In echoing the US remonstrations to all but itself to construct and abide by a global ‘rules-based order’, one can only think of Gandhi’s reply to a question about his view of ‘Western civilisation’: ‘I think it would be a very good idea.’
The stakes in the Assange case could not be higher for journalists everywhere. The outcome will determine whether the US can seek to extradite any journalist of any nationality, from anywhere with which it has an extradition treaty, for disclosing US war crimes.
And if Assange is extradited and forced to pleading guilty to some charge in exchange for a relatively lenient Australian served sentence, it implicitly endorses the US claim that its laws have global reach over journalists everywhere. There goes any “free press” and any real prospect of keeping power accountable.
Finally, unless the Australian Government can stop the extradition by the UK or the prosecution by the US or both, it will also show that our ‘alliance’ with them is little more than our subservience.
Given the fact that the US in 2024 has been openly enabling genocide, vetoing the UN, and giving the nod to Bibi to illegally take over Palestine, and it’s all over the internet, why keep Julian Assange locked up? There are no “secrets” Joe. There is Trump and certainly not an effen secret anymore but the Israelis know they have his support. So let Assange go and win some brownie points and deal with AIPAC and let the non Zionist Jews rally in your favour. Become what America pretends to be for once a liberating force
The Russians, Israelis, and Nth Koreans are working their tits off for Trump. Biden is working to unite the English-speaking world against the Chinese and we can see it all. Worst of all we are forced to listen to the bullshit. Listen and watch, watch corporate and right-wing media battle with Rupert Murdoch for any excess gravy flow there is from the least progressive at the very top. After all 2024 is an election year and lobbyists are hard at work making more promises but non in the interests of any Common Good
In terms of posterity’s calling, there are surely fewer better things at this point for a US president nearing mental oblivion to do, or a Tory government peering at electoral termination to facilitate, than the release of Assange. At the very least, it would show a grudging acknowledgment that the fourth estate, watchful of government’s egregious abuses, is no corpse, but a vital, thriving necessity.
The President of Mexico recently spoke out in support of Julian Assange as the WikiLeaks founder was honoured with the keys to Mexico City. Australia must do more to bring Assange home, writes Dr John Jiggens.
Unable to shut WikiLeaks down the Americans turned on Julian Assange instead. They created laws and crafted charges that nobody had previously faced in order to try to have him extradited to the US. The State has persecuted this one man more than a decade and even harder than they did Chelsea Manning the American GI who leaked the information in the first place. They claim worldwide universal juristiction no matter where. If a crime has been comitted against what they declare are their laws even if not committed in the US they will be applied. However that doesn’t apply in reverse.
The US have openly and without regard killed civilians and treated their actions as “collateral damage” without anybody being arrested or charged and wthe world has witnessed it. They have assisted in the massacre of journalists and other professionals simply because they can, have misfired and killed innocents whenever they wished and then denied it unless it became impossible to do so. The set up the model for Israel to copy and get away with.
Nevertheless the organization Assange helped found WikiLeaks continues and is held in greater respect than any news or information alleged to be held as truth in the US.
WikiLeaks continues as one of the world’s most remarkable organisations, despite numerous attempts to shut it down.
Its founder, Julian Assange, is gaoled in the United Kingdom’s Belmarsh Prison as a “political” prisoner and faces extradition to the Medes-in-wait. Assange has not murdered anyone — but he is hounded as if he has.
Despite resistance, WikiLeaks continues its fight for the truth
Even any solicitation of the part of WikiLeaks to obtain such material (prosecutors, take note) was irrelevant. “A person is entitled to publish stolen documents that the publisher requested from a source as long as the publisher did not participate in the theft.”
The logical implication following from punishing individuals and entities for doing so, acknowledged the court, would “render any journalist who publishes an article based on stolen information a co-conspirator in the theft”. Assange and his legal team will be more than a little heartened by this acknowledgement, one that repels efforts to treat WikiLeaks as a hacking rather than publishing enterprise.
In an 85 minute interview with the NY Times, Donald Trump denied having anything to do with Wikileaks or Roger Stone’s actions surrounding their release of hacked Democratic emails.
He also has a bridge to sell you and for an extra few dollars, Chris Christie will autograph any section you want.
Mueller’s indictments of Stone spell out interactions with the Trump campaign and Wikileaks pretty clearly and Donald’s relationship with Roger Stone goes much longer and deeper than Michael Cohen’s ever did.
• Massive leak reveals serial detainee abuse • 15,000 unknown civilian deaths in war
Insurgent suspects are led away by US forces. Some of those held in Iraqi custody suffered appalling abuse, the war logs reveal. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian
A grim picture of the US and Britain’s legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee’s apparent death.
As recently as December the Americans were passed a video apparently showing Iraqi army officers executing a prisoner in Tal Afar, northern Iraq. The log states: “The footage shows approximately 12 Iraqi army soldiers. Ten IA soldiers were talking to one another while two soldiers held the detainee. The detainee had his hands bound … The footage shows the IA soldiers moving the detainee into the street, pushing him to the ground, punching him and shooting him.”
The report named at least one perpetrator and was passed to coalition forces. But the logs reveal that the coalition has a formal policy of ignoring such allegations. They record “no investigation is necessary” and simply pass reports to the same Iraqi units implicated in the violence. By contrast all allegations involving coalition forces are subject to formal inquiries. Some cases of alleged abuse by UK and US troops are also detailed in the logs.
WikiLeaks says it is posting online the entire set of 400,000 Iraq field reports – in defiance of the Pentagon.The whistleblowing activists say they have deleted all names from the documents that might result in reprisals. They were accused by the US military of possibly having “blood on their hands” over the previous Afghan release by redacting too few names. But the military recently conceded that no harm had been identified.
Condemning this fresh leak, however, the Pentagon said: “This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed. Our enemies will mine this information looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment.”
Leak suggests CIA malware systems have targeted iPhones, Android systems, Microsoft software and Samsung smart TVs.
Insurgent suspects are led away by US forces. Some of those held in Iraqi custody suffered appalling abuse, the war logs reveal. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian
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