Headline October 26, 2016/ ''' * WIKILEAKS * -&- WOWMERANG '''

''' * WIKILEAKS * -&- WOWMERANG '''

BUT ON JUNE 19,  2012, Mr. Assange's narrative quickly took a different turn. He broke bail after losing an appeal-

Against extradition to Sweden and was granted asylum in the tiny embassy of Ecuador, in London, overlooking the back of Harrods department store.

One year later, a man who would soon eclipse Mr. Assange in terms of whistle-blowing fame boarded a plane in Hong Kong. His name was Edward J. Snowden, and he was a National Security Agency contractor-turned-fugitive-

Having stunned the world and strained American alliances by leaking documents that revealed a United States led network of global surveillance programs.

Mr. Snowden had not given his thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. Still, it was at the suggestion of Mr. Assange that the flight Mr. Snowden boarded on June 23, 2013, accompanied by his WikiLeaks colleague Sarah Harrison, was bound for Moscow, where Mr. Snowden remains today after the United States cancelled his passport en route.

In fact, worried that he would be seen as a spy, Mr. Snowden had hoped merely to pass through Russia on his way to South America, Mr. Assange later recounted, a plan he had not fully endorsed. Russia, he believed, could best protect Mr. Snowden from a C.I.A. kidnapping or worse.

''Now I thought, and in fact advised Edward Snowden, that he would be safest in Moscow,'' Mr. Assange told the news program Democracy Now.

During his time isolated in the Ecudorean Embassy, under constant surveillance, his instinctive mistrust of the West hardened even as he became increasingly numb to the abuses of the Kremlin, which he viewed as a  ''bulwark against Western Imperialism,'' said one supporter, who like many others asked for anonymity for fear of angering Mr. Assange.

Another person who collaborated with WikiLeaks in the past added: ''He views everything through the prism of how he's treated.   America and Hillary Clinton have caused him trouble, and Russia never has.''

The result has been  ''one dimensional confrontation with the U.S.A,'' Daniel Domschelt-Berg, who before quitting WikiLeaks in 2010 was one of Mr. Assange's closest partners, has said.

And the beneficiary of that confrontation, played out in a series of public statements by Mr. Assange and strategically timed document releases by WikiLeaks, has often been Mr. Putin.

While the release of the  Democratic Party statements appears to be the first time  WikiLeaks  has published material that United States officials assert was stolen by the  Russian Intelligence, the agendas of WikiLeaks and Mr. Putin have repeatedly dovetailed since Mr. Assange fled to the embassy.

Mr. Assange has at times offered mild criticisms of the Putin government. In a 2011 interview, for instance, he spoke of the  ''Putinization''  of Russia.

But for the most part, Mr. Assange has remained silent about some of the Russian president's harshest moves. It was Mr. Snowden, for instance, not Mr. Assange, who took on Twitter in July to denounce a law giving the Kremlin sweeping new surveillance powers.

Mr. Assange, asked during Wednesday's interview about the new law and others like it, acknowledged that Russia had undergone   ''creeping authoritarianism''.  But he suggested that  ''that some development'' had occurred in the united States.

Then there are the leaks themselves. Some, such as hacked Church of Scientology documents, are of no obvious benefit to the Russians. But many are.

The organization has published leaks of materials from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are United states allies, but also to varying degrees from authoritarian regimes. The leaks came during times of heightened tension between those countries and Russia.

The Saudi documents, for instance, which highlighted efforts to manipulate world opinion about the Kingdom, were published months after Mr. Putin accused the Saudis of holding down oil prices to harm the economies of Russia and its allies Iran and Venezuela.

Many of the documents WikiLeaks has published are classified, such as a C.I.A tutorial on how to maintain a cover in Foreign airports. But what may be WikiLeaks most intriguing release of secret documents involved what is, on the surface, a less sensational topic: trade negotiations.

From November 2013 to May 2016, WikiLeaks published documents describing internal deliberations on two trade pacts : the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would liberalize trade between the United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries-

And the Trade in Services Agreement, an accord between the United States,  21 other countries and the European Union.

Russia, which was excluded, has been the most vocal opponent  of the pacts, with Mr. Putin portraying them as an effort to give the United States an unfair leg up in the global economy.

The material was released at critical moments, with the apparent aim of thwarting negotiations, American trade officials said.

So, deliberately or not, Assange releases tend to serve Kremlin agenda?! 

The Honour and Serving of the latest  *Operational Research*  on  'World & Ways'  continues.  !WOW! thanks, master researchers and authors Jo Becker, Steven Erlanger and Eric Schmitt.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' World Wraps '''

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