Those who have criticized WikiLeaks and its founder for targeting U.S. misdeeds and not Russia’s or China’s are about to get their wish. And in terms of Russian politics, this is sure to be a Battle Royal.
That’s because Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper partly owned by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, has just entered into a partnership with WikiLeaks. And according to this article from the newspaper by columnist Roman Anin, an acquaintance of Julian Assange, in the near future, Russian citizens will find out many new things about ‘corruption at the highest political strata’ of their country. Anin explains why Novaya Gazeta has made this decision, and what kind of man Julian Assange really is. It is a long and interesting piece, well worth reading in its entirety.
For Novaya Gazeta, Roman Anin writes in small part:
As of today, Novaya Gazeta is an official partner of WikiLeaks.
Recently, there have been so many conspiracy theories and delirious conspiratorial accusations around the site and its founder, Julian Assange, that we probably should explain how we arrived at the idea of a partnership.
I once met Assange: we drank vodka in a circle of mutual friends in a small apartment in Stockholm. To help you understand: Assange, who today is being called everything from an undercover operative of the U.S. State Department to Agent Smith of the movie Matrix come to life, looked like a typical nerd from the mathematics department of some university. He wore a long awkward sweater, jeans someone gave him as a gift and socks that didn’t match. It was hard to believe when, a few months later, he surpassed bin Laden on the Pentagon’s list of leading enemies and senior American politicians began seriously discussions on the need to simply eliminate the man.
Assange is perhaps the world’s greatest hacker. At least among those interested in politics rather than stealing money from bank accounts, he has no equal. Even in a circle of acquaintances and with a shot of vodka, he spoke in a whisper, fearing that someone might overhear: He had a meeting planned late at night with someone, which he arranged as he repeatedly changed cell phones and SIM cards.
Assange’s goal is very simple and impossibly naïve: to make the world as transparent as possible and minimize the possibility of any government making decisions without the knowledge of the people. In regard to such a goal, one could laugh – but Assange believes in it with the conviction of a child.
WikiLeaks’ chief critics talk about one thing: Assange’s mission is incompatible with the interests of national security. It’s easy to test this theory: over the past decade, this has been perhaps the most effective tool of governments to justify their actions and regulate society. In the name of national security, gubernatorial elections can be cancelled [Russia]; in the name of saving the nation, another contingent of troops can be sent to die in a godforsaken land, and even businessmen can be put behind bars, named an enemy of the people and a threat to national security. [a reference to former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, among others].
It’s startling, given how successfully this theory has worked before, how is has begun to malfunction when applied to the phenomenon of WikiLeaks. This site has many enemies in the highest political circles among the generals, and within the bureaucracy. But it has a far larger number of supporters among the common people. There is a very simple explanation for this: the soldier who has lost his legs in Afghanistan receives a long explanation about how he has spilled his blood in the name of national security; but suddenly Assange comes along, who has shown that behind all of the eloquent words about national security, hide the interests of a handful of privileged officials sleeping with prostitutes and greedy politicians who have get a percentage from every meter of gas pipeline.
Merry Christmas to one and all!
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