Julian Assange Interview - ABC TV Australia 4/11/11

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Transcript

LEIGH SALES: Julian Assange: given your circumstances, is Wikileaks currently operational?

JULIAN ASSANGE: We have increased our publishing since late last year when my present difficulties began to include over 63 media organisations from around the world. We have now published over 7,000 US Embassy cables relating to Cablegate, so, yes, we're continuing on. Even when I was in prison for 10 days we continued publishing.

LEIGH SALES: So Wikileaks exists outside of Julian Assange?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes, we have been structured that way quite deliberately to avoid interruption to our publishing, although certainly there has been very aggressive efforts to do so, but also to provide disincentive for decapitation attacks on the organisation.

LEIGH SALES: The US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates basically said that the impact of Wikileaks has been overstated; that it was a little awkward and embarrassing for the US but it basically hasn't had any effect on foreign policy, what's your response?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Of course the hype that the Pentagon has always drummed up and the White House has always drummed up in response to bona fide scrutiny of its national security sector is to say, well, the end is nigh, people are going to die. No official from the US Government or anywhere else has claimed that anyone has come to physical harm as a result of what we have done. Certainly politicians have been embarrassed and lost elections and officials have lost their jobs, but that is not the end of the world

LEIGH SALES: Commentators have noted that in terms of what the cables revealed about American diplomacy, it didn't show anything particularly scandalous, if anything it showed that there was quite a bit of consistency between America's public positions and their private positions, although in private of course they are more frank. Do you agree with that assessment?

JULIAN ASSANGE: The statement that embarrassing information, information, internal information is revealed and it simply shows the US Government to be a good guy is something that is done by apologists. The cables across the board reveal a very nuanced position - everything from that state security apparatus using a diplomatic core to spy on NGOs and take their DNA all the way through to bona fide pushing of a human rights agenda in some countries. So we can see that the State Department and US embassies in their interactions with other governments are not the caricature that the White House presents, but neither are they the caricature that some leftists present.

LEIGH SALES: I want to whip around a couple of other quick issues before we're out of time. In a book about you that's recently been released by two Guardian journalists, David Leigh and Luke Harding, they say they had an exchange with you last July, they wanted you to redact the names of informants mentioned in the Iraq War logs and they claim that you said, "Well, they're informants, so if they get killed, they've got it coming to them, they deserve it." Did you say that?

JULIAN ASSANGE: No, and we are suing them for liable and we have witnesses to show that is a libellous claim, and is an ongoing dispute, so there's a lot of vitriol in the top end of the news business and a lot of back-stabbing, and unfortunately we happen to be on the receiving end of it from this individual.

LEIGH SALES: So you're saying that that statement was completely fabricated?

JULIAN ASSANGE: It is completely fabricated.

LEIGH SALES: When the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard appeared on the 'Q and A' program and you asked her a question, you wanted to know what information she'd supplied foreign powers about Australian citizens working or affiliated with Wikileaks, and you also raised that point in an SBS interview in February. What exactly are you suggesting there?

JULIAN ASSANGE: What I am suggesting and what we have, what our sources tell us is that the Australian Government provided in its liaison, in its intelligence liaison function, foreign powers information about me and other individuals working for Wikileaks. Why? Simply because I am an Australian citizen. What possible pressure could enable them to do that? Well it's bootlicking for the United States, that's the reality, that unfortunate reality is as a result of the ALP being grouped, some people in the ALP like Mark Arbib being groomed for many years by the US Embassy and other inducements from Washington.

LEIGH SALES: If you have that information from sources, will you be prepared to release that into the public domain?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well unfortunately thus far the type of information we have is such that to reveal it would be to reveal the sources of it, so that is why we want the Australian Government, and Australian Government personnel who know that statements to the contrary are false to step forward to the Australian media and reveal that this sort of liaison has been occurring. It is not acceptable for that sort of liaison to occur.

LEIGH SALES: But Australia shares intelligence with its allies all the time, you're the subject of a Justice Department investigation in the United States. What's wrong with Australia sharing what intelligence it has?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, yes, but not on Australian citizens. The Australian Government's purpose is to protect Australian citizens. It has no other purpose.

LEIGH SALES: You've come from being a kid who's had a suburban Australian upbringing, to at times sleeping rough on the streets of Melbourne to being Time magazine's Person of the Year and being talked about by the President of the United States. Does it feel unreal?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well it does feel unreal because I've never slept rough on the streets of Melbourne, although I have ...

LEIGH SALES: That's a myth is it?

JULIAN ASSANGE: I had when I was 20 slept in the Dandenong Ranges, but not as a homeless person but rather because I enjoy the wilderness, but yes, of course it feels unreal. On the other hand I know we're doing good work and very, very important work and the trials and tribulations that we all go through is really quite a small price to pay to do something that is so profoundly meaningful and which our sources and the public at large demands that we do.

LEIGH SALES: Is your motivation genuinely that altruistic or is there a side of you that enjoys the power and the spotlight?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Encoded within me from a young age is a sense about what is just and what is not just and those things that I see in the world that I feel to be unjust I want to do something about.

LEIGH SALES: As I said before you've developed a very high profile and not everybody likes you, to put it gently. Do you fear for your life?

JULIAN ASSANGE: I have to disagree with that actually

LEIGH SALES: You think everybody does like you?

JULIAN ASSANGE: No, not everybody, but these sorts of statements are in fact mischievous. I mean, if we look at Australian opinion polls, actually Wikileaks and myself have far greater popularity amongst the Australian population than sitting prime ministers have had in many years.

LEIGH SALES: So does that mean you?

JULIAN ASSANGE: It's not right to say - it is not right to say that this organisation is polarising or that somehow the critics are evenly balanced with our supporters because it's simply not true.

LEIGH SALES: So does that mean you feel comfortable then about your personal safety?

JULIAN ASSANGE: In terms of my personal safety and the safety of my team, we have had right wing politicians in the United States such as Sarah Palin calling for our assassination, kidnapping, rendition, etc. Now some of that goes a bit beyond mere rhetoric which can inflame mentally unstable people. We have bills in the US Senate to declare our organisation a transnational threat, to take us from the status of individuals, Australians, Americans and turn us into enemy combatants where we can be dealt with in the same manner as senior figures in the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. That's a serious business.

LEIGH SALES: Julian Assange, I know our audience will be very interested to hear your views. Many thanks for making time to speak to us.

JULIAN ASSANGE: You're most welcome.

LEIGH SALES: The full half hour interview with Julian Assange will be available shortly on our website.

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The Cause Of Suicide Bombings? Military Occupation Says Researcher : The Two-Way : NPR

The Cause Of Suicide Bombings? Military Occupation Says Researcher : The Two-Way : NPR

University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape has a novel idea: If you want to stop suicide bombings, withdraw American troops. Pape says his data shows the biggest cause of suicide attacks is military occupation. From Politico:

Pape and his team of researchers draw on data produced by a six-year study of suicide terrorist attacks around the world that was partially funded by the Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency. They have compiled the terrorism statistics in a publicly available database comprising some 10,000 records on some 2,200 suicide terrorism attacks, dating back to the first suicide terrorism attack of modern times — the 1983 truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 U.S. Marines.

"We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns, ... and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100 percent of the terrorist campaign," Pape said in an interview last week on his findings.

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Interview With Controversial 90 Year Old Former White House Correspondant Helen Thomas

Pioneering journalist Helen Thomas, the first woman to serve in the White House press corp, is heard here for the first time since she resigned from her White House post after stating; “Tell ‘em to get the hell out of Palestine…. They should go home… [to] Poland, Germany.”)referring to the European Israeli settlers who were part of the founding of the state of Israel.
Ms. Thomas parents were from a part of Syria which is now in Lebanon. She has expressed a resentment which is felt throughout the Arab world towards settlers from Europe who settled in Israel. Thomas's words contained an incredibly open degree of frankness for someone in public life. However she is 90 years old. Elderly people are not known to mince their words. The real question is whether the statements were in fact anti-Semitic? I think they were.
I agree that modern Israel is in large part a settler colony with many European immigrants. But many of these immigrants have ancient ties of both blood and religion to Palestine. On the other hand how would we feel if first nations people (Native Americans) demanded the land of America back? Of course wee would not like it. Many Americans would take up arms to defend what they believe is rightly theirs. This is the quandary. Palestinians feel their land has been stolen. Israel's feel they are in the homeland that was promised to them thousands of years ago by God. This presents what appears at first blush to be a zero sum game. If onw person wins the other loses. It does not have to be this way.
The better approach for Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole is the approach pioneered by Nelson Mandela and the African Nationalist Congress in South Africa. The white settlers stole the land from the people of South Africa, oppressed and murdered them in a most barbaric manner. In spite of this great evil perpetrated by the Boers, The British and the Apartheid regime, Mandela decided to forgive these people of their evil deeds and laid the groundwork for a new society that incorporated everyone. Israel is not South Africa but if the south African people can forgive the white population of South Africa for its crimes against humanity the Arab world and the Palestinians can make peace with Israel. Forgiveness is redemptive. Hate is self consuming. Yasser Arafat, the late head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization wasted a major opportunity to make peace with Israel at the end of the second Clinton administration. This was the best deal that the Palestinians will see in our lifetime. This failure to make peace is the biggest reason that there is continued Palestinian suffering today. The surrounding Arab nations, along with Iran have a vested interest in portraying Israel as the great evil. In this manner they can blame all of their individual countries problems on Israel and maintain their tyrannical, undemocratic regiemes.
Unfortunately Helen Thomas and many people in the Arab world do not accept that Israel exists and will continue to exist whether they like it or not. Peace is the only answer. Ms. Thomas should have taken the approach of a Mandela and used her influence to foster reconciliation not division. Regrettably she did not do this.
Israel has been the victim of horrific and barbaric terrorist attacks and four wars since its inception as a nation. All four wars were initiated by its neighbors, even the 1967 war where Israel attacked first after her neighbors began massing troops on Israel's borders.
The Jewish people suffered the holocaust immediately prior to the founding of modern Israel, the greatest mass murder of the 20th Century. Many legitimately argue that the Palestinian people should not pay for Germany's great evil. The point is it is way past time to argue about the circumstances surrounding the founding of Israel. The question now is how can everyone in the area live in peace. Israel has much to offer its neighbors in the areas of economic and technological development. A resolution of the Palestinian conflict would bring a tremendous peace dividend to the whole region. In addition it might lead to the democratization of the whole region.
Helen Thomas does not understand the big picture of how Israel and the rest of the world are interrelated. Peace is the only answer.
John H. Armwood

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Coverage of Koran Case Stirs Questions on Media Role - NYTimes.com

Coverage of Koran Case Stirs Questions on Media Role - NYTimes.com

A renegade pastor and his tiny flock set fire to a Koran on a street corner, and made sure to capture it on film. And they were ignored.

That stunt took place in 2008, involving members of the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan., an almost universally condemned group of fundamentalists who also protest at military funerals.

But plans for a similar stunt by another fringe pastor, Terry Jones, have garnered worldwide news media attention this summer, attention that peaked Thursday when he announced he was canceling — and later, that he had only “suspended” — what he had dubbed International Burn a Koran Day. It had been scheduled for Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Unlike the Koran-burning by Westboro Baptist, Mr. Jones’s planned event in Gainesville, Fla., coincided with the controversy over the proposed building of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan near ground zero and a simmering summerlong debate about the freedoms of speech and religion.

Mr. Jones was able to put himself at the center of those issues by using the news lull of summer and the demands of a 24-hour news cycle to promote his anti-Islam cause. He said he consented to more than 150 interview requests in July and August, each time expressing his extremist views about Islam and Sharia law.

By the middle of this week, the planned Koran burning was the lead story on some network newscasts, and topic No. 1 on cable news — an extraordinary amount of attention for a marginal figure with a very small following. On Thursday, President Obama condemned Mr. Jones’s plan, and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that there were “more people at his press conferences than listen to his sermons,” in a bit of media criticism.

Mr. Jones’s plan, announced in July, slowly gained attention in August, particularly overseas. It became a top story in the United States this week after protests against Mr. Jones in Afghanistan and after the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, warned that the Koran burning could endanger troops.

“Before there were riots and heads of states talking about him, it could have been a couple of paragraphs in a story about Sept. 11 commemorations,” Kathleen Carroll, the executive editor of The Associated Press, said Thursday. “It’s beyond that now.”

In some ways, this week’s events were the culmination of a year’s worth of hateful statements and stunts by Mr. Jones and the few dozen members of his church.

Mr. Jones started to make noise in Gainesville in the summer of 2009, when he posted a sign outside his church that read “Islam is of the devil.” The Gainesville Sun (which is owned by The New York Times Company) wrote about the sign, under the headline “Anti-Islam church sign stirs up community outrage.”

He told The Sun that the sign would not be his last.

The newspaper soon published an investigation into what it called the church’s “financial abuses,” which included a profit-making eBay furniture sales business operating on the church’s property.

The congregation’s protests continued last fall, when some children from the church wore anti-Islam shirts to school, prompting another article by The Sun, which was picked up by The Associated Press and republished by outlets like USA Today and Al Arabiya, an Arabic language news network.

People with the same anti-Islam shirts sometimes roamed the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, said Fiona Mc Laughlin, a professor at the university, prompting a counterprotest with T-shirts that read, “Ignorance is of the devil.”

The church “never really rested after that first billboard,” said Jacki Levine, the managing editor of The Sun. She said the newspaper’s staff members had repeatedly discussed how to be “responsible” in its coverage — “We walked as carefully as we could walk.”

Islam was not Mr. Jones’s only target. Church members also held protests against Craig Lowe, an openly gay man who was elected mayor of Gainesville in April.

Mr. Jones’s announcement about the Koran burning gained only a little attention at first, with a single short article published by a Web site called Religion News Service. That article was subsequently mentioned by bigger sites, like Yahoo, and by the end of the July Mr. Jones had been booked on CNN, where the host Rick Sanchez called his plan “crazy” but added, “At least he has got the guts to come on this show and face off.”

Alarmed by negative mentions about Gainesville in overseas news outlets, Mr. Lowe released a statement Aug. 3 labeling Mr. Jones’s church a “tiny fringe group and an embarrassment to our community.”

News executives said the proposed burning took on a greater significance after the protests in Afghanistan and in other Muslim countries. In Kabul last Sunday, up to 500 people attended a protest at which Mr. Jones was burned in effigy, according to The A.P.

That, too, is when Ms. Mc Laughlin took notice. With 11 other professors, she wrote a column for The Sun condemning the plan titled “The world is watching.”

“We just saw everything escalating,” she said Thursday, citing the “sum effect” of all the coverage and the ensuing reactions. (The New York Times wrote a substantial article about Mr. Jones on August 26.)

On Thursday, before Mr. Jones suspended his plans, The A.P. determined that it would not distribute pictures of Korans being burned, restating a policy not to cover events that are “gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend.”

“There are lots of other similarly offensive images that we choose not to run all the time,” Ms. Carroll said. “Most people don’t know that because, of course, we don’t run them.”

Before the suspension, CNN and Fox News Channel said they would not show any images of a Koran being burned.

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, said in an e-mail message that the newspaper had “no policy against publishing things that might offend someone — lots of people are offended by lots of things — but we try to refrain from giving widespread offense unless there is some offsetting journalistic purpose.”

“A picture of a burning book contributes nothing substantial to a story about book-burning, so the offense seems entirely gratuitous,” Mr. Keller continued. “The freedom to publish includes the freedom not to publish.”

The episode has given rise to at least a little soul-searching within news organizations. Chris Cuomo, an ABC News anchor, wrote Thursday afternoon on Twitter, “I am in the media, but think media gave life to this Florida burning ... and that was reckless.”

Damien Cave contributed reporting.

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Rangel Joins Muslims in Rally for Downtown Mosque - NYTimes.com

Image via WikipediaRangel Joins Muslims in Rally for Downtown Mosque - NYTimes.com

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times Representative Charles B. Rangel with members of the Islamic Leadership Council outside City Hall on Wednesday at a rally against religious intolerance.

Facing one of the more contentious re-election campaigns of his 40-year career, United States Representative Charles B. Rangel waded into a polarizing debate on Wednesday as he spoke out in favor of an Islamic center and mosque planned near ground zero.

The proposal for the center two blocks north of the World Trade Center site has provoked a vitriolic argument over the limits of religious tolerance and the legacy of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Opponents say building a Muslim worship space so close to ground zero would be an insult to the memory of those killed in the attacks. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been a staunch defender, proclaiming that the building of the center on Park Row is befitting a city that has made room for such a diverse population.

Calling himself “a patriot, one who loves this country,” Mr. Rangel said that it was important to recognize and ease the pain caused by those terrorist attacks. But, he suggested, some of the opposition to the center reflected critics’ unwillingness to embrace the country’s tradition of religious freedom and said that “we cannot allow this type of intolerance to continue.”

“I think that any politician that takes advantage of this problem that people may have of convenience or lack of it should be ashamed and I stand with the mayor and the governor in saying this isn’t a problem for Muslims,” he said. “It’s a problem for America and doing the right thing and respecting our Constitution.”

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If You Build It, Nothing Bad Will Happen - Forbes.com

If You Build It, Nothing Bad Will Happen - Forbes.com

You've probably heard about "The Ground Zero Mosque," an Islamic community center planned in Lower Manhattan. But I bet you haven't heard of The Ground Zero Strip Club.

There are actually a couple of adult entertainment venues that show up on Google ( GOOG - news - people ) Maps if you search around the former site of the World Trade Center. Internet reviewers seem to like New York Dolls best, due to its sexy, disproportionately Russian staff, mirrored stage and purportedly high-quality lap dances.

As yet, I haven't heard anyone wonder why our political class is silent as the sex industry operates on sacred ground. It would be a bizarre complaint: It's Manhattan, where you can find anything mere blocks from a given location. The closest strip club to Ground Zero happens to be two blocks away, a fact that has nothing to do with our reverence for the place where so many Americans were killed by terrorists. As you've probably noticed, it doesn't even make sense to call it The Ground Zero Strip Club

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Media Watchdog Joins Chorus Criticizing WikiLeaks : NPR

Media Watchdog Joins Chorus Criticizing WikiLeaks : NPR

Reporters Without Borders criticized WikiLeaks on Thursday, saying the whistleblower group showed "incredible irresponsibility" in publishing thousands of secret Afghan war documents.

The international media watchdog said that while WikiLeaks had often played a useful role, revealing the identity of Afghan informants was "highly dangerous."

The disclosure also has angered the Pentagon, which has accused WikiLeaks of endangering the lives of soldiers and informants in the field, and demanded that WikiLeaks refrain from publishing any more secret data.

On Thursday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange acknowledged that some of the criticisms leveled at his group were legitimate. But he also said many were parroting the Pentagon's attacks instead of focusing on the content of the reports themselves.

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Op-Ed Columnist - Steal This Movie - NYTimes.com

Steal This BookOp-Ed Columnist - Steal This Movie - NYTimes.com

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I just saw a remarkable new documentary directed by Shlomi Eldar, the Gaza reporter for Israel’s Channel 10 news. Titled “Precious Life,” the film tracks the story of Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a 4-month-old Palestinian baby suffering from a rare immune deficiency. Moved by the baby’s plight, Eldar helps the infant and mother go from Gaza to Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital for lifesaving bone-marrow treatment. The operation costs $55,000. Eldar puts out an appeal on Israel TV and within hours an Israeli Jew whose own son was killed during military service donates all the money.

The documentary takes a dramatic turn, though, when the infant’s Palestinian mother, Raida, who is being disparaged by fellow Gazans for having her son treated in Israel, blurts out that she hopes he’ll grow up to be a suicide bomber to help recover Jerusalem. Raida tells Eldar: “From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You’re free to be angry, so be angry.”

Eldar is devastated by her declaration and stops making the film. But this is no Israeli propaganda movie. The drama of the Palestinian boy’s rescue at an Israeli hospital is juxtaposed against Israeli retaliations for shelling from Gaza, which kill whole Palestinian families. Dr. Raz Somech, the specialist who treats Mohammed as if he were his own child, is summoned for reserve duty in Gaza in the middle of the film. The race by Israelis and Palestinians to save one life is embedded in the larger routine of the two communities grinding each other up.

“It’s clear to me that the war in Gaza was justified — no country can allow itself to be fired at with Qassam rockets — but I did not see many people pained by the loss of life on the Palestinian side,” Eldar told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Because we were so angry at Hamas, all the Israeli public wanted was to [expletive] Gaza. ... It wasn’t until after the incident of Dr. Abu al-Aish — the Gaza physician I spoke with on live TV immediately after a shell struck his house and caused the death of his daughters and he was shouting with grief and fear — that I discovered the [Israeli] silent majority that has compassion for people, including Palestinians. I found that many Israeli viewers shared my feelings.” So Eldar finished the documentary about how Mohammed’s life was saved in Israel.

His raw film reflects the Middle East I know — one full of amazing compassion, even among enemies, and breathtaking cruelty, even among neighbors.

I write about this now because there is something foul in the air. It is a trend, both deliberate and inadvertent, to delegitimize Israel — to turn it into a pariah state, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. You hear the director Oliver Stone saying crazy things about how Hitler killed more Russians than Jews, but the Jews got all the attention because they dominate the news media and their lobby controls Washington. You hear Britain’s prime minister describing Gaza as a big Israeli “prison camp” and Turkey’s prime minister telling Israel’s president, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill.” You see singers canceling concerts in Tel Aviv. If you just landed from Mars, you might think that Israel is the only country that has killed civilians in war — never Hamas, never Hezbollah, never Turkey, never Iran, never Syria, never America.

I’m not here to defend Israel’s bad behavior. Just the opposite. I’ve long argued that Israel’s colonial settlements in the West Bank are suicidal for Israel as a Jewish democracy. I don’t think Israel’s friends can make that point often enough or loud enough.

But there are two kinds of criticism. Constructive criticism starts by making clear: “I know what world you are living in.” I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq, Iran kills its own voters, Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door, Turkey hammers the Kurds, and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel. I know all of that. But Israel’s behavior, at times, only makes matters worse — for Palestinians and Israelis. If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they’re living in, and then criticize, they’ll listen.

Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears. It says to Israelis: There is no context that could explain your behavior, and your wrongs are so uniquely wrong that they overshadow all others. Destructive critics dismiss Gaza as an Israeli prison, without ever mentioning that had Hamas decided — after Israel unilaterally left Gaza — to turn it into Dubai rather than Tehran, Israel would have behaved differently, too. Destructive criticism only empowers the most destructive elements in Israel to argue that nothing Israel does matters, so why change?

How about everybody take a deep breath, pop a copy of “Precious Life” into your DVD players, watch this documentary about the real Middle East, and if you still want to be a critic (as I do), be a constructive one. A lot more Israelis and Palestinians will listen to you.

The Op-Ed title "Steal This Movie" is a parody of a title of a book written late sixties American radical Abbie Hoffman.  The book "Steal This Book" was written in 1970 and published in 1971.   I can remember buying it when it came out as if it were yesterday. 

John H. Armwood

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