Julian Assange - a modern day hero

So were Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda acting on the instructions or under the direction or control of the Taliban or not? Did the Taliban have a substantial involvement with bin Laden and al=Qaeda in terms of the September 11 attacks or not? Is the use of force in self-defence against Afghanistan justified or not? Was this information made available to Lord Robertson (then NATO Secretary General, now employee of The Cohen Group) during the October 2, 2001 briefing by US Ambassador Frank Taylor just days before the bombing of Afghanistan?

We’ve been waiting for answers from “official sources” for a long time now, and we still haven’t been told.

Mr Assanges’ quest to let people all over the world know the truth and his refusal to be an agent of injustice deserve our praise.

Moral courage of that calibre is rarely seen nowadays, and people need to know what is really happening and why. If he didn't leak the documents you can bet we would never have known their contents.

Having that raw information is particularly important when even the press lets us down. For instance, very little has been reported here about Sergeant Travis Bishop or Specialist Victor Agosto, Americans who recently refused deployment to Afghanistan and claimed conscientious objector (CO) status. James Branum, the civilian lawyer for both soldiers, said:

The war in Afghanistan does not meet the criteria for lawful war under the UN Charter, which says that member nations who joined the UN, as did the US, should give up war forever, aside from two exceptions: that the war is in self defense, and that the use of force was authorized by the UN Security Council.

The nation of Afghanistan did not attack the United States. The Taliban may have, but the nation and people of Afghanistan did not. And under US law, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, any treaty enacted by the US is now the “supreme law of the land.” So when the United States signed the UN Charter, we made that our law as well.

Fortunately, here in Australia we don't all sit in ignorance or blind obedience. I was delighted to receive an email from Baptist minister Mr Simon Moyle confirming that “... Some Australians are not only refusing to be silent about the war in Afghanistan, but refusing inertia as well ...” Mr Moyle was one of four peace protestors who trespassed on, and successfully shut down for a day, the Swan Island military base.

Despite pleading guilty to trespass, the Magistrate relied on Section 19B of the Commonwealth Crimes Act which allowed him to dismiss the charges.

It’s actions like these - and the actions of Julian Assange - that should make one proud to be Australian.