Wrongly Equating Europe & The US with the World

One of my longtime pet peeves in Western media is the tendency to conflate sentiment amongst elites in Western Europe and the United States with world opinion. This sad tradition continues in a recent Economist article on Chinese-based telecom corporation Huawei, misleadingly titled "The Company That Spooked The World". The article could more accurately be called "The Company That Spooked A Few Elites In the U.S. and the U.K.".

Sources on the record as being "spooked" (although none of them chose that characterization) include Steven Bellovin of Columbia University (who only admits that telecom technology can be used for spying, not that Huawei is in fact doing so), two Microsoft executives (Scott Charney and Eric Werner, who call for more secure supply chains globally, again not singling out or accusing Huawei), and Ross Anderson of Cambridge University, who admits that banning telecom technology from China is non-feasible as a security strategy and (again!) does not accuse Huawei of espionage or, well, anything. Four named sources, none of whom are actually spooked about Huawei, and all four from two countries total, hardly comprise a "spooked world" as regards Huawei. The article also goes on to mention that "In Africa, Huawei is everywhere" (making the typical Western media faux pas of lumping that huge continent together* without specifying in which countries on that massive continent Huawei products are deployed). Unsurprisingly, the author of this piece does not bother to interview one African national about whether or not he (or she) feels "spooked" about Huawei. The world, according to The Economist, is only comprised of two countries. Imperialist outlooks die hard.


* In fairness, the article also lumps together Europe when discussing Huawei's 4G network efforts in that continent, although Europe's more compact nature and shared currency throughout the majority of the countries therein militates more in favor of a generic "Europe" designation when discussing matters such as telecom networks, which are frequently shared throughout that relatively tiny continent. By contrast, the vastness of continental Africa necessitates a much broader telecom environment, e.g. what happens from a network perspective in South Africa rarely relates to the connectivity in, say, Morocco.

Post Continues Misleading About Wiki Founder Charges

Without seeking comment from any Swedish authorities regarding their investigation, The Post continues to spread the unproven falsehood that Wikileaks founder Assange is a sexual predator, by claiming in an article published today that Assange is being sought for questioning regarding the "sexual assault" of two women. The Post frames this story as a simple sexual assault, as contrasted with other more nuanced press accounts, such as one by UK publication The Guardian, outlined a complicated case wherein a Swedish prosecutor dropped one rape charge against Assange and reduced another (only to be overruled by a superior a week later, leading to a reinstatement of charges) and that both women admit the sex was consensual (a fact that the Post neglects to mention until near the end of its article). The Post then muddies the issue by stating that (according to an unnamed Swedish source) the women "conceded that sex with Assange started as consensual but allege that it later became non-consensual". Yet The Post was not able to get (or declined to publish) more details from their unnamed source about what exactly led to the purported withdrawal of consent, presumptively in mid-act?

Perhaps The Post decided not to explain the issue further because polling shows almost 50% of Americans have difficulty equating withdrawal of consent with rape, which would ruin what amounts to an attempt by the Post to present the matter as an open-and-shut case among an American readership that would be confused by extenuating details if the paper cited accounts that Assange is allegedly being accused of continuing with sexual activity post-consent after a condom broke (in one instance) and after a condom somehow was removed (in the other). Even those accounts (none of which are based on quotes from the women involved) may not tell the whole story, as other independent media outlets have reported that the charges in question are based merely on Assange engaging in consensual sex without wearing a condom at all, which is apparently an act punishable in Sweden with two years imprisonment (a state of affairs that would no doubt confuse the average American reader, whose definition of rape and sexual assault involves the absence of consent, not the absence of a prophylactic).

The Post also naturally neglected to report on (or investigate claims that) the issue is further muddied by apparent accounts that after the alleged assaults occurred, Swedish prosecutors got ahold of texts and Twitter messages celebrating sexual liaisons with Assange written by the women involved (both named in other publications but who I shall keep anonymous until their accusations are resolved).

This is not to mention the decision by the writer in this article to only focused on one leak (regarding American installations sensitive to attack) out of the thousands of leaks Wikileaks has provided, an act that would be oversimplified even if one decided to label it an oversimplification.

The Post Acknowledges The Obvious at Last

As I have written before here, the "controversy" about whether we can try terrorists or house them in U.S. prisons is absurd because we have already tried and imprisoned international terrorists in our criminal justice system.

The Post finally acknowledged this in a recent piece explaining that almost three dozen international terrorists are held in federal prison currently (although I wouldn't be surprised if the total number wound up being higher if you included narcoterrorists and persons affiliated with terrorist groups who did not personally engage in terrorist acts on U.S. soil).

The same congressional representatives (including Harry Reid) fretting about housing terrorists in U.S. prisons had no problem trying, convicting and incarcerating folks like the first World Trade Center bombers, Timothy McVeigh and (an in my opinion framed up) Jose Padilla (the cooked up charges of radioactive bomb conspiracy of which he was charged never seeing a day in court, after those charges were dropped).

Well, at least someone at the Post put their thinking cap on.