In the Afghan War Documents leak, Julian Assange refused to redact the names of Afghans who informed on the Taliban. He referred to them as “spies and traitors” in comments to the media. A reporter for the Guardian claims he said, “Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it.”
Nasty way to diss on fellow leakers, in my opinion. I wonder if Mr. Assange feels he himself deserves what’s now coming to him.
Guardian journalist, David Leigh, claimed that Julian Assange initially refused to redact the names of informants.[62] In his book, co-authored with Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, Leigh claimed Assange to have said in relation to whether the names should be redacted, "Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."[63] In response to the book's publication, WikiLeaks posted on Twitter: "The Guardian book serialization contains malicious libels. We will be taking action."[64] When Douglas Murray relayed these comments in a debate, Assange interjected "We are in the process of suing The Guardian in relation to that comment."[65] The Guardian claimed the following day that they had 'not received any notification of such action from WikiLeaks or its lawyers', two months after the publication of the book.[66]
So what you report is a claim that Assang himself has strongly denied.
He hasn't strongly denied it. He said in 2011 that he would sue them for reporting the quote. He hasn't. Anyone can say "it's not true" on twitter. I don't call that a strong denial.
In any case, the names of informants were published. He did it. That's all you need to know about the man.
The link you provided refers to a New Statesman article about a debate held to discuss the effect of whistleblowing. I quote the relevant passage from the New Statesman article:
Murray didn't back down, moving on to make reference to the Guardian's claim that Assange "didn't care" about Afghan informants who were identified as a result of the release of the war logs.
Assange hit back: "Point of order! We are in the process of suing the Guardian . . ." After a bit of back and forth about libel laws – Assange said he has campaigned for their reform, but that people should have recourse when allegations are made against them – Murray drawled: "I think I'll take from that that Mr Assange thinks libel law is good when he's using it."
I cannot see where Assange said '"it's not true" on twitter', as you report, but in any case it seems clear that he didn't just make some off-hand remark on a social medium, as you seem to suggest.
In any case, I don't see why using twitter as a platform would reduce the validity of such a statement. There's a difference between tweeting to your followers you're going vegan and claiming you're suing the Guardian for libel.
>> In any case, the names of informants were published. He did it. That's all you need to know about the man.
To be frank, I don't much care about statements that start with "that's all you need to know". I usually prefer to chose for myself how much I need to know of anything.
Just bear in mind that libel is a seriously expensive game in the UK (£100,000+), and perhaps might not be your highest priority when you're fighting an extradition attempt.
Worth also noting that Luke Harding has been involved in some rather extraordinary claims, seemingly without corroborative evidence.
The most startling is the allegation that Paul Manafort personally visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy – probably the most surveilled building in the UK – secretly, more than once, "according to sources."
In 2011 the UK still had our old defamation laws - they were changed in 2013. So it would have been really easy for him to both sue and win a defamation case. The Guardian would have had to prove, on the balance of probabilities, that he had said those things.
Except he denies it and it may not be a truth. Have you even considered the among his enemies are the most powerful governments in the world, with a track record of not only corruption and lying but also collateral murder and enabling torture of women and children?
I only meant to point out that being an informant for occupying force is not some clear cut morally good situation from an outside POV on the informant, when the giving of information leads to:
- killing people by bombings
- locking people up without usual safety/legal process regards, and torturing them (either directly, or by having a pretty nasty jail)
Innocent people are often killed, and locked up. This is not some precise process.
Also being an informant druing war for one side is not the same thing as being an informant for police in the peaceful western country, or informing on curruption via leaks. These are wildly differing contexts.
You can't view informants with high regard, unviersally. People will falsely report on neigbours, to settle some past grudge, because they know trigger happy Americans will bomb/storm the place, if they can make the story plausible enough. Even if you assume good reports, bystanders get killed, or snatched up too. And through all this you have to still assume us-vs-them mentality, that all Taliban members are bad, and informing on them is good.
So there's a grain of truth in the view that was ascribed to Assange, above. But it's unreasonable, to go full way, and make all informants be traitors and whatnot.
There's this book, that makes good points about the complexity of the situation in Afghantistan, and the US intervention:
>There's this book, that makes good points about the complexity of the situation in Afghantistan, and the US intervention:
Sorry, no. The US has terrible foreign policy, yes, but religious fanatics like the Taliban are a cancer on humanity. They seek to keep women as chattel and murder homosexuals and anyone else that doesn't conform to their insane ideology.
Anyone who informs on them is a hero, and people like Assange who go after them are villains. It's no coincidence that Assange is buddy-buddy with racists like Sean Hannity (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/julian-ass...). He just wants to be in the news, and doesn't care if he has to stand side-by-side with fascists, racists, and religious fundamentalists to get there.
I'm sure there are lots of fascinating details, unexpected side-effects, and counterintuitive observations to be found in a moral accounting of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. I've watched (and read) "Generation Kill," which examines similar situations in the Iraq War. I have friends and relatives who fought in Afghanistan. I've also read a number of books on the subject. I can appreciate the twisty-turny nature of morality in war, and how not all informants may have good intentions.
On the other hand, the Taliban seeks to keep girls out of school, treat women as chattle, throw homosexuals from rooftops, eliminate the Hazara people, behead apostates, and stone adulterers in football stadiums. Lots of people in Afghanistan hate them, and would inform on them to protect themselves and their loved ones, at a level of personal risk which neither you nor I can likely comprehend. So there's that.
Nasty way to diss on fellow leakers, in my opinion. I wonder if Mr. Assange feels he himself deserves what’s now coming to him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak#Info...