Image via WikipediaRead related » WikiLeaks Debunks History for Stupid PeopleWhether or not Assange actually performed a service for our government's credibility, based on the widely held view that publicly revealed official policy is largely disinformation, is really besides the point. In American jurisprudence, intent and premeditation play much more decisive roles than outcome. Even conspiracy to commit a crime that failed to materialize is treated with the seriousness it would have been if it had succeeded as intended.
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times says WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange deserves a medal rather than prison. “He and WikiLeaks have done America a massive favour,” he writes, “by inadvertently debunking decades-old conspiracy theories about its foreign policy.” […] I suspect Rachman’s tongue is firmly planted in cheek when he says Assange should be rewarded. […] Surely somewhere in all these leaked files there’d be references to a war for oil in Iraq if the war was, in fact, about oil. Likewise, if 9/11 was an inside job — or a joint Mossad–al-Qaeda job — there should be at least some suggestive evidence in all those classified documents. […] The State and Defense department bureaucracies are far too vast to have no records of what they’re up to. Conspiracy theories, though, as someone once said, are history for stupid people. […] Julian Assange is stridently anti-American. He is not trying to boost the government’s credibility by leaking thousands of cables.
— MICHAEL J. TOTTEN - 12.19.2010 (commentarymagazine.com)
The reason, I can only presume, is that the justice system's primary objective is to deter others from attempting to commit similar crimes, and only secondarily to punish those who have already made such an attempt. A hoped-for better future for all is judged to be a greater public good than the baser desire for vengeance.
Assange clearly wants to harm the United States in leaking criminally begotten classified information. That some or even much of the leaked information has served to advance the objectives of the United States is fortuitous and ultimately irrelevant to the facts of the crimes committed.
Post 1,515 It's the intent, stupid!
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