by Ciaron O’Reilly
We are ten years into a war on Aghanistan, 20 years into a war on Iraq and
250+ daze into the confinement without charge of WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange who has done so much to expose the true nature of these wars. Wars
that have no end date, no popular support and presently little visible
opposition.
Assange remains the target of powerful forces and has been largely left hung
out to dry by both the legitimate voices of dissent and those who continue
to prosecute these wars and isolate and crush any resistance to them. In the
U.K. a lot of this isolation can be put down to the Guardian newspaper in
its role as the Pravda of the liberal left (their niche market if not their
personal politics of those who run the newspaper.) The Guardian sets the
party line for the liberal left on which wars to support, oppose or tolerate
and which dissidents are worth our sympathy or should be abandoned to the
state.
The roots of the Guardian’s animosity towards Assange and WikiLeaks is not
clear. Whether it is borne of class tensions (the Guardian’s public
schoolboy journalists dislike of a hippy kid who does not know his place),
cultural disdain (an antipodean rocking the boat in London town) or an
economic and status fear (journalists like being the “guardian”/ gatekeepers
of secrets… along comes WikiLeaks and short circuits them….”here’s the
cables from the horses mouth – you work it out!”). Who knows what their
motives are, but there has clearly been a vitriolic campaign by the Guardian
boys against Assange, a campaign that has demobilised sectors of support as
he is pursued by the forces running the war.
Last week, WikiLeaks was forced to announce that the full stock of U.S.
embassy cables were already out on the internet. This was not by strategic
design but a combination of actions taken at a high stress time for
WikiLeaks workers (not Guardian employees) when Julian Assange was
imprisoned (where the British state hope to keep him…opposing bail in
December 2010). This was a time when the stress free Guardian was working on
its book attacking Assange and busy selling the movie rights to Spielberg.
The Guardian’s book included the password that could access the remaining
embassy cables that had been secretly placed on Bit Torrent by a WikiLeaks
worker at this time.
Caught between a rock and hard place, WikiLeaks decided to formally announce
the state of play and publish the remaining cables this past week.
In the past daze, acting to type, the Guardian have published a number of
articles in the lead-up to the ruling on Assange’s July 2011 High Court
appeal against extradition to Sweden, which is expected some time soon.
Here the Guardian tell us that they condemn WikiLeaks. They share this
condemnation with the U.S. military and the five previous media partners –
the Guardian, New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde – which had
previously worked with WikiLeaks publishing carefully selected and redacted
documents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables
Here they show how you can become a real serious journalist with a real
newspaper and be taken really seriously if you jump ship……
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/02/why-i-had-to-leave-wikileaks
Here they devote an editorial condemning (one more time now, with feeling!)
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/02/leader-wikileaks-unredacted-release
And here they rejoice that even if Julian should win his appeal, he’s lost –
the Australians are going to get him…..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/02/julian-assange-arrest-australia-wikileaks
These article are to make the liberal left in the U.K. feel relaxed and
comfortable as Julian Assange is shafted in London and shunted to a U.S.
prison via Stockholm or Sydney. This process mirrors the mainstream media’s
role throughout these long years of war, to keep us silent and sedated as
the government wreak terror and destruction on the people’s of Iraq and
Afghanistan. The warmaking state, whether run by neocons or liberals, no
longer requires our proactive suppport for their brutality inflicted on
enemy poplations or domestic dissidents who have touched a nerve.
Here is some rebuttal……….
NYT on WikiLeaks: Move Along, No Atrocity to See Here
by Peter Hart
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/02-2
Facts and Myths in the WikiLeaks/Guardian Saga
by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/02-7
Schnews take
LEAKY ARGUMENTS
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news7864.php
20 years into a war on the people of Iraq, 10 years into a war on the people
of Afghanistan, with millions dead, maimed, displaced and orphaned, civil
infrastructure destroyed, WikiLeaks has confronted us with the nature of
this war… the ongoing butchery of civilians. The powers that be, from the
masters of war to the manufacturers of consent, want us to avert our gaze.
Refuse to be distracted! View once again the collateral murder footage
http://www.collateralmurder.com/ and refocus.
Support Bradley Manning in chains accused of leaking this footage, Julian
Asssange tagged and pursued for distributing this footage and Michael Lyons
presently imprisoned for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan after viewing
this footage.
*** YOUTUBE (16 mins) Julian Assange conference after UK court hearing
(15-Jul-11)
**YOUTUBE (4 mins) – Solidarity Singing “I Shall be Released” as Julain
leaves High Court (Jul-11)
*YOUTUBE (6 mins) ‘Assange Subterranean Homesick Blues’
