As Julian Assange enjoys his first weekend of freedom in years, there appeared to be no question in the mind of his wife, Stella, about what the family’s priorities were.
The WikiLeaks co-founder would need time to recover, she told reporters after they were reunited in his native Australia, after a deal with US authorities that allowed him to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified defence documents.
What comes after that is one of the most intriguing questions for anyone familiar with how the site he founded in 2006 utterly changed the nature of whistleblowing. Will it return to its original mission?
James Harkin, the director of the London-based Centre for Investigative Journalism, (said) “In retrospect, it’s striking that everything WikiLeaks published was true – no small feat in the era of “disinformation” – but the tragedy is that much of its energy and ethos has now passed to blowhards and conspiracy theorists. Perhaps, in the light of our tepid new involvements in the Middle East and Ukraine, we need a new WikiLeaks.”
I am not in any way going to defend what was done to Julian Assange, because it was abhorrent.
But, based on what he’s done in the past, I’m guessing ‘everything’ will be far more Biden-focused than Trump-focused.
It is fair to remember, however, that his biggest bombshells were from the Iraq war, which was a decidedly Republican endeavor. But I do agree that he looked more and more like a Russian asset as time went on.
Those bombshells didn’t end the war.
His leak during the 2016 election changed the course of American history, and was directly coordinated with Russia. That was far more impactful.
That’s more a comment on how die-hard committed the political class is to perpetual war than anything else.
Also, while I don’t appreciate Trump being elected… the DNC seems committed to running some of the worst candidates they can find - the fact that there was information that damaging to Clinton that didn’t come out in the primaries is the part we should be mad at.
I think we should still be mad at foreign adversary nations colluding with one of our politcal parties and a not at all impartial “whistleblower” to turn the tide of a presidential election.
The emails themselves were barely relevant at all politically. Out of some 30k of them, 3 were found to be inappropriately controlled. Thats hardly an earth shattering discovery.
The spectacle that Assange, the GOP and Russia manufactured was the issue. It was a coordinated and targeted attack on our democracy, and he deserves to be derided for his outsized part in it.
To be clear, I think Assange definitely behaves as a russian asset - but democrats will do anything except admit that their candidates are awful. Leaks as mundane as the 2016 ones were capitalised on by Trump, of course - but it still shouldn’t have made a difference, and the race wasn’t as close as it was due to wikileaks.
Trying to motivate an increasingly disengaged and disappointed electorate by being the lesser of two evils simply isn’t good enough - and ‘useful idiots’ like Assange (although acting recklessly and causing damage) aren’t the reason Hillary lost, or that Trump has support.
If I had dirt on someone that speculated about drone killing me, I would have no problem releasing that dirt. WikiLeaks has never had to retract a story or cables because of bad information, even the DNC couldn’t refute the authenticity of the DNC cables.
Except, as you would see in the link I pasted, Wikileaks turned down leaks on the Russian government but smeared Hillary.
“America treated Assange badly” is not an excuse there. You can’t claim it was just hating the U.S. and do you really think that’s how Wikileaks should operate?
Clinton shouldn’t have gone after the people that exposed their corruption.
How does that justify not exposing Russia’s corruption?
You mean like these?
You clearly didn’t read the article I pasted.
Maybe read it and come back to me.
The man has every reason to hate the USA. Helping getting Trump to power would surely be some sweet revenge, since another Trump presidency will be undoubtely be divisive and harmful
That really is not an excuse for his relationship with Russia.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/
It sounds a lot less like it would be revenge a lot more like it would be marching orders he would be happy to comply with.
The enemy of my enemy is a short-term ally, that might be how he thinks, who knows. I have no side in this fight since I’m not a Assange fanboy and I have nothing but contempt for the USA.
Short-term? That article was from 2016.
In 2016 he had already spent years hiding inside an embassy. It’s not that hard to conceive that hatred tends to build over time.
Okay, but you said it was short-term. That is not short-term. And as far as I know, Wikileaks is still very easy on Russia. So how long is this favoritism of his going to last? Why should that be what Wikileaks is about?
It was just a conjecture of how Assange might have thought about. I never said that there really is any link between him and Russia. And it was long ago, when he was still hiding inside Ecuador’s embassy, when the hypothetical link between him and Russia was new.
I doubt he still runs wikileaks. Assange was in jail for years.
I don’t know and I don’t really care.
He wasn’t in jail. He was in the Ecuadorian embassy. It sounds like you really don’t know the details here.
You’re rationalizing a 2010 case with a 2016 argument. Your timeline doesn’t check out.
Also blaming Assange for exposing American war-crimes instead of Bush and Obama for committing them and covering them up is ridiculous.