WikiLeaks cables – Discrediting By Calling Them Conspiracy Theories

The individual leaks are not as important as the response to the volume of material. By Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun December 4, 2010 To governments around the world, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a comic book super villain: A lone and lonely evil genius who, driven by anger and angst, plots tirelessly to release damning and damaging information about governments’ backroom machinations. Assange’s critics therefore argue that, like any comic book supervillian, Assange must be incapacitated, or better yet, decapitated. By calling for his head, critics suggest that assassinating or executing the man will effectively eliminate the menace. As anyone who has listened to Assange knows, this theory is doubly wrong: Assange is not primarily interested in embarrassing governments into changing the way they conduct military strikes or diplomatic negotiations, and his elimination will do little to reduce the threat to governments around the world. To see what Assange’s real purpose is, and to understand why that purpose will not be frustrated simply by removing him, one need look no further than two essays he wrote shortly before the appearance of WikiLeaks: State and Terrorist Conspiracies, and Conspiracy as Governance. The two essays, which are really two versions of one essay, tell us all we need to know about Assange’s modus operandi. It’s surprising, then, that few people have read Assange’s essays, though blogger Aaron Bady has recently done an excellent job of bringing …