How to Access Twitter in Turkey Despite the Ban, Block and Censorship

As I'm sure all of you know that, the other day, Turkey's PM Erdogan went public with the not only ill-considered and unjustified, but plain stupid, call to "block" access to twitter from Turkey as a first step in a campaign to "wipe out" social media from  the country - and immediately a tame court stepped up and did its duty in this country of (obviously not) rule of law. Stupid, that is, unless his objective is to hurry the country back to the dark ages, shut down international trade, tourism and so on. But perhaps this really is Mr. Erdogan finally showing off the Taliban willy of his inner self in public. Or is it maybe, which seems more likely guven his actions, that there's enough substance in the corruption charges he in this way allegedly is trying to silence for him to be scared out of his wits? Who knows? In any case, it seems that Erdogan is not very strongly supported even by his own political allies on this. Reports about this are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here to name just a few.

Now, there's nothing new here. Just one more pathetic little man in the upper management going crazy for power and privilege, no more being able to stand being criticised – we've seen it so many times before and very recently in Ukraine and Russia. Turkey and Erdogan is just more of the same, only this time within the NATO costume, so going for reprisals as in  the Ukraine case will not be as handy for the US and EU as in the ongoing Ukraine and Crimea crisis. Lucky then that there are effective ways of making this lunacy of policy making completely impotent.

For there are many, many ways in which Twitter can still be accessed from Turkey and to get at those, it would seem, Turkey would have to shut down all telecommunication. As I said, the dark ages. Suck on that, Mr. Prime Minister and see if you dare that one to cover your obviously exposed behind.

Once again, Wikileaks has stepped forward and is providing ample instruction and help on this supporter forum page. Hopefully, people in Turkey are reached by this information, are able to access the page and/or spread its content in other ways. Let's make this a Streisand effect par excellence, shall we!

My View of Chelsea (FKA Bradley) Manning's Sentence

NOTE: due to Manning's own request to be referred to by the name of Chelsea and as being of female gender, the original text has been slightly updated on August 23, 2013.

Today, Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley and of male gender through the massive mass media reporting) received her sentence after having been declared guilty on 20 of the 21 charges on which she had been put before military court (several of which she confessed to) for leaking an abundance of classified material, among that the infamous diplomatic cables, to Wikileaks. She was acquitted on the charge of aiding the enemy, which potentially could have motivated life or even a death sentence. The prosecutor had moved for 60 years out of the originally 136, eventually reduced to 90, total maximum years for the crimes for which she was convicted, but the judge settled on a maximum 35 years in military prison (of which she has to serve a third) – some commentators reporting "a minimum of 5.2 years in prison with a 32 year maximum" – without explicit motivation. Commentators, however, refer to Manning's age, her confession, and plea for forgiveness and, not least, the brutal way in which she was treated at the first extended phase of her arrest as reasons for reducing the sentence. The general guess is that counting everything, she may be out in 10 years time from now. The prosecutor has expressed dissatisfaction and stated that the sentencing will be appealed. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, just to name a few of the sources available.

Commentators are very varied in their responses, but many on the side of things that I spontaneously sympathize with are making the point that the sentence is overly harsh compared to (a) US soldiers convicted for war crimes, or (b) other people convicted for leaking military or otherwise classified info to the press. The (a) type comment received some extra spunk this tuesday, when the US Director of Justice filed for having a court granting immunity to George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz against allegations of unlawfully instigating the war in Iraq in a recent suit. Now, I agree in a way with both these types of comments with regard to the unfairness and lack of legal security they expose, and I'm on the record as stating that Manning's actions were not only morally permissible, they were in fact required and admirable and have equally expressed my horror at the infamous video of a US helicopter crew laughing and joyfully gunning down civilians in Iraq. But at the same time I would like to insist on a distinction being made here between normative comments and factual ones. Moreover, among the normative comments, one must distinguish between those pertaining to the single case and those pertaining to the institutional order handling said single case (in this case the US system of criminal justice).

So, normative comments are about, simply, whether or not the sentence is a good thing. Given the moral permissibility of Manning's action to leak the material she did, the answer is simple: no, of course not! But this is mainly because from this same point of view, there should have been no conviction, no court proceedings and no arrest in the first place.

At the same time, this attitude, as I mentioned in my second post on Manning's leaks, is inconsistent with viewing Manning's actions as morally justifiable civil disobedience (since that assumes unlawfulness and that the offender takes the legal consequences). This latter analysis, which I support, brings into the picture the existence of a system of law that there is a value in upholding and allow to rule. Now, it may very well be that such rule of law is unsystematic in the US context, and that, e.g., president Obama has been hypocritical when condemning Manning's action more harshly than those of, e.g. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the infamous pentagon papers. However, that does not justify undermining rule of law even more. It is quite clear that Manning committed criminal acts when leaking, no matter how morally justified these leaks were. It may very well be that the system of law defining these crimes is perverted in various ways, for instance in that it lets US soldiers who commit heinous war crimes (or political leaders who unlawfully order entire wars, for that matter) off the hook much too easily, but that is merely an argument in favour of harsher sentences in those cases (in the political case, equality before the law and due process in holding politicians legally accountable on the same condition as anyone else), not acquittal, amnesty or a milder sentence in Manning's case. Moreover, this is still a system where everyone, Manning included, had the possibility to understand the legal standing of her actions and what she could to expect in consequence. Much, much worse would be a system were law is just a cheap show, and court verdicts vary according to the momentary whims of those that happen to be in power to enforce whatever preferences they happen to entertain at the moment. That would be the rule where the only law is that of the strongest and no order or system whatsoever exists for anyone, except briefly for those fortunate to be allied with whoever is in momentary power in everyone's war against everyone else; where the life of the common person is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" as Thomas Hobbes so famously remarked. So, in sum, while I may support the claims that there are perversions in the US legal system in its view on crimes connected to the military and imperfections and hypocricy in its application, this does not justify even more of the same.

Now, none of this is to say that Manning's sentence is legally correct or reasonable; I know far too little about the US legal system to be a judge of that. But it seems to me perfectly reasonable (a) that she was convicted for crimes due to her leaks and (b) that she received a substantial sentence for that. This in no way reduces the moral worth of her action to leak, it just underscores that sometimes it is one's moral right and duty to break the law and that this may hold even with regard to laws that are in general quite reasonable (like those protecting military secrets in a world where military conflict is abundant). This is the nature of civil disobedience and, according to standard notions of the conditions for justified such disobedience, you should also face the legal consequences as part of your action. Having reached that conclusion, we can then debate how hard the sentence should be in a case like this (this is very much open to moral argument and judicial discretion in the US legal system as I understand it) and, even more, how soon a pardon should be extended, but those are matters that I leave open.

Instead I close by moving from the normative discussion to a factual one: how should Manning's sentence be assessed in relation to realistic expectations?  In fact, and this is the end of my line of comment, my impression is that the sentence is actually much milder than what was to be expected given the circumstances. These circumstances include: (a) the guilty verdict, (b) the American fondness of (irrationally) harsh sentencing in criminal law, (c) the claim of the prosecution for almost double the jail time eventually settled for by the judge, (d) the maximum sentence for the crimes for which Manning was convicted being almost three times what she received, (e) the nature and circumstances of the actions: leaking military information in the midst of military conflict, (f) the (by me alleged) fact that a large portion of US citizens probably simplistically view Manning as a common traitor and wouldn't have cared less if she had been locked away for good (no nice view of mine of the American people, but hey, I didn't choose they public relations agency, they did – in free elections!) – a harsh sentence thereby bringing no political risk from a legitimacy point of view.

In short: Manning's actions were morally right, required and admirable. It is at the same time quite in order that she has been convicted of crimes and sentenced for that and Americans should all be thankful for living in a society where rule of law prevails (however imperfectly) even when having such unpleasant consequences, albeit it would be even better if US military war criminals were convicted and sentenced proportionally to the seriousness of their crimes, and the President refrained from making statements possibly inconsistent with case law. The reasonableness of the sentence can surely be debated (not least, I would say, taking into account the fact that Manning's intention was to expose serious criminal behaviour that she had good reason to believe would for strategic military reasons have received no attention, had she tried to move the matter internally according to due military process), but given the circumstances the actual sentence is in fact a very, very pleasant surprise! Even more, given these very same circumstances, my reading is that the judge is actually making a (however subtle) statement in Manning's favour!

The Wikileaks Cablegate Pro & Con

I have tried to avoid airing my thoughts on this subject, but the pile of rubbish from supposedly able foreign policy experts all over the place that has been made public during the week makes this impossible. So, here's my take on Wikileaks and, in particular, the "cablegate" release of about 250.000 US diplomatic cables dating from 1966 up to the beginning of 2010. A very well-structured presentation of the publication, together with analysis and commentary, has been made available by UK newspaper The Guardian.

First of all, some - unfortunately necessary - preliminaries. Although this is not as evident as it should be on the Wikileaks website, the Wikileaks operation is not the same as its founder Julian Assange. As you may be aware of, when this is written, the latter has been arrested and, by reason of probable cause, detended in his absence in my country for one count of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of unlawful coercion (during a time he spent in Sweden) – resulting in an Interpol wanted poster, a so-called Red Notice this wednesday. There has been a lot of conspiracy theories aired about this on blogs, forums and places like Facebook and Twitter, but the fact is that the allegations have some history, and that the Red Notice is a consequence of Assange not having made himself available to the police or the prosecutor to clear himself of what he claims to be false allegations. On some forums, I have seen the suggestion that the crimes he is accused of would not be grave enough to warrant international action of this sort and that this would be proved by the fact that Sweden seldom requests the issuing of such notices. Neither is true. Regarding the latter, the simple explanation for the lack of Swedish Red Notice requests is that the suspected perpetrator as a rule can be found in the country or apprehended in another country in simpler ways (ways which, in the case of Assange, have been tried before the notice was requested). Regarding the former, rape is a very serious crime in Swedish legislation and the level of suspicion underlying the arrest is of the higher level. That, together with Assange's apparently deliberate absence and lack of communication with the Swedish authorities is enough to warrant requesting the notice. As to the allegations themselves, it is apparently easy as a Wikileak supporter to forget that there are actual people who have made these - women who have reported to the police that they have been raped and assaulted by Assange - and that the prosecutor has found evidence enough for the court to find probable cause for a detention decision. Now, Assange may, of course, be perfectly innocent here, but as in any country, this is for a court of criminal law to establish, no matter who you happen to be and what good things you may have done.

But the point I want to make here is this: none of that has anything to do with the question about the justifiability of the actions of Wikileaks. Moreover, contrary to what this excuse for a political analyst believes, jailing or even killing Assange does not amount to punishing or, for that matter, closing down Wikileaks. Get it? Good! Over to the main show:

There is, in my view, not a shadow of a doubt that the first leak of US documents - the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs - was morally justified. Yes, the person who leaked the documents committed a serious crime in US jurisdiction. Yes, legally he deserves to be punished within that jurisdiction. However, regarding those documents, he did the right thing, as did Wikileaks when making them public. What made the source's action right is that it is a clear case of justifiable civil disobedience. He acted against the law, as well as his legally sworn professional duty, but nevertheless, he did the right thing. Why? Because what the documents reveal and their revelation is of that level of importance. What they reveal is a stinking heap of elaborate lies and cover-ups all intended at making two bloody and senseless wars look less tasteless in the eyes of the public. That is, the very same public that is supposed to be able to make informed decisions when it is election time. This blinkering of the people is by itself reason enough. However, to this may be added the effect of the lies to make the launching of war more easy. I'm not a pacifist. I believe that war may sometimes be justified. However, war should be made only after a decision made on as correct, complete and relevant information as possible about the expected gains as well as costs of war. And voters in a democracy, should have access to all these facts in order to be able to assess the decisions of their leaders in upcoming elections. The first publication of Wikileak is of the utmost importance for making this slightly more possible in the future. The United States claims itself to be the world's leading democracy and, indeed, is constitutionally bound to the democratic ideology and values by definition. The talk about the leak being against the US "national interest" is thus, if you excuse me saying so, a load of bollocks. There has also been talk about soldiers or others being put at risk by the leak. Well, perhaps that is so, but to make a moral assessment that cost needs to be balanced against the cost of future wars that a preservation of secrecy would have made more likely and all people that would have been put at risk by those.

So, how about cablegate? It does look a bit more complicated, doesn't it? The argument above is surely not applicable here. My assessment so far is undecided. But, what I don't agree with are the many statements about the cablegate leak making the world a less safe place through undermining the prerequisites for efficient foreign policy and diplomacy in the service of peace.

It seems to me that the cablegate revelations fall into two categories. The first one is that diplomats express themselves less than nice and polite about their colleagues in other embassies and foreign dignitaries. Of course, while this was surely not very surprising, it may be used as an excuse by one or the other country to jump out of a negotiation or deal or two. But claiming this revelation to be the end of diplomacy or something close to that, as my own foreign minister did just a day or two ago, is just ridiculous. And it remains ridiculous even if we assume that states will be forced to seriously count on Wikileaks-like leaks in the future. Why? Because the cure to the supposed problem is as easily accessible to all diplomats as it is obvious: Refrain from slandering other people or calling them by less than honorable names - at least in your diplomatic cables. Put more simply: behave yourselves! I'm sure that diplomacy and world peace will survive that apparently drastic culture change in diplomatic circles.

The other category of revelations from cablegate concerns less laughable matters. Secret messages and requests between countries (such as Saudi Arabia asking the US to attack Iran), reports about proofs of various covered up actions of the US as well as other countries (China cyber-attacking Google), and actions taken within the US foreign policy hierarchy. Most sinister of all is a report belonging to this last topic and is, of course, Hillary Clinton's reported orders to US diplomats to spy on UN high-level leadership, staff and representatives. In what way, I ask, do any of these revelations threaten foreign policy and diplomacy in the service of peace? A number of arguments may be launched in response to this, but they all come down to one thing: the need for hush-hush. So, the crucial issue seems to be about this: how necessary is hush-hush for foreign policy and diplomacy in the service of peace?

This question is not an easy one to answer, since it is ambiguous. Here's one apparently sound and valid pattern of reasoning: When making foreign policy and diplomacy in the service of peace with respect to some particular chain of events or a particular topic or area, any nation must have the possibility to adapt to the fact that other players are making things secretly. If a nation cannot act in secrecy itself, it will be played for a sucker by those nations that can or, at least, it will be more difficult to reach desirable results. So, for instance, country A may approach country B with the message that it will yield on some important topic of negotiation only if country B assists country A in an action against country C that country C would react very strongly to if taken by country A. If country B cannot keep this request from A secret, there is a risk of conflict between C and A even in the lack of action from B's side. And if A can't trust its request to B being kept a secret, it will never make its offer regarding the important topic of negotiation. I assume that numerous examples of this sort, many far more complex and dirty than this generic sketch, can be given by those who know better than me. As regards spying, there are many examples through history (not least from the cold war era) of espionage intelligence being very important from the perspective of peace. Conclusion: hush-hush does seems to be a vital ingredient in foreign policy and diplomacy to secure peace. Thus, threats to hush-hush, such as Wikileaks, are  threats to peace.

Against this picture, the following, equally sound and valid, line of argument may be mounted: Suppose that, e.g., the US and the EU countries launched a policy of complete openness about foreign policy actions taken and information received regarding foreign policy. This would include refusing to keep secret any sort of clandestine request or offer, but also openly declare all intelligence or "ops" activities - such as wanting to scan the irises of Ban Ki Moon, or paying off some corrupt Afghan minister for not rocking the boat. From a democratic point of view, such a position would seem to be much more desirable than the one described in the former paragraph. Here, the voters are perfectly aware of what their elected representatives are doing in their name. The argument for this is the same as the one outlined earlier. What is more, however, the strongest powers in international politics taking up such a position would seem to cripple the chances of any other country playing them for suckers by applying a hush-hush policy themselves. This since they will then not be able to cooperate at all with US or the EU. In effect, all other countries would have a strong incentive to adapt the openness position as well! As a consequence, a situation would develop where the default premise in international politics would not be that others are lying to you and hiding things from you, but the other way around. Just as in the hush-hush dominated world, openness and honesty of a single player would lead to ruin, in the openness world, trying to hide your actions or intentions would become extremely risky. Chances are that you are discovered and, as a consequence, made a pariah in the international community. Now, the question is this: which world would the better one from the standpoint of peace - the one where nations habitually lie and cheat and expect everyone else to do likewise, or the one built on the opposite of that? The answer should be obvious and, thus, to have foreign policy and diplomacy promoting peace, hush-hush is, in fact, not essential. Even stronger, hush-hush actually diminishes the chance of foreign policy and diplomacy to deliver peace.

So bear with me being a little bit utopian here. I hereby make the following suggestion to the US, the EU, Russia and China on how they should best respond to the Wikileaks phenomenon in general and cablegate in particular. Use Wikileaks to your advantage! Stop playing the hush-hush game! Adapt the openness position and you will have secured a win-win situation that no one will be able to touch! If you do, tomorrow belongs to you!