It may be a weak rhetorical device, but it’s also informational.
I have complex views of Assange.
1. I think the extradition hearings are bizarre and it’s hard to consider them a fair trial.
2. I support Assanges long term goal of western democracies being open and accountable, rather than being based on secrets and lies.
3. I don’t know whether Assange’s tactics are moving us towards or away from that goal.
It seems like he has taken an anti-American stance and acted intentionally to undermine the US, presumably because he sees the US as the most hypocritical geopolitical actor.
He may be accurate in his assessment, but the adversaries of the US who will exploit the power vacuum are Russia and China, who are either worse or at least as bad as the US when it comes to secrets and lies, and so it’s not at all obvious that his tactics support his goal. I’d like to hope that they ultimately do cause some kind of positive realignment, but that is not a foregone conclusion.
Forcing someone to betray their principles in perceived self defense and then acting surprised is akin to gaslighting. Again, it’s not clear that this is a helpful move, but maybe it is.
I think it’s reasonable to say he has drawn attention to insecurities of both the US and the UK, but they seem like predicable and well founded insecurities.
Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist.
Assange is not a journalist, nor is he a reporter. Bear with me - this is a ‘pro Assange’ point.
He is a publisher with an intelligence gathering network.
Recognizing this doesn’t mean it’s right that he should be prosecuted.
In fact it sheds light on something more sinister - actual journalists don’t report the things that Assange published, because their publishers don’t want them to.
Publishers in general are self-censoring in order to stay on good terms with governments and other powerful interests.
Organizations calling Assange a ‘journalist’, especially any mainstream publishers, are actually colluding to deflect attention from this fact, and co-opting support for Assange, when in fact they are collaborating with governments and are the very reason Wikileaks was necessary in the first place.
Reducing what’s going on to ‘Assange as martyr’, ‘look at this kangaroo court’, ‘This is about silencing journalists’, does nothing to advance Assange’s actual goal.