[fit2rule]

> I can’t see how a moral person could stand by his decisions, honestly.

I feel this way about anyone who attempts to deflect the USA from scrutiny, with regards to the war crimes it has flagrantly committed in the time that Wikileaks has become relevant. It seems that the USA can do no harm when it comes to war-fighting, and the American public remain, as ever, wilfully ignorant of the crimes being committed in their name - and for which therefore, they bear responsibility.

Without people such as Assange willing to stand up and decry these heinous acts of inhumanity being committed by a government hell-bent on maintaining the social fallacy that it is a "wholesale rights defender", when nothing could be further from the truth, there would be a whole lot more offences against innocent people occurring.

The USA and its allies have been wilfully destroying civilisation around the world, for decades. We need more people like Assange who are willing to stand up and point this out, and most important of all, the world needs Americans to take their heads out of the sand and realise that their nation is in fact a wholesale exporter of death and destruction, and you are paying for it.

Incidentally: The fact that Putin is right about Americas crimes, doesn't mean that wanting to do something about America's crimes immediately aligns oneself with Putin. That is just smear tactics and vitriol.

What's important is the statistics: one bomb dropped every 18 minutes, mostly on innocent people, murdering them - for the last 3 decades.

[jumelles]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

No one is saying the US doesn't have its own problems. None of that changes Russia's current behavior.

[benchaney]

Ironic comment given that this thread is about a scandal about the US's poor behavior, and you are focusing on wrongdoings of the Russian government to divert attention from that.

[fit2rule]

This cynical automatic "but .. whataboutism!" is really just as much about deflection as anything else.

Assange and Wikileaks came onto the scene because the nature of the protection of the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex through State Secrecy meant that real crimes were being committed in the name of the American people, yet they were being wilfully kept ignorant of this fact - and are, yet even still today. Wikileaks was a real, grass-roots, honest attempt to bring the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex to justice for its real, honest-to-god crimes.

This has nothing to do with Russia - although Russia may also have its interests served by having Americas' crimes revealed to the greater public at large, it is irrelevant: The innocents having bombs dropped on them by America and its Coalition are also served by having the non-warfighting-addicted public enlightened as to their plight - does this automatically make them 'the enemy' and thus justify their wanton murder - in the same way that hatred-of-Russia is justified because "they clearly don't want whats best for America, which is war, more war, and endless more war"?

Lets not play the "whataboutism" card.

Lets just look at why this whole Wikileaks thing is embarrassing to the USA and its partners: it can no longer get away with committing real war crimes at international scale with impunity and safe cover, in the name of the American people, when those people are finally waking up to just how heinous the situation really is: an inhuman and deathly situation the warmongers have given the American public, to pay off financially as well as morally, for decades into the future.

The fact of the matter is, it is a good thing for the secrets to be revealed: because the corruption of government always begins with its secrets. The American people - as well the world at large - must never be complacent about the betrayal potential of state secrecy.

We must always demand the truth be revealed, especially when it involves Trillions of dollars of death, mayhem and destruction being enacted on the world.

And for all his faults, this is why Assange - and others just like him - will always be held high in my mind. Higher than any serving member of the military, anyway.

[ljm]

What about whataboutism?

This mindset isn't productive - these actions don't exist in a vacuum and to treat it as such pretty much absolves the other party of all guilt while the focus is on somebody else.

Hypocrisy isn't whataboutism.