Julian Assange

While Assange, the pronunciation of the first three letters of whose surname is phonetically clear while that of the last four is not, may have done public understanding of the Royal Family some service by publishing cables suggesting that HRH The Duke of York might not have the firmest grasp of the concepts of law and the rule of law, on the whole I really do fear for the chap's equilibrium.

It is always easy to shout 'Open government!' and 'Accountability!' in societies where government is both relatively open and accountable. I'd love to see how he would fare if he tried to publish Chinese diplomatic cables. Maybe he knows better than to frustrate his chances of living to a ripe old age. If that is the case, the public might perhaps, and perhaps not without good cause, be entitled to suspect him of cowardice.

From what one reads in the newspapers and sees on television, it seems not unreasonable to believe that Assange is a pain in the assange who is on a mission to frustrate the world's most powerful nation's diplomatic efforts. That the USA sometimes, perhaps even often, does bad things is a suggestion that I have often made on this blog. However, while it exists it has a right to be treated in the same way as any other nation, its communications entitled to the same privacy as those of North Korea or Zimbabwe. That there may be those in the USA who do not agree with that should not provide grounds for glorifying the ego of an Australian nerd. For when his memoirs come to be written, I'd be very surprised to read that his actions were motivated by love of truth, freedom, open government and democracy. My money would be on his prime motivation being the greater glory of Julian Assange.