{"id":56322,"date":"2021-01-05T11:12:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T16:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56322"},"modified":"2021-01-05T11:12:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T16:12:01","slug":"chris-hedges-the-empire-is-not-done-with-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56322","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hedges: The Empire is Not Done with Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chris Hedges: The Empire is Not Done with Julian Assange<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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As is clear from the memoir of one of his attorneys, Michael Ratner, the ends have always justified the means for those demanding the\u00a0WikiLeaks<\/em>\u2018 publisher\u2019s global persecution.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Original illustration for ScheerPost by Mr. Fish)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

S<\/strong>hortly after\u00a0WikiLeaks<\/em>\u00a0released\u00a0the \u201cIraq War Logs<\/a>\u201d in October 2010, which documented numerous U.S. \u00a0war crimes \u2014 including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in\u00a0the \u201cCollateral Murder\u201d video<\/a>, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints \u2014 the towering civil rights attorneys Michael Ratner and Len Weinglass, who had defended Daniel Ellsberg in the\u00a0Pentagon Papers<\/a>\u00a0case, met Julian Assange in a studio apartment in Central London, according to\u00a0Ratner\u2019s newly released memoir\u00a0Moving the Bar.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Assange had just returned to London from Sweden where he had attempted to create the legal framework to protect\u00a0WikiLeaks\u2019<\/em>\u00a0servers in Sweden.\u00a0 Shortly after his arrival in Stockholm, his personal bank cards were blocked.\u00a0 He had no access to funds and was dependent on supporters.\u00a0 Two of these supporters were women with whom he had consensual sex.\u00a0 As he was preparing to leave, the Swedish media announced that he was wanted for questioning about allegations of rape.<\/p>\n

The women, who never accused Assange of rape, wanted him to take an STD test.\u00a0 They had approached the police about compelling him to comply. \u201cI did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange,\u201d texted one of them on Aug. 20 while she was still at the police station, but \u201cthe police were keen on getting their hands on him.\u201d She said she felt \u201crailroaded by the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Hedges: The Empire is Not Done with Julian Assange As is clear from the memoir of one of his attorneys, Michael Ratner, the ends have always justified the means for those demanding the\u00a0WikiLeaks\u2018 publisher\u2019s global persecution. (Original illustration for ScheerPost by Mr. Fish) Shortly after\u00a0WikiLeaks\u00a0released\u00a0the \u201cIraq War Logs\u201d in October 2010, which documented numerous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8775,2001,30799,2080,827,3142,880],"class_list":["post-56322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-chris-hedge","tag-julian-assange","tag-scheer-post","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-us-empire","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56323,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56322\/revisions\/56323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}