Duncan Gillies: Assange hard to pin down in battle of action heroes

Opinion

I want a Julian Assange action figure for Christmas.

I'm a bit old for playing with dolls but I think this one would be quite cool. I'd just hide him in a drawer where nobody could see him and let him reveal action figure secrets via the toy internet server deep inside the model mountain I have under my bed. It would be great.

I can just imagine the indignation and embarrassment of the little Hillary Clinton doll in her man suit, still attractive from far off but hard to handle and showing her age close up.

And then there would be the angry Action Man Sarah Palin, available in Army fatigues or a moose skin bodysuit, who karate chops when you squeeze her legs together and has a string in her back that when you pull it makes her cry: "Hunt him down like Taleban, kill him like al Qaeda. Hunt him down like Taleban, kill him like al Qaeda ..."

Of course, you wouldn't be able to buy your Julian Assange doll with your Visa card, but I'm sure they would still prove popular. Because, according to a recent survey of me and two work colleagues trying to look busy while standing around the photocopying machine, two thirds of the population believe Assange is a hero. Admittedly this survey - like most things I write, say and think - has a margin of error which is larger than its margin of accuracy, but it did give me a deep insight into the innovative time-wasting techniques of other people in the office.

I was one of the two respondents who thought Assange is a hero and base this view on his involvement with WikiLeaks. I don't consider rapists heroes and hope, as Assange and his supporters claim, that the sex charges he is facing are designed to discredit him. I hope this, not just for him, but also the women who have made the complaints. I imagine there are few things worse than being the victim of sexual abuse and then being accused of lying.

It is hard not to question the charges against Assange, though. His lawyer, Mark Stephens, claims the charges are "politically motivated" and Assange has certainly upset plenty of politicians.

And even if the charges don't stick, they will give American authorities time to add plenty of adhesive to anything they cook up.

United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates called Assange's arrest "good news". I wouldn't say it's good news. But at least he is less likely to be assassinated if he's in custody.

Because there are also those that would like to see him dead.

I must point out that the third person in my survey didn't think Assange deserved to die for what he has done. He just felt the US Embassy cables tell us things we don't need to know and, in many cases, we are better off not knowing.

I believe, though, that many of the documents give us a greater understanding of the world in which we live and give us a greater reason to question what we are fed as fact.

They also give us an insight into the people in power. Take Kevin Rudd who, last March, while still Prime Minister of Australia, suggested military force may be needed to deal with China.

And I thought when he stood there sobbing in front of cameras in June, it was because he had been dumped as leader of the Labor party. He was probably just upset that his dream of becoming emperor of Australasia had been dashed.

Washington now fears it could be years before relations have been repaired to the point where diplomats can laugh and smile with foreign leaders without them suspecting they are being ridiculed behind their backs. And diplomats are probably upset that for now they can't run the risk of likening world leaders to comic book super heroes in top secret emails. That bit must have been fun.

I actually suspect the official who wrote that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is Batman and President Dmitry Medvedev is Robin is secretly happy his cable was leaked. Heck, I would have been proud of it. It would have been a shame if only a few high-level officials got to see his handiwork. I bet he goes round diplomat parties saying: "The Batman and Robin line, yeah, that was me. I've even got the action figures to prove it."