Assange may have committed offence: ADA

Wikileaks founder Australian Julian Assange could have committed a serious criminal
offence in helping an enemy of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the lobby group,
the Australia Defence Association (ADA) says.
ADA executive director Neil James said much of the 92,201 assorted US military,
intelligence and diplomatic documents leaked by Wikileaks would not be new to anyone
familiar with the Afghanistan war or wars in general.
But this latest material went well beyond justifiable whistleblowing, he said.
"Put bluntly, Wikileaks is not authorised in international or Australian law, nor
equipped morally or operationally, to judge whether open publication of such
material risks the safety, security, morale and legitimate objectives of Australian
and allied troops fighting in a UN-endorsed military operation," he said in a
statement.
Mr James said there were many alternative avenues available for legitimate dissent
which did not endanger our troops.
"Moreover, as an Australian citizen, Wikileaks' Julian Assange may also be guilty of
a serious criminal offence by assisting an enemy the ADF is fighting on behalf of
all Australians, especially if the assistance was intentional," he said.
The documents cover the period 2004-09, with an initial tranche released to various
US, UK and German publications by WikiLeaks.
The most controversial allegations centre around claims that Pakistan's intelligence
service has continued to assist the Taliban insurgency despite Pakistan government
insistence there was no ongoing relationship.
Australia is mentioned in some of the documents with the Australian Defence
Department forming a task force to assess whether release of this information has
endangered Australian troops.
Mr James said whatever Mr Assange's motives, his actions again highlighted the need
to amend treachery laws to prohibit reckless assistance to an enemy.
"What Wikileaks and its apologists ignore is the clear legal and moral differences
between the actions of rule-of-law democracies applying international humanitarian
law in UN-endorsed warfighting (however imperfectly at times), and the deliberate
rejection of such law by the Taliban and its Islamist allies," he said.
"ISAF's battlefield mistakes are the result of typical wartime tragedy, accidents
and at times incompetence or personal failure, not deliberate or institutional
policy."