To the Editor:

In “The  WikiLeaks War on America” [January], Jonathan Foreman provides copious evidence indicating that Julian Assange is pompous, egomaniacal, and drunk on his own power and notoriety. A question occurs: So what? Such is the nature of almost all heroic intellectual warriors. The ultimate reality of Wiki-Leaks and Julian Assange is that they are virtuous battlers for sunshine, transparency, and truth. And this is so even if they don’t truly intend it, and even if their actual personal philosophy is one of destructive welfare statism and dismal postmodernism. My hope for WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange is that, in future, they do indeed attack with a bit more balance, as Mr. Foreman suggests, and focus more on the various dictatorships and enemies of America around the world. But their current policy of exposing lies, cover-ups, and hypocrisies in America and the West also does the world some good. To clean up the United States government—and orient it toward truth and worldwide political liberty—improves the whole planet, since America mostly and rightly leads Western civilization by example.

Kyrel Zantonavitch

Bronx, New York

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To the Editor:

I agree with the premise of Jonathan Foreman’s article, but he could have produced more facts to justify the piece’s title. There is ample evidence on the Web alone of Assange’s associations with speaking engagements at extreme leftist gatherings (e.g., the Swedish event where he enjoyed a social rendezvous that landed him in the British jail).

Also, it is preposterous to suppose that the longstanding U.S. cyberwarfare units at the CIA and Defense Department did not know how to stop the leaks—especially if they were given advance warning, as suggested herein. If Barack Obama knew what was coming and did nothing, that constitutes a real story. Please stay on Assange’s case and continue to expose his allies for who they really are—dangerous, hypocritical fools and useful idiots of the left.

Chris Djernaes

San Rafael, California

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To the Editor:

This was a fantastic unmasking of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. For that reason, I hesitate to note a factual error. The Climategate memos were first leaked by a Russian website, not WikiLeaks.

Seth Freeland

Roanoke, Virginia

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To the Editor:

This is one of the best articles I have read on Wiki-Leaks. It very skillfully identifies the general red flags and inconsistencies in Assange’s story. For a man who claims to promote transparency, he himself has classified his sources, chosen what and when to redact, and leveraged information as collateral. He seems to promote himself more than any real principle. He is not an elected official and does not speak for the American people. In the most basic sense, Assange believes that invasion of privacy by illegal means is the path to freedom, but this amounts to a hacker-style Gestapo. If he truly wishes to change the world, he should try joining it. To condemn elected governments is to declare an entire free citizenry irrelevant. I have yet to hear his viable alternatives to modern society. Thanks for a great article.

Doug Burton

Lake Mary, Florida

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To the Editor:

I have been a longtime supporter of responsible transparency organizations, such as Transparency International and the Sunlight Foundation. I first encountered WikiLeaks when it published all the personal credit-card information of people who gave money to Norm Coleman’s campaign for U.S. Senate. They claimed they were exposing security flaws in his website by hacking it. Complete nonsense. After some interaction, it became clear to me that the group was quasi-criminal in its operations and intent, and was populated by hard-core leftists and anti-American bigots.

Kurtis Fechtmeyer

Oakland, California

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Jonathan Foreman writes:

Seth Freeland is correct. Though Julian Assange has repeatedly claimed to have been the first to publish the Climategate e-mails (and I made the mistake of believing him), they were in fact first published on the Climate Audit website after being loaded anonymously onto a Russian Internet server.