http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\12\13\story_13-12-2010_pg3_4 Monday, December 13, 2010
ANALYSIS: Julian Assange: a hero or a villain? -S P Seth Why are the US and its partners so exercised over something they always claim to favour and espouse all over the world? Which is: transparency and freedom to disseminate information WikiLeaks will, most likely, end up as a dreaded word in the annals of diplomatic history. Nothing like this has happened before on such a scale. The disclosure of these American diplomatic cables, with comments on personalities, politics and policies of countries doing business with the US, provides a rare insight into global politics, albeit with an American bias. The Australian founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is regarded either as a hero or a monstrous villain (depending on one's viewpoint) for upsetting the staid diplomatic applecart by blowing the whistle. The Americans - across the political spectrum - are baying for his blood for baring their diplomatic cupboard for all and sundry to see. And, believe me, it is not a pretty sight. Coincidentally or otherwise, he is up against warrants for his arrest on charges of raping two Swedish women while in Sweden, where he had set up his WikiLeaks offices; hoping that he would have a more empathetic establishment in that country. Even Interpol was alerted to his alleged crime. The British have now got him and he is in their lock up. He will now face proceedings for extradition to Sweden. Indeed, earlier charges against him on this count had been dropped in Sweden for want of evidence. The question then is: why has the rape charge been raked up again? It certainly seems too fortuitous to be taken at face value. It is true that Assange had sexual encounters with the women in question, and he has reportedly admitted it. But this was consensual. The only disputed element is whether or not he used protection under the Swedish law. It is all a murky area, having become so entangled with the WikiLeaks affair. Assange contends that he is being framed to shut him up. The question then is: are the Swedish authorities doing the US's dirty work? There are no easy answers to this. But in view of the fortuitous nature of the two (rape charges and WikiLeaks), the suspicion is likely to persist. At the same time, the US has been busy pressuring internet servers to deny WikiLeaks its links. Some of the prominent ones have already done it. The US is also examining all its legal books to nab him on spying, treason, terrorism and whatever else they can throw at him. Why are the US and its partners so exercised over something they always claim to favour and espouse all over the world? Which is: transparency and freedom to disseminate information. When WikiLeaks decided to exercise this right, all hell broke loose led by the country (the US) in the forefront of spreading democracy. The US response has been three-fold. First, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted the disclosure and dissemination of US cables not only for the damage it is doing to the US but to the world too. She described it as an "attack on the international community". At the second level, the US attorney general is examining US laws to throw the book at Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks organisation to snuff them out for all times - a Herculean and probably impossible talk in today's internet world, even in the country of its origin. The third, and the most sober response has come from the US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates. He disagreed with those who described "the impact of these releases on our foreign policy...as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on". In his view, "those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought". He said that the US's relations with rest of the world were not based on whether it was good at keeping secrets. Elaborating, he said, "Some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us." And, he maintained, "We are still, essentially...the indispensable nation." Gates did not deny that the dumping of such information was embarrassing and awkward. But, in his view, its consequences for US foreign policy will be "fairly modest". Why, then, is the US establishment generally so "overwrought", to use Gates' words in another context? Or is this a case of good cop and bad cop routine within the US establishment, with Gates trying to underplay the damage? Whatever it is, Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks have exposed the netherworld of diplomatic interaction where politics and perceived national interests trump everything else. In the meantime, all the governments in the world that have featured in the leaked cables are trying to deal with it by denying their unsavoury contents or pretending to ignore them. Not surprisingly then, the Pakistani government too has denied and dismissed the contents of the cables relating to its nuclear policy and the risks from it as well as the perceived involvement of the ISI with the Taliban. Here in Australia, the former prime minister (now foreign minister), Kevin Rudd, has come out as a 'control freak', full of self-importance, and hence lacking in diplomatic skills. Rudd is trying to deal with it by the usual bravado of not caring for it. At the same time, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard slammed her countryman for the illegal act of dumping all those cables, without any reference to the law(s) Assange was breaching. Again, this is not unusual because Australia is prone to follow the United States unthinkingly. Julian Assange might have to pay a heavy personal price for his audacity (President Barack Obama's famous word), but he has let the proverbial cat among the pigeons to unfold the high drama of international diplomacy. The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
