If Assange showed any interest in also undermining Russia or other authoritarian regimes I would feel more compassion. I think criticization of the US foreign policy is fine and the press has a role. To me his case has always been grey. States have secrets its just the nature of the world.
> States have secrets its just the nature of the world.
So let’s just check your bias. Assuming an American journalist living in England exposes video of Russia gunning down civilians and shows they are covering it up. Would you say the right cause of action would be for that American to be procedures in Russia because “ States have secrets it’s just the nature of the world.” and apparently hiding war crimes and prosecuting journalists who expose them is also just states rights?
I think this is a grey area. If you commit a crime via the internet like fraud can a state go after you? I guess I think so. Should Assange have been prosecuted is a different matter. Can journalists be prosecuted seems also like a hard case by case question. In general if you are acting in the public interest and only act as a publisher IE do not recruit or gain secrets yourself you shouldn't be prosecuted. I also think it's 100% in an other nations right to deny extradition. So what I think is that this is a hard case with lots of grey area that isn't as clear cut as people pretend it is.
Personally as an American, I'm far more interested about the shit my government is hiding from me than getting yet another reason to hate Putin, what could possibly be leaked from Russia that would make their optics worse than it already is? This was true even pre-invasion.
The whataboutism surrounding this feels completely disingenuous to me considering much of what was leaked by Wikileaks was war crimes, media collusion with Clinton's campaign and embarrassing mistakes the government tried to cover up, that they had no business trying to cover up.
States have secrets, but that is a privilege granted to them by the people to protect national security, their abuse of this privilege has been completely unacceptable even if the reveal made your preferred candidate look bad for actions they were personally responsible for.
If Wikileaks accomplished anything, it was revealing the hypocrites and those who lack even an inch of integrity.
Its not like what wiki leaks did is new. The pentagon papers were published 50 years ago. The us government should be held to high standards and we need a press to do that. At some level however in a world of competing states if an organization is only interested in undermining one state it makes it less trust worthy in my eyes. I think Assange views the US as an evil actor and that informs what he thinks is worthy of coverage. Its why he could call Afghans who worked with the US as collaborators as in his eyes working with the US makes you evil. I think that world view is insane and naive.
However as I said there is real utility to publishing information which shouldn't be kept from the public. Which is why I think Assange is a hard case.
> If Wikileaks accomplished anything, it was revealing the hypocrites and those who lack even an inch of integrity.
It revealed some hypocrites who lack integrity. The main effect, if any, of their exposure was to pave the way for other hypocrites who lack integrity to take over the positions of power and influence of the former.
I was specifically talking about the ones who wanted to crucify Assange the moment he revealed something inconvenient for their side after years of praise for what he did under Bush, which likely applies to you as well considering your twisted perspective on this.
Someone with integrity supports whistleblowers no matter who they blow the whistle on, I'm sure this revelation must be a surprise for you.
