Not that I needed that particular hint to be suspicious of Avaaz.org which has piously proclaimed its support for Wikileaks (or as a CBC radio announcer intoned on the 5:00 p.m. News the Licky Weaks – he did, really):
The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free press advocates everywhere.
Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws. Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group and commentators have urged assassination of its staff. The organization has come under massive government and corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing information provided by a whistleblower. And it has partnered with the world’s leading newspapers (NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information it publishes.
This is all nonsense: it has next to nothing to do with freedom of the press and everything to do with Assange’s contempt for the West and his desire to undermine it.
The information he has published may or may not be damaging in itself; what, without doubt, is damaging is the fact that he has published it, destroying any lingering doubts over whether the US is prepared to do what it takes to keep its secrets – secret.
It is too late to stop the information spreading, but it is not too late to send the message that anyone else tempted to indulge in similar informational espionage will suffer the same fate as Assange – and be “partnered” with the Guardian.
Somewhere on the spectrum between western nations such as the US and a state such as North Korea, I suspect that you would start applauding rather than condemning an Assange-like figure (as would many people). I wonder what thought processes and criteria you would bring to bear in deciding where the tipping point is?
I didn’t actually condemn or applaud him; I pointed out why I think he did what he did.
As you surmised, though, I wouldn’t necessarily be particularly unhappy if he had done the same to North Korea, although it could also have the problem of revealing other nation’s secrets.
Although I doubt that this will satisfy your preoccupation with sliding scales, I would use the rather obvious criteria of whether the state is destabilising, undemocratic, repressive, violent to its own people and whether what would be likely to replace the undermined state would be worse.
Unless you agree that the West should be undermined, this sounds like condemning:
Viewed from certain perspectives, the US could be considered all of these:
Moreso than most other nations.
And viewed from certain perspectives, the earth could be considered flat.
What I find a bit odd about the left-wing (“Guardian-partnered” (Ugh!! Vomitarium, please!)) righteous indignation on the presumed-unfair treatment of Assange/Wickileaks [I’ve heard it said – wrongly – that Assange had been imprisoned without trial], is that the leaks seem to have above all damaged the administration/standing of B. Obama, the Darling of the Left (or should that be “Darling of the Far Left”?).
Oh, come on. Far left, Obama is not.
Actually, you should be sympathetic to at least the undemocratic category. Aren’t Tea Partiers and their sympathizers very upset that politicians of all stripes mostly ignore the will of the people (and the constitution)?
Your apples-and-oranges comparison aside, I suspect many Canadians would be sympathetic to my view. Of course, they’re all liberal idiots who can be dismissed with one broad stroke – right?
Sorry, Kate. I meant to respond to David. But there is something funky with the way this website works, too.
I would put Obama a little to the right of Ronald Reagan. The whole country has veered strongly to the right in the last decade or so (in my opinion).