I have looked on Julian Assange’s arrest today from
Ecuadorian Embassy in London with mixed feelings. In one case Assange via
Wikileaks exposed Classified and sensitive information related to U.S. National
Security. On the other hand Assange’s release of hacked (or perhaps purloined)
Crooked Hillary campaign emails might just contribute to exposing some of worst
treasonous acts among American leadership since Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr.
Justin Smith examines the Wikileaks Classified material dump
with quite correct anger at America’s betrayal.
Julian Assange 4/11/19 arrested Ecuadorian Embassy
London
*********************
Julian Assange -- A
Good End to America's Enemy
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 4/11/2019 3:13
PM
If you think you’re having a rough morning . . . at least
you’re not Julian Assange.
“Police entered the Ecuadorian embassy in London Thursday morning,
arresting Assange and bringing the Wikileaks founder’s seven-year stint there
to a dramatic close,” reports CNN [CNN
has since updated original quote. Here is the same quote from wfsb.com
– Eyewitness News 3 Hartford CT].
“Metropolitan Police said in a
statement that he was ‘further arrested’ on his arrival at a London police
station on behalf of United States authorities, who have issued an extradition
warrant.
“Officers
made the move after Ecuador withdrew Assange’s asylum and invited authorities
into the embassy, citing the Australian’s bad behavior.”
Some people see Julian Assange as some sort of
"hero" for joining Bradley Manning in espionage and the release of
Department of Defense documents --- thousands of documents -- THAT COST THE LIVES OF AMERICANS SERVING
OVERSEAS.
Even if Manning's and Assange's criminal hacking and
espionage actions didn't result in anyone's death, that does not render them
forgivable or harmless. If one sets his car in neutral and lets it glide down a
hill toward a playground as he walks away in the other direction, he isn't
blameless by any stretch of logic simply because no one was killed. Moreover,
Manning violated several tenets of the basic military oath, such as his vow to
adhere to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the handling of
classified information. Think of all those military folks you have ever known,
who you may have served with yourself, and consider how our good and decent
young men and women, all military personnel, could have been -- or actually
were -- exposed by Manning and Assange. Most patriots will find themselves grow
angry as they reflect on these actions and those institutions that celebrate
Manning's and Assange's criminal actions as "whistleblowing".
Consider if you published something controversial on the
Internet and started getting death threats. How would you like being “doxed”?
In other words, what would your reaction be if someone who didn’t like you
tweeted out to the world your home address? And your phone number? And your
photo? And photos of your children? And the address of their school? And
information about when you left the house each day, the license-plate number of
your car, and the location where it was parked?
Would you call someone who published this information a
“whistleblower”? Let’s say the same person simultaneously published accurate
information about wrongdoing by your neighbors or colleagues. Would that make
you feel any better?
Picture such an information dump on a massive scale. That’s
roughly what then-Bradley Manning did when he threw hundreds of thousands of
secret military and diplomatic documents into the public square. Manning made
no effort to filter out information that didn’t show evidence of wrongdoing. He
indiscriminately stole as many classified documents as he dared and sent them
off for publication on the Internet.
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Remember him? The one you blame
for working with the Russians to subvert democracy? He doesn’t necessarily have
America’s best interests at heart, does he? He never did. Assange an enemy of
democracy not just for publishing stolen political gossip, but for aiding and
enabling Manning's espionage against the United States, in what far too many
call an act of a "whistleblower"; Manning helped Assange publish far
more sensitive, far more important, indeed life-endangering material? Among the
documents Manning turned over to Assange were war logs that contained the names of
hundreds of civilians who cooperated with U.S. forces. Assange
threw all caution to the wind and indiscriminately published those logs en masse,
without redacting the names of civilians involved, placing those fighting for
freedom in their countries in great peril.
It is most telling that Assange's first guest on his talk show on Kremlin-funded Russia Today
was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Whether or not Americans received some other disturbing news
that revealed government misconduct is beside the point. What he did was still
a crime against America, in more regards than any that were
"beneficial" to America.
Just as Americans have a wealth of information each
individual keeps private, like Social Security numbers or bank account numbers
or certain unknown events that occurred in their lives that revive hurtful
memories and pain -- information they wouldn't want just anyone to have --
there is an abundance of information in government files that the average U.S.
citizen doesn't have any real right to view, except and until they have gone
through proper channels and/or a court process or FOIA requests. We have agreed
to such channels, as citizens, to certain processes and oversights in matters
of government.
There are men and women in place to provide oversight over
government. And the problems we find too often today have resulted when those
providing the oversight we less than trustworthy. If these people were immoral
and untrustworthy, one doesn't simply throw open the vault and release
everything, especially when it may reveal CIA operatives in foreign countries,
resulting in their murders, or troop positions and capabilities, resulting in
unnecessary U.S. casualties.
The failure is with Us as a society, in that so many men and
women elected today are immoral and untrustworthy and they appoint people to
positions of similar character. Nothing will change in the halls of government
until things change in America and Her people return to the God and the
principles that founded America.
Governments need to keep secrets, too. We can argue about
just how many secrets it should keep, and there’s a strong argument that the
U.S. government over-classifies a lot of information that could be released to
the public without harm. But besides all the aspects of national security that
need to be kept secret — where our forces are, what they’re vulnerable to, what
we know about hostile states and terrorist groups, what we don’t know, the
identities of agents, case officers, and covert operators, and so on — our
government needs to be able to assess and evaluate these issues in secrecy. The
public also needs to be informed of at least the general contours of the
national-security issues that concern the government, which is why the House
and Senate intelligence committees usually hold both public and private
hearings.
Countries also need to be able to communicate with each
other discreetly. Sometimes a foreign government will privately agree with a
U.S. policy and be willing to cooperate but cannot acknowledge their stance
publicly because of preexisting public attitudes. For example, in 2010, the
United States wanted to launch drone strikes against operatives of al-Qaeda on
the Arabian Peninsula. Because allowing U.S. airstrikes on Yemeni soil would
irritate the Yemeni people, president Ali Abdullah Saleh told General David Petraeus, “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours,
not yours.” This was one of the secrets revealed in the diplomatic cables
released by WikiLeaks. The choice to reveal that conversation indicates that
WikiLeaks finds the secrecy about the American bombing efforts more troubling
that what those al-Qaeda members were doing.
Those of us who paid attention figured out early on that
Julian Assange always seemed more interested in releasing information that
harmed United States vital interests and national security than he was in
helping the American people uncover the Traitors in their midst. Assange always
seemed particularly angry with the American and Western European governments,
and never all that bothered by the world’s indisputably brutal and despotic
regimes, in Russia, Iran, Cuba, China, North Korea, Venezuela and Syria.
Some of us never discovered a newfound appreciation for
Assange once he started leaking information from the DNC and John Podesta, and saw the same guy we always did -- as a
SPY and an ENEMY to America.
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed in
1953 on slim evidence and for a whole lot less than the crimes
committed by Julian Assange. Assange should be extradited to the U.S. and
charged, prosecuted and executed.
By Justin O Smith
ADDENDUM: The
Taliban and Al Qaeda both poured over these documents, sorting and sifting, to
discover who was working with the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even
more troubling, it placed U.S. tactics, strategic plans and military strength
and positions all in the hands of the enemy.
___________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Text enclosed by brackets and source links are by the
Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
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