John Pilger myth-spins the web of Sweet Julian Assange

John Pilger thinks he knows Julian Assange "has committed no crime" and "is a gentle, intellectual visionary driven by his belief that a democracy is not a democracy unless it is transparent, and accountable." I know no such thing on the first, but rather suspect that's not true. Assange is not a traitor to the US, of course, as he's not an American citizen. But, suborning someone else to commit crime, or possibly engaging in a conspiracy, are themselves crimes. Whether they deserve conviction by a jury (or juryless judge) or not, and what sentence they deserve if the answer is "yes," is a different issue.

Gentle? Hardly. His quasi-dictatorial control of Wikileaks, as documented by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and others, says otherwise.

As for transparent? Assange has said nothing about when he likely learned that Guccifer 2.0 was actually Russia. And, he did. Bet your ass on that, his lies aside.

As for accountable? He's never apologized for being the first major fomenter of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

As for the "one million Russian documents"? Tech Crunch rightly notes it may have been a front, given that before that, Assange brushed off criticism that he'd done nothing to help leakers in Russia, or China for that matter. Rather, Proekt, which recently got Putin's ban-hammer, worked on its own. And, in fact, Foreign Policy claims Wikileaks rejected other Russian leaks a year earlier, presumably as it would undercut the DNC hack.

At one time, Assange may have been somewhat different than what he had become by  2016. But, he was never, ever totally what Pilger claims. It was a full decade ago that Assange threatened to sue Domscheit-Berg over his book, after all. He's also kind of a grubby capitalist, something Pilger ignores.

 

I know Pilger has read or heard all the things I just said, and ditto for many other twosiderism folks in the world of Assange, like the allegedly outside the box stenos, Consortium News, etc. Some of the newer folks there, like Elizabeth Lea Vos, are likely flaks for Putin themselves, almost certainly in her case by name, but that's another story entirely. (Pilger writes regularly for CN and this piece is likely cross-posted.) Whether Pilger chooses to accept that is also a different story. But, I don't have to accept his myth-spinning.

Also, no, Hillary Clinton didn't make Assange this way.

First, we are quasi-independent actors with something kind of like free will, even in the face of button pushers.

Second, as Domscheit-Berg's book came out in 2011, some of Assange's bad behavior and bad psyche were evident before Dear Leader Obama was elected and named Clinton his Secretary of State.