Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg’s words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are “amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history.” The American public “needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.”
Assange was the tool of a foreign intelligence service who salted WikiLeaks with disinformation harmful to national interests. I believe the term of art is “useful idiot”.
Do you have evidence for that or should I don the proverbial tinfoil hat?
Thank you for the link, it was an interesting read. Allow me to unpack your previous statement for the sake of argument.
Assange was the tool of a foreign intelligence service
No argument here. Wittingly or not, he was used as a destabilizing force by Russia, and that is corroborated in the article.
who salted WikiLeaks with disinformation
Disinformation implies he shared falsehoods. However, the article and the state both treat his disclosures not as fabrications, but as factual. This is what I was really looking for in terms of evidence. It would indeed be quite a revelation to me.
harmful to national interests.
That is a matter of opinion. Here’s another take: The crimes the state committed were harmful to the nation. Exposing them was beneficial as it allows the nation to set the state back on the right path.
I believe the term of art is “useful idiot”.
That might very well be the case. One could make the case that Assange was merely working with the information he got. It just turned out the information was one sided because one side had external help in espionage resources. The article is ambiguous about it but does tend to put him in a less innocent light though.
