Assange is not the bad boy

On the first day a set of US diplomatic cables were exposed by WikiLeaks, I immediately tuned in to Fox News to await the verbal fireworks. Every media outlet in the world was discussing them except Fox. I imagined that the right-wing channel's editors and presenters were breathing fire in their green room planning their attack.

I was right. The next day, they all came out with guns blazing. WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange was a treacherous, terrorist anti-American who should be hunted down and either taken out or brought to the US for trial.

Bill O'Reilly bleated that President Barack Obama wasn't talking revenge on behalf of the American people or doing enough to track Assange down while bemoaning the fact that the world is no longer fearful of "us".

The overall theme was that anyone who puts American lives at risk should be made to suffer, never mind that in many cases the names of individuals were redacted. They said the same about the earlier Afghanistan and Iraq leaks, but, as far as anyone knows, no one has died because of them.

What's worrying is a number of US senators agree with him. Sarah Palin said he was an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. Mike Huckabee said Assange should be tried and executed.

Others have called for his assassination which in my book is incitement to murder. Senator Joe Lieberman and several of his colleagues want Assange tried under the Espionage Act.

However, various legal minds point out that the dissemination of information is sacrosanct under the First Amendment. Others question whether Assange can be prosecuted without similar warrants being issued for newspapers that colluded with Assange to run the story in the US, France, Spain, Germany and the UK.

By contrast, the alleged whistle-blower, the low-level intelligence analyst Private Bradley Manning, currently in US custody, was handled with kid gloves. As far as Fox News is concerned the villain is the devilish Assange.

The real culprit is the individual who signed a confidentiality form and then went on to download official secrets with the express purpose of sending the information to WikiLeaks. For those of us who appreciate insights into US diplomacy and world affairs, Manning is a hero, but as an American national he could rightly be considered a traitor.

Assange as a non-American recipient of the leaks is merely the messenger. Why should he be expected to feel any sense of loyalty to a country that is not his own?

Just as culpable is the US government that permitted three million employees to access and download sensitive files. If a minister forgets his briefcase containing top secret documents on a train then he is to blame if he wakes up the next morning to find them splashed over newspaper front pages.

In the meantime, Assange is thought to be hiding out in Britain. There he is being pursued by Interpol which has issued a red notice (an international ‘wanted' poster) on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor charging the WikiLeaks founder with rape and sexual molestation.

Assange denies the charges saying any relationship with the two women involved was consensual.

One can only wonder whether Sweden is usually so vigorous in its international pursuits of possible offenders or is it bowing to American pressure to produce the goods? The US and Sweden have signed an extradition treaty so what's the betting that if Assange is packed off to Stockholm he will ultimately end up in Washington either under some obscure American law or a new retroactive law that will be rushed through Congress!

Instead of salivating over shooting the messenger, the Obama administration should apologise for spying on United Nations diplomats, attempting to garner the credit card details, frequent flier numbers, DNA and fingerprints of world leaders — and the State Department should express its shame at the way US ambassadors have slandered prime ministers, presidents and royals.

As a Briton, I feel the coalition government should re-think its cherished trans-Atlantic relationship. Cables show that the Tories were practically groveling before Uncle Sam prior to taking power.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said "We want a pro-American regime. We need it, the world needs it" while stressing he had an American sister and often vacationed in the US. Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne were described as "staunchly Atlanticist".

In return, they've been mocked by US Deputy Chief of Mission Richard LeBaron as being paranoid over the so-called ‘special relationship". "This over-reading would often be humorous if not so corrosive," he said, adding that it would be "tempting" to take advantage of it. In fact, America already has which is why British troops have been thanklessly dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the end, the cables confirm what many of us already knew: the US has no friends, only interests. I hope that Julian Assange manages to stay out of Washington's revengeful clutches, but his adversary is so ruthless that I won't hold my breath.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com. Some of the comments may be considered for publication.