WikiLeaks' Spoiler and Sponger

By Alan Caruba

Julian Assange first came to public notice when he was caught hacking into the computer networks, including that of Nortel, a Canadian communications firm. In 1995 he escaped prison time after admitting to twenty-five charges. He was fined and released.

He has since made headlines worldwide as the spokesperson for Wikileaks, the Internet site that dumped 79,000 pages of classified data related to the conflict in Afghanistan. As this is written, the Taliban is going through it to find the names of informers who assisted U.S. and NATO forces deployed there.

As noted in a commentary in the August 2nd Wall Street Journal by L. Gordon Crovitz, “Taliban leaders have since told Britain’s Channel Four they are using WikiLeaks data to hunt down Afghans who helped NATO. Taliban ‘justice’ including hanging, beheading and strapping people to explosives and detonating them in public.”

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 and Assange is a member of its nine-member advisory board. He comes from what I call the Daniel Ellsberg School of Treachery, named after the man who released the “Pentagon Papers” to The New York Times in 1971. The Vietnam War was already winding down. Nixon’s response was to enjoin the Times from publishing, but a 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision cleared the way.

The Pentagon Papers confirmed what Americans already knew by then. The Vietnam War had begun in earnest with a lie by President Lyndon Johnson and had failed thanks to various corrupt South Vietnamese governments despite having 537,000 U.S. troops there by 1968. By 1971, troop levels had fallen to 213,000. The war was over but for the complete withdrawal.

The leaked information was offered to The New York Times, Britain’s The Guardian, and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Drawing a lesson from the Pentagon Papers, the White House and Pentagon offered a very muted response to the WikiLeak posting. The news was met with a public shrug.

Eventually, but never soon enough, our troops and those of our NATO allies will leave Afghanistan. The bloodletting in Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the Middle East will continue because it is enslaved by a seventh century religion intent on imposing its will on the world. Do not doubt we shall have to return at some point.

Reportedly, U.S. officials want to apprehend Assange so it is no surprise he has not made any recent appearances here, although I saw him on television when he granted an interview to the BBC. Being anti-war is a reflexive and fashionable liberal preference, but I don’t know many people who are actively pro-war. Remember, though, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and later Iraq were initially popular.

The Telegraph, a London newspaper, reported “(Assange) has already said he would ‘deeply regret’ any lives being lost as the result of the leak, but stood firm in his conviction that it was a risk worth taking because of its importance ‘to the history of the war’.”

The Afghan war has been going on now since 2001 and, other than the Taliban, there are few people, including those charged with waging it, who want it to continue.

The data Assange received is widely believed to have come from a young American intelligence analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning. If he is found guilty by a military court, it constitutes an egregious act of treason.

Assange’s receiving and disseminating classified information should merit putting his name on an Interpol most wanted list, but I doubt that the current administration will pursue him. At the very least he has aided and given comfort to our nation’s enemies.

Aside from his obvious skills as a hacker and an inventor of free software, Assange’s life would likely be described as a loser. Born in Townsville, Queensland, Australia in 1971, his parents ran a touring theatre company. He has said that was enrolled in 37 schools and six universities during his early years. He appears to have no real roots.

An article in The New Yorker reported that he was married to his girlfriend in “an unofficial ceremony” at the age of 18 and they had a son. She left him when the Australian Federal Police came knocking on the door to charge him with hacking.

Hackers are, by definition, a loathsome and dangerous group. They are the digital version of break-and-entry criminals.

WikiLeak is funded by the Berlin-based Wau Holland Foundation. Given Assange’s work history, it should come as no surprise that he lives off the donations of those who think making war against the enemies of the West is a bad thing.

In the meantime, Assange continues to travel the world pretending to be a crusader seeking only the truth.

The truth is that he is a spoiler, an intruder, and a sponge off of mushy liberals who members of the Taliban and al Qaeda would gladly behead.

When U.S. and NATO troops do finally leave Afghanistan, a massacre will ensue.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Cry Treason!

By Alan Caruba

Treason is generally defined as the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of one's country or of assisting its enemies in war. Benedict Arnold burned his name into U.S. history by conspiring with the British to turn over West Point to them. When his plot failed, he fled to England.

Having all formerly been traitors to the Crown, the framers of the Constitution defined treason narrowly. Historians tell us this was to lessen the possibility that those in power might falsely or loosely charge their political opponents with treason.

Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution says “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Let it be said that probably all presidents have been called treasonous by their political opponents.

A growing body of popular opinion, however, is beginning to regard the actions of Barack Obama as treason because they coalesce into a pattern that suggests a deliberate effort to undermine national security and the economy. The liberties we take for granted, privacy, freedom of speech, and others are seen to be in jeopardy.

What is troubling to many was the way Obamacare was foisted on a nation that clearly opposed the takeover of one sixth of the economy. The political process by which passage was achieved was ugly, but it was not treason.

Now the Cap-and-Trade Act is being ushered hastily into the Senate for a vote despite widespread opposition to the fact that it is based on a total fraud, “climate change”, otherwise known as “global warming.” Can a law based on a lie be lawful? Is passing such a law treasonous?

The President’s displeasure with the Arizona law that mirrors almost word for word the federal law regarding illegal aliens presages a likely effort to grant amnesty to millions here illegally; a measure that is also widely opposed by the majority of Americans.

The hasty passage of any or all of these laws, now that the midterm elections loom in November, is completely legal, but they all represent a refusal to acknowledge the will of those in whom the Constitution posits ultimate power, the People.

The Tea Party movement, taking its name from an act of insurrection against the Crown, is ample evidence of the unrest among many Americans. The effort to smear members as racists or violent suggests the seriousness with which the White House takes the movement.

Given the virtual free hand any president has to determine foreign policy, he has consistently offended our allies and raised questions among them as to his judgment. That is not treason, but it is harmful when the U.S. needs to call upon them for support.

His actions regarding Iran have been a green light to continue their quest for nuclear weapons. His actions toward Israel are nothing less than astonishing given the long record of cooperation and mutual support that has existed since its founding.

Surrounding himself with White House staff, one of whom was an admitted communist, another who praised Mao Tse Sung, and still others whose views reflect bizarre “scientific” theories or proposals, raise questions and legitimate concerns regarding his true political philosophy, but it is not treason.

The takeover of General Motors, his firing of the company’s CEO, the disgraceful treatment of investors and creditors should have raised serious constitutional questions. When Harry Truman tried to take over the nation’s steel manufacturers, he was rebuffed by the Supreme Court. The U.S. retains an ownership position with AIG, the insurance company.

Obama’s attacks on insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, even physicians, then migrated to attacks on Wall Street despite the fact that banks receiving TARP funds swiftly repaid the loans. There is at this point no aspect of life in America that has not been sharply criticized by the President.

None of this can be called treason under the strict and narrow definition of the Constitution, but taken together it is a pattern of acts that pose what many are coming to see as a clear and present danger to the nation.

The midterm elections in November represent the only constitutional means to rebuke the passage of legislation that has saddled the nation with greater debt than all previous administrations, with the takeover of key elements of the economy, and the prospect of the further erosion of our national security and sovereignty.

Everything that President Obama and the Democrat leaders in Congress have done has the sanction of law, but not the approval of the people whose lives will be affected by it.

It is not treason, but it has the look, the feel, and the smell of treason.

© Alan Caruba, 2010