A considerable literature has built up in the press and online that has already convicted both Wikileaks and Pfc. Bradley Manning of crimes. One by John Lloyd on Assange and Wikileaks this weekend in the Financial Times was particularly demeaning to both what was once considered journalistic objectivity, and to fair play. The amount of innuendo, hearsay and rumor that make up the essay is astounding. To begin with Mr. Lloyd convicts PFC Bradley Manning of the crime of passing military documents to Mr. Assange. At this time, PFC Manning is only charged with doing this and the central evidence that has been released thus far is hearsay from Adrian Lamo that Manning told him he had done it. Mr. Lloyd identifies Lamo only as a journalist, when he is a hacker arrested in 2004 for breaking into the New York Times website and that of Microsoft. Such is his association with any actual news source and he has no credentials as a journalist.
PFC Manning has been held in conditions found unusual by Amnesty International. In this country, we do not consider someone charged with a crime to be guilty of it. Mr. Lloyd should correct the record on this. If PFC Manning did release the documents Wikileaks possesses then he should be given a metal and a promotion, or perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize. Compared to the behavior of former President Bush and Vice President Cheney whose illegal war and lying to Congress, exposure of CIA agent Valerie Palme, and torture of prisoners, PFC Manning is a paragon of virtue.
Hyperbole seems to be the name of the game in the rest of Mr. Lloyd's article. He gives credence to charges made by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a one time associate of Mr. Assange, made in a new book. It is obvious that Domscheit-Berg is cashing in on whatever role he really had with Mr. Assange and taking the opportunity to vent his disappointment in how that role ended. It seems Mr. Lloyd made no effort to investigate these claims. Character assassination of Mr. Assange is presented as fact as is a juvenile psychological analysis of Mr. Assange. While one has to realize that we live in a world where dignity, honesty, loyalty and virtue are ridiculed so lauding the product of an opportunist is to be expected, and the public seems to enjoy wallowing in this kind of denigration of public figures. In a world with no ethical rudder, where Catholic priests guilty of child abuse are shuttled about by the Church to avoid punishment, and a financial catastrophe of epic proportions is hidden under miles of public debt with hardly a single major conviction for fraud, I suppose we must expect the focus of profiles to be the seamy underbelly.
The sheer cynicism of Mr. Lloyd's article is stunning. His depreciation of Mr. Assange's conclusion that "The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear...This must result in decreased ability to hold on to power." is strange, in that Mr. Assange could be quoting from Machiavelli's The Discourses or Chalmer's Johnson's last books, Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Lloyd's quote from Peter Ludlow is in opposition to all we know about governments, secrets mean power, and secret power leads to corruption. But what is remarkable is such blatantly leading statements like, "Assange's aim is not reform but destruction." This would be more correct for Rep. Ron Paul who does want to end government secrecy. Mr. Lloyd follows his assertion concerning Mr. Assange with a quote from Micah Sifry which seems quite sensible as a goal, "To Assange, the goal of transparency is not to enable better behaviour by governments or corporations but to make it impossible for 'the conspiracy to think act and adapt.'" One wonders if Mr. Lloyd thinks that the whole government conspiracy which has now been uncovered concerning the lies used to convince Congress and Parliament to support the invasion of Iraq should have been made public?
Was is absurd is that the three books Mr. Lloyd reviews have even been published. They do increase the interest in Wikileaks and Mr. Assange, building the mystic over the shadowy network of independent agents who act to uncover corruption and high crimes. One can only recall the rantings of English politicians and journalists over 240 years ago condemning the secret society Americans came to know as the "Committees of Correspondence." Remember that the central conspirators included such outright criminals as Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson. These committees eventually organized free elections in all the former colonies and were the foundations of America's post-colonial governments. One can only hope that in Cairo and across the Middle East such committees are forming. More info on Manning at: http://www.freebradley.org/.