So let me see if I understand the 2 biggest hot button topics on DU

[pnwmom]

77. Assange doesn't care about anyone but himself.

He doesn't have any goal in mind when leaking files except to cause as much commotion as possible, and he doesn't care who he hurts.

It fits completely with his anarchist views. Progressives are making a mistake to think he's on their side.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/self-promotion-as-dissident-doesnt-make-assange-one/story-fnb64oi6-1226456042487

First, if there were some sort of global, unified response to oppression, I quibble with Assange's confidence that he deserves a place in it. I've no doubt that he does truly look at the Western world and see an oppressive military-industrial complex, hell-bent on all the usual drivel. But that doesn't make him an enemy of non-Western oppression, too. Often, it makes him the reverse.

US documents on the opposition in Belarus, for example, were given to the Belarussian government by people working for WikiLeaks, thereby giving President Alexander Lukashenko (often dubbed "Europe's last dictator&quot a ready-made hit list.

Assange highlighted the case of Nabeel Rajab, a jailed Bahraini human rights activist. But it is precisely such people who had the most to fear from the leaking of documents that gave an overview of unredacted dissenting activity garnered from people who felt they were speaking in secret.

WikiLeaks documents named witnesses against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Beijing lawyers who briefed on reform and Zimbabwean generals who chatted freely with a US ambassador.