The Case Against Julian Assange

In 2008 – two years before the release of the "collateral murder" video, the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and the diplomatic cables – the Pentagon prepared a secret report which proclaimed WikiLeaks to be an enemy of the state and plotted ways to destroy its credibility and reputation. But in a stroke of amazing luck, Pentagon operatives never needed to do any of that, because the establishment media in the US and Britain harbor at least as much intense personal loathing for the group's founder as the US government does, and eagerly took the lead in targeting him.

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Is it not remarkable that one of the very few individuals over the past decade to risk his welfare, liberty and even life to meaningfully challenge the secrecy regime on which the American national security state (and those of its obedient allies) depends just so happens to have become – long before he sought asylum from Ecuador – the most intensely and personally despised figure among the American and British media class and the British "liberal" intelligentsia?
  Glen Greenwald

Why, yes. Yes it is. What's going on?

Whatever else is true, establishment media outlets show unlimited personal animus toward the person who, as a panel of judges put it when they awarded him the the 2011 Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism, "has given the public more scoops than most journalists can imagine." Similarly, when the Australian version of the Pulitzers – the Walkley Foundation – awarded its highest distinction (for "Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism") to WikiLeaks in 2011, it cited the group's "courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency," and observed: "So many eagerly took advantage of the secret cables to create more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime."

I listened to an NPR segment this weekend on the Assange/Ecuador assylum topic, and they had two guests who both repudiated Julian Assange, one of them quite vehemently. The host read one short comment from an email supporting Assange, and one from Assange's mother which they brushed over rather quickly, one guest being somewhat respectful toward her, and the other blasting right through her.  Other than that, it was a full-on assault on the man. Three times throughout the segment, the host announced that they actually had a guest who supported Assange lined up for the program, and they were “still trying” to make contact with that person, but, alas, for some unspecified technical reasons, they never managed it. As you may have guessed, the host's comments were also negative.

There are several obvious reasons why Assange provokes such unhinged media contempt. The most obvious among them is competition: the resentment generated by watching someone outside their profession generate more critical scoops in a year than all other media outlets combined.

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Other causes are more subtle though substantive. Many journalists (and liberals) like to wear the costume of outsider-insurgent, but are, at their core, devoted institutionalists, faithful believers in the goodness of their society's power centers, and thus resent those (like Assange) who actually and deliberately place themselves outside of it. By putting his own liberty and security at risk to oppose the world's most powerful factions, Assange has clearly demonstrated what happens to real adversarial dissidents and insurgents – they're persecuted, demonized, and threatened, not befriended by and invited to parties within the halls of imperial power – and he thus causes many journalists to stand revealed as posers, servants to power, and courtiers.

By the way, I read in an article early on regarding the assylum offered by Ecuador that both Assange and the government of Ecuador offered to deliver Assange to Sweden if Sweden gave a promise that it would not extradite him to the US, an offer which Sweden turned down. Greenwald seems to confirm that here:

Not only Assange defenders, but also his own lawyers and the Ecuadorean government, have worked relentlessly to ensure that he faces those allegations in Sweden. They have merely sought to do so in a way that protects him from extradition to the US to face espionage charges for his journalism – a threat that could send him to prison for life (likely in a torturous super-max facility), and a threat only the wilfuly blind could deny is serious and real.

In their New York Times op-ed this week, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone correctly argue that it is "the British and Swedish governments that stand in the way of [the sex assault] investigation, not Mr Assange." That's because, they note, Assange has repeatedly offered to be questioned by Swedish authorities in London, or to travel today to Sweden to face those allegations if he could be assured that his doing so would not result in his extradition to the US to face espionage charges.

Adding:

Assange at this point is wanted for questioning in [the Swedish] case [against him], and has not been charged. Once he's questioned, he might be charged, or the case might be dropped. That is what has made the Swedes' steadfast refusal to question him in England so mystifying, of such concern to Assange, and is the real reason that the investigation has thus far been obstructed. Indeed, Swedish legal expert Ove Bring has made clear, in the context of discussing Assange, that "under Swedish law it is possible to interrogate people abroad," but that Sweden is refusing to do so simply for reasons of "prestige" (he added: "If he goes to Sweden, is interrogated, then I expect the case would be dropped, as the evidence is not enough to charge him with a crime").

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[The] Swedish judiciary has the right to block an extradition request on legal grounds, but it lacks the power to compel extradition; if the courts approve of the legal basis, the Swedish government still retains the authority to decide if extradition should take place.

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Both Britain and Sweden have steadfastly refused even to discuss any agreement that could safeguard both the rights of the complainants and Assange's rights not to be imprisoned for basic journalism.

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Rather than explore any of those possible grounds for agreement, both governments have simply refused to negotiate either with Assange's lawyers or the Ecuadorean government over any proposals to safeguard his rights. That refusal on the part of those governments – and not any desire to obstruct the investigation or evade facing those allegations – is what led the Ecuadoreans to conclude that asylum was necessary to protect Assange from political persecution.

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If one wants to find a culprit for why these sex assault allegations are not being resolved the way they should be, the refusal of these two governments even to negotiate to secure Assange's clear rights against unjust extradition is the place to begin.