Julian Assange is an Idiot

First, I have to be clear. I admire Julian Assange. I value WikiLeaks. A lot. He has performed a valuable service to the world.

So why is he acting like a goddamn idiot?

Of all the times to release the hacked Podesta emails, why Friday – the classic media dump day? And why the same Friday when Donald Trump’s gross woman-groping tape is the obsession of the global media?

As the BBC says: “In some alternate universe, the Clinton Wikileaks story would be dominating the news this weekend, as pundits and analysts speculate on whether the revelations could tilt the election to Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or even Ted Cruz.”

It’s almost like he wants them to be washed away in a tsunami of distraction.

Obviously, Donald Trump is in big trouble, and he deserves to be. Of course, there’s nothing new here. Everyone knew that he was a sexist misogynist pig. Everyone knew that he objectified women beyond the norms of a male locker room. This audio has the effect of making all the stuff that he has said, and all the stuff that his accusers have said, feel and seem more real. But it sure ain’t new.

The Hillary Clinton hacks aren’t really new either, but they do shine a brighter light than the media has been generally willing to do on the fact that she is a total suck-up to Wall Street, that she is a free-trade purist who doesn’t care about American jobs, that she’ll always be part of the 1% and never one of us. This is stuff that pretty much everyone who has been paying attention already knew all along, of course. But it really goes to confirm the Bernie Sanders narrative during the primaries, as well as put a spotlight on the fact that Hillary Clinton was never going to be a good Democratic nominee.

If things go the way that they currently look like they’re going to go – Trump steps aside, Pence steps in – we’re really going to see that. My guess is that the Bland from Indiana will defeat Hillary Clinton. What if it goes the other way? What if Trump stays in the race and loses, or leaves and Pence loses?

Then Hillary Clinton becomes president of the United States without the American people having any clue about what kind of person she is or what kind of policies she generally espouses. That didn’t need to be the case.

Julian, say it ain’t so!

Or that there’s more.

Know Your Level

If Bradley Manning had murdered Iraqi civilians as a soldier, he’d be a hero. Instead, he revealed proof that his superiors killed Iraqi civilians. It’s all about understanding your role in the hierarchy that keeps our society together…which we should all want for some reason.

The Ultimate Crime

Congress is investigating to find out who leaked the story that Obama has a secret “kill list” of political assassination targets, and that the U.S. conspired with Israel to infect Iran with the Stuxnet computer virus, to the New York Times. Shouldn’t they be investigating those activities, which are crimes, instead?

SYNDICATED COLUMN: WikiLeaks: The Devils We Know

Cables Reveal Background of Pro-Dictator U.S. Policy

After the Soviet collapse in 1991 U.S. policy toward Central Asia was transparently cynical: support the dictators, screw the people.

As the U.S. stood by and watched, corrupt autocrats looted the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Dissidents were jailed, massacred—even boiled.

Well, actually, the U.S. was anything but passive. They negotiated deals for oil and gas pipelines. They rented airbases after 9/11. They poured in tens of millions of American tax dollars—all of which wound up in secret bank accounts belonging to the dictators and their families. Meanwhile, average citizens lived in abject poverty.

During trips to Central Asia the locals constantly ask me: “Why doesn’t America stop supporting [insert name of corrupt dictator here] so we can kill him and free ourselves?”

Poor, naïve people. They believe our rhetoric. They think we like democracy. Actually, we’re all about the looting. Dictators are easier to deal with than parliaments. One handshake and a kickback, that’s all you need with a dictator.

Central Asia only had one democratically elected president, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan. George W. Bush ordered the CIA to depose him in a coup.

Americans who care about human rights have long wondered: Is the State Department stupid and/or naïve? Or did the diplomats in Tashkent and other capitals of unspeakable misery understand the brutal and vile nature of Central Asia’s authoritarian leaders?

An examination of the WikiLeaks data dump answers that question: Yes.

Hell yes.

Like those from concerning more prominent countries, the WikiLeaks cables on the Central Asian republics can be funny. President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, a U.S. “ally in the war on terror” who seized power in a palace coup following the death of Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov, is described as “the ‘decider’ for the state of Turkmenistan.” This is true. Turkmenistan is an absolute dictatorship in which millions starve while Berdimuhamedov’s inner circle feasts on the profits from the world’s largest reserves of natural gas.

A December 2009 cable describes America’s pet autocrat as “vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative, a practiced liar, ‘a good actor,’ and vindictive.”

According to an unnamed source, the outwardly conservative dictator has a Russian mistress named Marina, with whom he has a 14-year-old daughter. Though Berdy’s power may be limitless, his intellect is not. “Berdimuhamedov does not like people who are smarter than he is,” says the cable. “Since he’s not a very bright guy, our source offered, he is suspicious of a lot of people.”

No one’s perfect. Least of all America’s allies in Central Asia.

On the other side of the steppe in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev presides over the world’s largest oil reserves with an iron fist. Among his greatest hits: the convenient “suicides” of his top two political opponents a few months before a presidential “election.” The two men apparently shot themselves in the back of the head, then bound their own hands behind their backs and dropped into a ditch outside Almaty.

Needless to say, Nazarbayev is another valuable U.S. ally in the war on terror.

But that doesn’t stop American gossip. Nazarbayev’s defense minister, says an embassy staffer in Astana, “appears to enjoy loosening up in the tried and true ‘homo sovieticus’ style—i.e., drinking oneself into a stupor.” But alcoholism isn’t illegal. Graft is—and the president is public enemy number one.

“In 2007, President Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, celebrated his 41st birthday in grand style,” explains an April 2008 cable. “At a small venue in Almaty, he hosted a private concert with some of Russia’s biggest pop stars. The headliner, however, was Elton John, to whom he reportedly paid one million pounds for this one-time appearance.” How did he come up with all that coin? “Timur Kulibayev is currently the favored presidential son-in-law, on the Forbes 500 list of billionaires (as is his wife separately), and the ultimate controller of 90% of the economy of Kazakhstan,” states a January 2010 missive.

Membership has its privileges. The U.S. has never spoken out against corruption or human rights abuses in Kazakhstan.

So it’s clear: American diplomats have no illusions about their brutal allies. Interestingly, Central Asia’s overlords have a dismally accurate view of corruption in the U.S. government.

“Listen, almost everyone at the top [of the Kazakh regime] is confused,” First Vice President Maksat Idenov told the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan early this year. “They’re confused by the corrupt excesses of capitalism. ‘If Goldman Sachs executives can make $50 million a year and then run America’s economy in Washington, what’s so different about what we do?’ they ask.”

No response was provided.

(Ted Rall is the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto.” His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2010 TED RALL

Not So Secret

A 2005 CIA report says the Iraq War isn’t going so well. What other highly-classified information is the president reading every morning?

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