It is always a pity when a generally good man says something foolish. After winning the first round of votes in Ecuador’s election, Lenin Moreno has done just that in an exclusive interview with RT.
Moreno restates his county’s desire to protect Julian Assange on humanitarian grounds, but he omits to mention that the reason that outgoing President Correra grew sympathetic to Mr. Assange is because Wikileaks helped expose US meddling in Ecuadorian internal politics.
Now it is Moreno who says that while at the embassy Julian Assange must not meddle in the politics of the US. He went on to say:
“If you invite me to your place, I shouldn’t say bad things about your friends. If you give me shelter and I enjoy your hospitality, I should also show you respect.”
At face value his statement is fair, but in reality, it was only just before America went to vote that Assange’s internet was cut off. It’s a bit late to move the goalposts.
Furthermore, Moreno did not explain how Julian Assange ‘meddled’ in the US election.
During the course of the overly-long election, Wikileaks exposed some important truths about the extent of Hillary Clinton’s ties to dangerous foreign powers, her corruption, the corruption of the Clinton Foundation, the undemocratic ousting of Bernie Sanders, what the Democrats actually thought of their own ‘dear leader’ and the smutty political culture at the DNC.
As usual, nothing that Wikileaks published was challenged as being untrue. The allegations that Assange was a Russian agent were just platitudinous falsehoods that didn’t end up selling to an American public who seemed grateful to know that Hillary Clinton was as bad and indeed worse than many suspected.
It’s clear that even as a socialist, Moreno wants to mend fences with the US, but to state that Assange meddled in the US election is simply not true. In previous generations, some mainstream journalists would have published what Wikileaks did, but because of the supreme degradation in standards among US media elites, it is now up to alternative sources like Wikileaks to get important truths to the general public.
Assange responded to the interview with the following tweet:
I am always happy to talk @Lenin or @LassoGuillermo.
But WikiLeaks publishes from the EU, not Ecuador, and will not respond to pressure.
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) February 21, 2017
Julian Assange has always made clear that his personal ordeal is a separate issue from carrying on his role with Wikileaks. I’m sure his discussions with Lenin Moreno will make this clear and hopefully it will settle any uneasy nerves on the Ecuadorian side.
Julian Assange remains a man whose only crime was telling the truth. It’s just a bit of a low blow when an ally says the things usually only spouted by his enemies. The people who want him killed, people like Hillary Clinton.
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