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Obvious ‘dirty tricks’ to discredit Assange It seems almost unbelievably crass that attempts to take down Julian Assange should revolve around such a patently obvious ploy as concocting ‘sexual assault‘ charges against him.
It reminds me of some other oh so obvious black bag operations, i.e. the patently absurd planted media articles to link Saddam (a secular socialist) to Al Qaeda (Islamists) in the run up to the allied attack on Iraq.
I have grave misgiving about Wikileaks releasing operational military information but the fact the governments of the world are all baying for his blood and starting to cooperate with operations to discredit him speaks volumes about the damage he has done to the leviathan state everywhere… as was always his intention…and for that Assange has already assured himself a very special place in history. I suspect people will be talking about him long after the current crop of political leaders have been consigned to the mundane sections of historical record.
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I said somewhere on the Telegraph today that the thing about these “revelations” is that none of them are very shocking at all. What is unforgivable to our masters is that they show them as they are; as a gaggle of venal, rather petty, squabbling oligarchs.
The Mervyn King “scandal” boils down to the Emperor’s New Clothes idea that he is “not political” is a sham. Of course it is. We all knew that already. But the small boy in the marketplace isn’t supposed to shout.
Mentioning that fable, I’ve always thought the problem with it is that it’s unrealistic; in the real world the small boy would be dragged away and denounced as a traitor or a crank and everyone would have carried on believing in the fine suit of clothes. Away with that clothing denier!
I disagree. If anything, it appears that the alleged sexual assault has been soft-pedaled by the authorities in an attempt to avoid this perception.
As much as the idea of the state levying false accusations for a political goal is abhorrent, the idea that a rapist can skate on his crimes because he also throws rhetorical bombs at the state is just as disgusting.
Sure because bogus politically motivated charges never get levelled at people embarrassing the powerful, right?
It’s just amazing how credulous people are.
Without going into the question of the intent or effect of Assange’s revelations against the concept of the State; I have to point out that there is nothing in what he has done that definitively precludes him being simultaneously a sexual predator. He may or may not be. That may be determined later.
That said, yes he is the subject of an international effort to discredit and possibly apprehend him. I tend to think that the rumors of a Russian FSB interest, along the lines of their interest in Livtinenko in London; may well be designed to drive him into the arms of Western authorities.
I would tend to take issue with the idea that he is a fighter against all forms of “leviathan state”. So far as I have seen, his efforts have been directed entirely against Western democracies, particularly the United States. I may have missed something, but the aim as far as I can see has been to embarrass the US.
The leviathan state would seem to include Russia, the EU, China, etc. They seem to be entirely missing from his target list. Part of the reason may be a regard for a whole skin, as with the exception of the EU; the above list of countries does tend to eliminate inconvenient persons with little regard for niceties. And even the French have been known to take direct action at times. And I note that the socialist state of Ecuador has offered him asylum from the rest of the world.
In short, I am not convinced that his motives are as pure as some say. You are known by both your choice of friends, and of enemies.
I offer one caveat. I am less than enamored with Assange, due to something just as serious as the concern over release of operational matters. He released the plain text of a large number of diplomatic cables. Those cables were almost surely intercepted and recorded by numerous enemies of my country in their encrypted form. With both the plain text, and the encrypted form, brute force computation can break the cipher. Even in the event that the cipher itself is no longer in use, the ability to break it gives insight into our encryption methods, akin to how our MAGIC and your ENIGMA efforts in WW-II were helped by plain texts. And in the case of MAGIC, our breaking the separate Japanese diplomatic code “Purple” gave us a leg up in breaking their separate operational naval cipher system JN-25. Which arguably cost the Japanese the war.
I have no problem with screwing with the Political Class, regardless of party. As the saying goes, politicians should be changed often, like diapers. For the same reasons. When the means of screwing with them deliberately endangers the troops however; it moves those so doing into the enemy class.
Subotai Bahadur
Sabotai, how does this:
square with this:
What am I missing? i do agree with your overall argument: I don’t feel like this guy’s greatest fan (not that Perry has given us any reason to believe he is one either).
Alisa,
I more than suspect that the rumors are not founded in any real FSB interest, but rather are being fanned by, and were created by, Western agencies as a way to put pressure on Assange. Sorry for not being clear.
The FSB is a far more credible physical threat than say any US intelligence agency operating under the Obama regime.
To quote Admiral Ackbar: “It’s a TR-A-A-P!”
Subotai Bahadur
The thing that has most shocked me about all this is the willingness of media commentators from the entire political spectrum to get onside whilst baying for blood.
I’ve always held that the notion of a “state secret” was inherently unjust, for the simple reason that we cannot tell if they are acting in our best interests if we do not know what they are up to.
As a general rule of thumb if a government is terrified of the though of “X” piece of behaviour becoming public knowledge, then that should be a sign to them to not do it rather than a motivator to do it anyway, but make it doubleplus top secret.
We are governed by completely amoral people. They actually think that the man who exposes their duplicity is guilty of a greater crime than they who sneak around behind the back of their own constituents.
I think there’s some merit in “we’re invading Normandy tuesday week” being a secret, personally.
Ian B:
Given that I am thoroughly anti-militarist, I would not agree. Indeed I consider the impracticality of waging war under a system of 100% governmental transparency an advantage.
Free men shouldn’t be about the business of invading other nations for any reason. Government’s want to start wars. Free Men mostly want to live their lives in peace.
Jaded: while most politicians are not our friends, if not outright enemies, we also happen to have foreign enemies. Keeping secrets from them makes perfect sense to me.
Sabotai, you were perfectly clear the first time, but this is what I don’t get: why would Western agencies try to scare Assange with rumors of the Russian FSB threat, when they know that Assange knows perfectly well that he never disclosed any Russian secrets? Seems to me they might as well threaten him with my next-door neighbor breaking his bones, no?
Assange’s efforts seem to be aimed at discrediting western democracy. In fact the validity of any accountable democracy in the west. It is his bête noir.
While the political people in the west are no doubt pretty much rotten to the core and likewise many of their associations and ways of doing things, his attacks effectively target some of the few good things, the relative freedom to spout off, for one.
In our very imperfect system there is still room for manoeuvre but this freedom could be seriously reduced as we import social and political systems from Africa, the East, South America.
The luxury of freedom we experience in the countries left over from the British Empire, and western Europe, is a luxury we tend to take for granted and that do not exist in much of the world.
If the Russians were to want to take him out it would no doubt be because he is in that dangerous maverick journalist class that they fairly routinely get rid of.
Perhaps he’s offended them, perhaps not.
But I am sure that the major damage he has done are in areas that one does not think of, or even know about, such as that indicated by Subotai regarding code breaking.
Assagne seems to evidence an alarmingly cavalier attitude to freedom and the cost that goes into maintaining it.
Indeed, a person who simply wants to watch it all burn.
Our political ‘masters’ may be trashing it for their own perceived benefit, but it does not give him an honourable reason to run around with an intellectual version of petrol, bombs and matches.
So many people seem to think it is a given that governments should have the power to keep secrets from their own people.
That is the key power that makes us slaves.
Giving admittedly crooked people the power to plot assassinations, spy on allies and sip tea with tyrants while bargaining over murder is essentially giving them a blank cheque with our lives and liberty, and those of everyone else on earth.
The only real safeguard we have on such impunity is the trustworthiness of our leaders.
And that’s not much of a safeguard at all is it?
I will not consider myself free until I am either without a ruler, or that I have the right to 100% oversight of their activities with a power of veto.
Assange’s problem is that he claims to have the dirt on at least one large American bank. Forget the CIA and FSB. The banks can and will afford the very best. After all “show you really care by sending the very best”. Assassins that is.
“I think there’s some merit in “we’re invading Normandy tuesday week” being a secret, personally.”
Agreed, Ian, but there are very few “secrets” which rise to that level. The vast bulk of what our government considers “secret” has no business being so classified. If the bureaucrats were less obviously prone* to hiding information which should be open I’d be more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt when they did classify something. I’m not holding my breath.
* This article is about something which isn’t even officially classified but which they still want to keep hidden, so it’s illustrative of the point.
Laird, to expand on Jaded’s last comment: the problem is that when you give the government the ability to keep secrets (as you ought if you want that gov. to protect us from external and even internal threats), it becomes next to impossible to oversee that power from outside the government itself. Kind of like with most, if not all, powers we give to the government.
I was sympathetic to Assange’s pricking the inflated balloon of pompous, worthless diplomats. I’m no friend of the STATE and quite happy to see it harassed a little. And I haven’t noticed any real damage done so far.
But then I read the article by Assange(Link) linked to above and also this(Link), from his blog.
They guy is a postmodern conspiracy nut writing in garbled, meaningless academic jargon. Read it and you’ll see what I mean. If I could I would send the FSE after him just for what he writes and for his style.
He is no libertarian, and no friend of a free society under a limited government. He is a nut, a real nut.
He sounds like one of those “intellectuals” who admired the 9/11 act as a hit into the heart of the evil conspiracy.
State secrets are needed. I hope, for example, that the leaders of my state are sending agents to kill off our enemies, and I hope they succeed, and the key to success is secrecy.
I deeply detest what Assange stands for, as I understand from the garbage he writes.
You need no “dirty tricks” to discredit Assange, just read the garbage he writes.
I hope, for example, that the leaders of my state are sending agents to kill off our enemies, and I hope they succeed, and the key to success is secrecy.
Our enemies? I don’t have any enemies, and if I did I wouldn’t want them murdered. I assume you must mean your enemies. Do you mean the man who is rude to you in the local shop? I assume not. I assume you are talking about distant and remote figures you have never actually met.
You know, the ones the media tells you to hate and fear?
It doesn’t take much to get you onside with murder does it?
Good. We are in the happy position in this post-Cold War era that discrediting western panoptic regulatory welfare states is no longer tantamount to supporting the Soviets.
Indeed as the most influential and politically pervasive states on a global level are the ones he is mostly attacking, I am all for it.
Causing political and organisational chaos in western democracies is not doing to result in 10,000 T-72’s charging through the Fulda Gap or the North Koreans marching down Pennsylvania Avenue… and Al Qaeda is nothing more than an annoying pustule on western civilisation’s left buttock.
Yes I have grave reservations about certain kinds of military secrets being revealed and I am not therefore an uncritical admirer of Assange… but my guess is he takes the view that when the only effective weapon you have is a very large shotgun, some collateral damage is unavoidable.
Wikileaks ain’t doing things the way I might have done them, but then we live in an imperfect world 🙂 If I had an all-or-nothing “delete” button for Wikileaks, I would certainly *not* press it.
Perry, I agree with you, but do read the link Jacob posted for a fuller picture.
Jaded: I happen to share Jacob’s view, even though I don’t know if we share the same enemies. Hint: I happen to live very far south-east of the UK.
Alisa:
If you want someone killed, why do you need the state to do it for you? Why not cut out the middle man?
I don’t see the need for state sanctioned killing, even against nebulous threats such as terrorism.
Take the bulldozer attack last year (which also occurred very far south east of England). The terrorist driving it was shot and killed by an off duty soldier.
He was shot in self defence, by a man with a personal stake in the act and who was in a position of extreme need that justified it.
If however the bulldozer driver had his throat cut in his sleep several nights before in the name of “counter insurgency” then that would have been murder with no moral justification.
Just give everyone who is willing a weapon. Enemies both foreign and domestic could pose no tangible threat against armed free-men who are defending their homes.
I’ve said enough on this on the comment thread to Johnathan’s post. I agree with Perry and Jaded (although I am still not shovelling away the snow on your drive way).
As an aside, Sweden is one of the most ‘feminist’ countries in the world and it is very easy to get accused of rape (-ing women at least). Not that I have any direct experience (on either side). The fact that he is only wanted for questioning suggests to me that whatever he did was probably not very serious. He could still be a sleazeball of course.
Alisa:
why would Western agencies try to scare Assange with rumors of the Russian FSB threat, when they know that Assange knows perfectly well that he never disclosed any Russian secrets? Seems to me they might as well threaten him with my next-door neighbor breaking his bones, no?
With the possible exception of the period of Russian history known as Kievan Rus, pre-Mongol incursion; dealing with whatever powers that be in Russia has been fraught by risk. They follow neither rules, nor do they always have motivations that we understand. This includes not only the Soviet era, but those before and after.
Further, as John B noted, they have a habit in post-Soviet times, of taking out those who have offended them, especially writers. And the reasons why can range across the spectrum: personal offense to those in power, offending the State, as collateral damage in attacks on either personal or official enemies, ideological differences that can be as technical as the question about the number of angels who can perform a pas a deux on any part of a pin or, sometimes rogue operations. They have a reputation for utter ruthlessness and unpredictability, even when you are allied with or actually in their employ. If they, mistakenly, think that you might be thinking of doing something that they would not approve of; they just might whack you in some inventive way. [I mean, Polonium ??? in your tea!!!]. They invented thoughtcrime as a punishable offense.
The threat may not be a sure thing, but even so, Assange has to take it seriously. Very seriously. Which limits his courses of actions, and raises two possibilities. First, he may try to make discreet contact with the FSB, in order to find out if they are in fact after him. Mind you, that poses some risk if they really are. And the move itself may open him to detection by third parties. Second, he may take the threat seriously enough to prefer dealing with the West. And somewhere in between, he may do something stupid out of panic. As a tactic, it actually is a pretty good one. Low cost, limited downside, high possible returns in several contingencies.
Oh, in response to Peter T. above. Yes, unless the accused rapist is Muslim. Then it did not happen as a matter of State policy.
Subotai Bahadur
Sabotai: sorry for possibly being thick, but I just don’t see why Assange would take such a threat seriously, provided he indeed had not “touched” anything Russian.
Sorry, but you are being extremely irrational in assigning to Russians such, well, irrationality. They can indeed can be ruthless towards those who pose a threat to them, but they are by no means unique in this. There is nothing mysterious about their motivations either. Litvinenko was a Russian who worked in the FSB – hardly an example pertinent to Assange’s case. Sorry, but with all due respect, your argument sounds silly to me. Unless, again, I am missing something? Seriously, do I?
Jaded: that was a year ago, are you sure? Feels like ages…Anyway, I was referring to states surrounding Israel, not the least being Iran and it’s stooges. See, personally I’d be happy to abolish the state, including in matters of external defense. But if we do that, we’d still to defend ourselves from other, hostile states. Towards that end we’d have to form some kind of private and voluntary organization that would perform the defensive functions the state of Israel is performing now. For that organization to be at least as (and hopefully more) effective as the current military wing of the state, it would have to maintain a certain level of secrecy. Back to square one? No, not entirely and not on several fine points of great importance, but ‘yes’ on the point you were discussing in your comment: most of us would still have to be kept in the dark on some matters, with no possibility of a timely oversight. Life is never going to be perfect: sometimes you have to trust people you don’t even know, and very often they will abuse your trust. When you live in a society, you can never have total control over every aspect of your life.
…which, BTW, is also true even if you live outside society.
Oh please stop trying to glorify and justify this Austra;ian creep and his equally creepy/weepy homosexual sidekick. They are both loathsome do nothings and the fact that they have aired a lot of nonsense from the self-important big guys and gals who believe themseves to be so omniscient and omnipotent is laughable.
Alisa,
OK, I’ll try again.
Sorry, but you are being extremely irrational in assigning to Russians such, well, irrationality. They can indeed can be ruthless towards those who pose a threat to them, but they are by no means unique in this. There is nothing mysterious about their motivations either.
How many people in Western Europe are familiar with the Material Dialectic? It could count as a mystery. It is the centerpiece of Marxism, and embedded in Russian thought by generations of indoctrination. It’s functioning is an article of “faith” to Marxists as much as the Trinity is to Christians. [n.b.: Your Humble Servant is NOT Christian of any of the various flavors. This is not an attempt to sneak up on you and somehow convert you.] Just as the nature and workings of the Trinity and differences of interpretation thereof have been the basis for wars, killings, and outright massacres over centuries; literally millions have been murdered over those differences of interpretation of the Material Dialectic that Westerners do not understand. How many people were purged in the Soviet Union, or in Eastern Europe, based on differing interpretations after being labeled “Leftist Deviationists”, “Rightist Deviationists”, “Wreckers”, “Trotskyites”, “Counter-Revolutionary”, “Guilty of Anti-Soviet Activities” [which covers damn near anything, see Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code]? Mixed in with that was the fact that because there was no due process, personal and irrational grudges by those in authority frequently became the basis for false charges. The charges may have made no sense in relation to the victims, but they were no less terminal.
I reference the work of Robert Conquest on the demographics of the Soviet Union. To come up with the demographics and population of the Soviet Union at the time of its fall; AFTER excluding the losses in WW-I, and WW-II; they had to average killing about 1,000,000 of their own people every year from the Bolshevik Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union. These people were not killed after any sort of real trial, or due process. They disappeared into the GULAG, sometimes via 2 Dzerzhinsky Square if they were in Moscow. Sometimes just dying in the tile lined basement rooms with drains in the center. Or in their analogs throughout the Soviet Union.
1) The Former Soviet Union, now Russia again, has a justified reputation for its history of what to Westerners appears as arbitrary and sometimes mass killing without regret and outside any concept of due process.
2) The primary means for such was the KGB [Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Комитет гоÑударÑтвенной безопаÑноÑти”‹] and its predecessor organizations; in particular their Second and Fifth Main Directorates, and of course what in the West has come to be known as the GULAG.
3) The current de facto leader of Russia is Vladimir Putin, whose career started in the KGB; with a significant series of assignments in the Fifth Main Directorate.
4) The FSB is the lineal successor to the KGB, and has taken over most of its functions, although the GULAG has been largely shut down. Its first Director was … Vladimir Putin, and the HQ is still the Lubyanka at 2 Dzerzhinsky Sq. The Counter-Intelligence Department has merged the functions of the old Second and Fifth Main Directorates, including “wet work” under the old Spetsbureau 13.
5) Undoubtedly, the FSB has been engaged in “wet work” since its inception, based on both state and personal reasons.
6) While the motivation of Marxism has largely vanished, the reputation for the brutal nature of the “organs of state security” of Russia remains intact. We know more of the background and life history of Vladimir Putin than we do about B. H. Obama. What we know is not comforting or conducive to thoughts of cuddly kittens and butterflies.
7) It is not necessary for Assange to believe with ontological certitude that the FSB is after him. Given the fact that any hostile reaction by Putin may well be followed by an order to the FSB, it would be the height of stupidity for Assange to glibly ignore any indication that they may have joined the hunt for him. The cables released claiming that democracy has ceased to exist in Russia themselves could be a motive for Putin. It is very much in Putin’s interest to maintain the public facade of democracy and the rule of law in Russia, if only to continue to try to lure foreign investment.
Note that all along I have not been saying that they are after him, just that this threat is being used as a tactic by Western governments [probably one of a number of gambits] to attempt to limit his perception of what his situation and options are. All that the tactic has to do is present a plausible case of greater than zero probability that there is a risk of encountering a cup of Polonium tea, or a ricin pellet, if not a bullet in the base of the skull.
Looking at it from a computer in the mountains of Colorado, or from one in the far SE of England, we can have far more detachment than someone who is a fugitive, and who faces the possibility of having several nations after his scrawny self, operating both in the black and in the white.
It is a tactic. As a retired Peace Officer, it is one that makes sense to me. However, I grant that it may very well be that I am wrong.
With that, I will let the subject drop. We can agree to disagree.
Subotai Bahadur
Is really Perry that wrote this?:
“absurd planted media articles to link Saddam (a secular socialist) to Al Qaeda (Islamists)”
Why is it absurd? History doesn’t remind you of anything?
Saddam did have not relations with Islamists?
Islamists weren’t allied with USA to drive Soviets of Afeghanistan?
Saddam was known to not ‘play nice’ with folks like Al Qaeda as he quite reasonably saw them as a threat too… the whole Ba’athist shtick springs from a very different strand of middle eastern nastiness.
Frankly it was a transparent bit of disinformation (and as I was all for Saddam getting hammered it did not cause me to lose any sleep… but it was a rather obvious plant that did not really make much sence).
I agree with Jacob that the Assange blog posts collected in that nice compilation he links are, well, bizarre. However, I disagree with his comment that the linked article, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”, is mere conspiracy nuttery presented in “garbled, meaningless academic jargon”. It’s actually quite interesting, and not at all jargon-filled, but more importantly I think Jacob has entirely missed its point.
As I understand it, Assange’s thesis is that an authoritarian government (and it’s difficult to deny that putatively “free” western governments, especially the US’s, are becoming steadily more authoritarian by the day) necessarily becomes a conspiratorial one; it must hide its intentions to minimize opposition. He’s using the term “conspiracy” in a very broad but, I think, reasonable sense. Assange then analogizes this loose “conspiracy” of the political and bureaucratic classes to an information-processing system and discusses how to diminish its “computational power” (i.e., its effectiveness at carrying out its aims). Massive leaks won’t, of themselves, accomplish much, but they will make the “conspirators” ever more paranoid, less able to communicate among themselves, and ultimately so closed-in that they will be susceptible to defeat by non-authoritarians seeking freedom. It’s a fairly sophisticated argument, and I’m not doing it justice in this short paragraph, but here is an article which contains a much fuller analysis. It’s a little long, but I found it quite thought-provoking and worth the read.
Well, I am one of the folk who have been less than respectful towards Assange. I have no doubt that some of the folk he has embarrassed deserve it; the squirming of the likes of H. Clinton, for example, is joyous to behold. There is very little that has been revealed that is particularly shocking. I mean, Prince Andrew is rude: wow! Mervyn King is a bit of a conceited central banker – ye gods!
But as I keep saying to my fellow libertarian ideologues, Assange adopts a scattergun approach; there have been leaks of private data on private persons (not politicians or state-backed looters). Last year, one of the Icelandic banks that went tits-up had its entire client list splashed on the internet, thanks to Wikileaks. That’s bad. Many of the folk did not deserve to have their personal financial affairs exposed in this way. I doubt Perry, I or any others on this blog would be very amused if our bank account information was leaked like this. In fact, I’d be fucking angry.
This is why, for all that he occasionally has hit the mark and caused some nasty people a few sleepness nights, I don’t see Assange as a particularly sympathetic character from our point of view. Also, he tends to pick on fairly soft targets. He’s not quite the bold seeker for truth that is claimed.
Yes you do, foolish boy. And the fact you don’t recognize them, doesn’t mean that don’t recognize you.
Saddam was a Arab Nationalist, and Islamism, as practised by Al-Qaeda, is just Arab Nationalism with divine blessing, so their goals are closer than you think.
Just because you are “secular” doesn’t mean you don’t play along with theocrats when it suits you.
Laird,
Seeing Western governments as a vast dictatorial conspiracy is bizarre – at least. It’s more than that, it’s unhinged.
There is little we don’t know about our governments, and that little is mostly in the domain of defence and foreign relations, and should stay hidden.
I’m not against leaks and openness, but Assange’s rants about conspiracies are utter rubbish.
Loathsome is what Assange is.
Subotai:
What cables? Told you I was missing something!
Perry,
Your repeating of the claim ( made mostly by unhinged opponents of the Iraq war) that secular, baathist Saddam could not have supported Al Quaeda is ridiculous.
Saddam was baathist in the 1970ies, when it was fashionable, and useful for gaining power. Then, in the 1990ies he added the islamist crescent to Iraq’s flag.
Saddam was a bloody, power lusting murderer, not a armchair ideologue, faithful to some creed.
Did he help Al Quaeda ? I don’t know, but the claim that he wouldn’t because he was “secular” is absurd.
Jacob, I’m totally with you on the substantive point, but, regardless of the truth, whatever it is, that news item does smell like a “plant”.
Yes you do, foolish boy. And the fact you don’t recognize them, doesn’t mean that don’t recognize you.
Now you’re just being absurd. The likes of Osama, Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wouldn’t know me from Adam if the met me. Course if they met me, it would be because me, a white westerner, had somehow mysteriously materialised in their high security fortress. So yes, under those circumstances they might indeed have me killed.
But for the most part I have no beef with any of them. Give me a rifle and I will happily shoot them if they are posing a direct threat to my children.
I will not however, endorse their killing because some politico told me they were a “threat”. And even if they are, until they actually set foot on British soil what they get up to is really none of my business.
Subotai, if I still may indulge what has been left of your patience with me: all those theories may be very interesting, and are certainly worth studying and understanding, if only to discredit them for the current and future generations. But, I’m afraid that they have very little relevance when one wants to understand what and why happened in Russia between 1917 and 1989. Because what really happened is that people who sought control and power over others (and there are such people in existence everywhere, at all times), took advantage of certain circumstances to grab that power (as they tend to do). The theories, the doctrines and the dialectics are just rationalizations of the never-ending quest for power over others. Trotsky was not wacked because of ideological differences – he was wacked because he opposed Lenin and was seen by the latter as a political threat. My grandfather was not thrown in jail because of ideology, he and numerous others were purged because they were associated with political opposition. Mind you, I in no way dismiss the cultural peculiarities of Russians. I also fully grand you the point about techniques and tactics developed and repeatedly tested during the Soviet period and thereafter. But as sophisticated, unusual and yes, at times mysterious those may be, they are the means – the motivations behind the actions are anything but. So, following on my previous comment and on point 7 in yours: if you can show that Russian government had a rational reason to believe that Assange said or did anything potentially damaging to it, then you certainly have a point. But if not, your point remains silly. Mind you, I intend no disrespect or offense by saying so: I always read your comments with the greatest interest, but even the cleverest and most informed people can at times make silly arguments.
Jaded Libertarian says: “Now you’re just being absurd. The likes of Osama, Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wouldn’t know me from Adam if the met me.” in relation to not having enemies.
The point is it dosn’t matter if they would recognise you or not.
Someone planning to blow up a tube with you on it does not know you. Someone planning to fly a plane into a building you happen to be in just hates the sort of person you are generically. Enemy troops invading a place you happen to be are unlikely to have any prior personal animosity towards you, or their generals, or their government/dictator/whatever.
Still they are surely your enemy. They want to use force to take your life, liberty or property and those of your family and friends.
Having established that the only question is where is the line they have to cross for you to be willing to do something to counter it?
Unsmite me, Perry!
Wikileaks is an organisation consisiting of many individuals – Assange is its spoke person. He may be a chauvinist pig, but please recognise that difference.
If WikiLeaks indeed had Chinese, Russian or [insert rogue state] information of this kind, they would surely release it in a similar fashion. But for reasons stated in the comments above, whistleblowers in those countries are rare. WikiLeaks depend on leaks. They don’t break into the governments secret lockers.
So far I have heard little concern over the contents of the cables – what our rulers are doing in our name – just a lot of indignation and Assagne name calling (see first point).
Having established that the only question is where is the line they have to cross for you to be willing to do something to counter it?
In every matter of law (except from international politics) the answer to that is already well known.
If a man breaks down my door in the middle of the night and tries to butcher my family, then I am within my rights to kill him. This is almost universally considered acceptable.
If I hear a rumour that a man is planning the above, and I pre-emptively break down his door and butcher him and his family, that is not acceptable and would make me a murderer.
Most government sanctioned killings are more akin to the latter rather than the former. Most individual self defence killings are like the former. Therefore I conclude that private individuals wield deadly force in a more moral manner, and governments should have that power taken from them.
I should add that armies and terrorist groups are made up of individuals. It is the Osamas, Obamas and Camerons of the world that try and encourage this group based thinking.
Wars are large groups of individuals all trying to kill one another because they’ve been told the other person is part of a “bad” collective.
In any other context, many of the men fighting in WW2 would have got on great and found that they had much in common. They were husbands, fathers and sons. They all loved their children and wanted to go home one day. But instead their lot was to die somewhere far from home, at the hands of a man who wanted exactly the same kinds of thing.
This is what governments bring us in my view, and it is obscene.
So I’ll take even my “enemies” as I find them, and not do them the discourtesy of making them part of some mindless group. Because, as the Israelis found out, sometimes a terrorist isn’t a terrorist.
Sometimes it is a retarded little boy with a bomb on his chest who walks up and pleads “Please, I don’t want to die”…..
Seeing Western governments as a vast dictatorial conspiracy is bizarre – at least. It’s more than that, it’s unhinged.
There is little we don’t know about our governments, and that little is mostly in the domain of defence and foreign relations, and should stay hidden.
Jacob, while I go along with your understanding of the value of western liberal democratic government, and its substantial open-ness, I do think the people who operate the real power do tend to work agendas that we don’t understand and use them to manipulate us. Even if just for what they perceive as “our own good”.
It seems to me we are substantially “programmed” through our education to respond when certain buttons are pushed.
One possible example could be 24 hour drinking (what an absurd label, as though one must drink 24 hours. But that might have been the intent?)
Historically, for whatever reasons, Britain had strict licensing laws.
By the 1970s Britain was on the edge of collectivised collapse and Thatcher’s people came along and restored some sanity. Enough sanity to cause a vast increase in prosperity.
The enemies of liberty took her out (’90) from within, reduced Conservatives to Conservative-lite(’93) replaced with conservative Labour (’97), and then reduced that to labour Labour by 2007.
Took them all that time to fool the people though!
Back to 24 hour drinking.
As part of the follow up on the freedom front by Tony Blair, licensing laws were further relaxed and you could buy alcohol anywhere, just about.
The British have a very controlled and unrelaxed attitude to alcohol and proceeded to get motherless in all sorts of inappropriate ways and places. Vomit in the streets. People broken, damaged and destroyed.
This resulted in justifiable horror and alarm over what was happening.
So now we have the control conspiracists establishing and enforcing ever more stringent restrictions.
Alcohol will become another item to severely control, like guns, drugs, or cigarettes
It is an attitude that is established.
Soon that will be a freedom long gone.
An attitude of hostility to freedom. Which is what they want, I think? And has been achieved.
So. While I think western democracy is the best we’ve got so far and there are principles at work in it that should be preserved and protected, and that will necessitate keeping some bad stuff too, I do see that there are all sorts of conspiracies at work, basically aimed at retaining privilege for those who enact them, I guess.
Which, getting back to Assagne, is what he may be hitting at, but if he is effective, will be taking out a lot of the good stuff while he’s at it, and if anything, could actually help our slide into totalitarianism.
What has drinking laws to do with conspiracies?
Those who want to impose restrictions are open up front about what they do. No conspiracy here.
Take another case for concealing info.
Police have managed to buy an informer within a crime mob. When word leaked out about it, the informer was promptly murdered.
Here is a case of governments needing to keep secrets. There are many more.
JadedLibertarian: this is also an example of an enemy of yours that you prefer to ignore, until he confronts you in a dark alley, but then it would be too late.
“[Assange] lament[s] that in western countries it’s awfully tough to produce economic change due to “contractual obligations.” Bear that in mind the next time you hear libertarians celebrating Assange.”
– Allahpundit of HotAir.com commenting on Assange’s recent interview with Time magazine.
Jacob. The lifting of controls beyond a certain sensible limit at the time as a tool to provoke people to indulge, where they have reduced ability to look after themselves and be relaxed about things, and then impose controls on them when they show they can’t handle it.
I cannot prove that this was done with intent but I can clearly see that that is what has happened.
And when looking for reality, ‘the truth’ I find that if one goes by results, what happened and is happening, one is often correct.
The “economic change” that Assange can be speaking of is the tranzi ideal of universal poverty.
Note the garbled terminology he uses to conceal his true intention. Who’s speaking of concealment and conspiracy theories….
This amused me:
Well fuck me, that’s a revelation! Whatever will he reveal next? Corruption in Nigeria?
Maybe drifting off topic JadedLibertarian.. but like I said; If someone wants to take my life liberty, or proerty – or that of my family or friends I will do my best to prevent them. I will also try to ensure no one will think it worth it to try to do those things.
Why is it about killing in your argument? Though in truth your little ESN boy is still lierally a ticking bomb whoever is the target of the bomb needs to find a solution to before it’s too late.
Things are more fuzzy than that though. Suppose the problem is a new law? Regulation? whatever?
That question is always with us – and doesn’t always have an easy answer.
It is unique for each set of circumstances. “where is the line they have to cross for you to be willing to do something to counter it?”
I think JadedLibertarian’s view is very unwise.
Though I’m British I’ve lived in Ireland for some time. I’ve met more than a few Republican. Do they hate me? To some degree, yes, of course they do.
Does JadedLibertarian have enemies? Yes, of course he does. Whoever you are, whereever you live there are people who hate. Often you for very simple reasons, they may hate your culture, your ideas, your wealth or your race.
Often they will hate you for reasons that are irrational. But, you have to understand that rationality doesn’t have the same significance to other people that it does to Anglo-Saxons. To Irish people it’s often considered dishonourable to think of political questions in abstract terms. Political ideas that don’t come from strong emotions are not very socially acceptable. To lots of Irish people revenge comes above utilitarianism in importance. People think: “It may not make anyone happier to hate X or to kill X, but the ancestors of X did something to us, so we must”. If you’ve ever watched “Once Upon A Time In The West” see the scene at the end where the characters talk about the difference between a “businessman” and a “man”.
It may well be that statism is the reason that other people hate you. But, that doesn’t change much. It doesn’t make their weapons any less deadly. Yes, defect/defect solutions to the prisoner’s dilema suck, but that doesn’t give any of us any choice, we have to play.
All that said, I agree with you to some degree about foreign wars. It would be a nice principle to only attack when an invasion occurs. The problem is though that today foreign countries can threaten us even when without invading. But, this doesn’t mean we should look unquestioningly at every foreign war.
Jacob, Assange may indeed be a tranzi nutter; I don’t know. But I still think you’re missing his point.
First of all, he’s using the term “conspiracy” somewhat differently than (I think) you are. Here’s a little piece from that article I linked in my previous post (which I commend to you):
Leaking information, even if any individual piece is inconsequential, puts the “conspiracy” itself at risk, and thus engenders tighter control of its internal communications and ultimately limits its ability to function. According to Assange’s theory, “the most effective way to attack this kind of organization would be to make ‘leaks’ a fundamental part of the conspiracy’s information environment. * * * [T]he idea is that increasing the porousness of the conspiracy’s information system will impede its functioning, that the conspiracy will turn against itself in self-defense, clamping down on its own information flows in ways that will then impede its own cognitive function. You destroy the conspiracy, in other words, by making it so paranoid of itself that it can no longer conspire.”
Assange “is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller.” In other words, exposing secrets now will eventually result in there being fewer secrets in the future. Which would result in a more open and, necessarily, less authoritarian government.
You can agree or disagree with this thesis, with whether the Wikileaks strategy will be an effective technique for increasing governmental transparency, and with whether the likely result will be an improvement at all. But I can’t dismiss him as simply a nutter. Also, understanding the strategy helps explain why leaks from China, Russia, etc., are less important than from the more “open” societies. Those governments have already metastacized; the damage there is irreparable short of violent insurrection. In the west there may still be time to correct course peacefully. It’s actually one of the more hopeful messages I’ve seen in a long time.
“With both the plain text, and the encrypted form, brute force computation can break the cipher.”
This would only be a problem if the messages were all encrypted with the same key, which they would not be. The algorithms used are not a secret, nor do they rely on being such.
I’m a little late here, but Jacob, since your first link was so interesting, can I ask you to fix the second link? It doesn’t go anywhere, it’s just in hyperlink colors.
Current – that all may well be.
But why is the state hamfistedly committing murder in my name better than letting me carry a weapon to defend myself against men I know for sure want to kill me?
Waiting till the gun/bomb/knife/pointy-stick is being drawn may not be as efficientt as dropping a hellfire missile on the would-be terrorist’s village 6 months earlier, but it sure as heck is more just.
If I were allowed my natural right to self-defence I would neither wish nor require states to murder in my name.
I think Laird is hitting the right angles on this, but one semi-thought which occurs to me is to what extent this assumption…
“…authoritarianism produces resistance to itself — to the extent that its authoritarianism becomes generally known — it can only continue to exist and function by preventing its intentions…”
… is valid. After all, how many people on here have expressed sarcastic surprise at Wikileaks revelations of ‘state secrets’? Isn’t their “authoritarianism” already “generally known”? Presently it is either celebrated, tolerated, endured or, in small measures, resisted – but to say that it isn’t yet generally known is a claim that leaves a faint taste of arrogance. Both the left under Bush, and now the right under Obama have launched fairly large scale protest movements against various government policies.
Jacob:
That last sentence cracked me up; I totally sympathize with how you feel about his writing. And I had the same impression as you about his ideas after I watched his interview on the TED web site.
I’d feel better about WikiLeaks if it weren’t run by a nut and if it didn’t have deception built right into its name. It’s not a wiki at all. There’s no openness or transparency inherent in WikiLeaks itself. Nobody’s watching the watchers. We (everyone outside the staff of WikiLeaks) have no way of knowing if or how they’re biasing the information by filtering which leaks they deem newsworthy and which not. Given that Assange has clear political objectives beyond traspareny, there’s little reason to consider WikiLeaks a reliable source of information.
Don’t misunderstand me, I think transparency is a good thing, at least where existential threats to a legitimate (i.e., liberty-protecting) government aren’t involved. I’m just not sure that’s what WikiLeaks is giving us.
Mike, it seems to me at least that very large numbers of people have a general belief in the disinterested bureaucrat; the virtuous public servant working for the common good. They will often think “the other side” are malign, but that their own side is virtuous. This seems to afflict both “left” and “right” politically (if to different degrees, particularly in America).
So Assange’s assertion has some merit if we take it to mean displaying the general venality of the ruling oligarchy, perhaps. It is very hard to shift the belief in the general virtue of government institutions; people prefer to believe in “a few bad eggs”.
I think the hypothesis of the marxist “long march through the institutions” is an example of this; it implies a prior uncorrupted state of the State which might perhaps be returned to, whereas as a Libertarian I take the view that the State is inherently venal and has not at any time been virtuous.
(People might think the above assertion is incompatible with my avowed minarchism, which requires a “State” of some kind. My answer to that is that my ultimate goal is for the State to be so small it could fit in a single office building floor; just a notional figurehead which embodies the Common Law. No legislature, no managerial functions. Indeed, ultimately the State might ideally reduce to just a single room with the Law hung on the wall, and a couple of security guards to make sure nobody runs off with it).
Sadly most people see the trigger word ‘conspiracy’ and it bypasses almost all their critical facilities. Most of the commenters here and elsewhere simply do understanding what Wikileaks has done, fixating instead on the seeming triviality of much of the data released, and thankfully many of the people in state employ are similarly uncomprehending of the systemic implications.
As I have said, I am not an uncritical admirer but I have at least taken the time to figure out what they are actually trying to do and what Assange means by ‘conspiracy’. Wikileaks is not about the Grassy Knoll or Illuminati or Elders of Zion or “it is the Jewwwwwws!” kind of ‘conspiracy’ but that is the only word most people actually see. Oh well. I know better than to commit too much time and effort to that particular cognitive war of attrition 🙂
Why not just a state of mind? Sorry, my latent hippie is coming out.
Mike, you truncated that quotation a few words too early. You omitted “from being generally known.” And that’s the key. It’s not the authoritarianism which isn’t generally known (although I would submit that a large segment of the populace isn’t yet aware of, or prepared to admit, that fact), it’s the intentions. Does anyone outside of the inner circle really know Obama’s intentions? We’ve speculated endlessly about it here, but in the end that’s all it is: mere speculation. Whatever those intentions are, he’s keeping them secret, and perhaps if they were truly known it would spark even greater resistance than the vague grumblings we’re now seeing. I don’t know, but neither does anyone else. So I don’t perceive the “faint taste of arrogance” that you do.
JadedLibertarian,
I’m not just talking about things like terrorist attacks. Certainly legalising handguns could help with that, though not in every case.
I’m not supporting bombing villages in the middle-east. But I am supporting some of the pre-emptive strikes performed during WWII, I think many of those were reasonable.
Sure because bogus politically motivated charges never get levelled at people embarrassing the powerful, right?
It’s just amazing how credulous people are.
Sure, because nobody who’s notionally embarrassing the powerful can ever actually be a sexual harrasser, right?
I mean, how credulous would one have to be to imagine that it’s even possible that someone in that position could take liberties with a lady?
(And then there’s the small problem of why the Swedish government would want to frame him, and why a “social democrat” would be the one doing their horrible Swedish dirty work…)
I won’t pretend I “know” that Assange is really being honestly accused, either by someone he wronged, or by some lunatic or attention-seeker who made up the accusations or that he’s “obviously” being attacked by The State (of Sweden!) for his embarrassment (of the United States!).
Funny how it sounds less “obvious” when one points out that “the powerful” and “the state” are not monoliths, and that the Swedish government is not exactly America’s lapdog.
Possible, yes. Likely? Hard to say. Obviously True? No.
(Remember, Sweden isn’t even a member of NATO, despite working with them during the Cold War.)
(And, Perry? Got a source for the falsehood of the Nidal thing? And that it’s a “plant” rather than the authors’ actual interpretation? Can’t authors look at what sources in Iraq leaked out and interpret them without it being some sort of giant Statist plot?
I’ve had plenty of ideas about current events that might have “helped the State’s goals”, so to speak – but nobody suggested them to me or told me to share them. I did so all on my own, you see.
Or is it just the assumption that “secular ‘socialists'” (really, I think “totalitarian” is much more accurate) and “Islamists” never work together?
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is an old and hoary saying for a reason, and we can’t pretend that Hussein was remotely above using religion to further his ends; he famously had a Koran written in his own blood.
I don’t believe there’s any evidence that he had more than a residual shred of belief in Islam, but he doesn’t need to have believed a word of it to have been willing to work with Islamists if he thought it would help him achieve some goal.
Remember that the Soviet Union (secular socialists) were quite happy to use religion (“liberation theology”) to help achieve their ends?)
Ian: Perhaps… but voter turnout this year was around 40% or so (?)… the point being that the numbers of proper elephants and donkeys are always significantly smaller than Nixon’s “silent majority” – the attitudes of these people toward government in general are more interesting. However, I’m uneasy about attributing opinions or attitudes to “the masses” irrespective of whether the terms “most”, “majority” or “many” are used. Only numbers and actual data will really do.
Another little semi-thought: given the more intense polarization of U.S. party politics in recent years, and especially the similarities between the Bush and Obama administrations in dealing with the financial crisis, has it not become more likely that some forms of generalized anti-government sentiment are spreading – or at least what the fiends themselves like to call “loss of confidence”?
Things might be changing, but then again I know I also have a confirmation bias here…
Mike, I’m describing really the unscientific sampling of my own experience, which is that people who think that way are very thin on the ground. Many people IME feel there are things wrong with the government, perhaps major things, but very few would perceive the problem as being government itself. The Tea Party may be a sign that that is changing at least in the USA, but I am cautious.
Tea Party is almost completely co-opted by the neocons at this point.
The Pentagon should send out its hunter-killers to murder Julian Assange of WikiLeaks for embarrassing our imperial overlords, says neocon chickenhawk Sarah Palin. ” -http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/71872.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2010/1130/WikiLeaks-Julian-Assange-Does-Sarah-Palin-think-CIA-should-neutralize-him
Alisa:
What cables? Told you I was missing something!
and
if you can show that Russian government had a rational reason to believe that Assange said or did anything potentially damaging to it, then you certainly have a point.
Without pulling up all the cables, and working off of the top of my head, there were exchanges between our diplomats released wherein it was stated that democracy is dead in Putin’s Russia, which is a “Mafia State”. No great surprise to us all, who have been watching the state of the world; but when a government knows something, yet officially does not “know” it, it does not have to react to it. The public knowledge that officials of the US government are on the record as disparaging the claims of Russia evolving as a democracy; changes the dynamic and freedom of action of not only the US government, but also foreign governments and private entities.
Mind you, I think that anyone who invests in Russia is doing the world a service as a public example of Darwin in action. But official statements may weigh on some investors, and more importantly; our government has made more than a few transfers of taxpayer dollars to the government of Russia, justified by the concept of “supporting democracy”. If it is shown to be believed by those officially monitoring it, that it is equivalent to doing CPR on a corpse with lividity present, it gets harder to justify. Since much of those funds went into the pockets of the Russian kleptocracy, they might be a tad irate at whoever put their Danegeld at risk.
Further, the cables reveal what is purported to be a level of “operational cooperation” between the FSB and the US in dealing with the threat of the Iranian nuclear weapons/missile programs. I admit to doubts about the veracity of that cooperation, because both Iranian programs would not exist without Russia’s active defiance of both the US and the UN to create them. However, on the matter of relations between Iran and Russia, such a claimed revelation is going to cause more than a little international heartburn for Russia. They may be playing a double or triple game [not unusual in international affairs], and having it revealed busts it open, possibly stepping on Putin’s and the FSB’s toes.
Enough, I think, to make a threat [even one generated by the very self-interested Western security services] that the FSB is taking an interest something that Assange rationally has to take into account in his decisions as a fugitive. Which reaction is something that Western security services may be using to manipulate him into making a mistake.
As I said, I may very well be wrong, and even “silly”. I have been called worse, with far greater truth on occasion; and have no illusions about infallibility. I also am willing to re-evaluate based on new data. And the collective brain trust here is a reasonable cross check on data and logical errors.
So, if anyone feels so inclined, and thinks that I have in fact “left the canine walking bow-legged” in my conjecture that the rumor about FSB interest in Assange may in fact be a plant by Western security services to try to influence his future actions; please chime in and tell me where I went off the tracks.
Rob Fisher:
This would only be a problem if the messages were all encrypted with the same key, which they would not be. The algorithms used are not a secret, nor do they rely on being such.
I am not a cryptographer, although I think I have been exposed to more of the field than most of the general public. You may be, and I will defer to you if you are.
Aside from the normal horror of anyone who has been touched by our security classification system of such a massive breach, I discussed this with [I am phrasing carefully] people who have been in the past involved in intelligence and security matters, although they have never been professionally employed in cryptography by any government, either directly or by contract. No classification rules were breached or even approached.
I ran my theory about the risks of this specific breach by them and got agreement, and more details than I originally offered. It boiled down to this:
1) They have a far larger sample of plain text, over time, that can be matched with specific messages that they have recovered in cipher, than is healthy for us.
2) Their feeling was that the ciphers, and the algorithms were not necessarily known.
3) Having numerous samples over time, and with limited number of ciphers and underlying algorithms that would be in use in any period, even if the ciphers changed over time, those changes would be detectable as such, and each cipher attacked separately with a reasonably large base of plain text to work from.
4) Within each cipher, there are automatic changes within the algorithms that change over time. That makes individual messages harder to crack. However, with a large enough sample, those changes would be detectable.
5) No process is truly random. There has to be an underlying system [another algorithm and/or algorithms] for the changes within each cipher. With a large enough sample of plain text and encrypted, and enough computer power, that system can be detected.
6) Once again, no process is truly random. While the number of variations can be functionally infinite, the number of algorithms we use within our ciphers, and the ciphers themselves is limited. If they can detect a pattern in the kinds and complexity of the algorithms we have used, it makes further cracking easier to do.
Even if we change everything we do to something completely different, the enemy will have access to more information about “how” we do ciphers.
I am enough of a historian by avocation, and know enough about the damage we were able to do to the Axis powers by the ability to read Magic and Enigma [which would be childish ciphers today], to have my pucker factor reading on the Moh’s Hardness Scale. Those I discussed this with are reading on the same scale, along with contemplation of the stimulation of Assange and Co.’s pain receptors in ways that would leave Torquemada slack-jawed in envy.
We well could be wrong. Actually I hope so, and for the damage to be negligible. But this seems correct to me. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
Now I really am going to do other things, but I will keep an eye on the thread as per my answer to Alisa.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai: I was missing something (duh), so thank you for the clarification. It now makes much more sense and doesn’t sound silly at all. I apologize if I came across as rude – didn’t mean to.
Ditto. Apparently, in your world, someone who is disliked by the state for political reasons never makes victims of his fellow citizens?
I’m entirely open to the idea that it is politically motivated. I’m also open to the idea that someone can be a thorn in the side of the state and be a criminal. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.
From MJ’s link:
Judging from your links, she said none of the things you say she did, MJ.
Laird, your point seems to be “he may be a nutter, but still a useful one”. If so, I tend to agree.
Maybe useful, maybe not, but definitely interesting.
“Saddam was known to not ‘play nice’ with folks like Al Qaeda as he quite reasonably saw them as a threat too… the whole Ba’athist shtick springs from a very different strand of middle eastern nastiness.”
In Middle East or in any other place necessity has a tendency of putting opposing fellows in same bed.
Right now Arabs and Israelis want an attack against Iran Mullah Regime…
Alisa:
Absolutely no offense taken.
Subotai Bahadur
“He [Assange] begins by positing that conspiracy and authoritarianism go hand in hand”
I disagree right here.
No totalitarian regime (like the Nazis or the Commies) ever hid it’s intentions, to the contrary, they proclaimed them and shouted them from every roof top, and made all people declaim them.
Authoritarianism does not use conspiracies, it uses brute force.
What (I guess) Assange means by “authoritarianism” is what all tranzis mean when they use the word – they mean our current governments in the West, which, in their view, force upon us a regime that is oppressive (because it doesn’t do what they like), etc. etc.
This, in the Orwellian manner- black is white, slavery is freedom.
The communist regimes were not “authoritarian” but only “popular democracies” implementing the noble cause of … whatever… or the true will of the people, or at least what Assange thinks to be the correct “true will”.
As to Obama’s motives – no need to resort to conspiracy theories. It’s perfectly clear, it’s the progressive (or leftist) program and ideology, from A to Z. And he doesn’t hide it.
Jacob:
“Authoritarianism does not use conspiracies, it uses brute force.”
What a lazy statement – total absence of context, total disregard for aspect and total disregard for the historical differences between 1930s Germany and present day EU or U.S.
“What (I guess) Assange means by “authoritarianism” is what all tranzis mean when they use the word – they mean our current governments in the West, which, in their view, force upon us a regime that is oppressive (because it doesn’t do what they like), etc. etc.”
Current western governments are “oppressive” by all but perhaps the very narrowest sense of the word.
“It’s perfectly clear, it’s the progressive (or leftist) program and ideology, from A to Z.”
Which is why Obama continued so many of Bush’s policies…
You can colour me unconvinced about Assange, however I agree with the main thrust of Perry’s post. I’m not sure if the charges levelled against him are part of a politically motivated dirty tricks campaign, although, at the very least, they are a barking mad example of Swedish justice that should terrify any person who finds themselves within the EU’s jurisdiction, and also be condemned by any fair-minded person. According to Swedish law, if a man has consensual sex without a condom, it can be classified as rape. Apparently, that’s the nature of Assange’s “crime”. Read more from Assange’s lawyer here.
I am very late to this party; please blame the vodka.
The original thread is the ‘obviousness’ of fake charges against Assange, presumably by a puppet government, to shut him up.
My response: so what, even if it is true? Jullian has shown he is an enemy to America, by very effectively undermining first our efforts in the Iraq war, and now exposing sensitive diplomatic communications.
This story surprises me several ways. First of all, I am shocked that Jullian hasnt become Blood Spatter Art on some wall or other, considering all the nasty people whose noses he has tweaked with these revelations.
He has caused the most damage to America, and intentionally so, which says a couple things about Americans… either we are too incompetent to take him behind the woodshed for a chat, or disinclined to do so for good reason.
What does that say about mean old America, as compared with, say, Iran, China, or Russia?
The second surprise is the competence with which my State Department gathers information. My respect for them goes up a notch. I note that there is a strong focus on *personal* assessment of players in the field, which reflects the reality that governments are made up of people, and that governments do what people want, for people’s reasons.
I imagine that some Saudis have a bunch of ‘splainin’ to do about this business of kissing Iran’s cheek, and then begging America to cut off the head of the snake. Certainly, Mr Assange will not be invited to dinner any time soon in Saudi Arabia.
I am rather surprised that Jaded, who usually seems so perceptive, could possibly claim with sincerity that he has no enemies. Do you honestly believe that?
Finally, I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing with Ian B in this thread. Pointing out simply that some invasions are worth keeping secret, was eloquent. Hat tip to Ian.
Wikileaks isnt journalism. Assange is not a whistle-blower; he is legitimately to be considered a fugitive if he doesnt turn himself in very soon. He isnt helping the West, on balance, and as such, he is my enemy.
total absence of context
Well, I supposed people know some history, no need to spell it out anew, in full, in each post.
“Current western governments are “oppressive”..”
They are oppressive in many aspects, but they are not conspiracies, and they express more or less the will of the majority of the population. That you don’t like some of the things they do doesn’t make it right for you to fight them in the physical sense (except in some cases). It’s ok to fight in the realm of ideas to change the perspective of the people, but not ok to force on them policies you think are true but they don’t. (That was a simplistic sentence, I won’t elaborate and enumerate caveats).
What Assange wants (like all tranzies) is to destroy current governments, by all means (including force) in order to impose a MORE authoritarian one, a “popular democracy”, which is more in step with his (Assange’s) ideas.
I strongly oppose people like Assange and his antics. He is no friend of freedom.
JadedLibertarian, So does your last comment re WWII mean you would not rule out something some sort of action to remove a developing capability in, say, Iran to create Nuclear, dirty or bio weapons?
Darryl and IanB:
I agree that in an ideal world state secrets would be used only with the purest of motives, to plan attacks against the baddest of men, who wish to do the worst of things. And that might include WMD removal.
However, that’s rarely the case. Look at using the WMD removal argument on Iraq. It was used as a “no one could disagree with that” argument for invasion.
Even during WW2, the power to keep secrets was not just used to plot the invasion of Normandy. It was also used to plot the firebombing of Dresden and to keep the Katyn massacre under wraps.
I’m of the view that we are better off crippled strategically as a nation, but free. The power of keeping secrets is so rarely used for good.
But its effects are rather beside the point in any case. The key objection I have to the concept of state secrets is that it is a dividing line between free-men and slaves. Free-men have the power to scrutinise their appointed representatives. Slaves just need to “take their word for it”.
If the price of freedom means we cannot effectively engage in mass conflict, the for the most part I would consider this a good thing.
Correction that last comment should have been directed at Darryl and Phil A
“Well, I supposed people know some history…”
It’s the differences between then and now that matter. Why wouldn’t today’s totalitarians in the West use very different tactics to those of the early 20th century? The ground has shifted. Whereas could simply call off future elections, thus removing much of the need for bullshit and obfuscation, that option is not available to any politician in the U.S. or even the U.K. Hence the need for continued bullshitting in public, frankness in private among themselves. That’s what is meant by “conspiracy” and that is why your comment about what “authoritarianism” does do and doesn’t do made without regard to context or historical differences was so rubbish.
“…they express more or less the will of the majority of the population.”
That’s just not true – I defy any rational person to say they sincerely believe that, given the facts. What was U.S. voter turnout this year for the mid-terms – around 40% of registered voters? That is not a majority even just among registered voters.
“It’s ok to fight in the realm of ideas to change the perspective of the people, but not ok to force on them policies you think are true but they don’t.”
I don’t want to force people to do this or that, I just want them to fuck off and stop trying to push me around. But until popular opinion changes that’s OK is it?
Do you realize Samizdata has been running now for a decade? How many more decades have you got left waiting around on blogs, hoping other people might change their opinions about forcing you to cough up your dough for their bullshit projects?
“What Assange wants (like all tranzies) is to destroy current governments, by all means (including force) in order to impose a MORE authoritarian one…”
That might be what he wants, but whether that’s what Wikileaks will eventually achieve is an entirely different question. Still another question is what might yet be achieved with this method which would run contrary to the purported aims of Assange.
Well, Perry’s nose is proven to be working yet again, as shown by James Waterton’s link above.
Mike said “I don’t want to force people to do this or that, I just want them to fuck off and stop trying to push me around.” Absolutely!
To that I might add. “…and often doing it with my own money.”
This may come as a surprise to many here who know me (at least, as much as I’ve revealed about myself online), but I’m not altogether unsympathetic towards what WikiLeaks is doing.
While anyone who knowingly releases sensitive operational information should be hanged (e.g. the New York Time editorial committee a couple years back), I don’t have too much of a problem with the world discovering — O shock of shocks! — that the various Gulf States oligarchs are more really fearful of a nuclear Iran than of The Great Satan.
What amuses me most about all this is that the so-called “modern, efficient” State is so inept at keeping secrets that a low-level employee can gain access to all this data and disseminate it.
As for Assange: he’s a nasty little nihilist, and frankly, he probably deserves everything he gets, whatever that is. I can’t wait for all sorts of bad things to happen to him, and discover that, all rhetoric apart, the U.S. will probably have no part of it. We take people to court (or destroy their targeted asses with Predator missiles).
The greatest irony is that Assange will have to rely on Western states for protection — he’s not going to get asylum in Cuba or Iran — all while he’s trying his best to bring them down.
Sic semper fucktardis.
Oh, and Jaded Libertarian: your touching assertion that you have no enemies is kindergarten naivete personified. No doubt, many people in 1930s Europe felt the same way, right up until the Panzer battalions arrived in the town square.
They may not hate you personally, but they sure as hell hate everything about you, and none of them would have a moment’s hesitation about destroying you (and others of your type) if they could.
Good luck trying to persuade them otherwise, with the intense philosophical debate so beloved of libertarians.
Without the Western Leviathan State’s nuclear umbrella, your wife and daughters would already be wearing burqas, and you’d be kneeling towards Mecca five times a day. How’s THAT for an oppressive State?
Kim, I was with you up until those last two sentences. Which Islamic State would have won a conventional war against NATO?
It seems to me that the “nuclear umbrella” is not much use at all, since our governments keep telling everyone they’ll never use it.
Islam is a cultural threat; its military threat is negligible. If it came to open total war, we’d win in an afternoon. There’s a better argument that without the West’s military (including nukes) Europe would be under the boot of communists.
I mean, foreign ones rather than the native ones who currently rule us, that is.
Kim where did I say there was no one on earth who would try to kill me if given the chance. I said I had no enemies, by which I mean I personally have given no man cause to seek my life.
Of course, my country may have enemies, who would seek to kill me simply by virtue of my citizenship. But that rather supports my point that governments breed conflict and bloodshed.
As to militant Islam, I’d not been too worried about them if I had the right to keep and bear arms. They were stopped at the gates of Vienna once by an armed Europe, and we could do it again if we had the means.
But as long as we live in this cotton wool prison of a nanny state, who knows?
Jaded, you are still ignoring the nukes and the missiles that can deliver them far and wide – unless you think that neither Iran nor NK or Pakistan actually have them?
Jaded, they don’t want to kill you because of what’s on your passport. They want to kill you because you’re an infidel. That’s actually quite different.
They were actually stopped by a coalition of princes with organised armies, and even then it was a very close run thing indeed. Military organisation has enormous advangates and it wins and loses wars. A good example is the utter rout of Boudicca’s “citizens militia” by the heavily outnumbered but trained, well organised, centralised Roman forces at The Battle Of Watling Street.
Alisa:
I’m not ignoring them, I just don’t think they are as big an issue as many people think.
If, for example, the government took to adopting a non-interventionist position on the international stage, then the likelihood of another sovereign nation wanting to nuke us would be almost entirely eliminated.
That leaves insane would-be conquerors. Let’s suppose some group or nation was so consumed with hate that they were willing to use nukes in order to seize control of the country. Nukes poison the land, so they cannot be effectively used for conquest. You really think Iran would nuke the Dome of the Rock?
So that leaves psychotic mass murderers. They don’t want the country, they just want to kill everyone. 1 nuke can destroy 1 city. There are hundreds of cities in the UK. Each nuke costs at minimum 50 million USD. So it would cost billions upon billions of dollars to turn the UK into a glass parking lot. Once weapons have been used in such a concentration anywhere in the world, the ramifications for the rest of the plant would be extreme. The jet stream in particular would tend to carry fallout east to west, so for example Iran would be seriously contaminated by any sizeable use of nukes, assuming it doesn’t fracture the crust of the earth and cause the planet to start breaking up.
I’m not saying that terrorists wouldn’t use nukes if they could get them. But the practical problems of using nuclear weapons are so great as to almost preclude their use at all.
Even with nuclear weapons, an armed citizenry could never be fully conquered. Killing them all would be impractical. All in all you’d be setting yourself up for a lot of hassle – so why bother?
Ultimately what would be needed to prevent the risk of any misuse of weapons would be a totalitarian one-world government, with unchecked power. Even then the risk of a rouge splinter group would remain.
So all in all, I’m not convinced there is much than can truly be done to alleviate the threat of nuclear weapons. So I elect not to worry about it.
What I do worry about is the political use the concept of nuclear weapons is put to. You’ve all heard politicians say something along the lines of “Sure, maybe we’re being a bit fascist, but the consequence of these weapons being misused is so great that it is justified…..” This is also applied to lesser powered weapons such as handguns.
This excuse is used to cover a multitude of oppressive acts.
Correction: that should read fallout tends to be carried west to east…..
While I’m correcting I’ll acknowledge I appreciate what you are all getting at. But I don’t think it is possible or practical to have a little bit of government, or a little bit of oppression, or a little bit of imperialism.
These things have a tendency to snowball.
All in all, I’d rather be free and in danger of Islamist nukes, than oppressed but living with the illusion of freedom.
I quite understand if you don’t feel that way.
But who cares about China, Russia, Iran and North Korea? Ok, so China actually matters globally, but Russia, Iran and North Korea are nothing more than regional powers with delusions of grandeur. The USA, UK and frankly most First World countries are where the real influence lies… and that is why they are the ones that need to be undermined.
Moreover in this post cold war world, doing what you can to undermine western regulatory welfare states is no longer tantamount to supporting the Soviets, so why not do it if you actually care about opposing the leviathan state. Echelon and Carnivore are vastly bigger threats to liberty worldwide than Kim Jong-Il. Sure, publishing something nasty about North Korea or Russia might give warm fuzzies but does it really matter?
It’d be pretty hard to find any fact about Iran or North Korea that isn’t dirt.
Fair enough, Jaded. I actually happen to agree with you more than you might think, but remain in disagreement on some key points, and it seems that it will remain this way for the time being.
This at Pajamas Media is interesting about Assagne:
(Link)
Basically that he might have to give himself up to avoid being dealt with by other people.
From Pajamasmedia – What was revealed?:
Berlusconi likes girls.
Sarkozy likes himself.
Angela Merkel is boring.
David Cameron is more boring.
Hillary thinks Cristina needs a shrink.
Benjamin Netanyahu can’t stand Ehud Olmert.
Al Qaeda hates America.
Yemen’s president hates Al Qaeda
Ahmadinejad is Hitler
North Korea likes Iran.
Saudi Arabia hates Iran
Julian Assange is Dennis Kucinich.
PFC Manning will never see the sun again.
America needs a new president.
China believes Wikileaks is run by the CIA: Suspicions abound that Wikileaks is part of U.S. cyber-warfare operations
More speculation from summer: Wikileaks, Legitimate Whistleblowers or CointelPro?
Some possible goals of such an operation are:
– preparing for war with Iran and North Korea
– antagonizing China
– exposing the fact that leaks are not preventable in an internet age
– UFO disclosure
Many are asking how Assange could possibly get away with his activities. The obvious answer is that he couldn’t – not without the secret endorsement of the western governments he is offending.
Oooh, and even deeper conspiracy theory! I can’t wait to see if this one develops any legs.
Fred:
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/12/03/what-would-assange-be-willing-to-say/
Jaded Libertarian, You said “I said I had no enemies, by which I mean I personally have given no man cause to seek my life.” Newsflash you certainly have. Simply by your failure to submit to Islam for only one reason. There are plenty of others, including a likely belief in individual liberty and a possible willingness to stand up for it.
If you live in the UK as I assume from your comment you and don’t have the right to keep and bear arms – so based on your own comment it might be a prombem. Might it not?
From your earlier response I assime in principle you agree it is legitimate to take some sort of action to remove a developing threat. It is a matter of details.
Oh Gawd. With more than 800,000 people having Top Secret clearance in the USA, the only marvel is that it took so long for Wikileaks to happen. To figure out it ain’t a CIA Op, just look at the apoplexy of the people whose dirty laundry is being aired.
The CIA wants them exposed; they are not into protecting people with dirty laundry. It’s both unethical and dangerous to employ a person who can be corrupted or blackmailed.
“It’s both unethical and dangerous to employ a person who can be corrupted or blackmailed.”
What a silly comment. Just about anyone can be corrupted or blackmailed; the key is finding the leverage point. I’m sure that the CIA uses every possible means to prevent hiring such people, but whatever their methods they will never be foolproof.
And with 854,000 people having Top Secret clearance it is impossible to expect that all will be uncorruptible. You live in a fantasy world.
OK…. Not “can be corrupted”, but “is corrupt”.
That’s certainly worth exposing, and wikileaks would make a fine vehicle for it, whether run by a so called “hacker” or by a friendly intelligence agency.
Sorry Amer but in this case our old chum William of Ockham suggests the simplest explanation here is probably the true one…
…Assange did not appear suddenly out of a magician’s hat and his reasons for doing what he has done are all over the internet if you fire up google and see what he has been writting for several years. No conspiracy theory of CIA Black Ops needed to explain what we are seeing here 🙂
I get your gist, but I don’t think Julian has been asked directly if he was recruited to help the government. Or he may be firewalled from key parts of the program so that he can deny it, almost with honesty.
John Young of Cryptome claimed WL was a front back in 2007, long before the recent drama. Is he incorrect?
I would be extremely surprised to learn that the CIA is clever and competent enough to pull that off. My default position is deep skepticism. But who knows?
JadedLibertarian has enemies within five miles of him right now, unless he is at sea or in some remote rural area.
That is, people who would rob him or possibly kill him if given the opportunity. JL no doubt dismisses this danger – he’s a big tough libertarian who can defend himself against any such, he thinks. What he chooses to ignore is that villains can operate in groups from street gangs of five or six to nation-states with armies. Against organized villainy, the individual citizen is close to helpless.
It takes organized citizens to defeat villainy and secure liberty and property. The free Swiss peasants who threw off the Hapsburg yoke were organized as companies and regiments of drilled pikemen and halberdiers. The lives and property of British citizens are secured against local villains by the presence, in the general vicinity, and over time, of organized police forces. Even a vigilante posse is organized.
Rich:
I live in a small village, no malevolent gangs within at least 15 miles. No police either – cutbacks you know….
But that’s all beside the point. I was not objecting to the notion of a constabulary. What seemed to get people so upset was that I objected to the notion that free men should let their government keep secrets from them.
I still contend that if you do not have the right to know what they do, then you are a slave. Even if the right to secrecy is used only in the smallest of small ways (which is isn’t by the way) there is always the chance that the way in which it is used will directly impact your freedom.
Freedom necessitates the right to second guess your government.
Jaded Libertarian, You say you “object to the notion that free men should let their government keep secrets from them.”
Does it not occur to you that it is a good idea to keep details of how to make certain weapons secret while you can’t to retain an advantage? Details of commercial processes secret? Details of hidden sources of information such as agents? Details of plans secret? Codes?
I retain the right to my bank details, my pin numbers, combination lock keys, details of when my home is left empty overnight. If I had a industrial secrets I might want to keep those secret. If I had several business plans I might not want competitors to know the details. If I bought a present for my wife I would not look kindly on someone spoiling the surprise.
Just because I don’t know what my neighbour’s pin code is does not make me any less a free person… it does limit my freedom to some extent, but that is not quite the same thing.
It limits my ability to plunder his bank account. But this is a freedom I am willing to surrender in turn for his not being able to plunder my bank account.
Why should the state not have the same rights as the individual or company?
If you think you don’t have enemies just publish your personal details, bank account details and your mother’s maiden name and brace yourself for disappointment.
Phil: the state is not an individual, it is a group of individuals who happen to be the employees of Jaded and other taxpayers. Therefore, and at least technically, any information possessed by the state is the property of its employer (Jaded and others), and so it is at the employers’ discretion whether to waive the rights to that information or not. We, the taxpayers everywhere in the West, have been continuously waiving many of our rights to the state, including the right to information – some of them wisely, some of them less so.