Biden Says U.S. Is Considering Dropping Its Case Against Assange
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Whether he should be in prison or not, and whether the sexual abuse claims against him are accurate, is a separate matter which I'm not commenting on.
But I object to anyone framing him as a hero.
Snowden is a coward who fled to Russia at Assange's behest, and while I cannot necessarily blame him for that, it is clear that he is now a citizen of a much less freedom-loving country, and he wouldn't dare do anything such as criticize their invasion of Ukraine. Very human, but not very heroic.
Really? I don't know many cowards that do such risky things.
A hero doesn't slink away to a dictatorship to save his skin. A normal person would do this. Most of us, maybe.
But should we be celebrating that?
And it should also make us question who benefitted from what they were doing, and maybe realize that these people were geopolitical players batting for a particular not-so-nice team rather than independent heroes for freedom.
The US could do the right thing. It is a choice. But other choices are made, as is tradition.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/edward-sno...
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/07/05/how-the-snowden-leak...
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/02/national-int...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper#Testimony_to_Con...
... to a far worse place where he'll get executed as soon as he steps out of the line. He has become someone who says only what his handlers allow him to say. A hero doesn't prostitute himself out to a hostile foreign country.
There's plenty of whistleblowers who haven't made such deal with the devil and haven't sold their soul.
As for the "creep" comment - this is a vague labeling that isn't possible to debate. You either agree with it based off a subjective assessment or you don't. But if you're referring to the rape accusations made against Assange, those charges were ultimately dropped, because "the evidence has weakened considerably" (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50473792). The entire saga of those accusations seems suspicious and feels like a tactic to extradite him.
Regardless, all of this is a distraction. The things revealed by Wikileaks and Snowden are far more important and significant to society than this minutia. Somehow detractors always want to point at lesser issues around Assange or Snowden instead of addressing the many elephants in the room.
Israel Shamir is a major creep, who works with people like the Russian fascist Dugin, and has close and repeated contacts with the Russian government.
The point is that these are political players with creepy political goals.
Personally, I see it as a larger problem for the US that the Democrats are no longer anywhere near left enough or dialog oriented enough to maintain the facade of a superpower with European values and special relationships, and I don't think a fake moment of reflection will change that.
Europe would be moving toward seeing itself as bullied by 3 superpowers with less distinction either way but at an accelerated pace if it doesn't even see the Democrats as a relatable government in exile when the US is particularly unhinged.