Well, I enjoyed the article, apart from the vicious attack on Waleed Ali.
Which has left me wondering at Ariel's sympathies, as to Zionism.

Very much enjoyed this article and agree with the author's promotion of Julian Assange as by far outstripping any other candidate for Australian of the Year.
Also enjoyed the exposure of the selection process for these accolades - Assange makes all others look relatively ineffectual.
Not sure about the Waleed Ali criticism either - withhold judgement on that.

No matter how much the journalists like him, Assange is still a dealer in stolen property, and that is a crime under Australian law.

This idiot has chosen to attack everybody, He is a conveyor of stolen material,
America is most betrayed by his actions, to the point of terrorism.
To say this bloke is a good candidate for AU of yr is juvenile judgment.

Perhaps 579 and DIS should get in touch with the Australian Federal Police and ask them why they deemed that Assange had broken no Australian law.
All news outlets publish leaked material - should they be charged as well? Why the ABC online Investigative Unit even has a blurb on the site saying it encourages whistleblowers and is interested in receiving any information of that ilk.

Hey Jonathan

DISHWATER DOWN THE DRAIN-HOLE?

Is David Burchell closer to the truth?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/columnists/david-burchell

"Through no achievement of his own other than a chance acquaintance with a bullied junior security analyst - Assange has become the great phenomenon of our age. He is, if you like, the Chauncey Gardiner of alt-politics, whose blatherings are mistaken for serious observation on the world, and who - in an era when genuine political seriousness is merely a sign of dull conformity - presents conspiratorial politics as a cool lifestyle-choice for the edification of cocktail-bar philosophers everywhere. Now thousands of miniature Assanges around the world have transformed the man into a culture hero, a moral saint for people who otherwise believe all conventional morality to be old-hat; this man who seems incapable of empathising with any other living being, and whose actions form an intricate circuit of self-heroising narcissism and heedless self-destruction, like a whorl of dishwater disappearing down the drain-hole."

Alice (in Wikiland)

Alice. Its a great article.

Julian Assange for Australian of the Year. He has Vladmir Putin's support. He must be a good bloke.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/putin-leads-support-for-assange/story-fn775xjq-1225968781585

Although I prefer him for the " outrageous poser/paranoid conspiracy theorist " of the Year Award.

leftist of the Year is far more appropriate than Australian of the Year. That way he would be in good company with other alarmist of the Year. I wonder when the honour became so devalued. Then again the same people would of voted for Yassar to receive the Nobel Peace prize. Really makes you laugh.

interesting Article, I would need more information to vote him Australian of the year as to me Australian of the year are people who benefit all facets of society. Maybe when society has actually changed for the better we can look at giving it to Assange then. Assange in my eyes has not yet. Assange has also been found to not have broken any laws in Australia. So people who go on and on about this are ignorant fools. Also the garbage about America and terrorism lets face it the war in Afghanistan benefits only the Americans who are more like modern day vikings. To many lies and to many people have been lost. Long live wikileaks and other organizations like it. America does not rule the world. How about they get rid of all of their nuclear capable weapons and warships and reduce their defence force. Put more money into helping the poor people in the community.

Alice,

Good excerpt from David Burchell' article - he has nabbed it. I have never heard of him. I should chuck the SMH and turn to The Australian.

Paul,

That's hilarious Putin talking of democracy. Amazing and disgusting how Russia's free speaking journalists are treated and stealthily annihilated and not to mention Putin's current imprisoned tycoon(?) political opponent. Dreadful.

Laurie Oakes won a Walkely Award last year for doing the same thing - except that Oakes never had to produce any evidence beyond heresay.

His gossip almost turned an election. What will Wikileaks change?

I for one think it's quite reasonable to know a bit more about what we are sacrificing our youth for on the battlefield.

I also think the remark about Aly was grossly unfair and incorrect.

Very good article
There would not be a need for people like Julian if other journalists were not controlled in what they write. Most journalists have been co conspirators in the cover up of many things that should have been reported on. Journalists have become propagandists in their own right, with their own self interests paramount to the truth behind the scene.
I think that Julian has shown them all up. It's about time that some of the journalists and also the broadcasters started to speak the truth instead of presenting stories that are of no real interest and are merely meant to divert attention away from what is really happening in the world. Thanks for the internet. I no longer pay to read papers that have become propaganda and glitsy movie star reports.

Alice Thermopolis,

Thank you for the link in your post of Tuesday, 4 January 2011 at 4:54:24 PM, to the list of 20 articles (with their respective by-lines) by David Burchell. I'm sure in due course I may find that compilation helpful, but could you be more specific as to from which of the articles the quote you have posted came? There is a limit to the amount of time available with which to come to grips with the WikiLeaks issues.

You recite what is presumably Burchell's line:

"Through no achievement of his own
other than a chance acquaintance
with a bullied junior security analyst
[, Assange] ...."

In doing so you appear to abet what, from my admittedly limited knowledge as to the WikiLeaks phenomenon, appears to be Burchell's misrepresentation of Assange as having had any link whatsoever with the 'bullied junior security analyst' (by whom I presume is to be meant PFC Manning) prior to the downloaded diplomatic cables coming into the hands of the WikiLeaks organisation. Such misrepresentation is a matter of significant public interest, for it assists in placing the spotlight upon Assange the (fallible?) man, rather than upon the weaknesses in the (US) system of control of such classified information as so self-evidently exist.

Inquiry as to possible weaknesses in the system of control of such information would normally be a standard term of reference for those conducting any competent investigation into such a breach of security. US Senator John McCain, who has described the leaking of the cables as the most serious breach of (US) national security, would, in his earlier days as a naval officer, undoubtedly himself have performed investigations under such terms of reference.

Perhaps it would be a good time to re-read Jonathan Ariel's 7 December 2010 OLO article 'United States vs WikiLeaks', http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11336&page=0

What and/or who's interests are being served by the seeming attempted minimization of the significance of the (US) security breach that lies at the heart of this whole matter?

The question of integrity must be a consideration for the role of Australian of the Year, surely.

There are just too many unanswered questions in relation to Assange,

Australian or not.

It is good to be informed on the activities of governments throughout the world, in particular the scheming of Hilary Clinton, the ego trips of Senator Arbib and the submissive attitudes of the current PM Gillard and her lack of judgement on the Assange Wikileaks comments and her “stupid” comment to the ‘Dorothy Dix’ question from Josh Frydenberg, Jewish Member for Kooyong, on the statement by Kevin Bracken referring to the now widely held belief, worldwide, that 9/11 was a conspiracy..

Assange told Al Jazeera newspapers last Wednesday in an interview, “WikiLeaks will release cables concerning Israel, the Second Lebanon War and the Mabhouh assassination in the next six months”,
Six months? Why six months? . Assange said “only a small number of documents related to Israel have been published so far because newspapers in the West that had exclusive rights to publish the material were hesitant to publish sensitive information about Israel”, reported in the Qatari newspaper The Peninsula, citing the Al Jazeera interview.

One has to ask who gave the “exclusive rights” to those ‘selected’ newspapers? Assange?

Ethical or just a crass commercial reality?

The 2500 cables yet to be published on the activities of Israel / Mossad in the world’s troublespots may be the result of the insidious domination of the world’s press by the likes of Murdoch and the Zionists who are withholding negative stories of Israel’s activities. However, is it also Assange who is filtering the cables on instructions from a ‘foreign ‘intelligence service’, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, a political scientist and geostrategist, who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter.

He stated this quite definitely. Who would question Brzezinski compared to Assange?

Australian of the Year? Hardly. It is unlikely that Assange should even be considered for this honour.
Find a friendly cricketer, one who has scored more than 25 runs.

Now that’s really Australian

What a foolish suggestion!

If he was, diplomats around the world would accept that our Govt
has no problem with private and sensitive diplomatic information
being leaked. They in turn, would treat our dimplomats as
lepers and make sure that no sensitive information is passed on
to Australians. Hardly smart thinking.

Honourable actions and Assange are mutually exclusive.

It is the leaks that are not being reported by Assange, conveniently, that make the highly regarded Wikileaker, highly regarded by some in these columns, that is, a most unworthy choice for any honour other than as a co-conspirator in world terrorism by his exclusion of matters that have been carefully filtered by his organisation. As stated above by a previous writer, Assange blames the Zionist media for choosing not to report anything detrimental to Israel, but world opinion has now formed a contrary view, well documented.

As stated in Veterans Today, ‘How many Americans have been killed by CIA-recruited terrorists; how many Israeli-designed and built IEDs, planted by the same terrorists recruited by the CIA, all trained by India’s RAW, (an organization partnered and supported by Israel’s Mossad) and active in Afghanistan and against Pakistan, but also America’s primary ally in the region'.

Americans and Australians are being attacked too, by Israeli-built IED’s, the weapon of choice. The truth is out there as Mr. Assange knows only too well, all part of regional destabilization involving tens of billions of dollars in serious drug trafficking and corruption of every kind imaginable.

So when is Mr. Assange going to bring down his wall of secrecy and start telling the truth, regardless of those countries that he is currently protecting.?

In the meantime, the naive efforts to make Assange ‘Australian of the Year’ seem a waste of effort, to say the very least, honourable behaviour being a requirement, one would have hoped.

Hi Forrest Gumpp

Here's the direct link to David Burchell's article and source for my quotation:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/julian-assanges-romantic-fraud/story-e6frg6zo-1225969777840

"Millions of dollars may be spent, we are told, on the high-profile legal team that will propel Assange's defence against serious sexual allegations in Sweden, allegations that have been burlesqued by his rock-chick supporters, much in the manner of Roman Polanski. Meanwhile, according to a report by CBS's Joshua Norman, a mere $20,000 has been passed on by Wikileaks to Manning's lawyers, out of an appeal set up by the website to fund his defence. For want of these funds, it seems, Manning's case has not even proceeded to its first pre-trial hearing.

Where, you might wonder, are the placard-waving crowds protesting Manning's innocence, or proposing to turn him into a culture hero? Where are the celebrity-backers, the groupies, the stentorian professors of linguistics? But then, Manning's sunglasses, if he has any, are bound to be merely military-issue. And he is unlikely to cut a very romantic figure in court."

For security reasons, am unable to comment publicly on the other issues raised in your post.

Alice (in Wikiland)

Well said, Alice.
Thanks for reminding all the groupies that without the leaks themselves, Assange would be swanning around Sweden up to all sorts of mischief but certainly having fun, a non-entity, no pending court case and the ensuing publicity, no fame, no crowds, no misguided support and certainly co consideration to be "Australian of the Year". What a blow!

Instead of supporting the crowds waving banners, spare a thought for Pfc Manning, seven months in isolated captivity, perhaps drugged to extract some kind of confession of Assange's complicity in the document collection, being subject to the vilest forms of psychological torture, (no one better at it than the US military; Abu Ghraib, Guantanomo Bay, renditions here, renditions everywhere and on) and perhaps seeing on TV, if allowed, the cult-like following of the man who has gained the most from all the "leaks", selective as they may be to suit his long term objectives. A 'user' with a commercial eye for a big profit.

The chance of that poor soldier surviving such treatment is very slim indeed. No wealthy properties for him to relax on, no naive propositions for him to become a local American hero as with Assange and his misguided 'Assange for Australian of the Year' groupies. He will slowly dissolve into a forgotten memory, Private First Class 'what's-his-name'?

Spare a thought for him in between the drum-beating and flag-waving.
He's the one deserving of support, but getting none.

For the staunch proponent of the Australian Constitution that OLO userID 'DIS' is on record as being, I am a little perplexed by his reference to Assange as dealing in stolen property, coupled as it is with what seems an inference that Assange has done such within Australian jurisdiction.

Does Australian law in this respect have extra-territorial application, extra-territoriality that the Federal Attorney-General has not appeared to have laid any claim to in his statements to the Australian public regarding Assange?




It is interesting that the one WikiLeaks cable that I have looked at (this one: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/11/08STOCKHOLM748.html ) seems to tell a story, if not of the participation of some members of the Swedish government in actual circumvention of the Swedish Constitution as it may apply to information gathering and exchange as it may relate to Swedish citizens, at least of the routine expectation on the part of US diplomatic staff that circumvention of the constitutions of friendly states is something the US should be able to pursue with impunity in connivance with politicians and senior officials within such states.

Could it be that this seeming expectation derives from a culture of routine willingness within the US executive government to seek to circumvent the provisions of their own US Constitution?

That one may so interpret this cable is all the more alarming because, having failed to secure the type of agreement sought with Sweden because of both the likely effect of recognised Swedish constitutional prohibitions, and an assessment by Sweden of being at low risk of becoming a terrorist target, at a time when the US is exploring all avenues whereby it may get its hands on Assange (whose extradition is currently sought by Sweden), Sweden just happens to sustain the first-ever terrorist attack upon its soil.




The claimed terrorist was a Swedish citizen. Is the message to be derived one that, despite its Constitution, Sweden really does need an HSPD-6 style information exchange/extradition agreement with the US? If so, who sent that message, and what does it make them?

"Assange likens nations and corporations to massive conspiracies, which need to be brought down in their entirety."

How is it in the interests of the people that one pervert's view of organisations somehow means all organisations must be destroyed? The man is an idiot, and the author of this article is an idiot to enable him. As if the operations of the US environmental protection authorities or Google are the equivalent of Mugabe's ZANU government or the Russian oligarchy.

Tar, feathers, Assange: some assembly required.

Jonathon Ariel shows us that being protected in free speech doesn't mean the speech is of any worth.

I thank Alice Thermopolis for the specific link to the David Burchell quotation she posted earlier. The further quotation from the same article she posted on Thursday, 6 January 2011 at 11:50:39 AM, deserves some comment. Burchell says:

"Millions of dollars may be spent, we are told,
on the high-profile legal team that will propel
Assange's defence against serious sexual allegations
in Sweden, allegations that have been burlesqued by
his rock-chick supporters, much in the manner of
Roman Polanski."

The now governmentally-resuscitated 'serious sexual allegations in Sweden' against Assange have not been 'burlesqued by rock-chick supporters' so much as they have had their credibility publicly undermined by an electronic trail on the internet left by one of the alleged complainants, an electronic trail that paints a picture of circumstances seemingly at great variance with those of the claimed sexual improprieties allegations, an electronic trail in respect to which (unsuccessful) attempts have been made to remove it from public view. This post on another thread amplifies: http://bit.ly/fPK3ww

(Neither was the attempted extradition of Polanski by the US from Switzerland brought undone by the '[burlesquing] of rock-chick supporters', but rather by the refusal of US officials to permit Swiss authorities to view, in Switzerland, before any decision as to extradition was made, the relevant California court and custodial records from 1977 that supposedly substantiated the alleged fugitive status of Polanski upon which his extradition was being sought. The Swiss accordingly declined to extradite Polanski. http://bit.ly/bJRJ0p )

Far from millions of dollars being required to be spent by anybody on a high-profile legal defence of Assange against Swedish extradition and sexual impropriety charges seemingly as yet not laid, I ask why is not the whole issue of these now-irrepairably-compromised matters the subject of direct diplomatic negotiation between Australia and Sweden to the end of having any charges dropped and the extradition request for Assange from the UK withdrawn?

Any Australian citizen in such circumstances deserves no less from the Australian government. This one's name happens to be Assange, not Morant.

Forrest gump,

Noone in gov't is foolish enough to believe Assange's motives were honourable when he released vast quantities of the US gov'ts information. He did it, regardless of his public statements, to hurt the US. Why would the Australian gov't, or the Australian people be interested in going above and beyond to help an individual who has tried to harm our closest ally?

I and the majority of Australians find Assange himself repugnant, and have no support for his radical philosophy. Assange has effectively positioned himself as an enemy of the US, and Australia too.

The gov't has no mandate from the public to rush to his defense. He has the court to defend himself and he can avail himself of that redress. He has the consular support he is entitled too. His fate is his own repsonsibility. Let him face court. If he is innocent he will be fine.

It is grotesque in the extreme to suggest that the Aust gov't should intervene to help Assange avoid a sexual assault case. You think the case has no merit? You could save Australian juries an awful lot of time, and summarily dismiss all those cases you decide (from the comfort of your computer room) have no merit.

Paul:
<I and the majority of Australians find Assange himself repugnant, and have no support for his radical philosophy. Assange has effectively positioned himself as an enemy of the US, and Australia too>

I'd like to take a look at your research, Paul, I have the impression the vast majority support Assange.
I "would" vote Assange as Australian of the year, but if Paul is correct, surely the more honourable prize would be "UnAustralian of the Year"? Certainly Assange is no ocker!

Isn't sexual misconduct now the standard pretext for political witch-hunts? From Bill Clinton to Anwar Ibrahim to Silvio Berlusconi, it's an innuendo that strikes just the right note of abstract culpability. You don't even have to offend directly, downloading salacious images will do. It's just as well the thought police don't have access to just how widespread "sexual misconduct" is!
Assange for unAustralian fo the year, oi oi oi!

Squeers' suggestion that the proposed award for Assange should perhaps be "UnAustralian of the Year" provides us with a good opportunity to remind ourselves that Jonathan Ariel is talking about The Australian newspaper's annual award of 'Australian of the Year', not the award going by the same title made by the National Australia Day Council. The significance of this distinction is highlighted by Ariel's statement, in the sixth-last paragraph of the article, that:

"While to date [Assange] hasn’t completely changed
journalism, he has made a magnificent start."




The specific achievement for which Jonathan Ariel proposes Assange for The Australian's award he encapsulates toward the end of his article, thus:

"What are our instincts about government? Will we be
smitten with the Stockholm Syndrome and see governments
as opaque as they are becoming more and more transparent?
Or will we celebrate that someone, somehow displayed
the courage and applied the technology to unmask those
in the West who deceive their electorates both in times
of peace and in times of war, for what is most likely
their personal gain.

It is hoped that Assange will soon extend his innovation
of an electronic drop box to courageous men and women in
other nations, ..... By doing so, Assange will remove the
“anti-American” pejorative prefix that is currently perhaps
unfairly ascribed to him."




Jonathan J Ariel has laid out the tatami matting, the towels, the katana, and, most significant of all, the wakizashi, the short sword.

There has been a failure, for which there should perhaps now be atonement.

The only question is as to which entity should be composing the Haiku*, and sitting, figuratively speaking, cross-legged on the mat: The Australian, the world's 'free press', or the bulk of the profession of journalism?

Again I find myself in disagreement with DIS: I don't think most journalists like Assange at all. I think they feel Assange has shown them up. Something Lord Hailsham once said seems relevant: http://bit.ly/gWaJA5




*An haiku suggestion:

Stockholm blast. Glass shards.
Fall scene in Aftonbladet.
Carl's tweet builds the frame?

As perhaps a final comment on this subject, the one value in the Assange disclosures would be the fact that perhaps 20% of the world's population is now aware of the secretive nature of the public servants and politicians that serve their constituents badly, globally, but in this country, very badly indeed. As well, the blind ambitions of the likes of Gillard, Arbib, the vested interests of Fruydenberg and Danby and many others brings into question their loyalty to the country in which they live and should serve, in the interests of Australia, only.

But by far, the most disquietening aspect of the whole Wikileaks drama, disregarding Assange's profit motives, would be the failure of the media to pursue these questions of loyalty, particularly in the United States, the subject of most of the leaks, where the subservience to a foreign country, Israel, through graft and corruption has made its value as a dominant power for good deeds almost worthless in the eyes of the world. Its pursuit of specific interests in Afghanistan and previously in Iraq and currently Iran, all at the behest and directives of the Zionists, had reduced their credibility to zero. Their acceptance of massive drug corruption again, particularly in Afghanistan, shows that to the USA, the end justifies the means, even if the end is wrong, illegal and criminal. Let us not even mention, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the daily acceptance of rendition as a way of life.

Anyone who considers the likes of Murdoch with his stable of jaundiced publications and media groups such as the despicable Fox News as a contributor to a free and informed society. is naive.

President Kennedy told the Newspaper Publishers Association that "it is to the printing press, the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news, that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: Free and Independent."

Who can imagine Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama saying such a thing today.

As predicable, Wikileaks can be exploited to disseminate misinformation by governments wishing to be provocative, even further hostilities. Assange and his associates are not able to identify valid from invalid 'leaks'. Assange is undoubtedly clever, but naive to believe that Wikileaks is going to be the 'font of truth.'

Lee Smith, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, stated:

"The most problematic implication of the Wikileaks is that they have "muddied" the flow of information. For instance, a Beirut-based newspaper, Al Akhbar, ran a series of supposed Wikileak cables that were extremely damaging to U.S. allies in Lebanon and extremely helpful to Hezbollah, Tehran, and Damascus; even so, it is unclear how many of these were authentic. As a result, Wikileaks, have introduced the possibility of information fabrication in the future to serve the interests of U.S. adversaries."

The weakness of Wikileaks has been evident to any thoughtful person. Before taking on the Quixotean heroics of tilting at windmills, he should have considered the duplicity inherent in certain governments worldwide and the tool he was handing them. Surely, he is not so deliberately ill-informed ... and rabidly anti-US ...

Many people are as technologically skilled, even more so, than Assange. His intelligence as to the international stage appears to be woeful. To me he is a "wally".

Beware Julian Assange.All information published is first passed by the US State Dept.In my opinion there is an agenda here to gain public support and then use Assanges' credibility to push for war with Iran or North Korea.

Why Zibigniew Brezezinski outed him as a Zionist stooge is puzzling.I thought Zibig was on the side of the war mongering neo-cons.