Yes, we all know Assange wants the downfall of America.
"Instead, he is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller."
In other words, he wants America to be dumber, slower and smaller to defend itself against its enemies. He wants America to be unable to react, organize and gather its intelligence, and to act on its threats. This is clear.
No matter how you try to put it, or to intellectualize it, he wants to disrupt the function of the US gorvernment, to make it vulnerable.
No news here.
So first of all, you acknowledge that you were wrong when you said it was "just" a dump. My post was in response to that claim. We can move onto other matters if you like, but before we start dancing from subject to subject, it should be acknowledged that Assange has a goal in all of this.
And, of course, we get a defense of this expensive, useless secrecy for secrecy's sake through the catch-all of national security. How can we defend ourselves if diplomats can't talk about foreign leaders' wive's plastic surgery?
More importantly, however, the secrecy is necessary for keeping the American public wholly uninformed about what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. It already succeeded in keeping the public incredibly uninformed in the run-up to war, and it's more weariness than reason that has turned the public against the adventures.
So this vaunted network of spies and secret communications has done exactly what for our country? After 9 years in Afghanistan we find out that we've spent millions of dollars bribing and negotiating with an imposter. Yes, it is the secrecy that makes America strong. That's why Bush and Cheney knew about the WMD's when all the weapons inspectors said there weren't any.
Look, I understand the need for confidentiality, I'm legally and ethically obligated to keep discussions with clients from the public. Those rules, however, are established in public with judges and other authorities making decisions that can be appealed through the democratic process.
This new world of secrecy that exploded after 9-11 has no such checks. And every time we learn about what's being kept secret, it's usually irrelevant crap that we wasted money hiding, but it's often disgusting, horrific things that most sane people don't want done in their name---torture, rendition, indefinite imprisonment with no trial, absurdly failed nonsense in our wars...etc.
A Wikileaks before Iraq would have saved many, many lives and a hell of a lot of money. The case for war was essentially, "Trust us, we know all this stuff we have to keep secret from you, but we know what's going on."
How many times do people claiming to know what's going on have to miserably fail before we stop kissing their asses and defering to their rule?
