Here is Australia’s take on the Wikileaks scandal. I find it interesting for several reasons, but read part of it for yourself:
Australia’s foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange.
Kevin Rudd said the release raised questions about US security.
Mr Rudd said he did not “give a damn” about criticism of him in the cables.
Mr Assange, arrested in the UK over sex crime allegations in Sweden, has accused the Australian government of “disgraceful pandering” to the US.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard had earlier called Mr Assange’s release of the cables “grossly irresponsible”.
Over the past two weeks, Wikileaks has released thousands of classified messages from US envoys around the world, from more than 250,000 it has been given.
Washington has called their publication “irresponsible” and an “attack on the international community”.
In an interview with Reuters news agency, Mr Rudd said: “Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network. The Americans are responsible for that.”
As usual, I not only encourage you to read the entire article, but also to read this article as well.
The Australians make some very good points. First, though their own Prime Minister has said that the leaks are irresponsible, the Foreign Minister has pointed out that Mr. Assange did not steal any of the information himself. It was freely sent to him by American leakers. One of them was recently sentenced to the brig. In other words, it appears to me that it will be hard to make certain legal charges stick against Mr. Assange. If the only thing he did was to make the public announcement asking for people to send him information which he would publish, and then leakers freely sent him the information, it may be impossible to convict him of espionage. As has been pointed out by the news media more than once, it is impossible to charge him with treason since he is not a citizen of the USA. And, if there was no payment of quid pro quo for the received leaks, then the worst they may be able to charge him with is that of receiving stolen government secrets and revealing them, a far lesser charge. And, he is claiming freedom of the press, which will make any international prosecution significantly harder. Only if he is extradited to the USA would he be charged with the more serious charges, and Australia has commented to Sweden that they would not approve of their citizen being extradited to the USA at this point. (I suspect that it is in fear that Mr. Assange will be punished far beyond his actual crime.)
But, the Australian Foreign Minister makes two other very important points. One is that it was not Mr. Assange who leaked the information. AMERICAN CITIZENS freely leaked the information, without coercion, and without pay, in frustration over some of the secret actions of the USA government. It was sworn and oath-bound diplomatic and military personnel who broke the secrets, not Mr. Assange. If anyone is guilty of treason or espionage, they would be the guilty parties, not Mr. Assange. When we get angry with Mr. Assange, we are displacing our anger. If we need to be angry with someone, it is with those AMERICAN CITIZENS who revealed the secrets. But, the second accusation is the more damning. The Foreign Minister pointed out that this means both that our security apparatus is shot through with holes and that we have far too many people who have clearances and are able to handle secrets. Sadly, this is also a strong accusation about our American tendency to see ourselves as the ultimate authority and to not even be willing to keep oath-bound promises that we have made. As Americans, we can always find an excuse as to why we need to break the promise we have made, and then we are surprised when there is a price to pay. And, while he did not mention this, I will mention that the USA has been criticized before for having too many unnecessary things classified as secret.
In fact, some of the material leaked and already out on the Internet is rather horrendous, because it is videos of probable military criminal activity that was not only not prosecuted, but was sealed under a top secret label so that no one would know what happened. One of the videos includes the audio that makes it clear that the soldier intended to kill a couple of newspeople. Now remember, it is AMERICAN CITIZENS who have leaked this stuff. In this case, in disgust for the failure to investigate and prosecute.
But, we have chosen not to get angry at the AMERICAN CITIZENS who have freely and without coercion leaked the written and video information. Instead, our politicians and much of our news media have spoken and written as though it were only that particular foreigner who is the guilty party. It seems as though we are proceeding with eyes wide shut.
And this is why I loath the media. You can never tell what’s a lie and what isn’t. Much less the fact that “freedom of the press” gives them the right to destroy lives by their accusations and/or articles. How about those wonderful photographs they put out. Don’t save the person in need. Snap that picture. Pretty good defense. And those that gave up the secrets deserve to be hauled into court as traitors as well.
Yep, those that gave up the secrets do need to be found because they are probably busy revealing more secrets!