Very few people might have heard of Julian Assange before he burst forth on the global political landscape with his explosive revelations about the US Fed Government’s communications related to the wars the country was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had taken a firm stand to expose US’s bullying ways browbeating nations to accept its overly (which were quite often overt as well) imperialistic ways in handling international events often couched in shrewd diplomacy. He also wanted to reveal to the rest of the world, US’s double standards when it came to dealing with crises affecting other countries and unwarrantedly meddling in the internal or domestic affairs of the rest of the nations.
The media entity-WikiLeaks-that he founded in the year 2006 went on to become a multinational news gathering organization. WikiLeaks right from its inception has focused on scrutinizing and publishing the huge database of highly classified (which only the high and mighty have access to) news materials concerning espionage, wars, subterfuges, and realpolitik. The media outlet became Julian’s mouthpiece and spokesperson serving as a global conduit for his opinions regarding the US’s highhandedness and belligerence. He was charged with sexual exploitation of a couple of women during his visit to Sweden in 2010.
However, Swedish prosecutors failed in extraditing Assange in order to grill him regarding his crimes against the females as the statutory limitations (with respect to the offenses) became unfeasible. In June of 2012, it became public that Julian Assange had requested the Ecuadorian government for granting him political asylum which was eventually granted as the administration was convinced that his deportation to Sweden may have led to his extradition to the US where he could’ve been indicted for his seditious activities. The US government could even announce a death sentence against him.
While he was cosseted in the embassy of Ecuador in London, he didn’t leave any stone unturned in upholding the US as a warmongering rogue nation that on one hand, feigned to preserve human rights, while on the other, sent troops to countries for quelling rebellions and uprisings in their territories. However, critics and cynics of Assange have more often than not pointed out that his taking the moral high-ground equally smacked of hypocrisy since he has deliberately (which is quite mysterious and inexplicable) abstained from condemning or censuring Vladimir Putin who governed Russia with an iron fist and often came down heavily on dissenters as well as muzzled all forms of media.
Critics strongly felt that it was ironical on his part to spare Russia which dealt with its neighbors (Chechen rebels, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Uighur et al) in ways that were nothing less than domineering and censorious while putting the US Fed Government in the dock. It now seems that WikiLeaks and Russia Today, the Kremlin based news media are pursuing similar agendas. In July, both the media entities disclosed thousands of emails which hinted that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton (the grand old party’s presidential contender) had collaborated to demoralize Senator Bernie Sanders, her chief political adversary in the party.
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