Have you read the profile of Wikileaks’ supremo Julian Assange that appeared in the New Yorker back in June?
I don’t know why it hasn’t received more attention since the Wikileaks story really got going. It’s probably the best look at this enigmatic figure (he sometimes seems like a cross between a nerd and a cowboy) so far.
The article gives us more important insights into Assange’s motivations and major life influences than almost anything published in the MSM over the few weeks.
First, there’s the matter of Assange’s highly unconventional upbringing, which helps explain the nomadic style of life he follows as an adult, and perhaps some of his apparent distaste towards authorities of all kinds:
“When Assange was eight, [his mother] left her husband and began seeing a musician, with whom she had another child, a boy. The relationship was tempestuous; the musician became abusive, she says, and they separated. A fight ensued over the custody of Assange’s half brother, and Claire felt threatened, fearing that the musician would take away her son. Assange recalled her saying, ‘Now we need to disappear,’ and he lived on the run with her from the age of eleven to sixteen. When I asked him about the experience, he told me that there was evidence that the man belonged to a powerful cult called the Family—its motto was ‘Unseen, Unknown, and Unheard.’
“Some members were doctors who persuaded mothers to give up their newborn children to the cult’s leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The cult had moles in government, Assange suspected, who provided the musician with leads on Claire’s whereabouts. In fact, Claire often told friends where she had gone, or hid in places where she had lived before.”
Spooky stuff, to say the least.
Second, the article quotes Assange reminiscing about his teen years and referring to himself and a close friend as “bright sensitive kids who didn’t fit into the dominant subculture and fiercely castigated those who did as irredeemable boneheads.”
This quote makes Assange’s view of authority even more explicit. Assuming he holds the same view today, it helps fuel much of the contempt he seems to hold for people who have made careers working (or, in Assange’s view, “boneheads” obsessed with “fitting in”) at large bureaucratic institutions like the State Department, the Pentagon, etc.
(Or, one might add, at large corporations like banks, or Visa, or Mastercard.)
Finally, the article quotes Assange talking in 2006 about Wikileaks’ “primary targets” as “those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia…”
This is another interesting quote, and helps explain why Wikileaks has focused so much on revealing information in those State Department cables regarding goings-on in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies, as well as China and Russia — rather than about the US’ European allies like the Netherlands, or the US’ English-speaking allies, like Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
One gets the sense from this quote in the New Yorker piece that Assange would like nothing more than to see something revealed via Wikileaks lead to regime change in Iran, Russia, etc. – or the US, for that matter.
Yes, Wikileaks is proud of how its cable dump has shaken the US’ civilian and military leadership, but they are not its only targets. But whatever Assange’s feelings are towards the US State Department, US Army, etc., assuming he continues to call the shots on the Wikileaks cable releases, he seems to have it in for regimes that either are not friendly to America, or whom some fraction of American public opinion believes is not a truly reliable ally (like Saudi Arabia).
So Assange is undermining the authority of major US government institutions…while at the same time hoping to bring down foreign governments unfriendly to the US.
In its history, the US has had friends and enemies, made friends with former enemies, and watched one-time friends become foes — but Julian Assange may be its first “frenemy.”
