You can believe what you like about Julian Assange, as long as you don't try to defend that belief in Polite Society

I was extremely troubled by the way Gavin Esler handled his exchange with Craig Murray and Joan Smith over the Assange affair on Newsnight last night. I've no idea what the exact legal position is in relation to protecting the anonymity of an alleged rape victim in extradition cases. But given that a) Assange has not as of yet been charged with rape, b) if he is charged it will not be in this country, and c) the woman's identity has already been revealed umpteen times by several major media outlets, it's surely not immediately obvious that Murray did anything outrageous in mentioning her name. So unless he had been specifically warned off from doing so prior to the interview, Esler's sanctimonious reaction - effectively colluding with Smith to paint Murray as the Big Bad Wolf - seemed thoroughly disproportionate. And given the abuse that Smith then started to hurl at Murray, from which Esler did nothing to protect him, it was hardly unreasonable that he would want to take a moment to defend himself against the serious charge that he does not care about the rights of rape victims. Yet Murray had barely managed to complete his explanation that his own wife was a rape victim before Esler tried to turn even that against him. "You may have permission from your wife to mention that" (implication : it's rather distasteful even if you do) "but you don't have permission from this alleged victim. If you want to make a point about her, then do it anonymously, so what exactly is your point?" Esler's tone of voice when asking that question reminded me of a young mother I sat next to the other day, who sarcastically said to her wailing child over and over again "tell me why you're crying", ie. I know you're crying for nothing, I know you don't have a point at all.

But of course Murray did have a point - namely that the woman's actions after the alleged assault didn't seem consistent with her story. Yet even though Murray had done exactly what Esler asked him to, and made his point without mentioning the woman's name, even this was evidently Not Acceptable, and he was shouted down again. It's not as if Esler's attitude problem can be explained wholly by his moral outrage over the breach of anonymity, because even before that he had been less than even-handed, interrupting Murray with an air of exasperation when he tried to explain the credible reasons for entertaining the idea that Assange may have been set up.

Some people may very well think that it's inappropriate or illegitimate to cast any doubt whatsoever on the credibility of an alleged rape victim's story - but the difficulty here is that without doing so it's impossible to defend Julian Assange's position at all. That being the case, what is the point of having both a pro-extradition and an anti-extradition interviewee, if only the pro-extradition case is deemed to be within the bounds of civilised discourse? Esler might just as well have had a cosy chat with Smith only, and told his viewers "this is what you're allowed to know, this is what you're allowed to think".

If anyone had any remaining doubts about how morally indefensible it is to extend anonymity to an alleged rape victim but not to the alleged perpetrator, a few moments pondering the double-standards exposed by this interview ought to remove them.

Guardian brought to its knees by US Air Force ban...or not

I was about to write a post saying what a moral outrage it is that the US Air Force has banned its personnel from accessing not only the WikiLeaks site, but also the 25 mainstream media websites that have published the leaked cables. I was also going to ponder the question of what the decision tells us about the true nature of America's "open society" and the supposedly sacred principle of free speech. But in truth the decision is just very, very silly, given that anyone wanting to access the information will still be able to do so if they just wait a while (or phone their Mum).

Does the Air Force imagine they're "punishing" the websites in some way? If so, I'm sure the Guardian will just about be able to survive the blow - somehow I don't think US military personnel are that newspaper's natural demographic...

Out of their depth? Not in the cables.

A few days ago, I left a comment on Daily Record journalist Torcuil Chrichton's blog post about the Megrahi WikiLeaks cables. I had a sneaking - and accurate - suspicion it would never appear given that none of his posts seem to have any comments on them, so I'd intended to post it here after a few days if it never showed up. Unfortunately I completely forgot to save it! However, the gist of it was that Torcuil had essentially "gold-plated" what was actually in the documents - as far as I could see, there was no basis for his claim that Alex Salmond "did not expect" Hillary Clinton to criticise him. Nor, for that matter, was it accurate to imply that Clinton ever did criticise Salmond personally. Torcuil also claimed that the Americans felt the Scottish government were "out of their depth", and the use of quotation marks suggested that was a direct quote. Indeed it was - but from the Guardian's over-excited interpretation of the cables, not from the cables themselves. Nowhere did Torcuil make that clear, and I've little doubt many of his readers would have gained a false impression as a result.

Of course, it's entirely Torcuil's prerogative if he wants to let comments through, and indeed I ended up blocking a handful on this blog at the height of my run-in with the gundamentalists, but I wonder if he's noticed that it is actually possible to switch the comments facility off altogether? I mean, if he's literally not planning to let any comments through at all...

'Wishart makes me boak' - how about supporting fiscal autonomy then?

Over at my old haunt Political Betting, there's been a fair bit of wishful thinking recently about the prospect of SNP abstentions on tuition fees helping to get the Lib Dems off the hook. Mike Smithson noted that simply holding the vote on a Thursday night might help, because the nationalists sometimes "can't be arsed" to stick around that late in the parliamentary week (translation - their constituencies are further away from Westminster than most), while a couple of posters claimed this morning that the SNP's policy of not voting on domestic English affairs ought to guarantee an abstention anyway. When it was pointed out that Pete Wishart had already confirmed in the Herald that the SNP would be sticking with previous practice and voting against higher tuition fees due to the impact on Barnett consequentials, it provoked these rather colourful reactions...

"Sorry but this ‘have you cake and eat it’ attitude makes me grrrrr."

"Boak - Wishart makes me sick."

Now, here's a novel suggestion. Instead of grumbling about the SNP following the inescapable logic of an inadequate devolution settlement that leaves Scottish funding totally at the mercy of the side-effects of "domestic English" policy decisions, why not do something about the system itself? These posters can rest assured that under full fiscal autonomy, the SNP would have no need or wish to ever again intervene on English tuition fees.

Also, isn't it curious that, in the eyes of PB Tories, Inverness MP Danny Alexander's vote in favour of the coalition proposals doesn't seem to have the same boak-inducing qualities, or indeed to fit the definition of a politician attempting to possess an already-consumed cake?

*

From what I saw of the coverage of the Megrahi leaks on the ITV lunchtime news, it couldn't have come out much worse for Scottish Labour - the message was that the London government had been quaking in the face of threats from Libya, while in contrast the SNP government had turned down each and every inducement offered by the Gaddafi regime. Having said that, I do have to question the quality of the reporting when it was suggested at the end of the piece that the cables "reveal" that Megrahi is expected to live five years - it should be clear from even the most cursory glance that talk of that kind of timeframe predated the decline in his health, and even at that stage five years was thought to be unlikely.

Americans even spun themselves on Lockerbie

One thing I've found slightly amusing about the WikiLeaks cables so far is the entirely superfluous efforts of the authors to paint the US in a saintly light, despite the (intended) highly restricted audience. For instance, in the now-notorious write-up of Prince Andrew's boorish behaviour, we have the American ambassador "gently reminding" the prince that her country's presence in Central Asia is not in any way a continuation of the "Great Game", ie. competition with Russia for spheres of influence. Well, if you believe that you'll believe anything, but it appears the US has a self-image to maintain at all costs.

In the light of which, we shouldn't be surprised that the newly-published documents relating to the Megrahi release generate more spin than light, and seek to bolster the favoured US narrative despite the - quite literally - total absense of supporting evidence. One cable is dramatically titled "Qatar's Involvement in Al-Megrahi's Release" - but that 'involvement' seems to consist solely of the Qataris speaking to the Scottish government. It's fairly plain that there's an intense longing on behalf of the author for something far juicier, but instead all he/she can do is faithfully record the Qataris' entirely plausible denials of wild (and seemingly rather vague) US allegations of "any financial or trade incentives to induce Al-Megrahi's release".

Another cable purports to relate the Scottish government's "underestimation" of, and Alex Salmond's private "shock" at, the US reaction to Megrahi's release. But once this light dusting of spin is brushed away, what we actually learn is that Salmond's private statements were near-identical to what he was saying in public. It seems his "shock" related primarily to FBI director Robert Mueller's public letter of protest, and given that the widespread view in these parts was that Mueller's intervention was astonishingly thuggish, ill-conceived, self-indulgent and unprofessional, it's hard to see what reaction other than "shock" would have been appropriate in the circumstances. It's gratifying to learn that the Scottish government's representative made abundantly clear to the US that the shock was of the "offended" rather than "humbled" variety, although you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise from the cable's billing (not to mention the Guardian's credulous summary).

Of course, it's the little details that give the authoritativeness (or otherwise) of these documents away, so it's also somewhat amusing to learn that the Americans were clearly basing their understanding of the Scottish Parliament's procedures not, as you might expect, on a close reading of the Scotland Act, but instead on the media's entirely erroneous belief that a two-thirds majority was required to pass a motion of no-confidence in the government. And this is supposed to be the world's most sophisticated intelligence-gathering outfit?

WikiLeaks exposes the democratic deficit

A thoughtful post from Labour MP Eric Joyce on the ongoing WikiLeaks saga -

"Wherever you stand, it seems to me that there’s been too little said so far about what Wikileaks means for the future of official government data classification and management. There’s a host of other questions lurking beneath that too. Like will governments in future choose to accept that people will know a lot more about the sometimes difficult-to-stomach compromises which nevertheless keep citizens safe? And will those citizens accept that the price of these new information flows is that they will need to face up more that before to the moral contradictions and compromises which lie at the core of they way they live?"

I think my own questions would be - has the issue of whether those contradictions and compromises actually need to be at "the core" of how we live ever been properly tested? If that's about to happen, isn't it long-overdue? And even if Joyce's premise of necessity is correct, doesn't the fact that we've never been asked if we want to "face up to it" call into question whether we've in any meaningful sense been a democracy all this time?

Michael White's false memory syndrome

Midway through a meandering and teacherly Guardian article that purports to be vaguely about the WikiLeaks revelations concerning Russia (although we do 'learn' things about the Goths and the Huns along the way), Michael White somehow manages to go off on this bizarre tangent -

"Remember that unsavoury Anglo-Scottish deal to release the Libyan Lockerbie bomber on 'humanitarian grounds', which so annoyed Washington? It makes sense – it always did – to think in terms of better access for BP to nasty Colonel Gaddafi's carbon treasures that may help keep us warm."

Er, no, Michael, peculiarly enough I don't "remember" that "deal". Just remind me again? And naturally you'll have a source, or some kind of documentary evidence?

It's in the public interest to understand America's true values

Once again, the US are doing themselves few favours with their hysterical and hypocritical response to the WikiLeaks revelations. If they genuinely fear that lives are being put at risk, they'd be better advised to focus their fire on the disclosure of specific documents, and explain the cause for concern in each case. The blanket condemnation just looks like sophistry - few are going to seriously believe that it isn't in the public interest to know, for instance, that the US have been spying on UN officials (presumably in contravention of international law), or that they've been indulging in petty intelligence-gathering on the private life of a government minister in a country that is supposedly their closest ally. As with the previous leaks, the fascination lies in discovering the distance between the values the US publicly espouses, and the true values betrayed by the actions and words they imagined would be kept secret.

And the US "national interest"? Why on earth should it be the primary concern of foreign or international media to protect that?

Cause and effect in Iraq

I'm intrigued by this line of argument that, by revealing the shocking details of the cavalier attitude to human life over the course of the war, WikiLeaks have put service personnel and Iraqis at risk. It could equally be argued that, by withholding shedloads of information that is so clearly in the public interest to reveal, the Americans have forced WikiLeaks' hand, and thus any negative consequences that follow should be considered the Americans' responsibility alone.

Does that sound a bit contrived? Well, yes, frankly it does. But no more, I'd suggest, than the evasions of responsibility we've seen from the US and UK about civilian casualties throughout the conflict. No matter how avoidable or senseless a death was, it seemed, the blame could somehow always be traced back to Saddam Hussein "defying the international community" - either that or to the "turrrst bombers", few of whom actually seemed to be in Iraq until the invasion. Those who have repeatedly run away from the direct and devastating consequences of their own actions are hardly in a position to sanctimoniously lecture others on the same subject.