and knew I should send it to you. I've not received or been able to find
the text, which is what I customarily do with such. Live is better, anyway.
You won't regret taking 5 or 6 minutes to watch it.
Then, Julian Assange writes to his compatriot Aussies. All worth wihile.
Ed.
From: "Sid Shniad" <shniad@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 5:06 PM
Olbermann: Obama turned his back on his base With the tax-cut deal, the
Democrats lost their chance to stop the GOP from taking unfair advantage of
the middle class*Video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40557029/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/
*
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/07-1
The Truth Will Always Win
By Julian Assange:
Published on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 by The Australian
In 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The
News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable
that truth will always win."
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that
Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British
commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but
Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination
of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that
need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds
bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted
if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland
government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when
the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core
values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies
in new ways to report the truth.
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work
with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is
true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click
online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge
for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that
media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some
hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about
corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations
need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong
than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these
same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies.
If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide
whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy
cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported,
consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things
freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media
outlets, including Britain 's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in
Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has
copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and
its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an
Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in
the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I
should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before
the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and
disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office
has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American
blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be
kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to
these sentiments by Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations.
That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and
large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.
We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the
messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information
about its own diplomatic and political dealings.
Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous
public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One
might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her
citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly
unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the
Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above
the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will
not.
Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US
agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the
State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger
troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks
publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that
time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as
anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US , with Australian government
connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress
that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by
the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence
the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in
Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The
Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or
sources have been hurt by anything we have published.
But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic
cables reveal some startling facts:
The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information
from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris
scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation
of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be
targeted, too.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US Officials in Jordan and Bahrain
want Iran 's nuclear program stopped by any means available.
Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".
Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from
parliament.
The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees
from Guantanamo Bay . Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President
only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered
millions of dollars to accept detainees.
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court
said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in
government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need
to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
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