There's
a good article by Seamus Milne in the Guardian today. “Don't lose
sight of why the US is out to get Julian Assange”.
I
commented:
This
article is simple and straightforward. Its foundation is the
potential consequences for Assange of the material threat posed by
his Wikileaks activity to the material interests of the US and its
allies, including Britain and Sweden. These consequences are
manifestly terrifying. The most evidence for this is the treatment
being handed out to Bradley Manning and the whole procedure of
extraordinary rendition. In the name of proportion it considers this
aspect of the affair to outweigh the elements touted as central by
the anti-Assange lobby - law, the legal system, and the rights of
women. And the need for justice to be enforced to the letter.
Proportionality reveals that this mountain of abstractions is
wobbling atop a speck of fly shit in terms of substantial violation
of law, legality and the rights of women - the shit is there, but if
we compare every component of the accusations being made with similar
or worse misdemeanours we know to be committed all day every day but
which are never brought to court or given the same headline
treatment, then we can see it is a speck of fly shit. No serious
drive to discourage rape or other violence against women would use
the methods or tone of the anti-Assange campaign or spray ideological
filth all over the arena.
In
this affair substantial material interests are at stake, and it's
worth noting that in such conflicts rational discourse is not the way
things are done. People fight for their interests (or what they think
are their interests) using any means they can. The British state
spends thousands of pounds on an unprecedented show of police force
around the Ecuadorian embassy, for instance. No rational discourse
there.
What
we can do, in the interests of rationality, is to analyse the degree
of reason in the arguments put forward by the conflicting sides.
Where substantial state interests are concerned there is no such
thing as an impartial judge, history is clear on that, so our
analysis won't decide any conflict, but it will show us which side is
closer to reality and the truth, and so which side is most likely to
emerge victorious in the long run.
The
US, Britain and Sweden will claim they are closest to truth and
justice even while they are tumbling into the dustbin of history, and
will heckle and bully the world to believe them.
But
they look more and more like incompetent enemy agent Chico Marx in
Duck Soup when he says: "Who are you going to believe, me or
your own eyes?"
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