A newly leaked email from an intriguing entity to Britain’s then Prime-Minister provides fascinating insight into complex issues surrounding the infamous leader of Wikileaks.
05/25/2019
Dear Prime Minister,
We think it is time for you to take a principled stand regarding Julian Assange. There are concerns that he could be tortured at a venue like Guantanamo Bay for exposing US war crimes, which is a matter that occupies many who have a narrow view of the situation. What they ignore is a woman denied resolution in Sweden, whose saga with prosecutors and court-appointed lawyers needs to be concluded.
She approached police to ask if an HIV test might be forced on Assange, should he break an agreement to have one. His counsel cites a message from her as stating that officers made up sex allegations against him. But this was only from memory, as the requested copy of examined SMS records was not forthcoming.
The outstanding accusation oddly translates best with an oxymoron: ‘minor rape’. Yet its gravity ensures legal priority over charges for misdealings involving US classified data, despite respective sentences of 4 and 175 years.
Thus only pride explains why he spent seven years without sunlight and still had to be carried out of the embassy.
Assange is duly considered a traitor to our military coalitions. They rain fear and death on state-driven terror across entire populations, while he works to oppose them. In effect he is an enemy combatant and not least of all with regard to NATO. We suffer Uncle Sam gladly to avoid worse from Eurasia, but he consistently undermines that resolve.
Hegemonic methods to quash his kind are thus in order. We all know it adds up perfectly well and that accounting stays opaque by the same token. Regardless of metrics, every cost of assertive US policy is manifestly justified.
Hillary Clinton thus campaigned through 2016 to assist partners in the Middle East by confronting Russia with a no-fly zone. Yet that destiny was stolen from her, together with most else in this world, apart from speaking fees comprising a significant digit less than Bill’s nine.
Wikileaks neither blocked DNC files nor touted equivalent dirt on Trump at the same time. Few things are worse than exposing corruption in a one-sided manner, especially when it moves people to vote for odious candidates.
They should also have precluded data from known hostile agents, or even anonymous ones. As for the possibility of an intermediary cut-out, negligence at best is equally implied in that case.
Documents in the public interest are spoiled when transferred with any questionable motive. Suppression is preferable in that scenario, as the relevant knowledge is bound to be harmful at large.
We thus have laws, courts and officers to determine what is proper journalism in every case. The First Amendment to the US constitution was a tragic mistake by comparison. The spectre of a police state may evoke hysteria but few things are so dangerous or pernicious as radical transparency.
Liaisons between the media and state are thus crucial to determine published content. Democracy depends on public opinion remaining undistorted, which means any release of sensitive information must proceed through legitimate channels. Hence if anything embarrassing to our governments warrants exposure they will be the first to convey the relevant information.
That Assange is a cyberterrorist is simply evident from the terror he brought to patriots whose duty inspired actions poorly accommodated by law. There is also ubiquitous fear that he undermines cornerstones of security maintained by the intelligence community centred around the US.
Our hemispheric data collective subsumes all Western patronage of authentic news and is robust enough to withstand leaked documents. Yet a scan of them makes it appear unsound to many who then become liabilities. Such revelations are therefore to be expunged and ultimately precluded.
Assange even conveyed unredacted files. It was the height of negligence to pass that information to the Guardian when its staff were disposed to publish the password. As for actual harm, the conclusion of a Pentagon investigation that no blood was consequently shed remains open to correction despite being prepared over years for a trial.
Furthermore, surveillance at the diplomatic mission was monitored by the US and exposed a mark on the bathroom light switch. So there is reason to report associated claims as fact, not excluding that he defecated and smeared faeces everywhere. Ecuador’s insistence that he maintain hygiene of his pet was hardly contrived either and fully confirmed his signature uncleanliness as beyond personal. Outspreading filth was about to engulf the embassy when rising tension forced his expulsion, yet no place is safe from it today as he continues to fester and plot in a jail cell.
Several appointees of the UN already exude his mental pollution.
Gitmo could really send the right message I think.
If anything is left of him in a decade it should face trial and execution. Since that interim can be used to update relevant laws, we best avoid haste. Courts may also be susceptible to public opinion, or romantic notions of justice, unless there is time for society to be reconciled to the inevitable.
Never underestimate the capacity of sceptics or rebels to sway the crowd. Such tend to presume that Assange should go free if any official line against him seems debatable. For this reason it bears emphasis that the burden of proof is upon them, and that it is clearly insurmountable. Both points should be obvious from arguments above.
There is a minor risk that he would not be sent on from Sweden, so your stance there needs to be provisional, essential as it is for present optics.
Your home office can always block his extradition, despite much ado about legal proceedings which are ultimately advisory. The contrary impression lends an air of due process, however, which is best to maintain in ordinary circumstances. Such prudence has value when international law is breached by detainment for extradition, as the UN notes in this case.
Having the Swedes back on stage is fortunate, yet calls for skilful management. Apart from one politically interested lawyer, they were in no hurry to open the investigation for a third time. Your Crown Prosecution Service blocked their efforts to close it, as well as to question him in the UK, though not forever in either respect, due to mounting ire in Sweden.
Ideally you might continue to lean on them such that they take him for onward extradition. You will bear no infamy of “imperial bootlicking” if that rendition is extraordinary. But should your home office need to approve it for them, excuses would be clear and responsibility divided between states.
Steady leadership is vital here, so more than admiration compels me to hope your tenure will not be shortened by the latest calls for resignation.
Always at your service,
Rupert Harding
Chief Executive Officer, Allied Register of Publications