I’ve been decrying WikiLeaks for years as little more than a reckless peddler of tabloid fodder. Unfortunately, the chorus of fellow progressives singing its praises made me feel like the proverbial John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness.
Here, for example, is what I wrote in “Ecuador Grants Wikileaker Julian Assange Asylum … in London?” August 20, 2012.
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If Assange were exposing government corruption or activities that betray the public trust, I would be his most ardent supporter. But he’s leading a foolhardy and untenable crusade for ‘complete transparency’ in diplomatic relations. Instead of winning converts, this will only ensure that diplomats will be even more secretive in their dealings to avoid even the remotest possibility of being ‘exposed’…
It’s troubling enough that his supporters do not seem at all concerned that, far from exposing treachery, WikiLeaks merely compromised the constructive engagement the United States had with a number of Muslim countries. This engagement was clearly furthering greater comity and cooperation among nations. And, for obvious reasons, public knowledge of such could incite domestic unrest in the countries involved.
But it’s truly mind-boggling that his supporters do not even seem concerned that Assange’s cult-like mission has ruined the careers and endangered the lives of scores of innocent diplomats.
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But imagine my dismay back then, when the only people sharing my concerns about Assange and WikiLeaks were right-wing Republicans. After all, I’m at odds with those nutjobs on practically every other issue, domestic and foreign. This helped fuel the indignation I vented in “Hey [Liberal] Media, Assange Is Still a Self-Promoting, Bail-Jumping Rape Suspect!” on August 28.
Again, I knew from the outset that Assange was primarily interested in pursuing a nihilistic political agenda. Not least because, in his WikiLeaks manifesto, “Conspiracy as Governance” (2006), he famously telegraphed his intent to leak so voluminously and indiscriminately that all systems of governance would descend into “organizational stupor.”
In other words, he clearly intended government transparency and accountability, which his supporters invariably tout, to be, at best, the collateral benefits of his manufactured distrust and chaos.
But I am heartened that no less an Assange defender and collaborator than Wired has seen the light, and is now leading a chorus of news publications trying to make amends. The headline to its July 27 report says it all:
WikiLeaks has official lost the moral high ground.
Of course, this assumes that it once held that ground. But this report included the following, which can be fairly read as a media confession:
In the last two weeks, the font of digital secrets has doxed millions of Turkish women, leaked Democratic National Committee emails that made Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign look bad but also suggested the site was colluding with the Russian government, and fired off some seriously anti-Semitic tweets…
[I]t’s true that lots of publications (including WIRED) made things worse by failing to vet the leak’s content and linking to the documents in their coverage…
Fundamentally, WikiLeaks was supposed to be better.
No less noteworthy is the London Guardian’s October 14 report, which ran under this equally telling headline:
From liberal beacon to a prop for Trump: what has happened to WikiLeaks? A series of hacked emails appear designed to aid Donald Trump fight back against Hillary Clinton, while raising questions about Russian involvement.
This report also included a veritable confession:
Robert Mackey of The Intercept website wrote in August: ‘The WikiLeaks Twitter feed has started to look more like the stream of an opposition research firm working mainly to undermine Hillary Clinton than the updates of a non-partisan platform for whistleblowers’…
In 2010 it was lauded by transparency campaigners for releasing, in cooperation with publications including the Guardian, more than a quarter of a million classified cables from US embassies around the world.
I should clarify here that Assange is not hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid the United States executing him – as he would have his supporters believe. The United States just wants to lock him up and throw away the key. Instead, he’s hiding out there to avoid Sweden prosecuting him on a battery of sexual assault charges. Which might explain his common cause with Donald Trump, himself an accused sexual predator, and why he’s become little more than a petulant, paranoid peddler of political pablum.
But, ironically, nothing is more telling in this context than the aforementioned Ecuador cutting off Assange’s lifeline to the World Wide Web:
The government of Ecuador has directed its embassy in London to cut off the Internet access of long-term guest Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, saying the organization’s recent document releases have had a ‘major impact’ on the U.S. presidential election.
(Washington Post, October 19, 2016)
Enough said?
Except that I welcome the belated confession and conversion of others who were duped by this false prophet of and wannabe martyr for government transparency and accountability.
Related commentaries:
Ecuador grants asylum…
Hey media…