RAW and Wikileaks

I often wish that Robert Anton Wilson were alive today, for all of the obvious reasons, but these days I also wish he was available to comment on the controversy over Wikileaks. My instinct is that he would take the side of Wilileaks and its leader, Julian Assange. Perhaps a clue to what RAW would say is offered in this excerpt from Prometheus Rising, in which he wrote that "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity" and quoted with approval Timothy Leary's comment that "Secrecy is the original sin."

Commenting on the case, Alexander Cockburn notes, that Assange is "wanted for questioning in Sweden for two alleged sexual assaults, one of which seems to boil down to a case of unsafe sex and failure to phone his date the following day."

Cockburn also writes that it "It's certainly not conspiracism to suspect that the CIA has been at work in fomenting these Swedish accusations. As [journalist Israel] Shamir reports, 'The moment Julian sought the protection of Swedish media law, the CIA immediately threatened to discontinue intelligence sharing with SEPO, the Swedish Secret Service."

Feminist Amanda Marcotte says the rape accusations should be taken serious. (Via Supergee.)

It's important to listen to feminists -- and I agree with Arthur Hlavaty that RAW tended to be too dismissive of feminism -- but I have to admit I'm inclined to agree with Justin Raimondo's piece at antiwar.com that the charges seem awfully strange.