Un razonamiento desde SL

The Wikileaks cables, and the extraordinary witch-hunt leading to the arrest of Julian Assange, have exposed a system built on lies and hypocrisy. The whole democratic facade of the “free world” lies in tatters, next to the handshakes and carefully manufactured phrases of official diplomacy. In their place are revealed the sordid dealings and real opinions of our politicians and public servants, speaking as we’ve never heard them before – honestly.

It is true that the Wikileaks cables have not told us much we did not already know. But it is one thing to “know” that the imperialist powers dominate and carve up the world between them with no regard for the opinions or lives of the world’s population. It is quite another to have it confirmed by the functionaries of imperialism themselves. Everything which previously could be dismissed or ignored as the cynical theories of the left now must be confronted as embarrassing facts.

For example, it is one thing to know that most of Australia’s efforts in South-East Asia are dedicated to maintaining its dominance, with the involvement of the US, and keeping out its main rival, China. It is another thing to have Kevin Rudd say it, as was revealed this week when referring to his idea of an Asia Pacific Community. And of course “while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong”.

Similarly, it is one thing to know that most of the Arab states are thoroughly reactionary regimes and staunch allies of the United States and Israel. It is quite another to hear directly that Saudi Arabia’s King repeatedly urged the bombing of Iran and that the Saudi foreign minister proposed an “Arab army” with US “naval and air support” to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon, apparently with the support of the Siniora Lebanese Government.

Some, including Israel, are celebrating these revelations as showing that the whole world, even the Arab world, wants to take military action against Iran. In fact, they show the opposite. The very fact that these opinions have been kept secret demonstrates just how unpopular they are in the Arab countries, where the mass of the population rightly hate Israel and the US. And yet, like everywhere else, the super-rich ruling class of Saudi Arabia rules only for itself, forging friendly ties with the mass murderers of world imperialism, all the better to oppress and exploit their own people.

This lies at the heart of what Wikileaks has revealed about our world. Leon Trotsky wrote in 1917 that “secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests.” The revolutionary Bolshevik government published all the secret treaties of Russian imperialism, because “the abolition of secret diplomacy is the primary condition for an honest, popular, truly democratic foreign policy”.

This is why Wikileaks has provoked such a hysterical reaction and witch-hunt from the establishment. Not so much because of the particular details revealed in the cables, but because our rulers are simply appalled at the idea that common people should have any right to see how the world is really run, and in whose interests.

All of their international dealings, including wars which have cost the lives of millions, are based on lies. So how are they to do business in the future, how are they to organise another Iraq war, if their back-room honesty constantly finds its way out to the pesky public?

That is why the extraordinary attacks on Julian Assange and Wikileaks have actually revealed more about our society than the leaks themselves. The hypocrisy of the “democratic” world has been mind-blowing. On 7 December, the US Department of State issued a press release titled “US to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011”. Without a hint of irony or embarrassment, it proclaimed:

New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression.

At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

On the very same day, Assange was arrested and denied bail in London. Leading US political figures are calling for him to be hunted down like Al-Qaeda and executed, and the US Administration is pulling out all stops to shut down Wikileaks. They are now even targeting the New York Times for investigation. How quickly democratic ideals are abandoned when they threaten the powers-that-be!

Big business predictably turned on Wikileaks in a heartbeat. It took just one phone call from Democrat senator Joe Lieberman for Amazon to kick Wikileaks off its servers. This is despite proclaiming on its website its support for organisations which “fight censorship and defend imprisoned and persecuted writers around the world in the belief that freedom of expression is an essential component of every healthy society”.

Visa, MasterCard and PayPal were just a step behind, preventing people from sending money to support Wikileaks. Nevertheless, if you wish to donate to the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan, Visa and MasterCard are still happy to facilitate this transaction.

Assange is now facing charges of sexual assault. We do not know what happened between Assange and the two women concerned. But without a doubt the entire farcical process has been politically motivated; the US and Sweden have barely concealed the fact that they see the sexual assault case merely as a way to get Assange silenced behind bars and then extradited to the US to face trumped-up espionage charges in the land of rendition, torture and the death penalty. In a case of classic British understatement, Assange’s lawyer described the whole thing as “highly unusual”.

Meanwhile, recent cables have revealed that a string of prominent Labor party figures – including right wing power-broker Mark Arbib – regularly discuss the secret and internal workings of the Australian Government with US embassy officials. Will he now be hauled before the courts for espionage and assisting a foreign terrorist organisation? No no no – this is instead described as being “all part of an MP’s work”; Arbib simply a good supporter of the US alliance.

Julia Gillard has had to back away from some of her earlier attacks on Assange because she couldn’t find any laws to persecute him with. She has now fallen back, like many commentators, to declaring Wikileaks’ actions immoral and “grossly irresponsible”. The reality is that Assange has shown a commitment to basic morality and democratic values which puts any world leader to shame.

The claim that Wikileaks has “endangered countless lives” should be treated with nothing but contempt, coming as it does from the same people who have actually taken “countless” lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. If a few spies, diplomats and collaborators have now been exposed for the crimes they have committed doing the dirty work of US and Australian imperialism, then all the better. If Gillard or Clinton really cared about their or anyone else’s lives, they would stop playing the dirty game of world domination and get out of Afghanistan.

Karl Marx characterised the world’s capitalists as a “band of hostile brothers”. The Wikileaks saga confirms this view. Each country’s capitalists and the state machines that represent them manoeuvre and compete for profit and dominance in the world, sometimes escalating into all-out war. The major powers dominate not just through their own economic and military power, but also through shifting networks of alliances, as they try to contain their rivals.

But they also all have something in common – all their profits and power rely on the subordination of their own working populations. They all depend upon secrecy and lies, a thin veneer of “freedom” and “democracy”, in order to conceal the class divide at the heart of the exploitative system. And so they all unite to destroy someone like Julian Assange. He must be defended.

The struggle to defend Wikileaks must move from the internet to the streets. More than this, the system Assange has helped to expose must be brought down. A genuine democracy must be put in its place. This can only be achieved by ripping the economic and political power out of the hands of the lying parasites who occupy the parliaments, Pentagons and palaces.