Last night Chrissy & I chatted for an hour about Wikileaks. We point out the mistakes a lot of people on Twitter (mostly Americans) are making when it comes to Wikileaks. We talk about the major stories that Wikileaks have broken with Cablegate, as well as the truth behind the Assange “rape” allegations. Chrissy also talks about how her perspective of US politics has changed in the 18 months she’s been living in Australia.
Dear Prime Minister,
I am writing to express my disgust at your government’s treatment of an honourable Australian citizen, namely, Julian Assange.
Here is a man who represents the embodiment of what we consider the Australian ethos – a “fair go” for everyone. By exposing the lies, deceit and hypocrisy of United States’ diplomats and elected officials, he is helping bring about a more honest and transparent geo-political landscape.
Your lack of political, legal and moral support for Assange and your Howardesque pandering to the United States will be the downfall of your political career and your historical legacy. It’s such a shame to see Australia’s first female Prime Minister, an atheist no less, turn out to be as reprehensible and reprobate as the former Howard government.
It further reduces my trust in Australian politicians.
Yours sincerely,
Cameron Reilly
Everton Park, QLD.
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You can email the PM here.
This is a quick guide to the most recent Wikileaks news, for those people who can’t be bothered reading it in detail. I’ve discovered lately that a few friends I respect – intelligent, well-meaning people – have managed to extract the totally wrong idea about what’s going on from the deliberately spin that most of the mainstream media is indulging in.
Click Here to jump to the latest updates!
So here’s what you need to know:
1. Cablegate: 250,000 US Embassy Diplomatic Cables – On Sunday 28th November 2010, Wikileaks began publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables.
2. A number of major news outlets, including The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel, have been running in depth coverage of the cables. Every media outlet in the world is covering the news in some form, but most aren’t delving into detailed analysis, content just to smear Wikileaks and founder Julian Assange and mention a couple of the less important cables.
3. Despite most of the media’s focus on a minority of cables that highlight snarky comments made about politicians and diplomats, the cables of MAJOR importance show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in “client states”; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
4. Despite the media’s incessant coverage of the “rape” charges that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is facing in Sweden, the facts of the case are rarely mentioned. As far as I can gather, they seem to be that Assange had *consensual* sex with two female volunteers during his visit to Sweden in the middle of the year. However both women have since alleged that, although the sex *was* consensual, in both cases there were “condom malfunctions” – situations where the condom either broke or there wasn’t a condom present, they asked Assange to stop, and he didn’t. One of the women behind the charges gave an interview to the Swedish paper Aftonbladet in August. She stated that she was surprised to learn that the accusations were treated as a rape charge and denied that there had been any encounter with Assange involving violence or force. She suggested that the controversy had to do with Assange’s failure to use a condom during intercourse. This is the basis of the rape or “unwanted sexual conduct” charges. This is the basis of the “red notice” issued by Interpol. When was the last time Interpol issued a “red notice” for someone over a case of consensual sex? Update 02122010: According to this post about one of the accusers, Anna Ardin, she was tweeting positively about Assange for a few days after the alleged incident. Read a cached copy of her since-deleted tweets here. James Catlin has more on the story of the accusers in Crikey.
5. Of course, even if the charges of rape *are* justified, Assange’s personal life has nothing at all to do with the content of the diplomatic cables or Wikileaks’ mission. They are merely a tool the media is using to try to distract the public from the content of the leaked cables.
6. Various American and international figures are calling for the shutting down of the Wikileaks site and/or Assange’s arrest and/or assassination as well as the assassination of whoever released the cables to Wikileaks (assumed to be Bradley Manning but we don’t know for sure).
7. Of course, these same authorities aren’t calling for the shutting down of The Guardian, Der Spiegel or the New York Times’ papers and sites, or the arrest or assassination of their management. How are Wikileaks’ actions different from those of the major media outlets? Wikileaks received the cables (from sources unknown) and published them. The media outlets received them (from Wikileaks) and published them. Why the double standard?
8. The rumour is that Wikileaks is about to release some damaging information to do with the Bank Of America. Once corporations start getting attacked directly by Wikileaks, you can expect the establishment to come after him even harder than they are at the moment. Bank of America Corp experienced a 3 per cent fall on Tuesday.
Quite a few people – who obviously are too lazy to actually read beyond the headlines – seem to be under the opinion that the only thing the diplomatic cables have exposed is some embarrassing snippets about diplomats. Below is a list of some of the most incriminating cables released so far.
09/12/2010
Saudi Govt controls the media to prevent dissident ideas and criticism of the royal family or SAG policy. (Where’s all the criticism of the Saudi govt then in the US media, the same as Cuba or Venezuela attracts for censoring the media?)
Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative
08/12/2010
American security firm, DynCorp, organized child prostitution for Afghani police recruits. (Dyncorp received funding from US taxpayers.)
07/12/2010
America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord
Afghanistan as a whole supplies 92% of the world’s opiates. The Head of the Taliban’s Supreme Council, Mullah Mohammed Omar, declared it “un-Islamic” to process heroin in July 2001 and production for that year fell by 91%. Two months later, the 9/11 attacks happened in the United States and were immediately blamed on Al Qaeda operating out of Afghanistan. The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. NATO forces, lead by the U.S.A., removed the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan. Since then, opium production in Afghanistan has reached all-time historical highs. Recent estimates by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimate that 52% of the nation’s GDP, amounting to $2.7 billion annually, is generated by the drug trade and some 3.3 million Afghans are involved in producing opium. There are currently around 437,000 troops making up the NATO / Afghan / USA non-NATO force in Afghanistan. As the CIA has a history of dealing with drug traffickers (i.e. the Contras), we have to wonder what’s going on in Afghanistan. How is the product leaving the country when it has 430,000 foreign troops spread out all over it? One argument is that opium is such a huge part of the Afghan economy, that NATO troops can’t destroy it without creating huge financial burdens on the farmers. Yet the $2.5 Billion that opium production provides the Afghan economy each year is a pittance compared to the cost of the war, which is already well over $369 Billion for the USA alone. Another $2.5 Billion to destroy 90% of the world’s opium seems like a easy decision. Why hasn’t it been made yet? Is it possible that the NATO forces are supporting the world’s heroin trade?
References:
World Bank website – Afghanistan Opium Report
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime website – World Drug Report
Wikipedia “War In Afghanistan”
Nautilus Institute: Opium And Heroin Production
As the Australian parliament begins a long-overdue debate about our involvement in Afghanistan, expect to hear a lot of hot air about what a nasty piece of work the Taliban are and how we are there to put an end to their nastiness. You’ll hear about their theocracy, their imprisonment of women in burqas and nose-slitting for the disobedient.
Expect to hear statements, such as the one Foreign Minister Stephen Smith recently made, about Afghanistan being “current hotbeds or danger points” for international terrorism.
I have several issues with these arguments.
1. They Cut Both Ways
To begin with – as much as I dislike theocracies and religion in any form, from a diplomatic perspective, we have to realise that if disliking a country’s politics or religion gives us moral grounds to invade that country, then we are acknowledging that that country also has moral grounds to invade OUR country if they dislike OUR politics or religion. The USA didn’t like it very much the last time a handful of Saudis decided they didn’t like American politics. In fact, they used the attack that stemmed from that dislike as an excuse for invading a couple of countries. We have to be extremely careful what precedents we set interceding in international affairs.
2. They Are Hypocritical
The second issue, about being a “hotbed” for terrorism, is troubling for the same reason. It is a record of fact that the CIA has been a supporter of terrorists and dictators for many decades. Terrorists and dictators with names such as Saddam, Noriega, Pinochet, Suharto, Mobutu and “Papa Doc” Duvalier all received either direct or indirect support from the CIA. (Australia also was a direct supporter of at least one of these men – General Suharto.)
Of course it is also a matter of record that the CIA has been and is currently involved in supporting other terrorist organisations such as Israel’s MOSSAD and Pakistan’s ISI. If we argue that supporting terrorists makes a country open to invasion, we have to then acknowledge that it is equally acceptable for other people to invade our countries with the same justification.
So keep an eye out for any such hypocritical justifications during the government debates.
Of course, the typical politician will claim that our country (and our friends such as the USA) are justified in our/their support of terrorism or our politics. It’s one of the accepted truths of domestic politics that our position is right because it is our position. Capitalism is right and communism is wrong because we are capitalists. Christianity is right and Islam is wrong because the majority of our population is Christian.
We are right because it is unthinkable that we could possibly be wrong.