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December 7, 2010
WikiLeaks continues the dump whilst the extra juridical attacks on Julian Assange and on WikiLeaks continue. The US, the defender of internet freedom and democratic governance, is doing all it can to stem the flow of this information. A compliant Australia, as a friend of the US, is doing everything it can to assist the US in its extra-judicial pursuit of WikiLeaks.
John Naughton in Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It's your choice in The Guardian say that this:
represents the first really sustained confrontation between the established order and the culture of the internet. There have been skirmishes before, but this is the real thing.....The response has been vicious, co-ordinated and potentially comprehensive, and it contains hard lessons for everyone who cares about democracy and about the future of the net.There is a delicious irony in the fact that it is now the so-called liberal democracies that are clamouring to shut WikiLeaks down.
The leaks expose how political elites in western democracies have been deceiving their electorates--especially over Afghanistan.
Though absolute transparency is not desirable or necessary, there has been too much secrecy and subterfuge in the name of diplomatic endeavour in the current system of governance with respect to Irq and Afghanistan. So a corrective towards transparency is a good idea.
Naughton adds that what WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out.
In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (Ireland, the US and UK in not regulating banks); corrupt (all governments in relation to the arms trade); or recklessly militaristic (the US and UK in Iraq). And yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger.
The liberal democracies are opposed to the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere. When challenged they show their authoritarian side and the due process of the law be dammed. And yet, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Iran/Contra, the cruise missile attack on Sudan, Colin Powell's cooked-up testimony to the Security Council in 2002, how many of us are under that many illusions about the dark underbelly of U.S. foreign policy?
Update:
Glenn Greenward at Salon.com says:
Just look at what the U.S. Government and its friends are willing to do and capable of doing to someone who challenges or defies them -- all without any charges being filed or a shred of legal authority. They've blocked access to their assets, tried to remove them from the Internet, bullied most everyone out of doing any business with them, froze the funds marked for Assange's legal defense at exactly the time that they prepare a strange international arrest warrant to be executed, repeatedly threatened him with murder, had their Australian vassals openly threaten to revoke his passport, and declared them "Terrorists" even though -- unlike the authorities who are doing all of these things -- neither Assange nor WikiLeaks ever engaged in violence, advocated violence, or caused the slaughter of civilians.
For those politicians crying treason and death penalty on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange the term 'terrorist' simply means someone impedes or defies the will of the U.S. Government with any degree of efficacy. The mainstream US media rolls over, despite the US's standard practice of CIA black sites, rendition, the torture regime, denial of habeas corpus, drones, assassinations, private mercenary forces, etc in defending its imperial interests. The media outlets appear to be devoted to serving, protecting and venerating US government authorities, turn a blind eye to secret governance and appear to do little to challenge the 'eradicate Assange' calls.
It is beginning to look as if the United States cannot be both a republic and an empire. At the moment it is acting like a wounded bear confronted by its demise as the global superpower. This empire may well unravel with unholy speed.
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They are in the process of creating a folk hero others will want to emulate.