When Russia enables it, amplifies it, builds their disinformation and propaganda machine around those facts and there’s no counter weight it gets into the realm of anti-democratic adjacent.
There’s nothing simple when it comes to international politics. But foreign meddling by an adversary is a pretty bright line.
The failure of the United States to provide a positive counterweight to propaganda due to launching two wars of aggression filled with warcrimes is not Russia's fault, nor Assange's.
The United States is responsible for sowing the good, not Russia for not hiding the bad.
"Not hiding" is a pretty disingenuous way of putting it.
"Being better at targeted propaganda" isn't really how I'd like our leaders to be chosen. Obviously that's where we are, but I wish we could do better.
I don't want domestic propaganda from government. I want policy from government that creates good will domestically and abroad. "Russia might use this against us" is a good policy litmus test to not do those things.
The diplomatic cables contain all sorts of information about extraordinary rendition, about the use Turkish airbases, Irish complicity, etc.
This isn't small potatoes. Here in Sweden it wasn't just the extradition from Bromma in 2001, but the US flew multiple illegal flights with prisoners through Sweden, possibly to the US torture camps in Poland and eastern Europe.
I also think these cables revealed information about the Thailand black site, where the US was torturing some people.
>fascinating how Swedes are so concerned about the small number of crimes committed by the US and want the US to withdraw.
Withdraw from what?
>Yet they remain steadfastly silent on the crimes committed by Russia and China.
How have we been silent on those crimes. We have been quite concerned, they are almost next to us.
I don't myself want to be part of NATO, but evidently the government is to afraid not to be, so now we are.
>Should the US withdraw from geopolitics and allow those other two to fill the vacuum?
The US has not gained anything of geopolitical value by storing people in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp or by flying suspect terrorist to torture camps in Europe, or by inhuman treatment of prisoners, as happened at Bromma. It hasn't gained anything geopolitically by going after people who revealed war crimes.
The US actions that I oppose are for the large part neither of benefit to the US itself, nor to me. On the whole these actions are just stupid.
To the degree that I want to avoid US troops in Sweden, this stupidity, these useless and harmful decisions that get implemented are one of the problems. Because if the US can this stupid on matters like Assange, or can desperately want to torture some random nobody, and are in such a hurry to do so, that they fly him through Bromma just because can refuel there, then they can do any kind of idiocy, and it can end up being me, or something Swedish that matters that pays the price.
The US can defend its interests in a more co-operative way and with greater respect for international law and for its partners.
>Like Julian Assange himself - I suspect many Russia supporters are hiding in plain sight.
If you're implying that I would like Putin, who I consider basically a Chechen-cuddler. I've had less problems with him historically, and I don't think I fully understood how vengeful he was until he did as he did against the Karabach-Armenians. I'm probably more pro-Russia than Zelensky is-- I don't hate the Russians and I like many aspects of Russian culture, including their mathematics tradition and some of their music.
I don't see the Ukraine war as per se very different from the Iraq war. This means that I view Russia and the US as closer on the level of morality than most people, who I feel have a bit of short term view of the world. These things 20 years ago are like yesterday to me. Details matter though, and scale, and many other things.
Rather, when it comes to support of Ukraine my view is not based on morality as such, although I do believe that the Ukrainians have a right to rule their country, but rather on Swedish defence needs. We Swedes need to support them and ensure that Russia does not expand and get a border against Poland or some other unnecessarily forward position. There is no reason why we should allow such a situation, which will only cause us problems.
> If you're implying that I would like Putin, who I consider basically a Chechen-cuddler.
Oh yeah, that's the big problem with him. Sheesh...
> I don't see the Ukraine war as per se very different from the Iraq war.
Yeah, I distinctly remember how Shrub denied that the Iraqi people exist, claimed they were all Americans anyway, and set out to annex Iraq to the USA. And who can forget the moving ceremony when he bestowed Statehood upon those four Iraqi provinces? Sheesh... Try as I might, I can't come up with any reason for why you would want to pretend to be this stupid, so...
> This means that I view Russia and the US as closer on the level of morality than most people, who I feel have a bit of short term view of the world.
Yeah no, that means it's you who are... If not morally blind, at least severely short-sighted.
Every government/corporation has some "wrong doing" if it hadn't been the military there's plenty in the police force if not that then I'm sure there would have been cases of corruption.
Your statement doesn't add any nuance to said concerns.
“But Your honor! yes my client murdered his wife, but every country has murderers, so why should we punish him for that? Isn’t the true criminals his kids who went to the cops and thus caused permanent damage to his and therefore their chance of them having a happy household again?”
Not “adding any nuance” is suggesting that publishing the truth about warcrimes is worse than committing war crimes.
That's a nice defense towards the straw man you constructed.
I'll repeat my point so maybe you can focus on that than the straw man.
It's not hard to find scandals, that's the whole point of having institutions meant to watchdog corporations and governments.
But of course governments/corporation will try and cover it up or deregulate said institutions, but this doesn't make an obvious adversary (Russia) a helping hand in holding the corporations /governments accountable because it's not meant to, it's meant to create cynicism and a feeling of hopelessness.
So no publishing truth is never bad, the issue is how you do it.
You take the self-contradictory position that “publishing the truth is never bad,” but in some cases “how you publish the truth” is bad. You weight the perceived interpretation by the consumer of information against the information itself. While consistent with in-your-face Russell-conjugated “news” stories and “accountability journalism,” this is practical nonsense, unjustifiable, unprincipled, and a loophole for terrible excuses that countervail the entire purpose of a successful free press.
There's no contradiction as this example will show:
If I publish an internal report that has good undercover agents doing good things but also has bad undercover agents that are acting against the country's interest, it would be absurdly dumb and reckless of me to publish the internal report as is without redacting names that has nothing to do with said bad actors.
There are correct guidelines specifically about doing whistle blowing and failing to do so can and will cause lives to be lost.
This relies on an artificial and false morality. You reference “correct guidelines.” Please cite them, and what is definitely good and bad outside a local construct within a modern Westphalian political nation state. Separately: Should nationally critical information controls survive mere legal disobedience? If they don’t how much security theater fulfills your appetite?
>This relies on an artificial and false morality
Okay this says nothing, like me telling your comment is banana-split with cherry.
>You reference “correct guidelines.” Please cite them, and what is definitely good and bad outside a local construct within a modern Westphalian political nation state.
I just told you with my example, but here's ICC's guidelines about whistleblowing:
Pretty much any whistleblowing guideline will have similar statements about whistleblowing.
>Should nationally critical information controls survive mere legal disobedience? If they don’t how much security theater fulfills your appetite?
Why do we have to present this as a black and white issue? The best is a compromise to ensure that the power abuse gets pointed out and the adversaries that are responsible be highlighted as the alleged perpetrators (as this is still something that a court has to decide on) without putting national security/innocent lives at risk/at harms way.
As mentioned, this highly-subjective, parochial, hegemonic view survives neither border crossing nor the reality that rules apply only to rule-abiders. It is non-viable in a cooperative, networked world. It enforces the lowest-common-definition of rights on the most vulnerable, while ignoring the practical reality of sophisticated malicious actors. Examine here what rules certain parties in Brazil seek to apply to X, or the contempt proceedings against Herridge domestic to the US.
You throw examples that are not whistleblowing nor does these cases have anything to do with whistleblowing guidelines but laws regarding whenever or not sources should be disclosed.
Especially the herridge case which is part of a broader case of the federal government employees allegedly leading government documents of an innocent person's information (specifically information about them from the investigation)
Even more it's not even a shut case and what a surprise the judge is also following concrete guidelines.
I suggest whistleblowing carries no particular journalistic weight. But you mentioned whistleblowing, not me. To reiterate for clarity: published truth is an unmitigated good.
That has nothing to do with democracy. On the contrary, a democracy needs the electorate to be informed and officials not having secrets or starting a war on the basis of lies.
There’s nothing simple when it comes to international politics. But foreign meddling by an adversary is a pretty bright line.