{"id":81425,"date":"2024-06-26T06:32:04","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T06:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/26\/rogue-to-victim-what-australia-sees-in-julian-assange\/"},"modified":"2024-06-26T06:32:05","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T06:32:05","slug":"rogue-to-victim-what-australia-sees-in-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/26\/rogue-to-victim-what-australia-sees-in-julian-assange\/","title":{"rendered":"Rogue to Victim: What Australia Sees in Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/26\/multimedia\/26assange-analysis-bzgf\/26assange-analysis-bzgf-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Rogue to Victim: What Australia Sees in Julian Assange\" title=\"Rogue to Victim: What Australia Sees in Julian Assange\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, received a hero\u2019s welcome even before he was set to arrive back in his home country of Australia on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Australian politicians sprinted to publish statements supporting a plea deal that gained him his freedom. Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister who is now Australia\u2019s ambassador to the United States, even joined him in the U.S. courtroom on the Pacific island of Saipan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That Mr. Assange\u2019s case concluded in a distant outpost \u2014 the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth tied to America through post-World War II imperialism \u2014 seemed fitting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/25\/world\/australia\/julian-assange-plea-deal-guilty.html\" title=\"\">ended his standoff<\/a> with the American government far from Washington, 14 years after he published classified military and diplomatic documents, revealing secret details about U.S. spycraft and the killing of civilians during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was a divisive figure then \u2014 a brave journalist to some, a reckless anarchist who endangered Americans to others. He became even more polarizing during the 2016 presidential election, when WikiLeaks published thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign and from the Democratic National Committee that had been stolen by Russian hackers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But after five years in a British prison, where he had married and became the father of two children, Mr. Assange had turned into a figure more appealing for Australians. Somewhere along the way, he became the underdog forced to endure superpower pique, and in a land settled by convicts, a rebellious bloke who had done his time and deserved to return home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said the court proceedings that freed Mr. Assange were \u201ca welcome development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is something that has been considered, patient, worked through in a calibrated way, which is how Australia conducts ourselves internationally,\u201d he said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRegardless of what your views about Mr. Assange\u2019s activities,\u201d he added, \u201chis case has dragged on for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Critics saw a lack of introspection in that response. It ignored that Australia\u2019s own espionage laws are <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/06\/05\/world\/australia\/journalist-raids.html\" title=\"\">some of the toughest in the democratic world<\/a>, with punishments stretching to 25 years in prison and weak protections for journalism. And it sidestepped the Albanese administration\u2019s continued resistance to granting greater transparency with public records and the failure to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2024-06-25\/richard-boyle-case-biggest-test-of-whistleblower-protection-laws\/104006208\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">strengthen whistle-blower protection laws<\/a>, despite <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/policy\/foreign-affairs\/why-we-need-to-know-more-about-the-secret-trial-of-witness-j-20200304-p546vc\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">frustration<\/a> over several secretive cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Johan Lidberg, an associate professor of journalism at Monash University in Melbourne who has worked with the United Nations on global press freedom, said he was surprised by the broad political support for Mr. Assange. He had somehow unified, for a moment, Greens and Labor lawmakers along with conservative leaders. But how?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lidberg said sympathy for Mr. Assange started to build in Australia after 2016, when at the urging of President Trump, he was dragged out of the Ecuadorean Embassy and put into Belmarsh, a prison in southeast London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHis case went from one of hacking, journalism, publishing, advocacy to becoming a humanitarian issue,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could be that the Australian myth of \u2018the fair go\u2019 played a role. It was seen that he didn\u2019t get a fair go, and was mistreated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The desire to protect accountability journalism \u2014 a factor for many Americans who worried that a conviction for Mr. Assange would <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/25\/us\/politics\/assange-plea-deal-press-freedom.html\" title=\"\">send a threatening message<\/a> to reporters and sources \u2014 was not a major concern in Australia, where there is no constitutional right to free speech.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">James Curran, a history professor at the University of Sydney and an international affairs columnist, said Australians do not necessarily share the same kind of reverence as Americans do for \u201cthe whole culture of secrecy and classified documents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When a bipartisan group of Australian politicians went to Washington to lobby for Mr. Assange in October, they did not stress the need to protect the Fourth Estate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey emphasized how China and Russia are using the Assange case as proof of blatant Western hypocrisy when it comes to the handling of political prisoners,\u201d Mr. Curran said. \u201cThis did cut through in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">American law-and-order had already lost some respect. Many Australians now harbor whispered disapproval for the U.S. criminal justice system, which they see as too performative and punitive, with capital punishment in some states and long prison sentences in most.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is the high rates of incarceration, the abuse of the plea-bargaining process, even the conduct of U.S. police,\u201d said Hugh White, a former Australian defense official and now a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University. \u201cI think even quite conservative people doubted the Assange would \u2018get a fair go\u2019 at the hands of the D.O.J.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Last year, when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited Australia for high-level defense talks in Brisbane, he was asked about Mr. Assange\u2019s case \u2014 and bristled at the idea that Mr. Assange was a victim of American capriciousness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Standing at an outdoor lectern, flanked by military veterans, Mr. Blinken said he understood \u201cthe concerns and views of Australians\u201d but that it was \u201cvery important that our friends here\u201d understood Mr. Assange\u2019s \u201calleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His comments sounded defensive to many Australians, and condescending. Australia and America are still shoulder-to-shoulder allies, having fought together in past wars, and they are now building a framework of collective defense to deter potential Chinese aggression. But Mr. Blinken\u2019s tone helped make Mr. Assange a proxy for another element of the Australian relationship to the United States: An abiding ambivalence about the idea of American exceptionalism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIn part this is just a reflection of the ambivalence that great powers always engender among their smaller satellites, but it is not just that,\u201d Mr. White said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Among conservative, Anglo-centric Australians, there is also some resentment about America displacing the British Empire after World War II, he added. Others have felt that the United States has often been too quick to dismiss the concerns of its friends, and by continuing to prosecute Mr. Assange, \u201cthe U.S. has looked unreasonably vindictive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Getting the United States to back down \u2014 and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/13\/world\/australia\/us-changing-role-asia-pacific.html\" title=\"\">listen with a bit more humility<\/a> \u2014 seems to be what Australian politicians are eager to celebrate. Along with Mr. Albanese, rural conservative lawmakers and Greens party liberals also praised Mr. Assange\u2019s release. Mr. Rudd smiled enough during his own appearance in court to be mistaken for a defense lawyer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Their mood of victory, however, may yet fade. Will the next round of leaks reveal secrets about Australia? What if Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks choose a side in the U.S. election or war in Ukraine that most Australians do not support?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe case can be made that WikiLeaks helped Trump and Putin more than anybody else, and put lives at risk,\u201d Mr. Curran said. \u201cThis seems not to have really sunk in to the Australian debate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/26\/world\/australia\/assange-justice.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, received a hero\u2019s welcome even before he was set to arrive back in his home country of Australia on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act. Australian politicians sprinted to publish statements supporting a plea deal that gained him his freedom. Kevin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/26\/multimedia\/26assange-analysis-bzgf\/26assange-analysis-bzgf-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14855,1386,14854,72346,4944,17710],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81427,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81425\/revisions\/81427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}