I guess it's understandable that so many Americans think that Julian Assange has committed a crime since according to a recent study , 63% of Fox news viewers still think that President Obama wasn't born in the United States. But the fact of the matter is, unless he's convicted of "sex by surprise" or something equally mystifying in Sweden, Julian Assange has not committed a crime.
How could we be so misguided, so gullible?
Aside from Fox News and its counterparts throughout the cable news network, a look at what we're reading should quickly answer that question. The #1 position on the New York Times bestseller list is held by an actual war criminal, a man who knows better than to travel to countries with real criminal justice systems. And the #5 non-fiction tome is that of the gun-toting ex-Governor of Alaska with unusual ocular abilities who loves to Twitter about Julian Assange, displaying a horrifying ignorance of what the US Constitution defines as "treason". So, when we're not mesmerized by the fanatic fascist rantings of Glenn Beck or clowning around on a killing spree in Sarah Palin's Alaska, a good many of us are reading the dastardly drivel of an ex-President who is responsible for real crimes, murderous ones.
Our government has the audacity to claim that Wikileaks has "endangered people's lives".
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of families of dead and maimed men, women and children in Iraq. Or to the Pakistanis cowering in fear as bombs are dropped from the most evil of weapons, unmanned drones. Or to the people of Afghanistan, praying that our soldiers will leave and that the destruction of their country and their lives, will end.
Tell that to the American parents and husbands and wives of soldiers who've been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wikileaks has not endangered lives. What it has done is shed light on the lies and the corruption and the greed that have not simply endangered lives, but killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and our own soldiers. If we can drag ourselves away from the smirky smile of an ex-President who should be in a cell, and the wearying winking of that mindlessly bubbly potential Presidential candidate, maybe we can focus on reality just for a minute.
Because if we were really concerned with people's lives; if we were really concerned with behaving as moral and ethical human beings, and if we were really concerned with truth, we'd be turning off Fox News and reading something a little more worthwhile than the banality of Bush. We'd be reading the Wikileaks documents.
Which could save lives.