“Julian.
“I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.

“In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.

“My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.”

“Julian Assange:
“If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.”

***
“But the idea of Wikileaks and greater government transparency should be separated from the vainglorious figure of Julian Assange. There is an emerging consensus amongst the more partisan Wikileak supporters that any criticism of Assange—no matter how much one protests that they support the idea and mission of Wikileaks, just question the group’s leadership—must mean that you have a back tattoo of John Bolton or want to turn Kyrgyzstan into a Walmart. But read this New York Times piece and this Mother Jones profile of Assange (and this old column of mine) and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

“There are plenty of problems with the way Wikileaks handled the last few batches of material, but the biggest irritant is Assange’s insistence that anyone who questions his methodology is a corporate/government/American/CIA stooge.”

***
“Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is taking a stand as one of Julian Assange’s few defenders in Washington, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder should get the same protections as the media…

“‘In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,’ Paul said. ‘In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.’

“‘This whole notion that Assange, who’s an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren’t they jumping to a wild conclusion?’ he added. ‘This is media, isn’t it? I mean, why don’t we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?'”

***
“THE Guardian accompanied its publication of the latest WikiLeaks disclosure with a Q&A with editor Alan Rusbridger, which contained the most interesting comment I have seen concerning the website’s founder, Julian Assange. It came from Hannibal123 and was less than wholly literate but the insight that struck me was that Assange is, or will come to be seen as, the Che Guevara of the information age.

“This is not to say that I see Che Guevara as a romantic hero. As a Cuban government minister, Guevara signed death warrants for political prisoners – some sources say hundreds, others thousands. Supporters of gay marriage who think fondly of Guevara should investigate the fate of Cuban homosexuals at that time. But an aspect of Guevara’s story caught the public imagination in a big way, making him part of the memory of the 1960s along with JFK, Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.

“Guevara’s end could be seen as utterly anti-climactic. He was executed in 1967 by agents of the Bolivian government acting with American support after he tried to incite a revolution in that country, which the populace had no interest in. Nonetheless, Guevara is remembered as a marker of his time, one whose life embodied certain of its major tensions. I suspect Assange, who has something of Andy Warhol about him, will end up a similar figure.”