Home » Posts tagged 'julian assange' (Page 7)
Tag Archives: julian assange
Debunking The “Assange Is A Russian Agent” Smears
Debunking The “Assange Is A Russian Agent” Smears
_____________________
Smear 4: “He’s a Russian agent.”
Not even the US government alleges that WikiLeaks knowingly coordinated with the Kremlin in the 2016 publication of Democratic Party emails; the Robert Mueller Special Counsel alleged only that Guccifer 2.0 was the source of those emails and that Guccifer 2.0 was a persona covertly operated by Russian conspirators. The narrative that Assange worked for or knowingly conspired with the Russian government is a hallucination of the demented Russia hysteria which has infected all corners of mainstream political discourse. There is no evidence for it whatsoever, and anyone making this claim should be corrected and dismissed.
But we don’t even need to concede that much. To this day we have been presented with exactly zero hard evidence of the US government’s narrative about Russian hackers, and in a post-Iraq invasion world there’s no good reason to go pretending that we have. We’ve seen assertions from opaque government agencies and their allied firms within the US-centralized power alliance, but assertions are not evidence. We’ve seen indictments from Mueller, but indictments are assertions and assertions are not evidence. This doesn’t mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same government agencies.
If the public can’t see the evidence, then as far as the public is concerned there is no evidence. Invisible evidence is not evidence, no matter how many government officials assure us it exists.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Delegitimising Journalism: The Effort to Relabel Julian Assange
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
“Your honour, I represent the United States government”. The Westminster Magistrates Court had been left with little doubt by the opening words of the legal team marshalled against the face of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange was being targeted by the imperium itself, an effort now only garnished by the issue of skipping bail in 2012. Would the case on his extradition to the US centre on the matter of free speech and the vital scrutinising role of the press?
Thomas Jefferson, who had his moments of venomous tetchiness against the press outlets of his day, was clear about the role of the fourth estate. A government with newspapers rather than without, he argued to Edward Carrington in 1787, was fundamental so long as “every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” To Thomas Cooper, he would write in November 1802 reflecting that the press was “the only tocsin of a nation. [When it] is completely silenced… all means of a general effort [are] taken away.” The press provided the greatest of counterweights against oppressive tendencies, being the “only security” available.
Not so, now. The fourth estate has been subjected to a withering. The State has become canny about the nature of the hack profession, providing incentives, attempting to obtain favourable coverage, and, above all, avoiding dramatic reforms where necessary. An outfit like WikiLeaks is a rebuke to such efforts, to the hypocrisy of decent appearances, as it is to those in a profession long in tooth and, often, short in substance.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
From Jesus Christ to Julian Assange: When Dissidents Become Enemies of the State
From Jesus Christ to Julian Assange: When Dissidents Become Enemies of the State
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell
When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.
In the current governmental climate, where laws that run counter to the dictates of the Constitution are made in secret, passed without debate, and upheld by secret courts that operate behind closed doors, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can render you an “enemy of the state.”
That list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is merely the latest victim of the police state’s assault on dissidents and whistleblowers.
On April 11, 2019, police arrested Assange for daring to access and disclose military documents that portray the U.S. government and its endless wars abroad as reckless, irresponsible, immoral and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.
Included among the leaked materials was gunsight video footage from two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters engaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while American air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The driver’s two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by U.S. forces, suffered serious injuries.
There is nothing defensible about crimes such as these perpetrated by the government.
When any government becomes almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting—whether that evil takes the form of war, terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity—that government has lost its claim to legitimacy.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Arrest of Julian Assange is an Attack on Journalism, Liberty, Self-Government and Civilization Itself
Arrest of Julian Assange is an Attack on Journalism, Liberty, Self-Government and Civilization Itself
Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense – the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.
– William Edgar Borah
Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.
– Oscar Wilde
The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist.
– John Pilger: Assange Arrest a Warning from History
I was born 80 years ago in a country called the United States of America, and now I live in a Homeland — an expression we haven’t heard since Hitler.
– Gore Vidal
The only thing I’ve been able to think about for the last few days is the mugging of Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This post could go in many different directions, but given all the excellent articles already written on the topic, what seems most necessary is an explanation of what this means in the big picture of freedom in the Western world and civilization in general.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
After Assange’s Arrest, Ecuador’s Creep Towards Authoritarianism Becomes a Sprint
After Assange’s Arrest, Ecuador’s Creep Towards Authoritarianism Becomes a Sprint
The recent violation of Assange’s rights as both political asylee and citizen of Ecuador sends a chilling message to Ecuadorians who are being increasingly targeted for their political views both within Ecuador and abroad.
QUITO, ECUADOR — Last week, Ecuador’s government gravely undermined not only its own national sovereignty but international refugee and asylum laws by allowing U.K. police into its London embassy to arrest then-Ecuadorian citizen, Ecuadorian asylee, and journalist Julian Assange.
As has been observed by many analysts, the shocking yet somewhat anticipated decision has shown that Ecuador’s government — led by Lenín Moreno — is willing to play fast and loose with its domestic laws, as well as international law, if it stands to benefit Moreno and his increasingly unpopular administration, whose approval rating now hovers at around 30 percent.
In the hours that followed Assange’s disturbing arrest, which saw him dragged from the embassy by British police, Ecuador’s government has wasted no time in taking actions that are not only highly troubling but show Moreno’s willingness to embrace fascist tactics in his desperate bid to silence dissent.
Indeed, a key factor in Moreno’s decision to revoke Assange’s asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship, was alleged to be Moreno’s rage at WikiLeaks — the organization Assange founded but no longer runs — for simply retweeting and spreading information regarding the burgeoning INA Papers corruption scandal, which centers around an offshore bank account in Panama linked to Moreno and his family. Notably, the firestorm of media coverage around Assange’s violent removal from the embassy has distracted from the media coverage of the scandal.
The witch hunt begins
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Martyrdom of Julian Assange
The Martyrdom of Julian Assange
The arrest Thursday of Julian Assange eviscerates all pretense of the rule of law and the rights of a free press. The illegalities, embraced by the Ecuadorian, British and U.S. governments, in the seizure of Assange are ominous. They presage a world where the internal workings, abuses, corruption, lies and crimes, especially war crimes, carried out by corporate states and the global ruling elite will be masked from the public. They presage a world where those with the courage and integrity to expose the misuse of power will be hunted down, tortured, subjected to sham trials and given lifetime prison terms in solitary confinement. They presage an Orwellian dystopia where news is replaced with propaganda, trivia and entertainment. The arrest of Assange, I fear, marks the official beginning of the corporate totalitarianism that will define our lives.
Under what law did Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno capriciously terminate Julian Assange’s rights of asylum as a political refugee? Under what law did Moreno authorize British police to enter the Ecuadorian Embassy—diplomatically sanctioned sovereign territory—to arrest a naturalized citizen of Ecuador? Under what law did Prime Minister Theresa May order the British police to grab Assange, who has never committed a crime? Under what law did President Donald Trump demand the extradition of Assange, who is not a U.S. citizen and whose news organization is not based in the United States?
I am sure government attorneys are skillfully doing what has become de rigueur for the corporate state, using specious legal arguments to eviscerate enshrined rights by judicial fiat. This is how we have the right to privacy with no privacy. This is how we have “free” elections funded by corporate money, covered by a compliant corporate media and under iron corporate control.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Assange is a scapegoat, distraction for scandal-ridden Ecuadorian government
Assange is a scapegoat, distraction for scandal-ridden Ecuadorian government
FILE PHOTO: A truck carrying a poster relating to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is driven away from the Ecuadorian embassy, London, April 5, 2019 © Reuters / Peter Nicholls
As he faces a major corruption probe, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has met another demand from Washington by booting WikiLeaks journalist Julian Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Times were different when the WikiLeaks founder walked into Ecuador’s London embassy seeking asylum in 2012.
Fearing that his native Australia wouldn’t protect him from extradition to the United States, where he faces imprisonment or even execution, Assange appealed to Ecuador’s then-president Rafael Correa to grant him refuge from “political persecution.”
Ecuador agreed, granting him asylum on the grounds that his “life, safety or personal integrity” could be compromised at any moment.
Having also kicked US troops off its soil just a few years earlier, the tiny South American nation’s gesture was applauded by many, including domestically.ALSO ON RT.COMAssange arrest ‘absolutely disgusting’ & could be ‘tit-for-tat’ – former MI5 agent to RT
Fast forward seven years, and Ecuador has now handed him over for almost certain extradition.
The country’s former consul general in London says the move is not only unwarranted but also illegal under international law.
“This is a violation of the right and the institution of asylum,” Fidel Narvaez told me.
Having been delivered to British authorities, the Ecuadorian diplomat says Assange will likely be extradited to the US where “he will surely be sentenced to dozens of years of prison, at the least.”
For Narvaez, who was among the Ecuadorian officials who received Assange in 2012, the move is part of a return to a “subservient” foreign policy by the Ecuadorian government under Lenin Moreno.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Julian Assange Is Guilty Only of Revealing the Evil Soul of US Imperialism
Julian Assange Is Guilty Only of Revealing the Evil Soul of US Imperialism
Julian Assange was bundled away by British police after Lenin Moreno, the president of Ecuador, gave the green light for the expulsion of the Wikileaks publisher from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange’s arrest represents an abuse of power, highlighting not only how true journalism has now been banished in the West, but also how politicians, journalists, news agencies and think-tanks collude with each other to silence people like Julian Assange and his Wikileaks foundation who are a nuisance to US imperialism.
Assange is “guilty” of two “cardinal sins”: revealing US war crimes committed in Iraq and committing the unpardonable sin of publishing the emails of Clinton, Podesta and the Democratic National Committee, thereby revealing such chicanery in US domestic politics as the fraud committed against Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries.
These revelations among the many (Vault 7, Torture, Diplomatic cablograms), by Assange’s Wikileaks, these transgressions in the eyes of the US ruling elite, struck at the very foundations on which the edifice of “American exceptionalism” is built, namely, the democracy that is meant to be a light unto the world, and the “just wars” that flow from a missionary zeal to make the world safe for democracy. The media and politicians accordingly crow about the “beautiful missiles” and other high-tech weaponry that will be employed in the ensuing humanitarian interventions, while omitting to mention that the military-industrial complex that benefits so much from endless wars may be the very donors who fund the warmongering politicians into office, and that the warmongering editorial line of newspapers may be influenced by share portfolios of the editors themselves.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Liberty Under Attack: Gold and Silver Fall?!
Liberty Under Attack: Gold and Silver Fall?!
Image Source, via Ruptly
On a day like today, the irony of gold and silver losing key psychological support levels is beyond ironic, it is ludicrous.
Unless you are living under a rock, then you will have heard that after seven years of hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Julian Assange, the founder and head of Wikileaks, was forced out of asylum and arrested by the UK government.
This move, highly anticipated for days, caused a sudden flood of emotions, with some supporting the arrest and others screaming out in rage and shock as they watched a disheveled Assange being dragged out of the Embassy and thrown into an awaiting police vehicle.
His appearance once again raised concerns about his well-being and health, as many of his supporters have worried about the damage the last seven years of confinement have done to his mental health.
These concerns appeared to be valid, as Julian Assange without a doubt looked absolutely horrible.
Whether or not you support Julian Assange and Wikileaks likely depends on the way the political winds are currently blowing.
I remember well the entirety of the Assange saga and the work that Wikileaks has done throughout the years, exposing such things as the ” Iraq War Logs” and the “leaked State Department cables“.
These two very prominent leaks exposed a deep level of corruption within the U.S. government, and thus Assange became an enemy of the United States bureaucrats and the deep state.
The first major leak made Assange a hero to the left, as it greatly damaged President Bush and the Republican party of the time by exposing the violent acts of torture the military was committing overseas.
The second major leak saw the political winds change, blowing them in another direction.
Turning the left, who once idolized Assange, against him.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Media’s 7 Years of Lies about Julian Assange Won’t Stop Now
The Media’s 7 Years of Lies about Julian Assange Won’t Stop Now
Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those books – to nothing more than a sex pest, and a scruffy bail-skipper.
For seven years, from the moment Julian Assange first sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, they have been telling us we were wrong, that we were paranoid conspiracy theorists. We were told there was no real threat of Assange’s extradition to the United States, that it was all in our fevered imaginations.
For seven years, we have had to listen to a chorus of journalists, politicians and “experts” telling us that Assange was nothing more than a fugitive from justice, and that the British and Swedish legal systems could be relied on to handle his case in full accordance with the law. Barely a “mainstream” voice was raised in his defence in all that time.
From the moment he sought asylum, Assange was cast as an outlaw. His work as the founder of Wikileaks – a digital platform that for the first time in history gave ordinary people a glimpse into the darkest recesses of the most secure vaults in the deepest of Deep States – was erased from the record.
Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those books – to nothing more than a sex pest, and a scruffy bail-skipper.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Legal Narrative Funnel That’s Being Used To Extradite Assange
The Legal Narrative Funnel That’s Being Used To Extradite Assange
Isn’t it interesting how an Ecuadorian “asylum conditions” technicality, a UK bail technicality, and a US whistleblowing technicality all just so happened to converge in a way that just so happens to look exactly the same as imprisoning a journalist for telling the truth?
Following the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, top UK officials all began simultaneously piping the following exact phrase into public consciousness: “No one is above the law.”
“This goes to show that in the United Kingdom, no one is above the law,” Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament after Assange’s arrest.
“Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law,” tweeted Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
“Nearly 7 years after entering the Ecuadorean Embassy, I can confirm Julian Assange is now in police custody and rightly facing justice in the UK. I would like to thank Ecuador for its cooperation and @metpoliceuk for its professionalism. No one is above the law,” tweeted Home Secretary Sajid Javid.
Over and over again that phrase showed up to be unquestioningly re-bleated by the human livestock known as the British press in all their reporting on the Assange case: No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. Something tells me they really want people to know that, with regard to Julian Assange, no one is above the law.
But what is “the law” in this particular case? What they are constantly referring to as “the law” with regard to Assange is in fact nothing more than a combination of ridiculous bureaucratic technicalities which can be (and have been) interpreted very differently, but are now instead being interpreted in a way which just so happens to lead to a truth-telling journalist being locked in a cage, awaiting extradition to the same government which tortured Chelsea Manning.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Cascading Cat Litter
Cascading Cat Litter
And so now Julian Assange of Wikileaks has been dragged out of his sanctuary in the London embassy of Ecuador for failing to clean his cat’s litter box. Have you ever cleaned a litter box? The way we always did it was to spread some newspaper — say, The New York Times — on the floor, transfer the used cat litter onto it, wrap it into a compact package, and put it in the trash.
It was interesting to scan the Comments section of The Times’s stories about the Assange arrest: Times readers uniformly presented themselves as a lynch mob out for Mr. Assange’s blood. So much for the spirit of liberalism and The Old Gray Lady who had published The Pentagon Papers purloined by Daniel Ellsberg lo so many years ago. Reading between the lines in that once-venerable newspaper — by which I mean gleaning their slant on the news — one surmises that The Times has actually come out against freedom of the press, a curious attitude, but consistent with the neo-Jacobin zeitgeist in “blue” America these days.
Anyway, how could anyone expect Mr. Assange to clean his cat’s litter box when he was unable to go outside his sanctuary to buy a fresh bag of litter, and was denied newspapers this past year, as well as any other contact with the outside world?
US government prosecutors had better tread lightly in bringing Mr. Assange to the sort of justice demanded by readers of The New York Times — which is to say: lock him up in some SuperMax solitary hellhole and throw away the key. The show trial of Julian Assange on US soil, when it comes to pass, may end up being the straw that stirs America’s Mickey Finn as a legitimate republic.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Assange and the Unforgivable Sin of Disemboweling Official Narratives
Assange and the Unforgivable Sin of Disemboweling Official Narratives
The entire global status quo is on the cusp of the S-Curve decline phase.
There is really only one unforgivable sin in the political realm, and that’s destroying the official narrative by revealing the facts of the matter. This is why whistleblowers who make public the secret machinery of the elaborately artful lies underpinning all official narratives are hounded to the ends of the Earth.
Employees of state entities such as Ellsberg, Manning and Snowden are bound by vows of secrecy and threatened by the promise of severe punishment.Outsiders such as Assange are even further beyond the pale because they can’t be accused of being traitors, as they never took the vows of secrecy required by the Deep State.
The single most damaging revelation to all the elaborate lies that make up official narratives is the truth revealed in official emails, documents and conversations. This is why virtually every document and correspondence is now “classified,” so anyone releasing even a mundane scrap can be sentenced to rot in federal prison.
In a recent C-SPAN interview, author Nomi Prins explained the incredible difficulty of accessing papers in presidential libraries now due to virtually everything being classified. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) applications must be filed, and researchers must wait years to gain access to routine correspondence that was freely available to all a decade or so ago.
Official paranoia has a 100% correlation with the amount of damage done to official narratives by any leaks of the facts of the matter. What are they so afraid of? Here’s the dynamic in play: the more fragile the narrative, the greater the dependence on half-truths and lies, the greater the official urgency to crush all whistleblowers and maintain a Stasi-like vigilance against any murmurs of dissent or doubt.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
John Pilger: The Assange Arrest Is a Warning From History
John Pilger: The Assange Arrest Is a Warning From History
That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies, writes John Pilger.
The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.
That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.
But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump’s Washington, in league with Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice.
Imagine Tony Blair dragged from his multi-million pound Georgian home in Connaught Square, London, in handcuffs, for onward dispatch to the dock in The Hague. By the standard of Nuremberg, Blair’s “paramount crime” is the deaths of a million Iraqis. Assange’s crime is journalism: holding the rapacious to account, exposing their lies and empowering people all over the world with truth.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The U.S. Government’s Indictment of Julian Assange Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom
3Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on April 11, 2019 in London. Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S INDICTMENT OF JULIAN ASSANGE POSES GRAVE THREATS TO PRESS FREEDOM
THE INDICTMENT OF Julian Assange unsealed today by the Trump Justice Department poses grave threats to press freedoms, not only in the U.S. but around the world. The charging document and accompanying extradition request from the U.S. government, used by the U.K. police to arrest Assange once Ecuador officially withdrew its asylum protection, seeks to criminalize numerous activities at the core of investigative journalism.
So much of what has been reported today about this indictment has been false. Two facts in particular have been utterly distorted by the DOJ and then misreported by numerous media organizations.
The first crucial fact about the indictment is that its key allegation — that Assange did not merely receive classified documents from Chelsea Manning but tried to help her crack a password in order to cover her tracks — is not new. It was long known by the Obama DOJ and was explicitly part of Manning’s trial, yet the Obama DOJ — not exactly renowned for being stalwart guardians of press freedoms — concluded that it could not and should not prosecute Assange because indicting him would pose serious threats to press freedom. In sum, today’s indictment contains no new evidence or facts about Assange’s actions; all of it has been known for years.
The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manning obtain access to document databases to which she had no valid access: i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Department’s computers using a different username so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
