Forum Post: the obama administration wants julian assange

The U.S. intellectual Noam Chomsky does not discard the possibility that the U.K. could venture in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to capture the journalist and founder of Wikilieaks, Julian Assange.

Here we replicate a part of the interview published on the mentioned website. The complete document it is found on this address: http://bit.ly/QidZJ1

The United Stated government has issued today a statement in which it declares that this matter is a problem between the Brits, the Ecuadorians and the Swedes. Do you find this argument honest? Is the United States really not interested in the faith of Julian Assange?

The statement plainly cannot be taken seriously. The shadow looming over this whole affair is the expectation that Sweden would quickly send Assange to the US, where the chances of his receiving a fair trial are virtually zero. That much is evident from the brutal and illegal treatment of Bradley Manning, and the general government and media hysteria about Assange. These matters aside, for those who believe that citizens have a right to know what their government is planning and doing – that is, who have a lingering affection for democracy – Assange should not be facing trial, but rather should be granted a medal of honor.

In an interview with Amy Goodman, from Democracy Now! You affirmed that the main reason for governmental secrets is to protect governments from their own people. Is it for the first time in history the world is seen Diplomacy’s true colours.

Anyone who studies declassified documents soon becomes aware that government secrecy is largely an effort to protect policy makers from scrutiny by citizens, not to protect the country from enemies. No doubt secrecy is sometimes justified, but it is rare, and in the case of the Wikileaks exposures, I have not seen a single example.

This is, however, by no means the first time that “diplomacy’s true colours” have been exposed by released documents. The Pentagon Papers is a famous case. But the truth of the matter is that it is constant. The record exposed even in officially declassified documents is often quite shocking, but it is rarely known to the general public, or even most of scholarship. On a more broader aspect, and to end this interview, Slavoj Zizek said we are not destroying capitalism, but only witnessing how the system destroys itself. Are the Occupy movements, the financial crisis in Europe and the United States, the rise of Latin America and other former marginal regions and the Wikileaks case signs of the crumbling end of the capitalist system?

Far from it. The financial crisis in Europe could be resolved, but it is being used as a lever to undermine the European social contract; it is basically a case of class war. The record of the US Federal Reserve is better than that of its European counterpart, but is still far too limited, and other measures too would be quite possible to alleviate the severe crisis in the US, a crisis of unemployment, primarily. For the general population, unemployment is the major concern, but the financial institutions, which have a dominant position in the economy and political system, are more interested in restricting the deficit, and their concerns prevail. In general, there is a huge gap between the public will and policy. This is only one case. The rise of Latin America is a phenomenon of historic significance, but it is far from shaking the state capitalist system. And while Wikileaks and the Occupy movements are an irritant to the powerful – and a boon for the public – they are hardly a threat to reigning power systems.