DEMOCRACY NOW
Amy Goodman: … Sarah Palin … said, “First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop WikiLeaks director Julian Assange from distributing this highly sensitive classified material especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months? Assange is not a ‘journalist,’ any more than the ‘editor’ of the al Qaeda’s new English-language magazine Inspire is a ‘journalist.’ He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?”
…
Noam Chomsky: That’s pretty much what I would expect Sarah Palin to say. I don’t know how much she understands, but I think we should pay attention to what we learn from the leaks. What we learn, for example, is the kinds of things I’ve said. The most—perhaps the most dramatic revelation is the—I’ve already mentioned—the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. government—Hillary Clinton, others—and also by the diplomatic service. To tell the world, to tell—they’re talking to each other—to pretend to each other that the Arab world regards Iran as the major threat and wants the U.S. to bomb Iran is extremely revealing, when they know that approximately 80 percent of Arab opinion regards the U.S. and Israel as the major threat, 10 percent regard Iran as the major threat, and a majority, 57 percent, think the region would be better off with Iranian nuclear weapons as a kind of deterrent. That doesn’t even enter. All that enters is what they claim has been said by Arab dictators, brutal Arab dictators. That’s what counts.
Democracy Now for more