Spy Wars

One of the most important threads to follow in current affairs is the war modern heroes like Julian Assange and Eric Snowden against the dragon (in this case), the US military-intelligence community. The struggle is of historic importance: full of lessons for the rest of us.

In both cases, it's instructive to observe the faces of the combatants. Julian and Eric are both familiar faces -- you hear from them and hear them talk about their personal stories almost daily. On the other side, we have an army of faceless bureaucrats, afraid to even admit that they are going after these guys full time with every weapon at their disposal. Obviously, replacement of any one of these bureaucrats would not affect the battle in the least. They are zombies -- assimilated by the American "dragon". It's instructive to observe the tremendous damage that two ordinary individual guys have inflicted on the dragon.  The more the dragon fights back, the more it visibly tramples every principle of human decency and the rule of law. More than anything, the lesson is that the power of the dragon is exercised in secret. The dragon is terrified by the ordinary light of day.

It's perfectly sane to regard the US "dragon" as scary. After all, Obama can "legally" order anyone in the world to be assassinated (except US citizens, which can supposedly only be killed by accident). Assange and Snowden are "hiding in plane sight" just beyond the reach of the dragon's claws. Of course we know that the US would happily dump both of them in Guantanamo, where the law is whatever the dragon says it is...

On the other hand, we could see the machinations and twisted logic of the government as death throws, as it runs up against the relentless logic of law. The more they attack "whistleblowers", the more we see (or hope!) that the whistleblowers are on the side of history.

Revelations by Snowden about the NSA have triggered a re-examination of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the US Constitution (maybe even the Canadian Constitution, who knows?).  Assange has done a great job of picking apart the legal process and logic behind the attack against him.

What is the fundamental difference between the protagonists in this fight? To me, it seems like it's about human values, the rule of law and basic human rights. The fact that these ideas don't seem to be visible or relevant to the US "dragon" confirms the theory of this blog - that the dragon is intelligent and powerful but lacks a human "heart". In this case, we can see the dragon fighting specifically and vigorously against the main threat to its existence: ordinary human beings.

See also, John Kiriakouh here ...