Assange Handed Sydney Peace Medal 199
hihihihi writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation's Gold Medal for 'exceptional courage in the pursuit of human rights.' It is only the fourth time in the organization's 14-year history that the prize for extraordinary achievement in promoting peace with justice has been given out. Previous winners are Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda. Foundation director Professor Stuart Rees accused the Australian government of demonizing Mr Assange and aiding US efforts to behave like a totalitarian state."
Awarding the idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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Iraq war documents, for example.
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Showing how great of pains the US government goes through to prevent us from learning that their military doesn't live up to their propaganda.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:5, Informative)
That said, I really liked reading about US diplomats opinions of French racial issues. Or Yemen's attempts to take credit for US actions. Stuff like that is really fun to read.
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What propaganda haven't they lived up to that was revealed by Wikileaks?
The US military likes to pretend their strikes are very precise and kills few civilians. The Afghan and Iraq war documents show that they fail to disclose many civilian deaths.
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I'm sorry, but I think you've been misled.
From the Wikipedia article on the Afghan war documents [wikipedia.org]:
Hundreds of civilians have been wounded or killed by coalition forces in several instances that were not previously revealed. The press listed several examples of such previously unreported incidents of civilian injuries and deaths. David Leigh of The Guardian wrote:
They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the US was treating Afghan lives as "cheap". When civilian family members are actually killed in Afghanistan, their relatives do, in fairness, get greater solatia payments than cans of beans and Hershey bars. The logs refer to sums paid of 100,000 Afghani per corpse, equivalent to about £1,500.
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The US military likes to pretend their strikes are very precise and kills few civilians
This is what you said. If you'd been paying attention, you would have noticed that the military kept changing the rules of engagement, trying to reduce civilian deaths. They wouldn't have done this if their strikes were very precise and killed few civilians.
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Yes. I wrote they like to *pretend* their strikes are very precise and kill few civilans. As in keeping the outwardly appearance of it.
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Re:Awarding the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you think every other government doesn't do exactly the same thing, then you're a fucking retard.
Everyone hiding secrets doesn't make hiding secrets the right thing to do, so you gotta start somewhere. Also, I don't think he claimed that nobody else was doing it.
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Exactly. Add to this that the US has dragged other nations into their criminal wars. More people have died at the hands of US forces committing war crimes than any other nation over the last two decades.
Again, this is not to say other countries aren't doing this, but to claim that taking down Sadam for gassing 30 000 people by killing more than 10 fold people is fine is just wrong.
I know I'll get modded down by the US patriots, but war crimes are war crimes. No escaping it, no matter how just you think they
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The US didn't win the American war in Vietnam, committed war crimes, and no one was brought before the Internation War Crimes Tribunal. So this doesn't ring true really.
It's more that whoever controls the information controls whether someone is brought up on war crimes charges.
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Vietnam wasn't a war, it was a police action. We were there at the behest of south vietnam government. We were basically "hired guns". War requires occupation, which means that not only are there troops there, but we're also the government. Unlike the situation in Iraq where we overthrew the government and installed our own.
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I still reject this idea. It's about information, not who "won".
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WTF?
Are you suggesting that 9/11 was the same thing as Vietnam? Really? Good thing you said that as an AC.
The US went into vietnam at the south vietnamese governments request. I think there's a little bit of difference there.
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The US went into Vietnam because we were asked by FRANCE, who wanted to keep their little Asian colonial empire, which was rapidly ending as Vietnam was struggling for independence.
And no, he's not saying that 9/11 is the same as Vietnam, what he's saying is that we in American are a bunch of hypocrites. If someone does something to us, it's terrorrism, if we bomb the shit out of someone else, it's liberation. If we repel people attacking us we are heroes, if someone else does it it's terrorism. If someo
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That's like saying an americano isn't coffee because in one you expose coffee grounds to a small amount of water under pressure after which you dilute it with plain hot water, and in the other you expose coffee grounds to the same volume of liquid as the finished pot will hold. In then end, you still get a coffee flavored drink with caffeine, so the distinction in preparation has little bearing on the physiological effects.
To say that Viet Nam was not a war ignores the fact the multitudes were murdered in
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Actually, Kuwait was completely justified. Repelling Sadams forces there was the right thing to do. We pushed Sadam back and re-instanted the legal government and stepped back. Going into Iraq was a lot more muddy though.
And no, France did not control Vietnam anymore. Vietnam officially granted Vietnam independance in 1954, and they were done with it.
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No, I was merely pointing out that he didn't have the balls to put his name next to his words. Even his psuedonym.
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There was a Vietnam war, but that war was between South Vietnam and North Vietnam. The US and China, respectively, were there to support each side.
By your definition, the US Revolutionary war was a war between France and England. France supported us, but was not at war with England themselves.
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Sounds like a lot of conspiracy theory to me. doesn' mean it's not true, but I see no evidence to support it.
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But, it was not a war between France and England. That's my point.
The Vietnam war was a war between North and South Vietname. It was not a war between the US and North Vietname. The US was supporting the South Vietnamese.
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There's a difference between a conspiracy, and a conspiracy theory. A theory is not proven, and is just allegations (often without any evidence, or selective evidence that ignores contrary evidence).
If there was credible evidence, then there would be credible people pursuing it.
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And if you think every other government doesn't do exactly the same thing, then you're a fucking retard.
True, but consider that Bush quite freely admits that God told him to invade Iraq and that it was a holy crusade. Shame God couldn't also tell him there were no WMD there. The fact that a Country with frequently elects religious fundamentalist presidents who genuinely believe invisible men are telling them to invade other nations, also has enough nuclear weapons to extinguish all life on the planet. Yes this deserves some serious scrutiny and a man willing to risk his freedom and his life exposing the di
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This may be a minor quibble, but the very leaks in discussion here show that there were in fact many instances where WMDs were discovered and recovered in Iraq. The most common were gas-filled artillery shells, and some were even used in IED attacks, seemingly by chance.
It was kept quiet to keep the insurgents from knowing what they had, which seems prudent.
You include humanitarian missions? (Score:2)
Your "staggeringly long" list includes everything the military did, including humanitarian missions and evacuations. A lot more of those were peacekeeping missions under the UN.
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True, but you don't see Assange going after those other governments.
I don't think Wikileaks "goes after" governments, I think they publish what other people give them. I'm sure if there was a someone who had access to the Chinese or French dirty laundry, they'd also publish that. No one has approached them with those, so they can't "go after" them. If you browse around their site, you'll find that they also cover leaks from places other than the U.S., they just haven't had any leaks quite as big as Cablegate or the Iraq war leak.
Wikileaks doesn't create leaks, they just
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You may be correct, but I can't tell unless you have some citations proving your point.
Also, are you sure he's anti-US and not just anti-IS foreign policy? I'm massively anti-IS foreign policy, and not anti-US (some of my best friends are American, including me).
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Wikileaks has also, among other things, released documents exposing child slavery and prostitution in Saudi Arabia, which the Saudian government denies exists.
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Showing how great of pains the US government goes through to prevent us from learning that their military doesn't live up to their propaganda.
And if you think every other government doesn't do exactly the same thing, then you're a fucking retard.
There is a scale of 1 to 10. Most countries is somewhere around 3, but USA, North Korea, Libya and some other countries is set to 11.
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When exactly North Korea or Libya were involved in wars abroad, leave alone committed war crimes while doing so?
If you compared fuckheadedness of leaders, I guess, all those three would indeed stand out (but then Iran, Saudi Arabia and US-installed current governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a large chunk of Africa would have to join them), but this has nothing to do with indiscriminate killing of foreigners, aggressive wars, or other war crimes.
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"Fueling"?
As in, sending military abroad to take over foreign countries, killing countless thousands of people in the process and throwing most of survivors into poverty?
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War crimes, not just wars. Aggressive war is a war crime. Support for one side of a massive conflict is not.
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Both Russia and China have committed governmental genocides larger than the Holocaust. See also, Cambodia.
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Re:Awarding the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
What about them?
Maybe I got it all wrong, but in amongst all the info exposed, didn't US forces kill a couple of Reuters reporters? Didn't they lie about it? Didn't they say there wasn't any film of the incident when approached (FOI request) for the footage? Didn't that footage then miraculously appear? Ditto for a number of 'friendly fire' incidents?
Accidents happen, and when you're at war they can be bad, but you don't lie and cover it up or it's far more difficult to work out what happened to try and stop it happening again! It's like a four year old saying "it wasn't me", then wikileaks pointing out the chocolate all around your mouth!
Now the US (and others!) are trying to make Wikileaks out to be the bad guy - continuing the analogy, the US is saying "yer, but Wikileaks smells of wee!".
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Yes, the video was called "Collateral Damage" by Wikileaks.
Actually... (Score:2)
That is the name of a video with Arnold Schwarzenegger. [imdb.com]
The video of US military forces killing civilians, which was released by WikiLeaks was labeled "Collateral Murder". [wikipedia.org]
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My bad.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:4, Funny)
I like the fact that they are awarding the idea of open government and open corporatism, but what has been released that has been worth all the hub-bub?
We could tell you but the U.S. gov would then probably have to kill you!
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(sooner)
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leaked diplomatic cables have been instrumental in the "arab spring"
Articles about revelations (Score:5, Informative)
what has been released that has been worth all the hub-bub?
Here's an article listing some of the revelations from 2010 [cbsnews.com].
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- The Obama administration worked with Republicans during his first few months in office to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies that some considered torture. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid obtained by WikiLeaks details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
HOOOLY SHIT! 8-(
I guess the conspiracy theory that the rivalry is all for the cameras is true, like the Looney Tunes Wolf and Sheepdog they're best buds again after they punch out of work...
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Well, the rivalry may be true, but once the election is over, they may cover each other's backs, in the hope that the other party will do the same thing when the current president's term is over.
Re:Awarding the idea (Score:5, Informative)
The Iraq war documents exposed that the number of civilians killed had been downplayed by the US military. If we are going to safeguard human rights, we first need to know the truth.
The "Cablegate" documents showed that my own country's toughened copyright legislation was due to pressures from the USA.
One of Wikileaks' most recent leaks exposed child slavery and prostitution in Saudi Arabia, which the Saudian government denies exists.
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The cables were the tipping point that led to the Jasmine Revolution. It's not necessarily a peaceful outcome, but it is a step in the right direction when oppressed populaces dispose of their own Western-backed dictators so that they can democratically elect their own leaders.
The ultimate outcome is uncertain, but at the very least, those people will hold a lot less hostility towards Western countries and their people if they're laying in a bed they made with their own hands instead of in one a Western pow
The real question is - (Score:5, Funny)
Did he know before they announced it?
Sydney says: Me too! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sydney says: Me too! (Score:4, Funny)
The nobel peace prize committee is chosen by norwegian parliament but is otherwise independent.
I have no idea how Obama got it tho, maybe it was to show they have a sense of humour.
Id say Wikileaks, Assange and Manning would be worthy recipients.
Bradley Manning? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just saying.
Manning? (Score:4, Interesting)
Manning was held naked in a prison cell without windows for 23 hours a day, Assange won't even go to Sweden to face the charges for sex-crimes (not even after being assured he will not be sent to any other country without britains concent). [abc.net.au]
Re:Manning? (Score:4, Informative)
Assange won't even go to Sweden to face the charges for sex-crimes (not even after being assured he will not be sent to any other country without britains concent (sic) ).
There are no charges.
Re:Manning? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to disagree with you on Manning being a hero, but why should the criteria be how much they "risked" rather than how much they accomplished? Wikileaks has released more than just Manning's material.
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Very unlikely. Assange has been very careful to only anger countries that aren't going to have him liquidated. Do you think Assange has the guts to go against, say, Russia?
Swedish Court System - A medieval political circus (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sweden "court system" for this issue is almost a regular medieval political circus [wlcentral.org]. Look at what Sweden has all but promised Assange in his "fair" trial: Solitary confinement before trial without access to his lawyers. Closed door secret court - no one will hear let alone be able to refute any testimonies. Three of the four judges to be (or appointed by) politicians! Not to forget that the case was closed [radsoft.net] before being reopened by, you guessed it, a politician - apparently because they say the girls did not know they were being raped at the time and it is up-to their court of laypersons to decide (I kid you not, crazy system Sweden has, huh). The rabbit hole of deceit by Swedish authorities goes way deeper than most would like to see however - in this case starting with the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, lawyer Mr Claes Borgström and their relationship with the Swedish Democrat party [justiceforassange.com] which stands to gain from this circus.
Who in the right mind would not try to fight for a fairer trial than this? I don't care if it is Assange or anyone else, Sweden should be ashamed of these "courts", if you can even call them that.
The only good thing coming out of this abuse is the increased scrutiny on the very broken European extradition laws [wlcentral.org] - and perhaps some Swedish rethinking their leaders (although the last election shows this to be unlikely).
Re:Swedish Court System - A medieval political cir (Score:5, Informative)
I'm Swedish and this is 100% accurate, +100 Insightful. The Swedish justice system is a huge embarrassment and completely broken. Hopefully this case will shed some light on it so it can be fixed.
You also forgot to mention two other interesting facts of Claes Borgström, both of which you can find in his Wikipedia article [wikimedia.org]. First of all he was the attorney of Thomas Quick, a case that is one of the biggest scandals in Swedish justice history. Basically Quick was mental and admitted to a whole bunch of murders he never committed and was sentenced guilty without a shred of evidence. Secondly Claes Borgström is an extreme left wing feminist nutjob that thinks men has a "collective guilt" against women and should pay a special tax for being men.
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Bradley a hero? It seems to me he simply leaked everything he could get his hands on. That makes him a traitor, not a hero.
Now, had he had a grievance with the way things are being done, found evidence of wrongdoing, and released that - he might have a case for being something other than a simple traitor. He didn't do that, though - he downloaded everything classified he could and sent it to a foreign national who he knew would disclose it to the enemies of the US. That's espionage.
If you agree with him
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The only award that traitor should get is the privilege of making little rocks out of big rocks for the rest of his life.
Irony (Score:3)
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The comment section (Score:2)
Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
Of course the medal contains a GPS tracker. (Score:2)
yes (Score:5, Insightful)
i find your disgust at exposition of such information, disgusting.
now scram.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3adw9oLBkBI [youtube.com]
and on Wikileaks' Cablegate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl4NlA97GeQ [youtube.com]
Re:yes (Score:5, Informative)
That's because whilst America screams about free speech, justice, liberty and so forth the only thing America really actually stands for is hypocrisy.
- Condemning countries who torture whilst torturing
- Screaming about justice and liberty whilst performing detention without trial, extraordinary rendition, and having a long history of assassinations
- Fining foreign firms for dodgy dealings whilst turning a blind eye to it's own
- Touting the importants of the WTO and how everyone should join it and adhere to it's rulings whilst ignoring rulings by the WTO against it
- Putting free speech at the centre of everything America claims to be about, whilst trying to silence the likes of Wikileaks
- Talking about peace, whilst being the largest warmonger of the last 50 years
- Complaining about terrorism whilst having a long history of having funded terrorists
- Patriotic talk of how their military is the greatest, and making fun of countries like France for their military history, whilst having lost or at least definitely failed to win pretty almost every major war or military incursion they've been involved in since World War II (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq x2, Afghanistan)
- Talk about how China should stop polluting despite the fact China has far more investment, a far bigger programme, and a far better ratio of renewable energy use than the US and a third of oil use despite having over 4 times the population
Really, the list goes on, the case with Assange and American attempts to supress Wikileaks is just one of many examples of American hypocrisy lost in a sea of such problems. Americans fear the rise of China, India and so forth and talk of how dangerous the rise of these countries are, when really, the only thing that's causing the decline of the US is it's own complete and utter hypocrisy and the knock on effects of that.
i dont get it. (Score:2)
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What?
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Riiiiight, because slashdot is sooooo pro-American government.
It's painfully frequent I see moderation for -1 unpatriotic.
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So much for your vaunted innocent until proven guilty, eh? I knew that was a load you didn't really believe in.
In thew US that concept has been dead for some time. Mind you, some European countries are doing their best to follow in those footsteps.
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Nya nya nya! As much as you criticize Israel? You probably criticize everything and everyone, then. I'm sure you're a hoot at parties. Sure, granted, you're a paragon of fairness. Wow, one out of billions who aren't. Congrats.
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You started with the ad hominem. What's your argument? You criticize everyone equally? Pratically impossible, and definitely stupid if it's true. Anyone sensible will save their criticisms for when truly deserved, and in that neighborhood and in this world, Israel IS THE MOST MORAL ARMY POSSIBLE. That Israelis are brutal? Brutal is firing a laser-guided missile at a school bus, murdering a child, then giving out candy in the street to celebrate the "victory". Brutal is what's happening in Syria. The
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Is it the one where the hook-nosed Jew is also a vulture in a Nazi uniform while marching poor, defenseless Palestinians off to the gas chamber? There are lots of political cartoons like that.
Re:Hateful and Evil Organization (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a big difference between hating Jews and hating an oppressive regime. Not all Jews support Israel. I think that deserves to be pointed out every once in a while.
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So you're saying Israel is a repressive regime? Do you know anything about the Middle East or the world for that matter? I bet you view Israel as a far greater problem area than Syria, but Syria is the one that has a repressive regime. Israel has a Democracy with citizens of all religions. Homosexuals can walk the streets holding their lover's hand without getting stoned to death. Christians don't run in terror from angry mobs, expect in the West Bank and Gaza. What an unusual repressive regime.
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Israel is a democracy and doesn't oppress its own citizens, but it behaves like a dick towards other peoples.
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Honestly, I think the top post in this thread was just flamebaiting.
Re:Hateful and Evil Organization (Score:4, Insightful)
But it also kicks families out of the house where they've lived for generations. It built a wall that separates farmers from their fields. Israel goes out of its way to disrupt the lives of normal Palestinian families. It's not oppressive to the people it likes, but it is oppressive to the people it oppresses. The fact that there are also people who are not oppressed by the Israeli government doesn't change this simple fact.
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A. Different brains?
B. Different culture?
C. Favouritism?
Unfortunately, racists on either side are quick to highlight A or C. I'm not so fanatically politically correct that I'm going to dismiss A (we don't really know enough about the brain nor have we devised any suitable tests to determine) and C (it is human nature to support your own group, so if one group is already well established it might foster further success for that same group), but maybe there's quite a lot of B.
I mean, why are such a great pro
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If only these two opposing racist posts would annihilate each other...
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I am Jewish, and Assange disappoints me -- he posts about all conspiracies except ours!
(I am actually Jewish, so I am allowed to make Jewish jokes).
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Why would you compare the two? Obama did nothing to deserve a Nobel peace prize (and most disappointingly, still hasn't since) unless you count bringing grammar back to the White House. Assange has actually done things to further world peace, whether you agree with the means or not. The two are not comparable.
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It definitely helped kick off some revolutions in the Middle East / North Africa, and most of those went pretty well...
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I wouldn't say most; 2 of them have gone well (so far), around 4-5 of them are being met with harsh resistance and loss of life.
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I wasn't saying it isn't worth it.
I still think the news from the North Africa and the Middle East is some of the best news I've heard since the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Russia, it makes me hopeful for us as a species.
It just wouldn't say that they are mostly successful yet. Hopefully they will be, and hopefully the revolutionary spirit spreads to the bigger, nastier, fish in the region (Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran), and hopefully most of these revolutions don't get taken over by people worse