John Pilger is dead on. Julian Assange is America's modern day Salem
Witch. And once again our Ruling Class has magically turned the focus
away from their own unlawful acts, to totally destroy the man, Julian
Assange. Just as easily as they have turned our attention away from
their illegal actions, to focus on Donald Trump.
Even as the Trump Cabinet sets about reducing what little still exists
of this once proud nation, Donald Trump manages to stay a few fancy
steps ahead of his critics. Still, as sly an old Fox as he is, Donald
Trump is high stepping into the same fate that awaits all "Emperor
Wannabees". He is on "Self destruct" auto mode.
If we Americans are going to salvage anything from our crumbling
Empire, we must turn our attention away from the Trumpster and insist
our "journalists" begin examining the misdeeds of our entire political
structure.
This is not to suggest that Donald Trump is not a Witch, deserving of
his comeuppance. But just as the witches of Salem, Donald Trump's
removal will change nothing within the Ruling Class. Remove Donald
Trump? Can we say, "President Mike"? Of course we can.
Carl Jarvis
or should that be, "Warlock"?
On 5/22/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I take it back. Perhaps I was just believing the negative propaganda about
Assange.
Miriam
Truthdig
The International Persecution of Julian Assange
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_international_persecution_of_julian_
assange_20170521/
Posted on May 21, 2017
By John Pilger / JohnPilger.com
(http://johnpilger.com/articles/getting-julian-assange-the-untold-story)
Julian Assange greets supporters gathered outside the Ecuadorean
Embassy
in London on Friday. (Frank Augstein / AP)
This is a lightly edited version of an article that appeared on John
Pilger's website
(http://johnpilger.com/articles/getting-julian-assange-the-untold-story) .
Julian Assange has been vindicated because the Swedish case
(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/sweden_drops_rape_inquiry_against_juli
an_assange_20170519 ) against him was corrupt. The prosecutor, Marianne
Ny,
obstructed justice and should be prosecuted. Her obsession with Assange not
only embarrassed her colleagues and the judiciary but exposed the Swedish
state's collusion with the United States in its crimes of war and
"rendition
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition ;) ."
Had Assange not sought refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy
(https://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html) in London, he would
have been on his way to the kind of American torture pit that Chelsea
Manning
(http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/whistleblower_chelsea_manning_i
s_released_from_prison_seven_years_20170517) had to endure.
This prospect was obscured by the grim farce played out in Sweden. "It's a
laughing stock," said James Catlin, one of Assange's Australian lawyers.
"It
is as if they make it up as they go along."
It may have seemed that way, but there was always serious purpose. In 2008,
a secret Pentagon document prepared by the "Cyber Counterintelligence
Assessments Branch" foretold a detailed plan to discredit WikiLeaks and
smear Assange personally.
The "mission," as the Pentagon document says, was to destroy the trust that
was WikiLeaks' "center of gravity." This would be achieved with threats of
"exposure [and] criminal prosecution." Silencing and criminalizing such an
unpredictable source of truth-telling was the aim.
Perhaps this was understandable. WikiLeaks has exposed the way America
dominates much of human affairs, including its epic crimes, especially in
Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale, often homicidal killing of civilians
and the contempt for sovereignty and international law.
These disclosures are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a
professor
of constitutional law, lauded whistleblowers as "part of a healthy
democracy
[who] must be protected from reprisal."
In 2012, the Obama campaign boasted on its website that Obama had
prosecuted
more whistleblowers in his first term than all other U.S. presidents
combined. Before Manning had even received a trial, Obama had publicly
pronounced the former Army intelligence analyst guilty.
Few serious observers doubt that should the U.S. get its hands on Assange,
a
similar fate awaits him. According to documents released by Edward Snowden
(http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/edward_snowden_surveillance_spy
ing_practices_20140813) , Assange is on a "manhunt target list." Threats to
kidnap or assassinate him became almost political and media currency in the
U.S. following then-Vice President Joe Biden's slur that the WikiLeaks
founder was a "cyber-terrorist."
Hillary Clinton, the destroyer of Libya and, as WikiLeaks revealed last
year, the secret supporter and personal beneficiary of forces underwriting
Islamic State, proposed her own expedient solution: "Can't we just drone
this guy?" [Clinton later said she was joking.]
According to Australian diplomatic cables, Washington's bid to get Assange
is "unprecedented in scale and nature." In Alexandria, Va., a secret grand
jury has sought for almost seven years to contrive a crime for which
Assange
can be prosecuted. This is not easy.
The First Amendment protects any publisher, journalist or whistleblower,
whether he or she is the editor of The New York Times or the editor of
WikiLeaks. The very notion of free speech is described as America's
"founding virtue" or, as Thomas Jefferson called it, "our currency."
Faced with this hurdle, the U.S. Justice Department has contrived charges
of
espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, conversion (theft of government
property), computer fraud and abuse (computer hacking) and general
conspiracy. The favored Espionage Act, which was meant to deter pacifists
and conscientious objectors during World War I, has provisions for life
imprisonment and the death penalty.
Assange's ability to defend himself in such a Kafkaesque world has been
severely limited by the U.S. declaring his case a state secret. In 2015, a
federal court in Washington state blocked the release of all information
about the "national security" investigation against WikiLeaks, because it
was "active and ongoing" and would harm the "pending prosecution" of
Assange. The judge, Barbara J. Rothstein, said it was necessary to show
"appropriate deference to the executive in matters of national security."
This is a kangaroo court.
For Assange, his trial has been trial by media. On Aug. 20, 2010, when the
Swedish police opened a "rape investigation,"
(https://justice4assange.com/Timeline.html) they coordinated it,
unlawfully, with the Stockholm tabloids. The front pages said Assange had
been accused of the "rape of two women." The word "rape" can have a very
different legal meaning in Sweden than in Britain or the United States; a
pernicious false reality became the news that went round the world.
Less than 24 hours later, the Stockholm chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, took
over the investigation. She wasted no time in canceling the arrest warrant,
saying, "I don't believe there is any reason to suspect that he has
committed rape." Four days later, she dismissed the rape investigation
altogether, saying, "There is no suspicion of any crime whatsoever."
Enter Claes Borgstrom, a highly contentious figure in the Social Democratic
Party then standing as a candidate in Sweden's imminent general election.
Within days of the chief prosecutor's dismissal of the case, Borgstrom, a
lawyer, announced to the media that he was representing the two women and
had sought a different prosecutor in Gothenberg. This was Marianne Ny, whom
Borgstrom knew well, personally and politically.
On Aug. 30, 2010, Assange went to a police station in Stockholm voluntarily
and answered the questions put to him. As he understood it, that was the
end
of the matter. Two days later, Ny announced she was reopening the case.
At a press conference, Borgstrom was asked by a Swedish reporter why the
case was proceeding when it had already been dismissed. The reporter cited
one of the women as saying she had not been raped. He replied, "Ah, but she
is not a lawyer."
On the day that Ny reactivated the case, the head of Sweden's military
intelligence service-which goes by the acronym MUST-publicly denounced
WikiLeaks in an article titled "WikiLeaks [is] a threat to our soldiers
[under U.S. command in Afghanistan]."
Both the Swedish prime minister and foreign minister attacked Assange, who
had been charged with no crime. Assange was warned that the Swedish
intelligence service, SAPO, had been told by its U.S. counterparts that
U.S.-Sweden intelligence-sharing arrangements would be "cut off" if Sweden
sheltered him.
For five weeks, Assange waited in Sweden for the renewed rape investigation
to take its course. The London-based newspaper The Guardian was then on the
brink of publishing the Iraq "War Logs
(http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/un_calls_on_obama_to_investigat
e_torture_20101023 ) ," based on WikiLeaks' disclosures, which Assange was
to oversee in London.
Finally, he was allowed him to leave Sweden. As soon as he had left, Ny
issued a European arrest warrant and an Interpol "red alert" normally used
for terrorists and dangerous criminals.
Assange went to a police station in London, was arrested and spent 10 days
in Wandsworth Prison, in solitary confinement. Released on bail of 340,000
pounds [more than 440,000 U.S. dollars], he was electronically tagged,
required to report to police daily and placed under virtual house arrest
while his case began its long journey to the Supreme Court of the United
Kingdom.
He still had not been charged with any offense. His lawyers repeated his
offer to be questioned in London, by video or personally, pointing out that
Ny had given him permission to leave Sweden. They suggested a special
facility at Scotland Yard commonly used by the Swedish and other European
authorities for that purpose. Ny refused.
For almost seven years-a period in which Sweden questioned 44 people in the
U.K. in connection with police investigations-Ny refused to question
Assange.
Writing in the Swedish press, a former Swedish prosecutor, Rolf Hillegren
(http://assangeinsweden.com/2015/03/17/the-prosecutor-in-the-assange-case-sh
ould-be-replaced/ ) , accused Ny of losing all impartiality. He described
her personal investment in the case as "abnormal" and demanded she be
replaced.
Assange asked the Swedish authorities for a guarantee that he would not be
"rendered" to the U.S. if he was extradited to Sweden. This was refused. In
December 2010, the British newspaper The Independent revealed that the two
governments had discussed his extradition to the U.S
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/assange-could-face-espionage-tri
al-in-us-2154107.html ) .
Contrary to its reputation as a bastion of liberal enlightenment, Sweden
has
drawn so close to Washington that it has allowed secret CIA
"renditions"-including the illegal deportation of refugees. The rendition
and subsequent torture of two Egyptian political refugees in 2001 was
condemned by the U.N. Committee Against Torture, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch; the complicity and duplicity of the Swedish state are
documented in successful civil litigation and in WikiLeaks cables.
"Documents released by WikiLeaks since Assange moved to England," wrote Al
Burke, editor of the online Nordic News Network, an authority on the
multiple twists and dangers that faced Assange, "clearly indicate that
Sweden has consistently submitted to pressure from the United States in
matters relating to civil rights. There is every reason for concern that if
Assange were to be taken into custody by Swedish authorities, he could be
turned over to the United States without due consideration of his legal
rights."
The war on Assange now intensified. Marianne Ny refused to allow his
Swedish
lawyers, and the Swedish courts, access to hundreds of text messages that
the police had extracted from the phone of one of the two women involved in
the rape allegations.
Ny said she was not legally required to reveal this critical evidence until
a formal charge was laid and she had questioned him. Then why wouldn't she
question him? Catch-22.
When Ny announced last week that she was dropping the Assange case, she
made
no mention of the evidence that would destroy it. One of the text messages
makes clear that one of the two supposed victims did not want any charges
brought against Assange, but, the woman said, "the police were keen on
getting a hold on him." She was shocked, she said, when they arrested him
because she only "wanted him to take [an HIV] test." She said she "did not
want to accuse JA of anything," and that "it was the police who made up the
charges." In a so-called witness statement, she is quoted as saying that
she
had been "railroaded by police and others around her."
Neither woman claimed she had been raped. Indeed, both denied they were
raped, and one of them has since tweeted, "I have not been raped." The
women
were manipulated by police, whatever their lawyers might say now.
Certainly,
they too are the victims in this sinister saga.
Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape wrote: "The
allegations against [Assange] are a smokescreen behind which a number of
governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously
revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with
their attendant rape, murder and destruction. ... The authorities care so
little about violence against women that they manipulate rape allegations
at
will. [Assange] has made it clear he is available for questioning by the
Swedish authorities, in Britain or via Skype. Why are they refusing this
essential step in their investigation? What are they afraid of?"
Assange's choice was stark: extradition to a country that had refused to
say
whether or not it would send him on to the U.S. or to seek what seemed his
last opportunity for refuge and safety.
Supported by most of Latin America, the government of tiny Ecuador granted
him refugee status
(http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/julian_assange_arbitrarily_deta
ined_according_to_new_un_panel_20160204 ) on the basis of documented
evidence that he faced the prospect of cruel and unusual punishment in the
U.S.; that this threat violated his basic human rights; and that his own
government in Australia had abandoned him and colluded with Washington.
The Labor government of Australia's then-prime minister, Julia Gillard, had
even threatened to take away his Australian passport-until it was pointed
out to her that this would be unlawful.
The renowned human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who represents Assange in
London, wrote to the then-foreign minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd: "Given
the extent of the public discussion, frequently on the basis of entirely
false assumptions ... it is very hard to attempt to preserve for him any
presumption of innocence. Mr. Assange has now hanging over him not one but
two Damocles swords, of potential extradition to two different
jurisdictions
in turn for two different alleged crimes, neither of which are crimes in
his
own country, and that his personal safety has become at risk in
circumstances that are highly politically charged."
It was not until she contacted the Australian High Commission in London
that
Peirce received a response, which answered none of the pressing points she
raised. In a meeting Peirce and I attended, the Australian consul general,
Ken Pascoe, made the astonishing claim that he knew "only what I read in
the
newspapers" about the details of the case.
In 2011, in Sydney, I spent several hours with a conservative member of
Australia's Federal Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull. We discussed the threats
to Assange and their wider implications for freedom of speech and justice,
and why Australia was obliged to stand by him. Turnbull then had a
reputation as a free speech advocate. He is now the prime minister of
Australia.
I gave him Peirce's letter about the threat to Assange's rights and life.
He
said the situation was clearly appalling and promised to take it up with
the
Gillard government. Only his silence followed.
For almost seven years, this epic miscarriage of justice has been drowned
in
a vituperative campaign against the WikiLeaks founder. There are few
precedents. Deeply personal, petty, vicious and inhuman attacks have been
aimed at a man not charged with any crime yet subjected to treatment not
even meted out to a defendant facing extradition on a charge of murdering
his wife. That the U.S. threat to Assange was a threat to all journalists,
and to the principle of free speech, was lost in a sordid and ambitious
"anti-journalism."
Books were published, movie deals struck and media careers launched or
kick-started on the back of WikiLeaks and an assumption that attacking
Assange was fair game and he was too poor to sue. People have made money,
often big money, while WikiLeaks has struggled to survive.
The previous editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, called the WikiLeaks
disclosures, which his newspaper published, "one of the greatest
journalistic scoops of the last 30 years." Yet no attempt was made to
protect The Guardian's provider and source. Instead, the "scoop" became
part
of a marketing plan to raise the newspaper's cover price.
With not a penny going to Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book
led
to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David
Leigh, gratuitously described Assange as a "damaged personality" and
"callous." They also revealed the secret password he had given the paper in
confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing U.S.
embassy cables. With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy,
Harding,
standing among the police outside, gloated on his blog that "Scotland Yard
may get the last laugh."
Journalism students might well study this period to understand that the
most
ubiquitous source of "fake news" is from within a media self-ordained with
a
false respectability and an extension of the authority and power it claims
to challenge but courts and protects.
The presumption of innocence was not a consideration in Kirsty Wark's
memorable BBC live-on-air interrogation in 2010. "Why don't you just
apologize to the women?" she demanded of Assange, followed by: "Do we have
your word of honor that you won't abscond?"
On the BBC's Today program, John Humphrys bellowed: "Are you a sexual
predator?" Assange replied that the suggestion was ridiculous, to which
Humphrys demanded to know how many women he had slept with.
"Would even Fox News have descended to that level?" wondered the American
historian William Blum. "I wish Assange had been raised in the streets of
Brooklyn, as I was. He then would have known precisely how to reply to such
a question: 'You mean including your mother?' "
Last week, on BBC World News, on the day Sweden announced it was dropping
the case, I was interviewed by Geeta Guru-Murthy, who seemed to have little
knowledge of the Assange case. She persisted in referring to the "charges"
against him. She accused him of putting Trump in the White House; and she
drew my attention to the "fact" that "leaders around the world" had
condemned him. Among these "leaders" she included Trump's CIA director. I
asked her, "Are you a journalist?"
The injustice meted out to Assange is one of the reasons the British
Parliament reformed the Extradition Act in 2014. "His case has been won
lock, stock and barrel," Gareth Peirce told me, "these changes in the law
mean that the U.K. now recognizes as correct everything that was argued in
his case. Yet he does not benefit." In other words, he would have won his
case in the British courts and would not have been forced to take refuge.
Ecuador's decision to protect Assange in 2012 was immensely brave. Even
though the granting of asylum is a humanitarian act, and the power to do so
is enjoyed by all states under international law, both Sweden and the
United
Kingdom refused to recognize the legitimacy of Ecuador's decision.
Ecuador's embassy in London was placed under police siege and its
government
abused. When the British Foreign Office threatened to violate the Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations, warning that it would remove the
diplomatic inviolability of the embassy and send the police in to get
Assange, outrage across the world forced the government to back down.
During one night, police appeared outside the windows of the embassy in an
obvious attempt to intimidate Assange and his protectors.
Since then, Assange has been confined to a small room without sunlight. He
has been ill from time to time and refused safe passage to the diagnostic
facilities of a hospital. Yet, his resilience and dark humor remain quite
remarkable in the circumstances. When asked how he put up with the
confinement, he replied, "Sure beats a supermax [prison]."
It is not over, but it is unraveling. The United Nations Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention-the tribunal that adjudicates and decides whether
governments comply with their human rights obligations-last year ruled that
Assange had been detained unlawfully
(http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/julian_assange_arbitrarily_deta
ined_according_to_new_un_panel_20160204 ) by Britain and Sweden. This is
international law at its apex.
Both Britain and Sweden participated in the 16-month-long U.N.
investigation
and submitted evidence and defended their position before the tribunal. In
previous cases ruled upon by the Working Group-Aung Sang Suu Kyi in Burma,
imprisoned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia, detained Washington
Post journalist Jason Rezaian in Iran-both Britain and Sweden gave full
support to the tribunal. The difference now is that Assange's persecution
endures in the heart of London.
The Metropolitan Police say they still intend to arrest Assange for bail
infringement should he leave the embassy. What then? A few months in prison
while the U.S. delivers its extradition request to the British courts?
If the British government allows this to happen, it will, in the eyes of
the
world, be shamed comprehensively and historically as an accessory to the
crime of a war waged by rampant power against justice and freedom, and all
of us.
John Pilger, an Australian who lives in the United Kingdom, is a
prize-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. His website is
johnpilger.com (http://johnpilger.com) .
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