Democracy Needs Wikileaks

It's not just disturbing, that the US, UK and Sweden are ganging up on Julian Assange, and Ecuador.

You can be sure that none of the first three nations are concerned about the rough sex accusations made against Assange (the charges are not for rape, but for a kind of sexual aggression only prosecuted in Sweden; but he's not even formally charged: the extradition is only for questioning).

So, the UK threatens Ecuador's Embassy, and despite the threatened action being a breach of international law, the US and Sweden both make encouraging noises.

Why, because under Assange's leadership Wikileaks published thousands of US diplomatic and military documents, classified from NOFORN to Secret. Newspapers all over the world published articles about them, and even Americans now know a lot more about what our nation is doing to the rest of the world. Wikileaks enabled one of the US's most crucial freedoms--freedom of information--to be dramatically, if temporarily, expanded.

Wikileaks sympathizers claim that the US is pressuring both the UK and Sweden to extradite Assange to the US. They say the US intends to try him for espionage, which is punishable by death. Of course, the three principal nations deny everything. But note what the US is not saying: it's not saying that Britain should honor Ecuador's grant of asylum to Assange; it's not saying that Britain shouldn't threaten Ecuador and it's not saying that it won't prosecute Assange for espionage.

Meanwhile the UK denies him safe passage.

All three nations boast about their freedom of the press. Ecuador has only recently had such freedoms: its media was privately owned, in bed with dictators and staunchly opposed to Rafael Correa's government, which has not repressed it.

But the Obama administration appears as zealous as the former USSR to crush dissident Assange; and Romney, if anything, would try to outdo Obama. US media say Ecuador's President has attacked his own press, but that appears to be a distortion.

Correa's government faced a hostile, partisan private oligopoly dominating Ecuadoran media; his supposed "assault" is his government's attempt to nurture a fairer press. Ecuador has promoted public and cooperative outlets, so they could compete with private media.

It would be as if Obama promoted NPR and MSNBC. Oh, he has?

So, why are Assange and Ecuador the new bad-guys to three supposedly democratic governments?

Both bad-guys have defied the American Empire. If they prevail, The Empire looks weak. So, it doesn't matter that the New York Times and WaPo, co-publishers with Assange, are just as culpable as Assange himself. They're connected to power; Julian isn't.

"Hang the bastard!" parallels Rome's response in its declining years. The Fifth Century Empire tortured and "slow-burned" its opponents, but still it lost control, long before CE 476.