each time Wikileaks releases a bundle of secret documents, the cry from the great and good goes up that lives will be lost. Can you give me just ONE example of that actually happening? And as for the possibility of countries starting to lob missiles at each other as a result of the latest leaks - why put up something so highly, pie-in-the-sky unlikely and set that against the huge actual benefit of the release of the information? We already know what Iran's reaction is - they are saying that the leaks are a Western 'conspiracy'. They and Saudi Arabia will carry on undermining their respective regimes as before. Nothing, in that sense, has changed. What the revelations about SA's secret briefings do achieve is to inform about the true nature of the Saudi regime - which, among other things, has already been exposed by Wikileaks as the greatest single source of funds for al Qaeda. Now we also know, for example, that China is close to abandoning N Korea. Good! More locally, we know that Mervyn King has taken it upon himself to brief foreign governments against our own politicians. Should such duplicitous and damaging behaviour really be allowed to go on behind closed doors? These are all questions that need to be asked - but they can only be asked with releases like this.

Do as you wish. You seem to be making a habit of missing the point. I didn't say you couldn't make your own mind up about Assange as a person - I said it was completely irrelevant. The effect of Wikileaks' releases has been galvanising, and brought unaccountable actions of governments into the daylight. THAT is what is important, not some posters' snide views on his motivation.

Aside from being obnoxious, this is just plain weird. On the one hand, completely ignoring the context that governments around the world are freakin' DESPERATE to shut him up, you claim that if he's innocent. he has, in that deathly Orwellian phrase, 'nothing to fear'. On the other, you moan about his 'misdoings'. Guilty until proved innocent, right? And pure contradiction, of course - but worse than that, you equate his embarrassing almightily powerful states with their oppressive and venal behaviour, with the actions of an individual. Don't you think you're lacking just a little sense of proportion? Have you simply discounted the remote possibility that the allegations - not 'charges' - are trumped up? As I said earlier, there may be something to them, but it is somehow an 'interesting' time to question Assange's character in this way.

You don't have to make up your mind; it's irrelevant. He's a hero, whatever his motivation. Hillary Clinton's warning that the release of these cables would 'endanger lives' should be the soundtrack to the other wikileaks release of trigger-happy, murderously contemptuous US Apache pilots using armour-piercing rounds to kill innocent Iraqi citizens and journalists.

As I was saying... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/30/interpol-wanted-notice-julian-assange

He already is. The Swedish authorities are pursuing him on a rape charge. Of course, it MIGHT be true...but all a sounds a bit Girl With a Dragon Tattoo.

Since you 'see it' so clearly, would you care to give us your detailed critique then, rather than resorting to the old 'conservative' (in the context of this thread) tactic of labelling anything you don't understand as 'crap'?

Of course you don't accept it. How could you? IQ has nothing to do with personality. It DOES have something to do with being able to follow the thread of an argument.

You COMPLETELY miss the point. Liberal tend to have higher IQs than reactionaries. End - as is said around these parts - of. Simple, and intelligible surely to anyone, unless....

We have a winner.