While the points about Assad's treatment are essentially true I'm not sure the author does himself a favour by engaging in relativism concerning the dubious practises of Wikileaks, Assange, and the probable connections or at least sympathy with the Russian government.

For example, concerning leaked internal Democratic emails "An even more important point, however, is that a transparency organisation like Wikileaks had no choice, after it was handed those documents, but to expose abuses by the Democratic party – whoever was the source."

I'm pretty sure Wikileaks is the sole authority when it comes to what they publish so they have that choice, and I'll never consider it ethical to leak internal documents of a political organisation, likely by a foreign party, to influence domestic politics.

I lost virtually all respect for Assange after reading Daniel Domscheit-Berg's book on Wikileaks and Assange's conduct. Domscheit-Berg was second-in-command at Wikileaks, so it's hard to pretend that all of this is conjured up by the US government.