The American diplomats writing the cables leaked to Assange report many of the reasons for the Egyptian uprising: torture of political dissidents, even common criminals, to obtain confessions; widespread repression and fear; and – of special interest to anyone who follows WikiLeaks – the increasingly important role of internet activism, opposition blogging and communication with democratic movements within and without the country over the web.
As ever with the diplomatic memorandums published by WikiLeaks – an act of dissemination for which Assange has become public enemy number one in the US – the cables are, ironically, testimony to the professionalism and straight- talking of the US State Department. Assange concedes that the cables contain "a relative honesty and directness, and quite a lot of wannabe Hemingway".
Today a book he considers to be an attack on him will be published by journalists with whom he once closely collaborated at the Guardian, sister newspaper to the Observer. Neither the Guardian nor Assange now speaks of one another with affection. The front page of the International Herald Tribune on the kitchen table next door carries an article of record length by the executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, charting what Keller sees as an odyssey through the dealings with a difficult man, after which a "period of intense collaboration and regular contact with our source" came to a close – and an acrimonious one at that. Keller's article appears reasoned, I say to Assange, who retorts that he finds it "grotesque".
Assange had, among many other interesting things to say, a cogent observation about warfare: "What these documents show is that the bulk of civilian deaths are the 'car crashes' of war, not the 'bus crashes' of war that are picked up by the media. It is the vast number slain in incremental events killing one, two or three people which go unreported, as opposed to the deaths of 20 or more, which are reported. The number of 'small kills' is huge – a family here, a kid there, someone in a house, someone caught in a crossfire. It is the everyday squalor of war that takes the life of most."
People forget Assange is as interested in physics as he is in ideology, and that much of his work has been motivated by an application of the laws of mechanics to information.
"I think he's held a mirror up to the media," says Vaughan Smith, his host, "to the idea of the media as priesthood, and I don't think we come out of it very well."
READ MORE... Julian Assange: 'How do you attack an organisation? You attack its leadership' by Ed Vulliamy, The Observer
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Related Links:
* Join a New Video Project in Defense of WikiLeaks
Tangerine Bolan, michaelmoore.com
* Nobel Peace Prize nomination for WikiLeaks founder?
Pierre-Henry Deshayes, AFP
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