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Comment by phphphphp | Hacker News Reader

From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project masquerading as a righteous cause. Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) remember that wikileaks was always about building a narrative rather than exposing the truth.

Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist. Many people believe wikileaks is a net good but despise Assange. Assange failed wikileaks, the media did not fail Assange.

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The truth is a narrative. Not all narratives are true, but calling something a narrative doesn't in any way disprove it.

Would you like to actually call out anything in Collateral Murder that you think wasn't exposing the truth?

I'm old enough to remember Collateral Murder. I'm old enough to remember it's video footage. Of members of the US military murdering people, and laughing about it. You can't dismiss that as "just a narrative", it's also the truth, and it's a fucked up truth that the public deserves to know about.

That's the play, attack the person or how it was release but never acknowledge the contents of the release.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

I make no claim that collateral murder did not represent a war crime, I make no claim that the release of collateral murder was a bad thing, rather, I am claiming that Julian Assange was never a noble person releasing leaked footage to expose the truth, he was a political performer, creating the narrative that he wanted to create, using leaks as props. Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (as has been shown in the years since) and cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time.

You can be glad that collateral murder was released while also being deeply unhappy with Julian Assange’s motives and actions.

Ok, let's open some new positions for totally noble poeple to expose the truth. Anything less than noble should be put in prison regardless of the truth exposed. Any takers? Meanwhile let's see what b.s mainstream media is pushing. They are not less than noble and deserve the whole attention.

Its a straw man argument. The thugs dropping bombs on innocent people every twenty minutes aren't good enough or honest enough, either. You only have to be marginally better than them - a very low bar - in order to effect change.

Which means, if you aren't interested in effecting change in the form of real justice for these war crimes and crimes against humanity, you're not one nanometer taller, in terms of moral authority, than the criminals dropping bombs on peoples heads - in your name.

> Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (...) cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time.

To what end are these agendas?

Being personally relevant? Paid? If one of these, how is he benefitting from those now?

Surely he'd be expecting his demise,given his knowledge of the organization(s) he shone light on.

We're talking about an ex-hacker type turned political leaker, not a talk news pundit.

There are no shared assumptions about these agendas, besides the narratives he and WL have provided. If you have some assumptions, share them?

Everyone has an agenda, even if that agenda is only that they want to think of themselves as a moral person. What matters is whether the person's actions are good or bad.

> Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (as has been shown in the years since) and cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time.

He published the truth and spent over a decade in confinement for it. Isn't that enough?

Agreed. I find both of these things true:

People in government positions in the US and UK abused their power.

Julian Assange is not a good, or honest person.

So you'll only accept evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and then take action about it within the context of your own democratic processes, if you get that evidence from a good and/or honest person?

Because honestly, this just keeps the door open for more crimes. Rarely is anyone ever good enough or honest enough - and neither of those conditions are required for addressing our heinous crimes against humanity, frankly. You just have to be good enough to know that war crimes and crimes against humanity are heinous, and honest enough to produce workable evidence that can be used to produce justice.

Assange is good enough and honest enough for that case, really - and if a person doesn't agree, they're a bootlicker thug. The WAR CRIMES have to stop. The CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY have to stop. It doesn't matter one iota what sort of person reports the evidence - the evidence is real. The crimes are real.

Assange's honesty doesn't change the enormous magnitude of the victims digging their loved ones out of the rubble, one bit.

Where did I say any of that?

War crimes are a serious problem, of course. But it's also quite possible that Assange's distribution of Russian propaganda affected elections in multiple countries and allowed for Russian human rights violations in Africa and Syria.

So you'll only accept evidence of war crimes if they are committed by the US?

And yes, I know you didn't write that but it's just as fair of a characterization as the one you provided.

> Julian Assange is not a good, or honest person.

Good is subjective.

Honest, on the other hand is not, and if you're going to say he's not honest I'd like to see your evidence for that.

Intelligence analysis (at least those reported in US Senate investigations) show Russian-linked code and Russian language in the Wikileaks leak of the hacked DNC emails. Assange either lied (lies) about not receiving that content from Russian sources or is being disingenuous by sticking to a distinction that maybe there is a middle man in between the FSB/hackers and the individual(s) that uploaded the data/documents.

Completely ruins his credibility, no? That's not honest by any definition.

I am not a fan of US foreign policy, but also, have you noticed that, from the beginning (2011?), nearly every major Wikileaks release is US government or 5 eyes? Funny that.

Also, maybe look in to Assanges friend (and Russian antisemite) Israel Shamir. And look at Wikileaks activities (through Shamir) in Belarus.

Look, if Assange came out and said "I get a lot of my info from Russian intelligence sources and I want to further their agenda" he would be not necessarily a "good" person. But maybe an "honest" one.

> I make no claim that collateral murder did not represent a war crime

Well, that's quite a change from: "Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) remember that wikileaks was always about building a narrative rather than exposing the truth."

So you admit leaking Collateral Murder was about exposing the truth? A truth which was a war crime? It seems like maybe you made a vague accusation you couldn't back up specifically there.

> Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (as has been shown in the years since) and cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time.

Make a real accusation instead of being vague. If Assange's lack of loyalty to the truth has been shown, I haven't seen it, so please, tell us what evidence you have. Otherwise, this is just another vague accusation that you'll shift away from when confronted for specifics.

If you're going to claim Assange is dishonest, I'd like to see a) evidence he knowingly leaked false information, or b) evidence he knowingly withheld true information. Be specific, stop this vague handwaving.

Wikileaks never published anything untruthful TMK. That is a far better record than almost any other publishing outlet.

What's the revisionism? The collateral murder video was actually especially popular and impactful to the demographic (democrat young white liberal) that is now almost comically against Assange.

Also, there's literally no difference in the way they did "narrative building" with Collateral Murder than , say, the NYT does in covering war crimes in Ukraine. I mean to be honest it's a bit hard to understand why you would even highlight the narrative building by the exposing party, when the actual events involved a cover up of war crimes from the Pentagon and an insane amount of damage control and PR. It just doesn't register for me, it's like saying you lost confidence in the NYT for covering war crimes in a way that highlighted that war crimes are actually... bad.

I disagree with your characterisation, there was a lot of criticism of Collateral Murder from young white liberals! Assange and wikileaks, at the time, were presented as apolitical truth-seekers, not as journalists. Journalism is very different from what Wikileaks claimed to be, and Collateral Murder was not presented as a piece of journalism, it was presented as a leak. You cannot conceivably compare what Wikileaks claimed to be at the time, to what the New York Times claimed to be at the time.

Go back in time to when Assange was first accused of sexual misconduct and you’ll find that a lot of people disliked him: it’s revisionist to claim that he was perceived a noble hero by the left until he was accused of sexual misconduct or until he started his crusade against Hilary Clinton (as if any young white liberal liked Hilary Clinton…)

To me, there is no real difference. Or at least not enough to warrant any criticism of wikileaks (w.r.t how they handled Collateral Murder, not in general of course).

Whatever they did was much more effective than american journalists were doing at the time. It was less so to push a narrative than to expose an event that would've been swept under the rug, just like many many other "oopsies" the americans ignored at the time.

As to liberals being pro-hillary, I don't disagree that it wasn't true in 2008. But those liberals almost certainly grew to avidly support her in 2016.

I guess I'm biaised since I have been exposed to the "other side" of the iraq war and the war on terror, as a practicing muslim in a pretty political family. But to me it still amounts to complaining or criticizing from a position of pure privilege (I'm referring to the criticism at the time of the video's publication, not your comments!), as Americans basically found it "yucky" to be exposed to the results of their own imperialist policies. In that context, I think WL would've been criticized no matter what because the actual issue wasn't that they were pushing a narrative, but more so that they were making some Americans uncomfortable.

Imho, if WikiLeaks had focused on being the Craigslist of information, without attempting to market themselves, they would have gotten a lot more public support.

You can't transparently publish information and have an opinion.

Why not? Why is public support necessary for transparently publishing information?

Wasn't that the whole idea behind Wikileaks? To not only be a platform to upload and publish random documents, and instead to provide context and work with writers to make it understandable for a wider audience? That's how I understood it at the time, that Assange was unhappy with the limited audience existing platforms were reaching.

/e: I see my reply was less targeted towards your comment but the one above.

> Imho, if WikiLeaks had focused on being the Craigslist of information, without attempting to market themselves, they would have gotten a lot more public support.

Turns out history has gifted you with a test case. :)

What you are describing was literally the early version of Wikileaks[1]!

The ostensible problem was that it generated little to no public awareness[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Submissions

> Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”)

That was very very far from being "their original releases". wikileaks used to be a real "wiki of leaks". it was quite glorious, a real goldmine for journalists to work through

His publications were inconvenient for one party, and then they were inconvenient for the other. He exposed all parties which helped us all become a little more independently minded, but the partisans were in power and exacted revenge.

How could they be partisan when "both sides" have accused them repeatedly of being against them? Case in point, Collateral Murder was celebrated by Democrats and then when they leaked the Hillary emails now all of a sudden Democrats thought Wikileaks was evil. The information was true, the only thing that changed is they didn't like the what it showed.

That's not Wikileaks fault, maybe we should hold those in power accountable regardless of how we feel about their stances on other issues.

> From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project

Which party were the Collateral Murder footages meant to benefit? (Is "partisan" the right word here?)

The history of online-left public opinion on WL is proof that your argument is not true.

> Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist

This is 100% true, though. Trying to say it isn't without any substance doesn't really help your case at all.

The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange. And then it becomes much more questionable that WL was only publishing information that might harm the Clinton's campaign while he was simultaneously in talks with her opponent's campaign about obtaining a pardon from Trump.

When you start operating like that, you lose any and all credibility and protection you might have some sort of journalistic organisation. At best, WL can be described as activists, at worst as useful idiots.

> The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange.

This not a failure of WL, this is the American establishment and elites who were doing everything possible to smear Assange, even to the point of nothing-burger stories about how he was a bad house guest and didn't clean his cat's liter box enough. They were really grasping at straws.

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