When an activist from World Can’t Wait sent me a link to Thursday’s Pentagon press conference, and called Geoff Morell, their spokesman a “pompus ass,” I thought that wasn’t really a news flash.
But really, to get the full impact of the government’s threat to Julian Assange & Wikileaks for revealing the government’s “property,” you have to see Morell’s sneer as the Pentagon reacted to Wikileak’s posting of its huge “insurance” file, presumably designed to make sure the information is still available if their sites are shut down, or they are rounded up.
The press corps pushed Morell to answer why the Pentagon wants Wikileaks to physically turn over material that’s been viewed and downloaded by millions, and is in the possession of major world newspapers, and what would happen to Julian Assange in particular. Morell ominously repeated that Wikileaks has to “do the right thing” and comply… or else.
For his part Assange is assuredly firm in his motivations for releasing the documents detailing the every day operations of the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan in War Diaries (wardiary.wikileaks.org). In a video interview with The Economist Assange says “true information does good.” And below, the Guardian interviews him, headlining, “Julian Assange on the Afghanistan war logs: ‘They show the true nature of this war.’”
The editors of Revolution newspaper ended their coverage of the government threats on Wikileaks with a message I think we should spead everywhere in WikiLeaks: Exposing War Crimes of a Criminal War:
“All of the people involved in releasing these WikiLeak documents are taking heroic actions to tell the world about the crimes U.S. imperialism is committing in Afghanistan. They are literally risking their lives. And it is up to anyone with a sense of moral responsibility to humanity-to not turn their eyes, to not change the channel- but instead to act with real resolve to put an end to such crimes.”
How to Show “Collateral Murder” Outside in Public
Some passersby walked by slowly, stopping just long enough to see what we were doing – but then as they kept going they’d start talking about it. A guy commented to his friend “Oh that’s Wikileaks, the helicopter video.” Couples would start exchanging views about the war in Iraq. A group headed into a restaurant would be chatting about wine and vacations — then suddenly they were talking about Wikileaks and what each other thought about the whistleblowers leaking war documents.
