WikiLeaks saga
(Re: “A Nobel Prize for Assange?” Danish Plan, Dec. 16.) Paul Danish is both wrong about WikiLeaks and disturbingly mean-spirited. First, he confuses the secretive, routinely illegal machinations of a 21st-century empire with the aspirations of 18th-century American revolutionaries. Few similarities exist between the American Revolution and the perpetual wars a hyper-militarized U.S. government now wages around the world. What does occupying countries, lavishing precious resources on corrupt puppet governments, enabling rampant criminality and terrorizing civilians have to do with the Declaration of Independence? How is U.S. support for brutal dictators and sabotaging of democracy around the globe consistent with the Founding Father’s transcendent vision of liberty and freedom?
Mr. Danish then offers a pseudo-rationale for unfettered secrecy, providing cover for those who have little interest in peace or respect for international law. The leaked cables reveal that one important function of official secrecy is to hide from public view the mendacity, bullying, law-breaking, violence and subterfuge that constitute “diplomacy” in our name. WikiLeaks confirms in sordid detail what many already knew: The overriding purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to maintain by any means imperial advantage and corporate hegemony over global resources and markets. Forget the claptrap about compromise and peaceful resolution of international disputes.
Mr. Danish says Assange and 1,400 other “co-conspirators” should be jailed forever in Gitmo, a once-secret place now well-known for extra-judicial imprisonment and wanton torture. We can only suppose “patriots” like Danish would relegate millions who like what WikiLeaks has done to some comparable subhuman status. It seems one unfortunate consequence of the WikiLeaks phenomenon is that armchair warriors like Danish are encouraged to spew malevolent bile as they attempt to excuse imperial violence.
Ken Bonetti/Boulder
As the WikiLeaks/Julian Assange uproar devolves into a
soap opera-style witch hunt, I was surprised that Boulder Weekly pundits
Pamela White (“Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?” Uncensored, Dec. 16) and
Paul Danish didn’t address two fundamental aspects of the situation.
First,
how did a low-level military intelligence analyst, presumably Pfc.
Bradley Manning, get access to a 250,000-record U.S. State Department
database, and why was military security so lax as to allow him to
download it?
Manning,
who has been held without charge in solitary confinement for seven
months, is undergoing cruel and unusual punishment verging on torture.
However, that is not unusual, given the abusive human rights records of
the Bill Clinton, Bush II and Obama administrations.
Second,
the ultimate villain or villainette is whoever allowed military
intelligence (an oxymoron if there ever was one) access to state
department cables. Someone at State authorized collection of the
database, and someone, perhaps the same person, authorized distribution
to the military database SIPRNet. If the cable database is truly as
important as various authorities claim it to be, only Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton could have signed off on its distribution. If so, she
can, at the very least, be charged with dereliction of duty. No way can
Hillary disassociate herself from a leak of this magnitude.
Further, any person who takes seriously anything a lying thug like G. Gordon Liddy says … well, that should speak for itself.
I
believe Mike Huckabee, one of FOX News’ gossip mongers, also has called
for Assange’s assassination. If the accusation is accurate, then Mike
cannot identify himself as a Man of God (“Thou Shall Not Kill”), nor can
he claim to be a practicing Christian in any context whatsoever despite
his posturing as a church minister.
It
is sad to witness Danish resort to gutter language to make his points. I
can only surmise that he is scraping the bottom of his meager
intellectual barrel at this point in time. Lastly, since Danish cited
Rudyard Kipling an issue back, let me quote some doggerel from Britain’s
great apologist for imperialist rule:
“It
is not wise for the Christian white/To hustle the Asian brown/For the
Christian riles/And the Asian smiles/And weareth the Christian down/At
the end of the fight/Lies a tombstone white/With the name of the late
deceased/And the epitaph drear/A fool lies here/Who tried to hustle the
East.”
Dave Morton/Longmont
Danish has it right. White is dead wrong. If she thinks the State Department
should be embarrassed for doing whatever it takes to defend our country,
then she should go live somewhere else. Ugly things happen in the
course of war and negotiations, as Danish says; to believe otherwise is
dangerously naive. Assange should be executed for espionage against the
U.S. (and any other offended country).
And
by the way, it seems White has never noticed how left-leaning the
regular mainstream media is, since she targets the tiny media segment
that is right-leaning as her examples of politically agenda-ed
journalists. It takes more intelligence than she apparently has to see
that what you personally agree with is not “truth” for everyone.
Amy Puls/via Internet
Enough compromise
Mr.
Obama, sir, it is not that I don’t genuinely like as well as admire you
and your sincere cerebral appreciation of and approach to the political
world. But I am now losing hope of your having a concrete success of
any kind in cooperation with the Tea Party Republicans and beginning to
think the only Republicans that you can actually communicate and/ or
have any positive success working with are those with the more
realistic, more practical perspectives. I’m thinking of the more
pragmatic, responsible, moderate and positive Republicans like Colin
Powell and those unlikely poten- tial heroes for Republicans in the
future, like Meagan McCain and her group of young, “Progressive
Republicans,” for example. The yahoos from the right will, of course,
attack your connecting so closely with Powell & Co. and try to
distort it as a racial thing. In fact, Rush Limbaugh already tried this
the first time you two met even before the election, if memory serves.
But rather than you chasing all the Republicans — like high-school girls
that rejected you, that you can’t get over and yet you’re determined to
get their attention — you must stop. Enough. No. No, sir, don’t you
dare defy, much less lecture, those of us on the left that are and have
been your very heart and soul (as there is such a thing as staying
home), while you bend “far too over” for the Republicans. Do not, do not, do not let them intimidate you, sir, with their noise and bluster. Por favor.
Grant D. Cyrus/Boulder
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