Ongelofelijk het bericht gisteren dat een onderdeel van de landmacht, t.w. het LIMC (Land Information Manoeuvre Centre) o.l.v. de opgefokte idioot en commandant Patrick Dekkers, ongevraagd de sociale media hebben gescand op desinformatie en ‘subversieve activiteiten’, om zo onrust in de maatschappij in beeld te brengen…….
Het leger mag alleen assistentie verlenen als de civiele autoriteiten daar om vragen, er is bepaald geen spraken van een artikel 100 situatie, ofwel een oorlogssituatie, wat eigenmachtig optreden van het leger zou kunnen legitimeren…… Al is Dekkers het daar uiteraard niet mee eens, in zijn kop is het altijd oorlog…….
We hebben net alweer een militaire oefening in de burgermaatschappij achter de rug (Zebra Sword) en dan bedenkt een gek als Dekkers dat hij de autoriteit bezit om burgers te gaan spioneren??? (het moet niet gekker worden in dit land, hè fascist Eerdmans?) Dekkers stelt verder onder meer dat hij niet kan oefenen op het controleren van het internet en dat dit eenvoudig noodzakelijk is….. Dat krijg je wanneer je als land meedoet aan illegale oorlogen en daarbij een groot aantal mensen vermoordt!!!
Deze ongelofelijke schending van het recht op burger- en mensenrechten* heeft geduurd van maart tot eind augustus dit jaar, toen ontdekte de leiding van het leger pas deze illegale actie en verbood het…… Onmiddellijk ontslaan, de hele top van de landmacht als ze niet in de gaten kunnen houden wat hun militairen flikken, dienen ze per direct naar huis gestuurd te worden, zonder een ontslagvergoeding en met intrekking van het salaris!! Met het disfunctioneren van deze top wordt een rechtse coup wel heel makkelijk gemaakt….
Hoorde gistermiddag op BNR (rond 17.11 u.) VVD grofgraaier Bart Groothuis, die zelfs niet uit z’n strot kon krijgen dat dit niet mag, nee de enorme flapdrol vond het allemaal wel begrijpelijk en gaf Dekker nog net geen pluim voor z’n zwaar misdadige actie……. Onze Bart is hééééél wijs en hij stelde dat we nu eenmaal met China en Rusland te maken hebben die het jaar rond hetzelfde doen als Dekkers (ook in ons land), deze landen kennen volgens onze Bart niet het verschil tussen oorlog en vrede en zijn dus continu bezig met oorlog……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Groothuis (hik)
Hè hè, hik, ook dat nog, hik….. Hé Groothuis: wat dacht je van echte (illegale) oorlogsvoering en dat door de VS met hulp van andere NAVO-partners en dat ook nog eens vanaf 2001, plus daarbij de laatste jaren bijna het jaarrond oefeningen langs de westgrens van Rusland, terwijl de NAVO daar niet eens mag zijn volgens een akkoord uit 1991!!! Die oefeningen zijn niets anders dan treiterijen en provocaties tegen/van Rusland door het westen, met regelmatig schending van het Russische luchtruim en de Russische territoriale wateren…… Hetzelfde flikt de VS overigens ook bij China, alleen dan wel zonder het Chinese luchtruim te schenden daar de VS dan onmiddellijk raketten achter de vieze oorlogsbips aan krijgt…..
Deze illegale oorlogsvoering van de VS, met hulp van andere NAVO-partners (waaronder Nederland), heeft 4 landen in puin gelegd, te weten Afghanistan, Irak,Libië en Syrië, erger nog dit heeft al aan meer dan 2,5 miljoen mensen het leven gekost (het echte cijfer!!)…….. Hé Groothuis wat zei je ook alweer over oorlogvoeren i.v.m. Rusland en China??? (volgens mij was de dwaas zo blij dat hij op de radio mocht dat hij van schrik vergat om Iran mee te nemen in zijn valse beschuldigingen……)
Oh zocht nog even op de het net naar informatie toen ik bij Joop uitkwam, waar men amper commentaar durfde te uiten en o.a. het volgende zeer walgelijke praatje van Dekkers heeft opgenomen:
Dekkers gelooft heilig dat moderne oorlogsvoering grotendeels digitaal
plaatsvindt en in het hoofd van mensen. Een klein jaar voor de
oprichting van het LIMC zegt hij op de militaire academie in Breda: „We
moeten gaan kijken naar persona’s, avatars, e-mailadressen,
Twitteraccounts. Daar kun je beïnvloeden wat mensen te zien krijgen,
onder meer door grootschalige microtargeting op bijvoorbeeld Facebook.”
En, vol vuur: „We moeten de ballen hebben om gewoon aan de slag te gaan
in de grey zone.”
Ja ja, hoe is het mogelijk dat Dekkers nog werkt voor Defensie, hij moet onmiddellijk ontslagen worden, waarna men hem moet arresteren en hem strafrechtelijk moet vervolgen!! (en nee geen borgtocht voor deze ploert!!)
Dat was het nog niet mensen, het volgende komt ook van Joop:
Binnen defensie en zelfs binnen het LIMC heerst onrust over de
toegepaste werkwijze van de uiterst ambitieuze leiding. Ook de militaire
inlichtingendienst MIVD is er niet gelukkig mee. In augustus is de
betreffende commandant op het matje geroepen en te verstaan gegeven dat
rapportages niet meer buiten de eigen organisatie verspreid mogen
worden.
Ongelofelijk!! Ten eerste dat Dekkers niet meteen op non-actief is gesteld en ten tweede dat hij ook nog eens heeft lopen strooien met illegaal verkregen data!! En om nog eens aan te geven wat een zootje het leger is, heeft men Dekkers niet ontslagen, maar te verstaan gegeven dat hij de illegaal verkregen informatie niet verder mag verspreiden…… Wat is dit gvd???!!! Is die info niet onmiddellijk in beslag genomen??? (en ja dat was m’n derde punt n.a.v. dat citaat……..)
(trouwens uit het artikel van Joop blijkt dat ook dit mediaorgaan braaf meedoet aan de Corona bangmakerij en zelfs een ex-collega te kakken zet; ach ja VARA, wat wil je??)
Toevallig werd gisteren ook bekend gemaakt dat Nederland en andere EU en NAVO-lidstaten weer zijn bespioneerd door de VS en dat daarbij ook bedrijfsspionage werd gepleegd……. Terwijl D66 leeghoofd Paternotte**, als zijn VVD collega Groothuis, op de radio anti-Russische en Chinese propaganda maakten, daar die ons continu in de gaten zouden houden, geen flinter bewijs, maar ja de geheime diensten zeggen het dus moet het wel waar zijn…… ha! ha! ha! ha! Je weet wel dezelfde geheime diensten die 9 van de 10 keer liegen……. Terwijl er wel volop bewijs is dat de VS iedereen en alles bespioneert, zo werd een paar jaar geleden al bekend gemaakt dat zelfs de smartphone van de Duitse premier Merkel werd gehackt door de VS….. ‘
* En het is uiteraard een grove schending van het recht op privacy, al is daar niet veel meer van over in Nederland….
Vorige week zaterdag was het precies 10 jaar geleden dat Wikileaks de door
Chelsea Manning gelekte documenten publiceerde over de illegale oorlog van de VS
tegen Irak. Op die dag kon de wereld zien hoe smerig en
groot de VS terreur was (en deels nog is) die op het volk van Irak werd
uitgeoefend…….. Een oorlog die in 2003 begon en in feite nog
steeds gaande is, vandaar ook dat er niet 1 miljoen mensen zijn
omgekomen door die terreur (zoals in het artikel hieronder wordt gesteld), maar eerder 2 miljoen Irakezen het leven
hebben gelaten……. Ofwel die mensen zijn vermoord door
de 2 grootste verantwoordelijken destijds: VS president George W. Bush en de Briste premier Tony Blair en dat met hulp van een
aantal andere NAVO-lidstaten, waaronder Nederland…..
Oorlogsmisdaden,
misdaden tegen de menselijkheid en grove mensenrechtenschendingen
begaan in Irak staan sinds die tijd tot ieders beschikking. Totaal onbegrijpelijk dan ook dat de reguliere westerse (massa-) media niet
de 2 grootste verantwoordelijke terroristen in deze, George W. Bush
en Tony Blair aan de spreekwoordelijke paal hebben genageld, maar
klokkenluider Chelsea Manning en de boodschapper:
onderzoeksjournalist Julian Assange…… Alsof die 2
verantwoordelijk zijn voor dat enorme aantal doden en niet de 2
eerder genoemde bloedige rotschoften……
De
reguliere westerse media hebben in deze de VS gevolgd, waar men
keihard loog dat Assange en Manning mensen in gevaar hebben gebracht
met hun openbaringen, terwijl diezelfde VS een enorm dossier aan
leugens heeft opgebouwd, zoals de leugen dat Irak
massavernietigingswapens zou hebben en daar de VS en Groot-Brittannië
mee zou willen aanvallen (als je dat weer in ogenschouw neemt snap je
zelfs niet dat er ook maar één persoon met een goed stel werkende
hersenen deze baarlijke en meer dan belachelijke nonsens heeft
geloofd…)…. Ook deze leugen werd door de westerse media uit en te
na verdedigd, zelfs de NRC bij monde van de ‘beste journalist van de
20ste eeuw’, Henk Hofland droeg deze leugen ‘met passie’ uit……
Ondanks dat iedereen al jaren weet dat e.e.a een enorme leugen is, heeft geen
mediaorgaan een rectificatie geplaatst voor de enorme diarree aan
leugens die men voorafgaand aan en tijdens die oorlog heeft gebracht (en nog brengt),
integendeel deze leugen wordt verzwegen en men doet in die media nog steeds of die oorlog
gerechtvaardigd en onvermijdelijk was….. (de Nederlandse verantwoordelijke CDA oorlogsmisdadiger de Hoop Scheffer mag zelfs les geven aan een universiteit….)
Met
de openbaringen in Wikileaks is zelfs niet 1 persoon in gevaar
gebracht en toch worden Manning en Assange gedemoniseerd in die
westerse media, waar men Assange zelfs durft uit te maken voor
charlatan……. Als er 1 journalist is die de afgelopen 10 jaar de
ene na de andere persprijs zou hebben moeten ontvangen is het Assange
wel!!
Voor
het Internationaal Strafhof (ICC) worden vooral figuren uit Afrika
veroordeeld, terwijl de grootste terreurstaten die de vreselijkste
misdaden hebben begaan, de VS en haar trouwe oorlogshond in de vorm
van NAVO-lidstaten met rust worden gelaten, terwijl die landen deze
eeuw al 2,5 miljoen mensen over de kling hebben gejaagd…… (al zou
het ICC nu wel bezig zijn met onderzoek naar oorlogsmisdaden door de
VS begaan in Afghanistan)
Lees
het relaas van Tommy Sheridan, waarin hij o.a. over de vader van
Julian Assange spreekt die onvermoeid de wereld rondreist om de
waarheid over zijn zoon te vertellen. De westerse media moeten zich
doodschamen dat ze een zo voortreffelijke collega hebben
gedemoniseerd en dat alweer op basis van leugens…… Terecht merkt
Sheridan dan ook op, dat er geen onafhankelijke media zijn, ze zijn
in handen van plutocraten die geen belang hebben bij de waarheid als
het om mensenrechten, misdaden tegen de menselijkheid en
oorlogsmisdaden gaat……. (behalve als deze worden begaan door
staten die men niet mag, waar ook daarover in de dagelijkse
‘werkelijkheid’ keihard wordt gelogen zie de berichtgeving over Iran,
Rusland en China…..) Wat betreft politici die deze westerse terreur
steunden en steunen: deze zouden ook vervolgd moeten worden door het ICC, immers
zij zijn mede verantwoordelijk voor de enorme ellende die het westen
elders heeft aangericht en aanricht……… Echter je snapt het al: dat zal niet gebeuren, zelfs niet als pinksteren, pasen en de kerst op één dag vallen!!
Het volgende artikel van Tommy Sheridan werd eerder geplaatst op Sputnik en werd door mij overgenomen van Wikileaks: (onder het artikel kan je klikken voor een ‘Dutch vertaling’, dit neemt wel enkele tientallen seconden in beslag):
On
The 10 Anniversary Of Iraq War Logs: Bush & Blair Should be in
Prison Not Assang
By
Tommy Sheridan
(Blair
is katholiek geworden, zo kon hij via de biecht absolutie krijgen voor
zijn vreselijke oorlogsmisdaden en leugens die tot die misaden hebben
geleid……)
October 24, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
– Ten years ago today the courage of two individuals changed the way
millions view the world. A US soldier disgusted at the communications
they were reading about their country’s conduct after illegally
invading and occupying the sovereign nation of Iraq in 2003 leaked
thousands of communications confirming US war crimes to Wikileaks.
The
site had been set up in 2006 to precisely shine a light on the dark
manoeuvres of powerful nations. Chelsea Manning risked imprisonment
by exposing war crimes. Julian Assange risked imprisonment by
publishing those leaked files and exposing the lies and heinous
crimes against humanity committed by the United States government and
military.
Yesterday I had the
honour and privilege of interviewing
the father of Julian Assange in Edinburgh for Sputnik radio on
the eve of this tenth anniversary of the release of the Iraq war
logs. John Shipton was articulate and passionate in defence of his
son who has been in enforced incarceration within the Ecuadorian
embassy for seven years and is now locked up in the maximum-security
prison HMP Belmarsh while awaiting the outcome of a rigged
extradition show trial that was conducted in London’s High Court
over five weeks last month.
John sat through that
travesty of justice and witnessed his son’s incredible stoicism and
bravery as a cacophony of manufactured lies was presented as the US
State case to justify forcibly transferring Julian to America to face
charges under the never used 103-year-old law called the Espionage
Act. Given the Niagara Falls of lies and distortions about Julian
Assange promoted and promulgated by the US, UK, Australian and
Swedish governments over the last decade a fair trial in America is
impossible. Julian Assange would inevitably be found guilty in a
biased US courtroom and sentenced to 175 years in a dangerous
high-security prison where his personal safety would never be
guaranteed.
Julian
Assange Exposed Government Crimes Not Government Secrets
The Espionage Act was
introduced in 1917 to deter traitors from revealing government
secrets which endangered the security of America. Julian Assange is
not guilty of exposing US government secrets, he is ‘guilty’ of
exposing US government war crimes. He and Chelsea Manning do not
deserve prison sentences, they deserve awards for performing
essential humanitarian and journalistic duties. They revealed to the
world the brutal truth of US Military behaviour in Iraq, in
Afghanistan and in other sovereign nations targeted for regime
change. The nation which parades across the world with pious lectures
about human rights, the rule of law, and the importance of democracy
is graphically exposed as the biggest abuser of human rights, the
enemy of democracy and serial sponsor of war crimes. Many peoples
suffered from US war crimes and human rights abuses, but the US
denied guilt. Wikileaks exposed both their lies – and their crimes.
After years of denying
civilian casualties in Iraq, the Wikileaks Iraq war logs ten years
ago covering the period 2005-2009 and running into almost 400,000
army field reports revealed the atrocious truth that civilian deaths
constituted more than two-thirds of all recorded casualties in Iraq.
Many thousands of deaths were deliberately not recorded but of those
that were 66,081 of 109,000 deaths were civilians. The Iraq Body
Count Project (IBC) used the published war logs to credibly estimate
civilian deaths as a minimum
of 183,249 to 205,785 while other population and family
interview-based studies estimate the civilian death toll is well over
one million.
Up to one million
unarmed, innocent civilians murdered on the back of a concocted lie
about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and Iraq’s readiness to
use them. There was no threat from Iraq’s WMDs as she had none and
there was no link to the terrible 9/11 attacks in America in 2001 as
Iraq had not a single Taliban or al Qaeda operative within its
territory. Iraq was illegally invaded, destroyed and over a million
people were slaughtered on the basis of lies and deceit and the
October 22nd, 2010 Wikileaks document publication revealed the US as
the biggest war criminal on the planet.
Wikileaks
Exposures Reveal US Working With Terrorists Not Against Them
The US and the world
were still reeling from the Wikileaks publication of the Afghanistan
war logs on 25th July 2010 which revealed American complicity in
arbitrary civilian assassinations, systematic torture of
non-combatants and extreme lies to cover up their crimes in
Afghanistan. Wikileaks has continued its crusade to uncover powerful
states and companies who lie and deceive and commit crimes in pursuit
of their objectives in breath-taking displays of hypocrisy. The Syria
leaks illustrate the extent the US and its allies will go to in
pursuit of global domination with clear evidence of funding and
supporting the very Daesh* terrorists and brutes within Syria to
conduct a proxy war against the Assad government despite wholesale
condemnations and declared hatred of such groups publicly. The world
is led to believe the US is at war with Islamic terror groups like
Daesh when in fact they are in
cahoots with allies who are arming them and fighting alongside
them in Syria.
John Shipton should be
enjoying his retirement years but instead, he is campaigning across
the world to raise awareness of his son’s terrible mistreatment by
the UK and US governments and demanding his immediate release. He
highlighted how Julian’s Wikileaks exposures have actually led to
government actions to expel US troops from their soil and thereby
saving lives. Despite empty headlines and accusations to the contrary
not a single individual has ever been harmed as a result of Wikileaks
publications and all the evidence shows Julian Assange worked
assiduously to redact the names of any potential targets in the war
logs while Guardian journalists who revelled in days of high profile
swoops and money spinning books actually betrayed details Julian
desperately worked to keep hidden.
George
Bush and Tony Blair Should be Behind Bars Not Julian Assange
The absence of
bitterness from John’s conversation with me is remarkable and
testimony to his compassion and understanding of world affairs. His
admiration for his son’s courage and strength is huge. Julian
Assange committed no crimes. He is in a prison cell while real war
criminals like George Bush and Tony Blair escape justice. They are
the ones who lied and bullied and bribed and blackmailed the UN to
try and get a second resolution justifying invading Iraq. They
failed.
The invasion and
subsequent occupation were illegal and they should be held
responsible for the one million civilian deaths which resulted. The
fact Chelsea Manning spent seven years behind bars before her
thirty-five-year sentence was commuted by Barack Obama is a disgrace.
She was sentenced again last March because she refused to testify
against Julian Assange. She spent a year in jail between March 2019 –
March 2020. She is the epitome of courage and integrity. Refusing to
turn on Assange revealed her inner strength and dignity.
Julian
Assange is a Victim of Psychological Torture in UK Custody
Julian Assange’s
father drew attention to the numerous investigations of his son’s
incarceration by the United Nations rapporteur on torture and
arbitrary detention. Through visits and detailed assessments
Professor Nils Melzer compiled damning evidence which showed Julian
was indeed a victim of systematic psychological torture for which the
UK bears a heavy responsibility:
“The case
falls into my mandate in three different ways: First, Assange
published proof of systematic torture. But instead of those
responsible for the torture, it is Assange who is being persecuted.
Second, he himself has been ill-treated to the point that he is now
exhibiting symptoms of psychological torture. And third, he is to be
extradited to a country that holds people like him in prison
conditions that Amnesty International has described as torture. In
summary: Julian Assange uncovered torture, has been tortured himself
and could be tortured to death in the United States. And a case like
that isn’t supposed to be part of my area of responsibility? Beyond
that, the case is of symbolic importance and affects every citizen of
a democratic country”
Please read
these words from Professor Nils Melzer over and over again and
acquaint yourself with his various reports. Exactly ten years to the
day after exposing heinous US war crimes, systematic torture and
flagrant breaches of international law it is the man who exposed the
crimes who is behind bars when it should be the organisers,
facilitators and perpetrators of those crimes.
Plague
of Malice
During our interview,
I reminded John Shipton of an incredibly apt phrase he used recently
when interviewed during Julian’s trial in London. He said his son
was subject to a “plague
of malice”. I suggested it should be the title of a book
detailing how Julian has not been criminally prosecuted – he has been
politically persecuted. Persecuted by powerful nations in a vengeful
act of revenge for being exposed by Julian as the practiced
criminals, liars, and murderers they are. Should Julian Assange be
handed over by a British Court to face a life sentence in America for
publishing evidence of US government war crimes it is the death knell
of investigative journalism and the most serious undermining of free
speech and freedom of expression in hundreds of years. The world will
be propelled back to the dark ages of medieval dynasties and the
denial of democratic rights and freedoms should America be allowed to
demand the release of a journalist into their custody for harsh
punishment for doing no more than revealing war crimes. It was the
celebrated author and forensic social commentator George Orwell
who said that journalism
is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else
is public relations.
But he also advised us that:
In a time of
deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Please get involved in
the various campaigns and online petitions and support groups
demanding the release of Julian Assange. His state-sponsored
political persecution has no association with justice and everything
to do with spite, revenge, and stark warnings to the rest of us.
Don’t you dare speak the truth or speak out or stand up against
injustices and wicked crimes committed by your governments lest you
face the same personal mauling and destruction of character meted out
to Julian Assange.
The cause of Julian
Assange is the cause of free speech, the rule of law and the right of
the public to know when their governments and the powerful commit
crimes. If they get away with extraditing Assange today it could be
any one of us tomorrow. Say it loud and say it clear – Exposing war
crimes is not a crime – Free Julian Assange.
*Daesh (also known
as ISIS/ISIL/IS/Islamic States) is a terrorist group banned in Russia
and many other countries
You summed it up as well as it
could be. At 75 and a former pilot in the USAF, I am thoroughly
ashamed to call myself an American. Something must be done to secure
the release of Julian Assange. What the hell has happened to us that
we have allowed people to be tortured in our name! The whole world
knows that the British government is a mere puppet of the US State.
Julian is being imprisoned and tortured at the direction of the US
Government. Yes, our nation is, and has been, run for many years by a
government filled with war criminals!
In de VS
hebben figuren als Bill Maher hun progressieve masker afgeworpen en
hun pijlen gericht op burgers die weigeren te stemmen op het
tweekoppige monster bestaande uit de Republikeinse en Democratische Partij…. Maher c.s hebben het gore lef te stellen dat deze stemmers de meest
giftige wereldburgers zijn……. Echter deze stemmers hebben groot
gelijk, immers of je nu door de hond of de kat wordt gebeten, het
blijft bijten en het gevoerde beleid wijkt in de praktijk amper
af…….
De
Democraten zetten zich af tegen de ongelijke behandeling van de grote
onderlaag in de VS echter de praktijk laat zien dat ook de Democraten
zich amper inzetten voor deze grote groep……
Wat
betreft de grootschalige VS terreur over de wereld voeren deze 2
partijen hetzelfde agressieve beleid, waar velen denken dat de
Democraten meer vredelievend zijn, heeft Obama laten zien dat het
geen bliksem uitmaakt: hij was de volledige 2 termijnen in oorlog
verwikkeld en dat als de eerste president sinds de VS onafhankelijk
is….. (terwijl Obama Nobelprijs voor de Vrede winnaar is…..)
Caitlin Johnstone* heeft een artikel geschreven over deze zaak en ze noemt
daarbij 21 punten die aangeven dat de stemmers die op een derde
partij stemmen, groot gelijk hebben. Zo voert ze bijvoorbeeld aan dat
de Republikeinse partij als het aan de macht is, een zo rechts
mogelijk beleid voert, echter als de Democraten daarna aan de macht
komen, wordt er niets teruggedraaid, hoe onrechtvaardig bepaalde
zaken ook zijn…..
Zoals je
begrijpt richt Johnstone vooral haar kritiek op de Democraten, daar
deze het van de daken schreeuwen dat zaken niet eerlijk verlopen,
maar eenmaal aan de macht hetzelfde doen. Neem de persvrijheid: de
Democraten vinden dat de persvrijheid heilig is, echter als het om
Julian Assange gaat willen ze deze, zoals Trump dat wenst, uitgeleverd hebben aan
de VS, terwijl Assange niets anders heeft gedaan dan z’n werk (en dat uitstekend!!) en
gebruik maken van de persvrijheid, terwijl de leugen dat hij mensen
in gevaar heeft gebracht al lang en breed is doorgeprikt……
Voorts beschuldigen de Democraten de alternatieve media van het brengen van fake news (nepnieuws), terwijl de reguliere (massa-) media zich daar keer op keer schuldig aan maken, neem alleen al de aanloop naar- en het verloop van de illegale oorlogen die de VS voerde en voert…..
Kortom
de Democraten willen in feite dat de echte media (de alternatieve media) aan banden worden
gelegd en dat ten gunste van de reguliere media die over het algemeen het beleid steunen (m.n. het bloedige buitenlandbeleid) van: -de zittende administratie, -het militair-industrieel complex, -de financiële sector en -het andere grote bedrijfsleven…… (de eerste twee, of eigenlijk drie overlappen elkaar gedeeltelijk)
Lees het
artikel van Johnstone (van 29 september jl.) en denk daaraan als je bijvoorbeeld het volgende debat tussen Trump en Biden kijkt of beluistert (Joe Binden wil dat alleen als Trump virusvrij is….. ha! ha! ha! Kortom hij is bang voor Trump), Trump en Biden, 2 oorlogsmisdadigers en lobbyisten voor de wapenfabrikanten, het verdere grote bedrijfsleven en de financiële
sector……..
The
vote-shaming engines have predictably kicked into high gear in
America as the presidential election approaches, with shitlib
pundits like Bill Maher
doing their part to paint third-party voters as the most toxic people
in the world.
Which
is of course ridiculous. I have no strong opinions about how
Americans should vote in November, but it’s obvious that in terms of
toxicity third-party voters are not on the list of people who are
worthy of criticism. The dire situation humanity now finds itself in
under the leadership of the US hegemon is not the fault of a small
fringe faction which doesn’t want to support oligarch-coddling
ecocidal warmongers, it’s the fault of those who help preserve
America’s oligarchic ecocidal warmongering status quo.
Contrary
to the stock template lines that establishment spinmeisters are
regurgitating to bully the left into submission, here are 21 things
which are in fact a lot more crazy, selfish, stupid and privileged
than voting third party:
1.
Supporting a two-headed one-party system in the most powerful
government on earth which has plagued our planet with endless war and
ecocide and marched humanity to the brink of extinction.
2.
Continuing to support a political system which is wholly owned and
operated by the wealthy, leaving zero effective influence over US
policy in the hands of ordinary Americans and immense influence in
the hands of the very rich.
3.
Continuing to support a system which consistently deceives the
American people into consenting to oppressive neoliberal exploitation
at home and bloodthirsty neoconservative warmongering abroad, both of
which always hurt the most impoverished and disadvantaged groups
worst.
4.
Continuing to support a two-headed one-party system where one head
always pushes as far to the right as possible when in power and the
other head never moves things back leftward even one iota when it is.
5.
Continuing to support a political establishment which rehabilitates
war criminals like George W Bush, Bill Kristol, David Frum and John
Bolton while demonizing anyone who refused to vote for a warmonger.
6.
Supporting a political party which has been consistently attacking
Donald Trump from the right on foreign policy, pushing him to
escalate cold war tensions with Russia further and further and
shrieking hysterically if he makes the slightest move toward
deescalation anywhere.
7.
Supporting a political party which is designed to co-opt all leftward
populism and railroad it into support for an establishment which
promotes war and oligarchy while depriving Americans of the same
social safety nets afforded to everyone in every other major country
on earth.
8.
Supporting a party which claims to support press freedoms while
cheerleading Trump’s extradition of Julian Assange, a move which if
successful will cripple press freedoms around the globe and make it
impossible to hold the world’s most powerful government to account.
9.
Supporting a political party which has spent Trump’s term galvanizing
its base around the psychopathic CIA and J Edgar Hoover’s
minority-oppressing, left-punching FBI while doing everything it can
to stamp out any leftist zeitgeist within its ranks.
10.
Continuing to support a mass media structure which works every day to
deceive Americans into supporting their own impoverishment while
weapons of war are spread across the planet at massive expense.
11.
Supporting a political establishment which promises slow, incremental
change and actually delivers no change whatsoever while our species
slides off the cliff of extinction, taking out the most impoverished
and marginalized first.
12.
Pretending foreign policy just doesn’t exist, or if it does exist
pretending Joe Biden isn’t a lifelong warmonger who has spent his
entire campaign attacking Trump for being insufficiently hawkish in
most spheres of international conflict.
13.
Ignoring the fact that both parties are working in support of
world-threatening cold war escalations against both Russia and China,
a multifront campaign whose complexity increases the probability of
something going cataclysmically wrong even more than the last cold
war.
14.
Pretending a party that’s done exactly nothing for America’s
disempowered communities isn’t directly responsible for the poverty,
police brutality, mass incarceration, exploitation and oppression
those communities face today.
15.
Pretending a return to how things were before Trump’s presidency
wouldn’t just be a return to the conditions which created Trump’s
presidency.
16.
Pretending Obama, who destroyed Libya, devastated Syria, facilitated
the rape of Yemen, intervened in Ukraine, maintained and expanded all
of Bush’s most depraved policies and did nothing for the people who
elected him, was a good president.
17.
Continuing to support a political system where everything keeps
getting worse no matter which oligarchic puppet Americans elect.
18.
Putting your head in the sand and pretending everything will be fine
once a Democrat is in charge, again.
19.
Supporting a novelty joke party with fake primaries which are always
rigged to ensure victory for the safest oligarchic puppet instead of
pushing for something resembling actual democracy.
20.
Promoting the lie that if you just keep doing something that has
never, ever worked, this time it might produce different results.
21.
Lulling people back to sleep when the only thing that can help
ordinary people is for them to start waking up and using the power
of their numbers to force drastic, revolutionary change.
It’s
easy to advocate incrementalism when you’re not living hand to
mouth. It’s selfish to think that acting on climate change can be
rolled out over many decades so as not to upset the corporate donors
of your favorite politicians. It’s the height of entitlement to
close the door to progressives inside the Democratic Party and then
throw a shit fit when they vote for another party. It’s
hypocritical to hyperventilate about election-rigging Russians while
secretly, and then openly, rigging primaries against progressives.
Supporting
the continued existence of a fake two-party system which advances
exploitative agendas hurts the most vulnerable populations in America
and in the entire world. Acting self-righteous because you actively
support that system while spitting on the people who are trying to
change it is selfish, is stupid, is hypocritical, and is a mark of
extreme privilege.
________________________
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Noam Chomsky en Alica
Walker hebben een artikel geschreven over het proces tegen Julian
Assange, eerder gepubliceerd op Independent
(vanwege mijn adblocker mag ik geen gebruik maken van dit
platform……) en door mij overgenomen van Information
Clearing House.
In de kop stellen Chomski
en Walker dat de VS regering, ofwel de Trump administratie Julian
Assanges persoonlijkheid terecht stelt, echter als je het stuk leest
zie je dat men weliswaar Assange probeert te besmeuren, maar dat in
feite de echte journalistiek terecht staat, dit naast de
klokkenluiders die hun ergernissen melden aan onderzoeksjournalisten
als Assange….
Iemand te besmeuren is in
dit geval voor de VS overheid het middel om een journalist als
Assange of klokkenluiders als Chelsea Manning en Edward Snowden
totaal ongeloofwaardig te maken voor het grote publiek…… Tevens is dit uiteraard het middel om de zaak waarvoor mensen als Assange en
Manning terecht staan/stonden ofwel te bagatelliseren dan wel te stellen dat
deze 2 de staatsveiligheid in gevaar hebben gebracht, dat laatste is een leugen van
enorme proporties…..
Meer dan schunnig dat de reguliere
westerse media zich massaal achter de leugens van de opvolgende VS
administraties stelden, die van Bill Clinton, George W. Bush,
‘vredesduif’ Obama en nu die van de psychopathische fascist
Trump…….Deze media deden dat zonder te onderzoeken of de leugens
kloppen, die veelal van de CIA en de NSA kwamen, organisaties die
bekend staan om hun leugens en verdraaiingen van feiten, zoals die
over Irak, Afghanistan, Libië en Syrië…… Terwijl die media van
de eerste 3 op zeker weten dat het leugens waren, door hen herhaalt
en daarna nooit gerectificeerd, sterker nog men blijft de leugens
gewoon herhalen, hoewel sinds de illegale invallen van de VS in
Afghanistan, Irak, Libië en Syrië intussen meer dan 2,5 miljoen
mensen zijn vermoord………
Nog veel erger is het dat diezelfde media hun collega, de meer dan eens gelauwerde onderzoeksjournalist* Assange, zo hebben laten vallen, ja zelfs voor verrader hebben uitgemaakt (ook door de reguliere Nederlandse media)……. Al moet ik zeggen dat ze daar wel reden toe hadden, immers als men Assange had verdedigd, had men toe moeten geven dat men volkomen fout zat met de steun voor de illegale oorlogen die de VS met hulp van NAVO-lidstaten als Nederland tegen voornoemde landen begon, terwijl alle bewijzen daarvoor op tafel lagen en liggen…….**
Mensen zien deze waanzinnig leuke video van een paar minuten
Lees het korte artikel van
Chomski en Walker en zegt het voort: Julian Assange moet onmiddellijk
worden vrijgelaten en de westerse media moeten eindelijk doen wat ze
jaren geleden al hadden moeten doen: Assange steunen en daarmee de
echte journalistiek verdedigen!! Als die media dit niet doen is het hek van de dam en zal echte journalistiek (ook het kleine beetje dat nog in die reguliere media is te vinden) de nek worden omgedraaid ‘voor het groter goed: een nieuwe orde ofwel een politiestaat als die door George Orwell beschreven in het boek 1984’ (onder het artikel kan je klikken
voor een Nederlandse [Dutch] vertaling, dit neemt wel enkele tientallen seconden tijd in beslag)
How
the US government put Julian Assange’s personality on trial
By
Noam Chomsky and Alice Walker
September 11, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
– On Monday Julian
Assange was driven to the Old Bailey to continue his fight
against extradition
to the United States, where the Trump administration has launched
the most dangerous attack on press freedom in at least a generation
by indicting him for publishing US government documents. Amid
coverage of the proceedings, Assange’s critics have inevitably
commented on his appearance, rumours of his behaviour while isolated
in the Ecuadorian embassy, and other salacious details.
These predictable
distractions are emblematic of the sorry state of our political and
cultural discourse. If Assange is extradited to face charges for
practising journalism and exposing government misconduct, the
consequences for press freedom and the public’s right to know will
be catastrophic. Still, rather than seriously addressing the
important principles at stake in Assange’s unprecedented indictment
and the 175 years in prison he faces, many would rather focus on
inconsequential personality profiles.
Assange is not on
trial for skateboarding in the Ecuadorian embassy, for tweeting, for
calling Hillary Clinton a war hawk, or for having an unkempt beard as
he was dragged into detention by British police. Assange faces
extradition to the United
States because he published incontrovertible proof of war crimes
and abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, embarrassing the most powerful
nation on Earth. Assange published hard evidence of “the ways in
which the first world exploits the third”, according to
whistleblower Chelsea Manning, the source of that evidence. Assange
is on trial for his journalism, for his principles, not his
personality.
You’ve probably
heard the refrain from well-meaning pundits: “You don’t have to
like him, but you should oppose threats to silence him.” But that
refrain misses the point by reinforcing the manipulative tropes
deployed against Assange.
When setting a gravely
dangerous precedent, governments don’t typically persecute the most
beloved individuals in the world. They target those who can be
portrayed as subversive, unpatriotic – or simply weird. Then they
actively distort public debate by emphasizing those traits.
These techniques are
not new. After Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to
journalists to expose the US government’s lies about Vietnam, the
Nixon administration’s “White House Plumbers” broke into
Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in search of material that could
be used to discredit him. NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden was falsely portrayed as collaborating with the Chinese,
then the Russians. Obsession with military intelligence analyst
Manning’s mental health and gender identity was ubiquitous. By
demonizing the messenger, governments seek to poison the message.
Julian Assange in the
Ecuadorian embassy – a timeline
The prosecution will
be all too happy when coverage of Assange’s extradition hearing
devolves into irrelevant tangents and smears. It matters little that
Assange’s beard was the result of his shaving kit having been
confiscated, or that reports of Paul Manafort visiting him in the
embassy were proven to be fabricated. By the time these petty claims
are refuted, the damage will be done. At best, public debate over the
real issues will be derailed; at worst, public opinion will be
manipulated in favour of the establishment.
By drawing attention
away from the principles of the case, the obsession with personality
pushes out the significance of WikiLeaks’ revelations and the
extent to which governments have concealed misconduct from their own
citizens. It pushes out how Assange’s 2010 publications exposed
15,000 previously uncounted civilian casualties in Iraq, casualties
that the US Army would have buried. It pushes out the fact that the
United States is attempting to accomplish what repressive regimes can
only dream of: deciding what journalists around the globe can and
cannot write. It pushes out the fact that all whistleblowers and
journalism itself, not just Assange, is on trial here.
This piece was
written by Noam Chomsky and Alice Walker, co-chairs of
AssangeDefense.org – “Source“
*Wikipedia heeft de informatie verwijderd over de prijzen die Assange won met zijn onderzoeksjournalistiek…….. Schande!!!
** Nogmaals:
terwijl alle bewijzen voorhanden zijn dat de VS de westerse wereld heeft
voorgelogen om deze oorlogen te rechtvaardigen, sterker nog een aantal
landen waaronder Nederland hebben meegeholpen met de fabricage van deze
leugens voor één of meer van deze oorlogen, wat betreft Nederland betrof
dit de illegale oorlog tegen Irak……)
Craig
John Murray, historicus, voormalig ambassadeur van Groot-Brittannië
en mensenrechtenactivist, volgt het proces tegen Assange en doet daar
verslag van op zijn internetsite.
Craig John Murray
In een
uitvoerig schrijven doet hij verlag van het proces in de Old Bailey,
waar hij in het begin m.i. Iets teveel ingaat op het gebouw en haar
geschiedenis.
Het
schrijven geeft aan dat er van een onafhankelijke en transparante
rechtspraak geen sprake is in deze zaak, zo worden door de verdediging
aangevoerde getuigen niet gehoord, dat is volgens de rechter niet
nodig daar ze al een schriftelijke verklaring hebben gegeven……
Schandalig uiteraard, immers zo’n verklaring op schrift is altijd
beknopt en het is dan ook zaak dat iedereen mag weten wat deze
getuigen nog meer te zeggen hebben…… De rechter was zo zot om te
beweren dat justitie is gebaat bij de meer dan belachelijke
en beperkende maatregelen die zijn genomen…. Alsof je zegt dat een eerlijk proces
is gebaat bij afwezigheid van de advocaat van de verdachte……
De
rechter durft zelfs te stellen dat wanneer getuigen een mondelinge
verklaring afleggen, de kans groot is dat er nieuwe feiten boven
tafel komen en dat dit niet in het belang is van een eerlijk
proces…….. Eventueel nieuw aangevoerde feiten zijn juist van belang voor Assange en komen daarnaast ook de transparantie van het proces voor het publiek ten goede…… Hoe is het gvd mogelijk??!!!
Daarover
gesproken, transparantie en het recht van het volk om te weten hoe
het proces verloopt, wordt ernstig schade aangedaan daar er vanwege
het Coronavirus maar weinig mensen in de zaal mogen aanschuiven en
moeten Murray en anderen het in een ander zaaltje doen, waar men NB
naast elkaar mag zitten, als is er ‘na elke rij’ één rij leeg…..
Daar moet men op een klein scherm proberen te horen wat er wordt
gezegd, iets dat moeilijk is daar het geluid zo slecht is dat John
Pilger, filmmaker en onderzoeksjournalist, de ruimte al snel verliet…….
Waarom
is er voor zo’n groot proces een zo kleine zaal uitgekozen? Juist, om
de beperkende maatregelen te kunnen legitimeren die de rechter
aanvoert……
Het
voorgaande is nog maar het puntje van de spreekwoordelijke ijsberg, wat (nogmaals)
aangeeft dat er van een eerlijk proces geen sprake is en kan zijn (al moet ik
zeggen dat het tegenovergestelde me enorm zou hebben
verbaasd…..)…..
Het smerige spel van de VS over de uitlevering van Assange is ook een vuig stuk werk dat tijdens het spel gewoon wordt aangepast met andere zogenaamde criminele daden van Assange, je gelooft je ogen niet….. (en dan durven te stllen dat mondelinge getuigenissen ongewenste nieuwe feiten kunnen opleveren…..) Men durft commentaar te leveren op rechtszaken in China, terwijl het Kafkiaanse gehalte van dit proces een heel stuk groter is dan processen daar en vergeet daarbij niet dat Groot-Brittannië en de VS zich in tegenstelling tot China voordoen als democratische rechtsstaten!!
Lees het
geheel en zie de video onder het artikel van Information Clearing
House. Geeft het door mensen, tijd dat de wereld zich het vreselijk
lot van Assange aantrekt, dat andere journalisten eindelijk erkennen
dat ze fout zitten met de door hen gevoerde aanvallen op Assange, die
de waarheid heeft verteld over o.a. het uiterst agressieve optreden
(grootschalige terreur) van de VS over de wereld en daarbij niemand maar dan ook helemaal
niemand in gevaar heeft gebracht…..
Assange heeft in tegenstelling
tot de meeste van zijn collega’s zijn werk wel gedaan, zonder zich te
verlaten op misleidende informatie van neoliberale regeringen, regeringen die samen met de VS
illegale oorlogen voerden en voeren op basis van door geheime
diensten aangeleverde leugens, die met grote graagte werden herhaald
door de ‘collega’s van Assange….’ (bewijzen te over: vele meters
aan dossiers!!)
Beste
bezoeker het is een lang artikel, maar lees het, Murray is een goede schrijver, is bij tijd en wijle uiterst sarcastisch (op een humoristische manier), kortom meer dan de moeite
waard!! Onder het artikel nog een uiterst lollige video van een paar mninuten, zien! (onder het artikel kan je klikken voor een Nederlandse [Dutch] vertaling, dit neemt enkele tientallen seconden tijd in
beslag):
The
Assange Hearing Day 6: Your Man in the Public Gallery
By
Craig John Murray
September 08, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
– I went to the Old Bailey today expecting to be awed by the majesty
of the law, and left revolted by the sordid administration of
injustice.
There is a romance
which attaches to the Old Bailey. The name of course means fortified
enclosure and it occupies a millennia old footprint on the edge of
London’s ancient city wall.
It is the site of the medieval Newgate
Prison, and formal trials have taken place at the Old Bailey for at
least 500 years, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. For the
majority of that time, those convicted even of minor offences of
theft were taken out and executed in the alleyway outside. It is
believed that hundreds, perhaps thousands, lie buried under the
pavements.
The hefty Gothic
architecture of the current grand building dates back no further than
1905, and round the back and sides of that is wrapped some horrible
cheap utility building from the 1930’s. It was through a tunnelled
entrance into this portion that five of us, Julian’s nominated
family and friends, made our nervous way this morning. We were shown
to Court 10 up many stairs that seemed like the back entrance to a
particularly unloved works canteen. Tiles were chipped, walls were
filthy and flakes of paint hung down from crumbling ceilings. Only
the security cameras watching us were new – so new, in fact, that
little piles of plaster and brick dust lay under each.
Court 10 appeared to
be a fairly bright and open modern box, with pleasant light woodwork,
jammed as a mezzanine inside a great vault of the old building. A
massive arch intruded incongruously into the space and was obviously
damp, sheets of delaminating white paint drooping down from it like
flags of forlorn surrender. The dock in which Julian would be held
still had a bulletproof glass screen in front, like Belmarsh, but it
was not boxed in. There was no top to the screen, no low ceiling, so
sound could flow freely over and Julian seemed much more in the
court. It also had many more and wider slits than the notorious
Belmarsh Box, and Julian was able to communicate quite readily and
freely through them with his lawyers, which this time he was not
prevented from doing.
Rather to our
surprise, nobody else was allowed into the public gallery of court 10
but us five. Others like John Pilger and Kristin Hrafnsson, editor in
chief of Wikileaks, were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a
very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which
the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left. Many others who
had expected to attend, such as Amnesty International and Reporters
Without Borders (RSF), were simply excluded, as were MPs from the German
federal parliament (both the German MPs and Reporters Without Borders
at least later got access to the inadequate video following strong
representations from the German Embassy).
The reason given that
only five of us were allowed in the public gallery of some 40 seats
was social distancing; except we were allowed to all sit together in
consecutive seats in the front row. The two rows behind us remained
completely empty.
To finish scene
setting, Julian himself looked tidy and well groomed and dressed, and
appeared to have regained a little lost weight, but with a definite
unhealthy puffiness about his features. In the morning he appeared
disengaged and disoriented rather as he had at Belmarsh, but in the
afternoon he perked up and was very much engaged with his defence
team, interacting as normally as could be expected in these
circumstances.
Proceedings started
with formalities related to Julian’s release on the old extradition
warrant and re-arrest under the new warrant, which had taken place
this morning. Defence and prosecution both agreed that the points
they had already argued on the ban on extradition for political
offences were not affected by the superseding indictment.
Magistrate Baraitser
then made a statement about access to the court by remote hearing, by
which she meant online. She stated that a number of access details
had been sent out by mistake by the court without her agreement. She
had therefore revoked their access permissions.
As she spoke, we in
the court had no idea what had happened, but outside some
consternation was underway in that the online access of Amnesty
International, of Reporters without Borders, of John Pilger and of
forty others had been shut down. As these people were neither
permitted to attend the court nor observe online, this was causing
some consternation.
Baraitser went on to
say that it was important that the hearing was public, but she should
only agree remote access where it was “in the interests of
justice”, and having considered it she had decided it was not. She
explained this by stating that the public could normally observe from
within the courtroom, where she could control their behaviour. But if
they had remote access, she could not control their behaviour and
this was not in the “interests of justice”.
Baraitser did not
expand on what uncontrolled behaviour she anticipated from those
viewing via the internet. It is certainly true that an observer from
Amnesty sitting at home might be in their underwear, might be humming
the complete soundtrack to Mamma Mia, or might fart loudly. Precisely
why this would damage “the interests of justice” we are still
left to ponder, with no further help from the magistrate. But
evidently the interests of justice were, in her view, best served if
almost nobody could examine the “justice” too closely.
The next “housekeeping
issue” to be addressed was how witnesses should be heard. The
defence had called numerous witnesses, and each had lodged a written
statement. The prosecution and Baraitser both suggested that, having
given their evidence in writing, there was no need for defence
witnesses to give that evidence orally in open court. It would be
much quicker to go straight to cross-examination by the prosecution.
For the defence,
Edward Fitzgerald QC countered that justice should be seen to be done
by the public. The public should be able to hear the defence evidence
before hearing the cross-examination. It would also enable Julian
Assange to hear the evidence summarised, which was important for him
to follow the case given his lack of extended access to legal papers
while in Belmarsh prison.
Baraitser stated there
could not be any need for evidence submitted to her in writing to be
repeated orally. For the defence, Mark Summers QC was not prepared to
drop it and tension notably rose in the court. Summers stated it was
normal practice for there to be “an orderly and rational exposition
of the evidence”. For the prosecution, James Lewis QC denied this,
saying it was not normal procedure.
Baraitser stated she
could not see why witnesses should be scheduled an one hour forty
five minutes each, which was too long. Lewis agreed. He also added
that the prosecution does not accept that the defence’s expert
witnesses are expert witnesses. A Professor of journalism telling
about newspaper coverage did not count. An expert witness should only
be giving evidence on a technical point the court was otherwise
unqualified to consider.
Lewis also objected that in giving evidence
orally, defence witnesses might state new facts to which the Crown
had not had time to react. Baraitser noted that the written defence
statements were published online, so they were available to the
public.
Edward Fitzgerald QC
stood up to speak again, and Baraitser addressed him in a quite
extraordinary tone of contempt. What she said exactly was: “I have
given you every opportunity. Is there anything else, really, that you
want to say”, the word “really” being very heavily emphasised
and sarcastic. Fitzgerald refused to be sat down, and he stated that
the current case featured “substantial and novel issues going to
fundamental questions of human rights.” It was important the
evidence was given in public. It also gave the witnesses a chance to
emphasise the key points of their evidence and where they placed most
weight.
Baraitser called a
brief recess while she considered judgement on this issue, and then
returned. She found against the defence witnesses giving their
evidence in open court, but accepted that each witness should be
allowed up to half an hour of being led by the defence lawyers, to
enable them to orient themselves and reacquaint with their evidence
before cross-examination.
This half hour for
each witness represented something of a compromise, in that at least
the basic evidence of each defence witness would be heard by the
court and the public (insofar as the public was allowed to hear
anything). But the idea that a standard half hour guillotine is
sensible for all witnesses, whether they are testifying to a single
fact or to developments over years, is plainly absurd. What came over
most strongly from this question was the desire of both judge and
prosecution to railroad through the extradition with as little of the
case against it getting a public airing as possible.
As the judge adjourned
for a short break we thought these questions had now been addressed
and the rest of the day would be calmer. We could not have been more
wrong.
The court resumed with
a new defence application, led by Mark Summers QC, about the new
charges from the US governments new superseding indictment. Summers
took the court back over the history of this extradition hearing. The
first indictment had been drawn up in March of 2018. In January 2019
a provisional request for extradition had been made, which had been
implemented in April of 2019 on Assange’s removal from the Embassy.
In June 2019 this was replaced by the full request with a new, second
indictment which had been the basis of these proceedings before
today. A whole series of hearings had taken place on the basis of
that second indictment.
The new superseding
indictment dated from 20 June 2020. In February and May 2020 the US
government had allowed hearings to go ahead on the basis of the
second indictment, giving no warning, even though they must by that
stage have known the new superseding indictment was coming. They had
given neither explanation nor apology for this.
The defence had not
been properly informed of the superseding indictment, and indeed had
learnt of its existence only through a US government press release on
20 June. It had not finally been officially served in these
proceedings until 29 July, just six weeks ago. At first, it had not
been clear how the superseding indictment would affect the charges,
as the US government was briefing it made no difference but just gave
additional detail. But on 21 August 2020, not before, it finally
became clear in new US government submissions that the charges
themselves had been changed.
There were now new
charges that were standalone and did not depend on the earlier
allegations. Even if the 18 Manning related charges were rejected,
these new allegations could still form grounds for extradition. These
new allegations included encouraging the stealing of data from a bank
and from the government of Iceland, passing information on tracking
police vehicles, and hacking the computers both of individuals and of
a security company.
“How much of this
newly alleged material is criminal is anybody’s guess”, stated
Summers, going on to explain that it was not at all clear that an
Australian giving advice from outwith Iceland to someone in Iceland
on how to crack a code, was actually criminal if it occurred in the
UK. This was even without considering the test of dual criminality in
the US also, which had to be passed before the conduct was subject to
extradition.
It was unthinkable
that allegations of this magnitude would be the subject of a Part 2
extradition hearing within six weeks if they were submitted as a new
case. Plainly that did not give the defence time to prepare, or to
line up witnesses to these new charges. Among the issues relating to
these new charges the defence would wish to address, were that some
were not criminal, some were out of time limitation, some had already
been charged in other fora (including Southwark Crown Court and
courts in the USA).
There were also
important questions to be asked about the origins of some of these
charges and the dubious nature of the witnesses. In particular the
witness identified as “teenager” was the same person identified
as “Iceland 1” in the previous indictment. That indictment had
contained a “health warning” over this witness given by the US
Department of Justice.
This new indictment removed that warning. But
the fact was, this witness is Sigurdur Thordarson, who had been
convicted in Iceland in relation to these events of fraud, theft,
stealing Wikileaks money and material and impersonating Julian
Assange.
The indictment did not
state that the FBI had been “kicked out of Iceland for trying to
use Thordarson to frame Assange”, stated Summers baldly.
Summers said all these
matters should be ventilated in these hearings if the new charges
were to be heard, but the defence simply did not have time to prepare
its answers or its witnesses in the brief six weeks it had since
receiving them, even setting aside the extreme problems of contact
with Assange in the conditions in which he was being held in Belmarsh
prison.
The defence would
plainly need time to prepare answers to these new charges, but it
would plainly be unfair to keep Assange in jail for the months that
would take. The defence therefore suggested that these new charges
should be excised from the conduct to be considered by the court, and
they should go ahead with the evidence on criminal behaviour confined
to what conduct had previously been alleged.
Summers argued it was
“entirely unfair” to add what were in law new and separate
criminal allegations, at short notice and “entirely without warning
and not giving the defence time to respond to it. What is happening
here is abnormal, unfair and liable to create real injustice if
allowed to continue.”
The arguments
submitted by the prosecution now rested on these brand new
allegations.
For example, the prosecution now countered the arguments
on the rights of whistleblowers and the necessity of revealing war
crimes by stating that there can have been no such necessity to hack
into a bank in Iceland.
Summers concluded that
the “case should be confined to that conduct which the American
government had seen fit to allege in the eighteen months of the case”
before their second new indictment.
Replying to Summers
for the prosecution, Joel Smith QC replied that the judge was obliged
by the statute to consider the new charges and could not excise them.
“If there is nothing proper about the restitution of a new
extradition request after a failed request, there is nothing improper
in a superseding indictment before the first request had failed.”
Under the Extradition Act the court must decide only if the offence
is an extraditable offence and the conduct alleged meets the dual
criminality test. The court has no other role and no jurisdiction to
excise part of the request.
Smith stated that all
the authorities (precedents) were of charges being excised from a
case to allow extradition to go ahead on the basis of the remaining
sound charges, and those charges which had been excised were only on
the basis of double jeopardy. There was no example of charges being
excised to prevent an extradition. And the decision to excise charges
had only ever been taken after the conduct alleged had been examined
by the court. There was no example of alleged conduct not being
considered by the court. The defendant could seek extra time if
needed but the new allegations must be examined.
Summers replied that
Smith was “wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong”. “We are not saying
that you can never submit a new indictment, but you cannot do it six
weeks before the substantive hearing.” The impact of what Smith had
said amounted to no more than “Ha ha this is what we are doing and
you can’t stop us.” A substantive last minute change had been
made with no explanation and no apology. It could not be the case, as
Smith alleged, that a power existed to excise charges in fairness to
the prosecution, but no power existed to excise charges in fairness
to the defence.
Immediately Summers
sat down, Baraitser gave her judgement on this point. As so often in
this hearing, it was a pre-written judgement. She read it from a
laptop she had brought into the courtroom with her, and she had made
no alterations to that document as Summers and Smith had argued the
case in front of her.
Baraitser stated that
she had been asked as a preliminary move to excise from the case
certain conduct alleged. Mr Summers had described the receipt of new
allegations as extraordinary. However “I offered the defence the
opportunity to adjourn the case” to give them time to prepare
against the new allegations. “I considered of course that Mr
Assange was in custody. I hear that Mr Summers believes this is
fundamental unfairness”. But “the argument that we haven’t got
the time, should be remedied by asking for the time.”
Mr Summers had raised
issues of dual criminality and abuse of process; there was nothing
preventing him for raising these arguments in the context of
considering the request as now presented.
Baraitser simply
ignored the argument that while there was indeed “nothing to
prevent” the defence from answering the new allegations as each was
considered, they had been given no time adequately to prepare. Having
read out her pre-prepared judgement to proceed on the basis of the
new superseding indictment, Baraitser adjourned the court for lunch.
At the end of the day
I had the opportunity to speak to an extremely distinguished and
well-known lawyer on the subject of Baraitser bringing pre-written
judgements into court, prepared before she had heard the lawyers
argue the case before her. I understood she already had seen the
outline written arguments, but surely this was wrong. What was the
point in the lawyers arguing for hours if the judgement was
pre-written? What I really wanted to know was how far this was normal
practice.
The lawyer replied to
me that it absolutely was not normal practice, it was totally
outrageous. In a long and distinguished career, this lawyer had very
occasionally seen it done, even in the High Court, but there was
always some effort to disguise the fact, perhaps by inserting some
reference to points made orally in the courtroom. Baraitser was just
blatant. The question was, of course, whether it was her own
pre-written judgement she was reading out, or something she had been
given from on high.
This was a pretty
shocking morning. The guillotining of defence witnesses to hustle the
case through, indeed the attempt to ensure their evidence was not
spoken in court except those parts which the prosecution saw fit to
attack in cross-examination, had been breathtaking.
The effort by the
defence to excise the last minute superseding indictment had been a
fundamental point disposed of summarily. Yet again, Baraitser’s
demeanour and very language made little attempt to disguise a
hostility to the defence.
We were for the second
time in the day in a break thinking that events must now calm down
and get less dramatic. Again we were wrong.
Court resumed forty
minutes late after lunch as various procedural wrangles were
addressed behind closed doors. As the court resumed, Mark Summers for
the defence stood up with a bombshell.
Summers said that the
defence “recognised” the judgement Baraitser had just made – a
very careful choice of word, as opposed to “respected” which
might seem more natural. As she had ruled that the remedy to lack of
time was more time, the defence was applying for an adjournment to
enable them to prepare the answers to the new charges. They did not
do this lightly, as Mr Assange would continue in prison in very
difficult conditions during the adjournment.
Summers said the
defence was simply not in a position to gather the evidence to
respond to the new charges in a few short weeks, a situation made
even worse by Covid restrictions. It was true that on 14 August
Baraitser had offered an adjournment and on 21 August they had
refused the offer. But in that period of time, Mr Assange had not had
access to the new charges and they had not fully realised the extent
to which these were a standalone new case. To this date, Assange had
still not received the new prosecution Opening Note in prison, which
was a crucial document in setting out the significance of the new
charges.
Baraitser pointedly
asked whether the defence could speak to Assange in prison by
telephone. Summers replied yes, but these were extremely short
conversations. They could not phone Mr Assange; he could only call
out very briefly on the prison payphone to somebody’s mobile, and
the rest of the team would have to try to gather round to listen. It
was not possible in these very brief discussions adequately to
expound complex material.
Between 14 and 21 August they had been able
to have only two such very short phone calls. The defence could only
send documents to Mr Assange through the post to the prison; he was
not always given them, or allowed to keep them.
Baraitser asked how
long an adjournment was being requested. Summers replied until
January.
For the US government,
James Lewis QC replied that more scrutiny was needed of this request.
The new matters in the indictment were purely criminal. They do not
affect the arguments about the political nature of the case, or
affect most of the witnesses. If more time were granted, “with the
history of this case, we will just be presented with a sleigh of
other material which will have no bearing on the small expansion of
count 2”.
Baraitser adjourned
the court “for ten minutes” while she went out to consider her
judgement. In fact she took much longer. When she returned she looked
peculiarly strained.
Baraitser ruled that
on 14 August she had given the defence the opportunity to apply for
an adjournment, and given them seven days to decide. On 21 August the
defence had replied they did not want an adjournment. They had not
replied that they had insufficient time to consider. Even today the
defence had not applied to adjourn but rather had applied to excise
charges. They “cannot have been surprised by my decision” against
that application.
Therefore they must have been prepared to proceed
with the hearing. Their objections were not based on new
circumstance. The conditions of Assange in Belmarsh had not changed
since 21 August. They had therefore missed their chance and the
motion to adjourn was refused.
The courtroom
atmosphere was now highly charged. Having in the morning refused to
cut out the superseding indictment on the grounds that the remedy for
lack of time should be more time, Baraitser was now refusing to give
more time. The defence had called her bluff; the state had apparently
been confident that the effective solitary confinement in Belmarsh
was so terrible that Assange would not request more time. I rather
suspect that Julian was himself bluffing, and made the call at
lunchtime to request more time in the full expectation that it would
be refused, and the rank hypocrisy of the proceedings exposed.
I previously
blogged about how the procedural trickery of the superseding
indictment being used to replace the failing second indictment – as
Smith said for the prosecution “before it failed” – was
something that sickened the soul. Today in the courtroom you could
smell the sulphur.
Well, yet again we
were left with the feeling that matters must now get less exciting.
This time we were right and they became instead excruciatingly banal.
We finally moved on to the first witness, Professor Mark Feldstein,
giving evidence to the court by videolink for the USA. It was not
Professor Feldstein’s fault the day finished in confused
anti-climax. The court was unable to make the video technology work.
For ten broken minutes out of about forty Feldstein was briefly able
to give evidence, and even this was completely unsatisfactory as he
and Mark Summers were repeatedly speaking over each other on the
link.
Professor Feldstein’s
evidence will resume tomorrow (now in fact today) and I think rather
than split it I shall give the full account then. Meantime you can
see these excellent summaries from Kevin
Gosztola or the morning
and afternoon
reports from James Doleman. In fact, I should be grateful if you did,
so you can see that I am neither inventing nor exaggerating the facts
of these startling events.
If you asked me to sum
up today in a word, that word would undoubtedly be “railroaded”.
it was all about pushing through the hearing as quickly as possible
and with as little public exposure as possible to what is happening.
Access denied, adjournment denied, exposition of defence evidence
denied, removal of superseding indictment charges denied. The
prosecution was plainly failing in that week back in Woolwich in
February, which seems like an age ago. It has now been given a new
boost.
How the defence will
deal with the new charges we shall see. It seems impossible that they
can do this without calling new witnesses to address the new facts.
But the witness lists had already been finalised on the basis of the
old charges. That the defence should be forced to proceed with the
wrong witnesses seems crazy, but frankly, I am well past being
surprised by anything in this fake process.
Craig’s coverage of
Julian’s case is entirely dependent on your financial support.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th
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Andrew
Fowler is een Australische gelauwerde onderzoeksjournalist, die
eerder werkte voor ABC. Hij heeft zich vastgebeten in de zaak
Assange, de meer dan schunnige vervolging van een man die zich
op uitstekende wijze heeft gekwijt van zijn taak als
onderzoeksjournalist en die een groot aantal oorlogsmisdaden en
smerige en gewelddadige politieke spelletjes van de VS (en bondgenoten) heeft blootgelegd……
Ondanks dat is Assange door zijn ‘collega’s’ van de reguliere media uitgemaakt voor
verrader en charlatan, terwijl deze ‘journalisten’ zich achter de enorme
terreur hebben geschaard die de westerse wereld onder aanvoering van de
VS hebben uitgeoefend en nog uitoefenen in het Midden-Oosten, Afrika en Zuid-Amerika (daar o.a. met grootschalige geheime operaties), ook al is die enorme terreur, veelal in de vorm van illegale oorlogen, die zogenaamd
gelegitimeerd zijn met overduidelijke leugens en dat niet één keer maar
meerdere keren!!! Overigens moet je daar Oekraïne ook nog aan toevoegen als een land dat door ingrijpen van de VS in grote ellende is beland en waar men NB oorlog voert tegen de bevolkingsgroep die de voormalige president Janoekovytsj democratisch (en dus legaal) heeft gekozen en dat in door internationale waarnemers goedgekeurde verkiezingen…..
In het
volgende artikel van John Kendall Hawkins, gepubliceerd op CounterPunch, komt het hele verhaal van Assange nog eens
voorbij en wordt uitvoerig ingegaan op de manier waarop Assange
geestelijk en daarmee lichamelijk is gemarteld, eerst in de
Ecuadoraanse ambassade (in de tijd voorafgaand aan zijn illegale
arrestatie door de politie van Londen) en daarna in de Belmarsh
gevangenis, waar hij in isolatie(-folter) wordt gehouden……
Het
artikel met veel verwijzingen, o.a, naar de film ‘Not in our name’,
gemaakt door John Furse, waarna met een paar bekenden wordt gesproken
over het vreselijke lot dat Assange heeft getroffen, waarbij hij
schandalig genoeg ook nog werd beschuldigd van verkrachting, een
smerige streek van het Zweedse ministerie van justitie, uiteraard met
hulp van terreurorganisatie CIA…….. De journalisten die zo’n
commentaar hebben op Assange, alleen omdat hij de waarheid naar
buiten bracht (en niemand in gevaar heeft gebracht zoals zo vaak
wordt gelogen als zou hij dit wel hebben gedaan), zouden minstens de film van Furse moeten zien……
Als
Julian Assange wordt uitgeleverd en veroordeeld in de VS, zal dat een
grote klap zijn voor de echt onafhankelijke journalistiek op de sociale media en op zeker dat met de uitspraak andere onderzoeksjournalisten worden
gewaarschuwd de mond te houden als het om zware misdaden van de overheid
gaat…..
Assange zal in de VS op zeker tot een heel
lange gevangenisstraf worden veroordeeld, terwijl hij in feite al meer dan 9 jaar
heeft vastgezeten en dat voor het vertellen van de waarheid en het bewijs daarvoor te hebben gegeven, NB met officiële documenten (op Wikileaks), zaken waarop het
volk recht heeft!! Een groot aantal journalisten van de reguliere
media moeten zich dan ook doodschamen dat ze Assange zo hebben
besmeurd……
Lees het
volgende uitstekende artikel, zie de video en geeft het door, tijd dat de wereld
wakker wordt en Assange in de armen sluit, het is een schande dat
deze man wordt gefolterd voor het naar buiten brengen van de smerige
waarheid die men in het westen wil verdoezelen…… Vergeet niet dat
ook Nederland blindelings heeft meegewertk aan de massamoorden van de
VS in de illegale oorlogen die deze terreurentiteit o.a. in het Midden-Oosten en Afghanistan heeft gevoerd en nog voert……. Met die illegale oorlogen waren de heren/dames journalisten het zoals gezegd wel eens, zonder
naar de zogenaamde redenen daarvoor te kijken (leugens van de CIA, NSA en dat niet zelden in samenwerking met andere geheime diensten als de MIVD), laat staan deze te onderzoeken………
(en dat zijn dezelfde journalisten die de woorden fake news in de
mond durven te nemen als ze het hebben over de onafhankelijke journalistiek op de sociale media…..)
Andrew Fowler is an Australian
award-winning investigative journalist and a former reporter for the
ABC’s Foreign Correspondent and Four Corners programs. and the
author of The
Most Dangerous Man in the World: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks’
Fight for Freedom.
This is an updated edition of his 2011 account of the rise and
political imprisonment of Assange.
Much of that account explained how
Assange seemingly inevitably moved toward an adversarial positioning
against American imperialism abroad. He was a tonic for the
indifference expressed by so many ordinary Americans in the traumatic
aftermath of 9/11 and the rise of the surveillance state. Boston
Legal’s Alan Shore (James Spader) seems to sum
it up succinctly.
His updated version discusses the
torture Assange is currently undergoing at Belmarsh prison in
Britain. Here is a must-see
film regarding his torture.
His book also contains the latest
on UC Global’s comprehensive spying on Assange and his visitors at
the Ecuadorian embassy in London in the last year of his ‘refuge’
there. UC Global is a Spanish security company hired to protect the
embassy. It has since been revealed that they were passing on data to
American intelligence, presumably the CIA.
Certainly, Fowler implies
such a connection in his updated book, citing two Assange hacking
breaches of US government servers, each of which, Fowler writes, the
CIA went berserk, as if they’d been hit by a foreign enemy. In the
last (new) chapter of the book, “The Casino,” Fowler describes
how outraged the CIA was when Assange published their hacking tools,
known as Vault 7, on Wikileaks: “Sean Roche, the deputy director of
digital innovation at the CIA, remembers the reaction from those
inside the CIA. He said he got a call from another CIA director who
was out of breath: ‘It was the equivalent of a digital Pearl
Harbor.’” Below is my recent interview with the author.
* Note: Upon his release of the
Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg was referred to as “the most
dangerous man in the world.”
What is the up-to-date
status of Julian’s health?
It seems quite clear that there is
an attempt by the British and US administrations to destroy Assange,
either driving him to suicide or a psychological breakdown. He has
had a lung condition for a number of years, which has not been
properly treated, and is clearly suffering from huge stress. During
his last court appearance over a video link, there were long pauses
between his words, even when speaking his own name.
When Chelsea Manning was
imprisoned at Quantico she spent 23 hours per day in solitary
confinement and was stripped naked at night. How does Julian’s
treatment at Belmarsh compare? Manning’s treatment was said to be
an attempt to coerce her into ratting on others, including,
presumably Assange. What do you see as the ultimate purpose of
Assange’s treatment? And how does it amount to torture?
The ultimate purpose of Assange’s
treatment is a warning to others. Particularly other journalists.
It’s the modern day equivalent of crucifixion, putting heads of
enemies on spikes, or public hangings. The torture of Assange
involves two main areas: being confined to three rooms in a single
building for 7 years, and unable to leave without fear of arrest and
extradition to Sweden which was playing an underhand role to allow
Assange to be extrdited to the US. As the UN rapporteur on torture
Nils Meltzer wrote that never in the two decades he had spent
investigating war crimes had he ever seen such a ganging up of so
many powerful nations against one individual. It is a testament to
Assange’s mental strength that he resisted at all.
No effort was made by the
Swedes to “question” Assange once he was lifted from the
Ecuadorian Embassy, suggesting that their purpose all along was, as
Assange and his defenders averred, a pretext for hand-over. You’d
think there was some way to nix the bail jump charge given this
likelihood of intergovernmental collusion. Thoughts?
There are no outstanding
allegations for Assange to answer in Sweden. They were always only
allegations, rather than charges. It is important to understand that
if the Swedish prosecutors had charged Assange, they would have had
to reveal the evidence of the ‘offences’ to his lawyers upon
which those charges were based. And the evidence was not only thin,
it pointed to a conspiracy. So it was possible to keep Assange in the
embassy, while the UK prosecuting authority worked at ways of getting
him extradited to Sweden.
There seems little doubt that the plan all
along was to use Sweden as a holding pen for Assange as the US
applied for his extradition. It is possible he could take his case to
the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), but the Brexit decision,
makes this area extremely murky.
Can you provide more
details about the UC Global, the Spanish company brought into the
Ecuadorian Embassy to spy on Assange? Do we know more about what data
that they gathered? Has a more definitive connection to the CIA been
made? Has any further effort been put into place to quash the
extradition process based on this fact alone? (He could never expect
a fair trial back in the US if such surveillance and potentially
framing were done.)
UC Global not only recorded
hundreds of conversations inside the Ecuadorian embassy, but also photographed
the phones [and] their location identifying IMEI numbers,
passports and other documents of everyone who visited Assange in the
embassy between 2015 and 2018. It’s my understanding that the case
running in Madrid at the moment against the former CEO of UC Global,
David Morales, who is charged with illegally spying on Assange and
his lawyers (a specifically illegal act in Europe) will be used by
the Assange legal team to argue that the US extradition case should
be thrown out. It is my understanding that if any material gathered
spying on Assange and his lawyers is used, or even known about, by
those involved in the US prosecution – the charges must be
withdrawn. There has been no definitive connection to the CIA. The
closest I have managed to make the link is to the State Department
and White House confidantes.
Snowden’s, Permanent
Record is one of the best reads I’ve had in quite some time.
You could argue that his revelations are equally, if not more
significant, than what Assange offers up through Wikileaks. Where do
you stand on the difference of value, if any, between Wikileaks and
the Snowden revelations?
The main differences are: Assange
is a recipient of information which as a journalist he publishes.
Snowden is a source. When it comes to quantifying the different
values of their work, Assange mainly provided information and
analysis, whereas Snowden exposed intelligence gathering systems. In
the source-journalist relationship, they both need each other. Both
exposed the activities of a war-making machine. Without Assange it is
unlikely that we would have had Snowden. It was WikiLeaks that opened
up the public on a truly massive scale to a secret world of horror
and deception which until then had been largely hidden from view. For
Snowden’s part he brought the argument home that it wasn’t just
foreign governments who were being spied on, it was the Americans
themselves. They both played a significant and at times overlapping
role in revealing the truth about the world we’re in.
Assange and Snowden seem to
have had their differences over the years. Snowden describes in PR
how he chose his nickname: “The final name I chose for my
correspondence was ‘Verax,’ Latin for ‘speaker of truth,’ in
the hopes of proposing an alternative to the model of a hacker called
‘Mendax’ (‘speaker of lies’)—the pseudonym of the young man
who’d grow up to become WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange.” (p.193)
There was irritability there between them, and Snowden didn’t trust
Assange with his life (fearing that a dump, rather than a
journo-processed revelation system, would close off future
whistleblower arguments). His first choice had been the NYT,
but their suppression of James Risen’s 2004 pre-election piece on
STELLARWIND enraged him and he ended up going with Greenwald et
al, instead.
Snowden suggests character differences between the two, but on the
other hand Assange really pissed the US government off when he sent a
woman to rescue Snowden from Hong Kong. Some of us thought Obama was
going to shoot down Bolivia One with president Evo Morales on board
because Obama thought Snowden was onboard.
I see in Permanent
Record Snowden says he
decided not to go with WikiLeaks because of a change of policy to
publish material unredacted, or ‘pristine’ as he calls it. Not
sure why he says this because WL policy is to redact. [Here’s
Snowden’s explanation.] WL did put all the
Iraq/Afghanistan/Cablegate documents online un-redacted, but only
after David Leigh of the Guardian
published the password — and the material was already out on the
internet. I’ve never asked Assange this, but there is another
Mendax. In the 1920s an Australian science fiction writer Erle Cox’a
Mendax was an eccentric inventor. Mendax experiments with ‘matter
transmission’ ‘invisibility’ and ‘extracting gold from
seawater’. There is a tension between the two, no doubt about it.
Snowden still errs on the side of secrecy and Assange on the side of
publication, possibly the difference between an ex-intelligence agent
and a journalist.
Covid-19 seems to be the
wild card in the deck, vis-a-vis Assange’s extradition to the US.
If he doesn’t contract the illness in prison, then his extradition
next year could prove problematic — courts, protests, circus. How
do you think the virus will affect the legal proceedings? Do you
think he’ll be better off under Biden’s DOJ? Or worse, given the
perceived threat to the Democrats he represents? Do you see a way for
his defense to exploit the DNC/Russia hack dishonesty?
Not sure how Covid will impact
anything much, other than slowing down the process, which in itself
is extremely problematic for Assange. He’s already been in prison
or under house arrest (including the embassy) for nine years. I’m
not sure what it takes to embarrass the UK government into refusing
the extradition request, but the new indictment is surely turning the
political prosecution into a farce. The US now wants to re-arrest
Assange to wrap in a new indictment because the first one was likely
to fail. In past years it might have been possible for the UK
Government to reject this deceptive or incompetent behaviour by the
US, but Britain is a spent force now on the world stage, and the US
can do whatever it wants.
As for Biden’s DoJ, he’s called
Assange a ‘high-tech
terrorist’ and has recently said though he favours freedom of
the press it should not compromise US national security. Not much
hope there.
One hope Assange has is the
possible pardoning of Snowden. It plays to Trump’s ‘deep state’
argument that the intelligence agencies are out of control and were
involved in the fabrication of Russian collusion. [Here’s Snowden
referencing his work for the
“Deep State”] Assange’s work has exposed CIA atrocities
(which supports Trump’s position) but WikiLeaks has also revealed
evidence of war crimes by the US military, an establishment so
admired by his core supporters. I fear that a Snowden pardon, much as
I would personally welcome it, would only further isolate Assange.
If
Assange goes down, do you see a future for journalism in the world —
given America’s so-called leadership in this area, by way of the
holy first amendment, but with dwindling global newspapers. The
Guardian, WaPo and
the NYT
remain the only papers of record available in every international
terminal in the world — and sales falling for them, the fight over
what’s real news and what isn’t underway (a proxy war to control
the narrative), how do you see the fight for journalism ahead?
If Assange goes down, it will be
the third domino. First, the rising power of executive government;
second, the destruction of the, at times, countervailing power of the
mainstream media, including public broadcasters who draw their
political power from their audiences (and thus to a certain extent
are independent). The internet has savaged media budgets which has
weakened the overall media environment and empowered governments to
attack and cut public broadcasters. Assange who used the internet as
a weapon for journalism provided a way to re-energise old media
structures — engage readers and challenge executive government
authority. He provided a way to democratise journalism. It is the
reason he is such a threat to the hegemony of the US led five eyes
nations, who until recently in a uni-polar political and strategic
world, have ruled supreme.
I sometimes marvel at the
effect on journalism and even constitutional issues in America that
Australians have had. Early on, Assange seems to have declared war
on the DoD and, later, the US State Department; John Pilger has,
with his interview with the CIA “rogue”
Duane Clarridge, exposed the full fuckin hubris of American foreign
policy; and, Fox News has so dumbed down the political conversation
in America that it may be heading for a fate like that depicted in Idiocracy.
Any thoughts?
There’s a strange contradiction
in Australia. Australians are very conservative, and cautious, but
part of the national identity is tied to the notion of
anti-authoritarianism, dating back to the nation’s convict past.
The degradation of the mainly poor, transported to Australia from the
UK and Ireland two centuries ago for often minor crimes, created a
bedrock of antagonism against the ruling ‘elites’. This long
history of dissent in Australia has produced outstanding journalists
such as Pilger and Assange, Wilfred Burchett and Philip Knightly. I
can think of no better way to explain how Assange and Murdoch became
two of the most influential global media figures in the past century.
Murdoch rose to power as an anti-establishment figure in the UK and
Assange has done the same on a global basis.
John Kendall Hawkins
is an American ex-pat freelancer based in Australia. He is a
former reporter for The New Bedford Standard-Times.
=======================================
Voor meer berichten over Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, CIA en/of Wikileaks, klik op het desbetreffende label, direct onder dit bericht.
Ongelofelijk
maar waar: YouTube zal in aanloop naar de presidentsverkiezingen in
de VS video’s verwijderen als deze informatie bevatten die is
verkregen via hacken (en waarschijnlijk zal YouTube dat ook doen in aanloop
naar verkiezingen in andere delen van de westerse wereld, zoals
Nederland)…….
Het is
alsof je tegen een klokkenluider zegt dat die haar/zijn informatie
niet mag gebruiken op een sociaal platform en al helemaal niet als daarmee een smerige corrupte neoliberale ploert van een politicus wordt besmeurd…. Zoals het inderdaad is geregeld met het meer dan belachelijke Klokkenluidershuis in ons land, als je daarnaar toe gaat als
klokkenluider, moet je als eerste een verklaring ondertekenen dat je de informatie waarmee je naar buiten wilt treden,
niet verder mag verspreiden, sterker nog: je mag er verder met niemand over spreken!! Geen wonder dan ook dat het Klokkenluidershuis is verworden tot een totaal mislukt project, een schande van jewelste!!
Caitlin
Johnstone, die het hieronder opgenomen artikel heeft geschreven,
merkt dan ook volkomen terecht op dat informatie die aantoont dat
iemand bijvoorbeeld corrupt is, juist moet worden geopenbaard, hoe je
ook aan die informatie bent gekomen, immers daar heeft het volk in een echte democratie recht
op!! (zij zegt het met andere woorden, maar daar komt het wel op neer)
YouTube zal dan ook vanaf nu dan alle informatie censureren die van
Wikileaks komt…… Immers ook
over Trump en Biden is het e.e.a. te vinden op Wikileaks…….
Een andere consequentie van deze regelrechte censuur (alleen ‘thuishorend’ in een dictatuur) is dat ook informatie uit een hack, maar die in een ander land wordt geplaatst, zal worden gecensureerd……..
Johnstone stelt verder dat men elke niet welgevallige informatie (althans door de overheid als niet geschikt geacht voor de ogen van het volk) zal worden afgedaan als ‘gehackt’ en dus op die basis onderhevig zal zijn aan censuur…….. Precies wat er in 2016 gebeurde, toen klokkenluider Seth Rich, lid van Clintons campagneteam (DNC), mails van Hillary Clinton doorspeelde naar Wikileaks, dit daar hij woenend was over de smerige manipulaties tegen destijds presidentskandidaat Bernie Sanders……. Het team van Clinton ging in de aanval door te stellen dat de Russen de servers van het DNC hadden gehackt en de gevonden informatie doorspeelden aan Wikileaks, daarmee wisten Clinton en haar team de aandacht af te leiden van het smerige spel dat zij speelde……
Grote techreuzen als Google en Facebook hebben volgens de New York Times overleg gevoerd met overheidsinstanties hoe de presidentsverkiezingen van a.s. november veilig te stellen, daarvoor hebben ze zelfs een coalitie gevormd…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! En dan te bedenken dat Facebook politici laat liegen op haar platform (dit met persoonlijke toestemming van Zuckerberg), alsof dat niet een heel smerige manipulatie is van deze verkiezingen!!! Meer dan
schandalig, hoe de grote techreuzen als Google en Facebook de valse tanden nog eens
laten zien…….
Facebook doet zoals gezegd het tegenovergestelde: alle
leugens die politici brengen in aanloop van de presidentsverkiezingen
in de VS worden getolereerd, terwijl Zuckerberg de opperploert van dit concern zo’n grote bek had over het manipuleren van deze verkiezingen in 2016 zogenaamd door Rusland (waarvoor nog
steeds geen flinter aan bewijs is gegeven…..)
Hetzelfde
geldt ook voor het geschreeuw over fake news (nepnieuws) op de
sociale media, terwijl deze schreeuwers, de reguliere media, hele archieven vol hebben geschreven met fake
news, bijvoorbeeld over de zojuist genoemde manipulatie van de
verkiezingen, of wat dacht je van de berichtgeving voorafgaand aan en
tijdens de illegale oorlogen die de VS is begonnen, bewijzen te
over!!
Hoe is het mogelijk dat men zo openlijk spreekt over censuur en de reguliere westerse media en poltici hierover zwijgen als het graf?? Blijkbaar staat men achter deze volgende stap richting een smerige fascistische dictatuur……..
Lees het
schrijven van Johnstone en zegt het voort, aan deze vorm van censuur
moet zo snel mogelijk een eind worden gemaakt, anders wordt het
internet een enge plek waar burgers kunnen worden bedonderd en dat
zonder enige ter zake doende kritiek, ofwel de waarheid over diverse smerige zaken zal worden geweerd zodat men het volk dom kan houden en men aan de top kan flikken wat men wil………
In
what it calls an effort to make itself “a more reliable source
for election-related news and information,” YouTube has
announced
that it will be removing “content that contains hacked
information, the disclosure of which may interfere with democratic
processes, such as elections and censuses.”
“For
example, videos that contain hacked information about a political
candidate shared with the intent to interfere in an election,”
adds the Google-owned video sharing platform.
This
by itself is an alarming assault on human communication and press
freedom. If there is authentic information out there about either of
the candidates who are up for the most powerful elected position on
the planet, the world is entitled to know about it, regardless of how
that information was acquired. Monopolistic tech oligarchs have no
business barring us from learning about and discussing that
information.
Immensely
powerful people should not be permitted to have secrets from the
public anyway. The amount of power one has should be directly inverse
to the amount of secrecy they are permitted to have. If you’re
anywhere near the presidency of the United States of America, the
secrecy you are entitled to should be zero.
If
a hacker is able to get ahold of accurate information about Donald
Trump or Joe Biden, that information is ours. We’re entitled to it.
Anyone who tries to obstruct our access to that information is
stealing from us. It’s absolutely ridiculous that we have a society
where people are permitted to both rule over us and keep secrets from
us as it is without government-aligned
tech plutocrats silencing our attempts to learn what those secrets
might be.
Moreover,
no YouTube moderator will be in any position to definitively say
whether most information that comes out is hacked. They’d only be
able to do what the mass media did with the 2016 WikiLeaks drops and
cite unproven assertions by opaque intelligence agencies who have a
proven track record of lying, assertions which turned
out to be far more dubious
than most Americans realize. Documents or video could be leaked about
a candidate and US intelligence agencies could just declare it a
“hack” and have any YouTube videos about it immediately
censored.
“[T]he
great majority of leaked information — the lifeblood of
investigative journalism — is anonymous. Often, like in the cases
of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner, whistleblowers
face serious consequences if their names become attached to documents
exposing government or corporate malfeasance. But without a name to
go with a document, the difference between leaked data and hacked
data is impossible to define. Thus, powerful people and organizations
could claim data was hacked, rather than leaked, and simply block all
discussion of the matter on the platform.”
So
this in and of itself is an outrage. But the way things are playing
out it could wind up being a lot worse if damning information about a
candidate surfaces prior to the November election.
So
there’s already reason to be concerned that YouTube’s new attack on
press freedoms will spread to social media outlets like Twitter and
Facebook. Add in the fact that these platforms are openly
coordinating with each other and with the US government to silence
speech deemed “online meddling” and “election
interference” and it looks a lot more likely.
The
New York Timespublished
an article
on Wednesday titled “Google, Facebook and Others Form Tech
Coalition to Secure U.S. Election”, later
changed
to “Google, Facebook and Others Broaden Group to Secure U.S.
Election”.
“Facebook,
Google and other major tech companies said on Wednesday that they had
added new partners and met with government agencies in their efforts
to secure the November election,” NYT reports. “The group,
which is seeking to prevent the kind of online meddling and foreign
interference that sullied the 2016 presidential election, previously
consisted of some of the large social media firms, including Twitter
and Microsoft in addition to Facebook and Google. Among the new
participants is the Wikimedia Foundation.”
Monopolistic tech companies which collaborate in unison with government agencies to prevent unauthorized narratives from circulating on the internet are conducting state censorship. Own it.
So
if information emerges about a candidate in an “October
surprise” in a way that can be credibly spun as a “hack”
like the 2016 WikiLeaks drops were, it’s entirely likely that we will
see some interference in people’s ability to communicate about it on
not just one but multiple social media platforms. How much
communication interference we’d be subjected to is unknown at this
time, but it certainly looks like there are measures in place to at
least implement some under certain circumstances.
Imagine
if documents or video footage were posted online somewhere and we’d
get blocked from sharing its URLs on Facebook or suspended for
posting screenshots of it on Twitter. The way iron-fisted censorship
practices are already unfolding, it’s a possibility that looks not at
all remote.
Anyway,
something to be on alert for.
______________________
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Voor meer berichten over censuur, manipulatie, klokkenluidershuis, Wikileaks, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Microsoft, Snowden en Assange, klik op het desbetreffende label, direct onder dit bericht. (Assange wordt wel getoond op een foto, maar wordt niet genoemd, echter als oprichter van Wikileaks uitermate belangrijk in deze)
Nog
steeds ongelofelijk dat de Labour top liever de verkiezingen in Groot-Brittannië verloor
dan Corbyn deze te laten winnen. De smeercampagne van een aantal Labourleden tegen Corbyn en
zijn zogenaamde antisemitisme, kostte hem vorig jaar de Britse verkiezingen, een campagne gesteund door het Britse leger, de pro-Israëlische lobby en de reguliere (massa-) media, inclusief de zogenaamde onafhankelijke BBC……
De
nieuwe voorzitter van Labour, Keir Starmer, heeft van meet af aan
alle pogingen om Corbyn alsnog te rehabiliteren gesaboteerd en heeft
rapporten laten verdwijnen die e.e.a. aantoonden……. De zogenaamde
klokkenluiders, prominente Labour politici die de partij zouden
hebben verlaten vanwege het antisemitische gehalte, wordt nog steeds
de hand boven het hoofd gehouden, ook al konden zij totaal geen
bewijs geven voor Corbyns antisemitisme, anders dan kritiek van
Corbyn op de bloedige terreur van Israël tegen de Palestijnen als antisemitisch af te doen……..
Alsof
het antisemitisch is als je een land aanklaagt voor het vervolgen van
een minderheid, zoals de Joden werden vervolgd door
nazi-Duitsland….. Corbyn was juist een anti-fascist en heeft
meermaals de holocaust als een beestachtige massamoord
neergezet……(hij was zelfs bevriend met Hajo Meijer, een Joodse concentratiekamp overlevende, die jarenlang bestuurslid was van Een Ander Joods Geluid……)
De psychopathische neoliberale opperschoft Keir Starmer
De holocaust is geen excuus voor de slachtoffers om andere volkeren
te vervolgen, hen hun land af te nemen en middels bruut geweld en massamoord te
verjagen, gevolgd door het afknijpen van het Palestijnse volk door Israël met: -moord op vooral ongewapende Palestijnse burgers en hun kinderen, -het
onleefbaar maken van hun overgebleven woongebieden door het creëren van een groot watertekort en een zelfde tekort aan elektriciteit, -deze gebieden
onbereikbaar maken voor boeren en -de continue vernedering van deze
mensen bij de Israëlische blokkades op de West Bank…… Om over de vreselijke situatie in de openluchtgevangenis Gazastrook nog maar te zwijgen….. Oh en dan vergeet ik nog het vernietigen van ontwikkelingsprojecten voor de Palestijnen door Israël, projecten bekostigd door de EU en haar lidstaten (zoals Nederland..)…..
Lees het
volgende artikel dat ik overnam van Information Clearing House,
waarin uitgebreid wordt aangetoond dat Corbyn en leden van zijn team
op een schunnige manier zijn gedemoniseerd, zonder enige
bewijsvoering…. Het ging veel te goed met Corbyn en men wilde koste
wat kost voorkomen dat Labour een meer sociaal karakter zou
krijgen….. Het is nu zelfs zover dat Starmer, de opvolger van Corbyn, echte antisemieten in
zijn team heeft aangesteld…… Fascisten als Rachel Reeves die Nancy
Astor prees in een Twitterbericht, Astor was een bewonderaar van
Hitler en daarmee een bekende antisemitische fascist, Reeves weigerde botweg de ‘tweet’ te
verwijderen…… Ongelofelijk dat de reguliere westerse media (ook in Nederland) die zo op de antisemitische trom roffelden als het over Corbyn ging, er in dit overduidelijke geval van antisemitisme totaal het zwijgen toe doen……
UK
Labour party teeters on brink of civil war over antisemitism New
leader Keir Starmer spurns two chances to clear Jeremy Corbyn’s
name, preferring instead to pay damages to former staffBy
Jonathan Cook
July 31, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
– Jeremy Corbyn, the former left-wing leader of Britain’s Labour
party, is once again making headlines over an “antisemitism
problem” he supposedly oversaw during his five years at the head of
the party.
This time, however,
the assault on his reputation is being led not by the usual suspects
– pro-Israel lobbyists and a billionaire-owned media – but by
Keir Starmer, the man who succeeded him.
Since becoming Labour
leader in April, Starmer has helped to bolster the evidence-free
narrative of a party plagued by antisemitism under Corbyn. That has
included Starmer’s refusal to exploit two major opportunities to
challenge that narrative.
Had those chances been
grasped, Labour might have been able to demonstrate that Corbyn was
the victim of an underhand campaign to prevent him from reaching
power.
Starmer, had he chosen
to, could have shown that Corbyn’s long history as an anti-racism
campaigner was twisted to discredit him. His decades of vocal support
for Palestinian rights were publicly recast as a supposed irrational
hatred of Israel based on an antipathy to Jews.
But instead Starmer
chose to sacrifice his predecessor rather than risk being tarred with
the same brush.
As a result, Labour
now appears to be on the brink of open war. Competing rumors suggest
Corbyn may be preparing to battle former staff through the courts,
while Starmer may exile his predecessor from the party.
Rocketing
membership
Corbyn’s troubles
were inevitable the moment the mass membership elected him Labour
leader in 2015 in defiance of the party bureaucracy and most Labour
MPs. Corbyn was determined to revive the party as a vehicle for
democratic socialism and end Britain’s role meddling overseas as a
junior partner to the global hegemon of the United States.
That required breaking
with Labour’s capture decades earlier, under Tony Blair, as a party
of neoliberal orthodoxy at home and neoconservative orthodoxy
abroad.
Until Corbyn arrived
on the scene, Labour had become effectively a second party of capital
alongside Britain’s ruling Conservative party, replicating the
situation in the US with the Democratic and Republican parties.
His attempts to push
the party back towards democratic socialism attracted hundreds of
thousands of new members, quickly making Labour the largest party in
Europe. But it also ensured a wide-ranging alliance of establishment
interests was arrayed against him, including
the British military, the corporate media, and the pro-Israel
lobby.
Politicized
investigation
Unlike Corbyn, Starmer
has not previously shown any inclination to take on the might of the
establishment. In fact, he had previously proven himself its willing
servant.
As head of Britain’s
prosecution service in 2013, for example, his department issued thinly
veiled threats to Sweden to continue its legal pursuit of
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who had sought political asylum in
London’s Ecuadorean embassy, even as Swedish interest in the case
waned.
With his background in
realpolitik, Starmer appears to have grasped quickly the danger of
being seen to share any common ground with Corbyn – not only should
he pursue significant elements of his predecessor’s program, but by
challenging the carefully crafted establishment narrative around
Corbyn.
For this reason, he
has refused to seize either of the two chances presented to him to
demonstrate that Labour had no more of an antisemitism problem than
the relatively
marginal one that exists more generally in British society.
That failure is likely
to prove all the more significant given that in a matter of weeks
Labour is expected to face the findings of an investigation
by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The highly
politicized watchdog body, which took on the probe into Labour
while refusing
to investigate plentiful evidence of an Islamophobia problem in
the Conservative party, is expected to shore up the
Corbyn-antisemitism narrative.
Labour has said
it will readily accept the Commission’s findings, whatever they
are. The watchdog body is likely to echo the prevailing narrative
that Corbyn attracted left-wingers to the party who were
ideologically tainted with antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.
As a result, or so the argument goes, Jew hatred flourished on his
watch.
Starmer has already
declared “zero
tolerance” of antisemitism, but he has appeared willing – in
line with pro-Israel lobbyists in his party – to conflate
Jew hatred with trenchant criticism of Israel.
The barely veiled
intention is to drive Corbynite members out of Labour – either
actively through suspensions or passively as their growing
disillusionment leads to a mass exodus.
By distancing himself
from his predecessor, Starmer knows no dirt will stick to him even as
the Equality Commission drags Corbyn’s name through the mud.
Sabotaged
from within
Starmer rejected the
first chance to salvage the reputations of Corbyn and the wider
Labour membership days after he became leader.
In mid-April, an
850-page internal party report was leaked, stuffed with the text of
lengthy email exchanges and WhatsApp chats by senior party staff.
They showed that, as had long been suspected, Corbyn’s own
officials worked hard to sabotage
his leadership from within.
Staff at headquarters
still loyal to the Blair vision of the party even went so far as to
actively throw the 2017 general election, when Labour was a
hair’s-breadth away from ousting the Conservatives from government.
These officials hoped a crushing defeat would lead to Corbyn’s
removal from office.
The report described a
“hyper-factional atmosphere”, with officials, including
then-deputy leader Tom Watson, regularly referring to Corbyn and his
supporters as “Trots”
– a reference to Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of a violent
Communist revolution in Russia more than a century ago.
Corbynites were thrown
out of the party on the flimsiest
pretexts, such as describing those like Blair who led the 2003
attack on Iraq as “warmongers”.
But one early, favored
tactic by staff in the disciplinary unit was to publicize
antisemitism cases and then drag out their resolution to create the
impression that the party under Corbyn was not taking the issue
seriously.
These officials also
loosened the definition of antisemitism to pursue cases against
Corbyn’s supporters who, like him, were vocal in defending
Palestinian rights or critical of Israeli policies.
This led to the
preposterous situation where Labour was suspending and expelling anti-Zionist
Jews who supported Corbyn on the grounds that they were
supposedly antisemites, while action was delayed
on dealing with a Holocaust denier.
The narrative against
Corbyn being crafted by his own officials was eagerly picked up and
amplified by the strong contingent of Blairites among Labour legislators
in the parliament, as well as by the corporate media and by Israel
lobbyists both inside and outside Labour.
Effort
to bury report
The parties
responsible for leaking the report in April did so because Labour,
now led by Starmer, had no intention of publicizing it.
In fact, the report
had been originally compiled as part of Labour’s submission to the
Equality and Human Rights Commission, effectively giving Corbyn’s
side of the story against his opponents.
But once Corbyn
stepped down, the party bureaucracy under Starmer preferred
to shelve it. That decision meant there would be no case for the
defense, and Corbyn’s opponents’ claims would go unchallenged.
Once leaked, Starmer
stuck to his position. Rather than use the report as an opportunity
to expose the ugly campaign against Corbyn and thereby question the
antisemitism narrative, Starmer did his level best to bury it from
sight.
He vowed
to investigate “the circumstances in which the report was put
into the public domain”. That sounded ominously like a threat to
hound those who had tried to bring to light the party’s betrayal of
its previous leader.
Rather than accept the
evidence presented in the leaked report of internal corruption and
the misuse of party funds, Starmer set
up an inquiry under QC Martin Forde to investigate the earlier
investigation.
The Forde inquiry
looked like Starmer’s effort to kick the damaging revelations into
the long grass.
The British media gave
the leaked report – despite its earth-shattering revelations of
Labour officials sabotaging an election campaign – little more than
perfunctory coverage.
Labour
‘whistleblowers’
A second, related
chance to challenge the Corbyn-antisemitism narrative reached its
conclusion last week. And again, Starmer threw in Labour’s hand.
In July last year –
long before the report had been leaked – the BBC’s prestige news
investigation show Panorama set out to answer a question it posed in
the episode’s title: “Is
Labour Antisemitic?”
The program presented
eight former staff as “whistleblowers”, their testimonies
supposedly exposing Corbyn’s indulgence of antisemitism. They
included those who would soon be revealed in the leaked report as
intractable ideological enemies of the Corbyn project and others who
oversaw the dysfunctional complaints process that dragged its heels
on resolving antisemitism cases.
The Panorama program
was dismal even by the low standards of political reporting set by
the BBC in the Corbyn era.
The show made much of
the testimony of pro-Israel lobbyists inside the Labour party
belonging to a group called the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). They were not
identified – either by name or by affiliation – despite being
given the freedom to make anecdotal and unspecified claims of
antisemitism against Corbyn and his supporters.
The BBC’s decision
not to name these participants had nothing to do with protecting
their identities, even though that was doubtless the impression
conveyed to the audience.
Most were
already known as Israel partisans because they had been exposed in a
2017 four-part al-Jazeera undercover documentary called The Lobby.
They were filmed colluding with an Israeli embassy official, Shai
Masot, to bring down Corbyn. The BBC did not identify these
pro-Israel activists presumably because they had zero credibility as
witnesses.
One-sided
coverage
Nonetheless, a
seemingly stronger case – at least, at the time – was made by the
eight former Labour staff. Their testimonies to the BBC suggested
they had been hampered and bullied by Corbyn’s team as they tried
to stamp out antisemitism.
Panorama allowed these
claims to go unchallenged, even though with a little digging it could
have tapped sources inside Labour who were already compiling what
would become the leaked report, presenting a very different view of
these self-styled “whistleblowers”.
The BBC also failed to
talk to Jewish
Voice for Labour (JVL), a group of Labour party members supportive of
Corbyn who challenged the way the Jewish Labour Movement had
manipulated the definition of antisemitism in the party to harm
Palestinian solidarity activists.
And the BBC did not
call as counter-witnesses any of the anti-Zionist Jews who were among
the earliest victims of the
purge of supposed antisemites by Labour’s apparent
“whistleblowers”.
Instead, it
selectively quoted from an email by Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s chief
adviser, to suggest that he had interfered in the disciplinary
process to help antisemites avoid suspension.
Proper context from
the BBC would have revealed that Milne had simply expressed
concern at how the rule book was being interpreted when several
Jews had been suspended for antisemitism – and that he had
proffered his view only because a staff member now claiming to be a
whistleblower had asked for it.
This section of the
Panorama show looked suspiciously like entrapment of Milne by Labour
staff, followed by collusion from the BBC in promoting their false
narrative.
Flawed
reporting
Despite these and many
other serious
flaws in the Panorama episode, it set the tone for subsequent
discussion of the “antisemitism problem” in Labour.
The program aired a
few months before a general election, last December, that Corbyn lost
to Boris Johnson and the ruling Conservative party.
One of the key
damaging, “gotcha” moments of the campaign was an interview with
the veteran BBC interviewer Andrew Neil in which he repeatedly asked
Corbyn to apologize for antisemitism in the party, as had been
supposedly exposed by Panorama. Corbyn’s refusal to respond
directly to the question left him looking evasive and guilty.
With the rest of the
media amplifying the Panorama claims rather than testing them, it has
become the accepted benchmark for judging the Corbyn era. The show
has even been nominated
for a Bafta award, the British equivalent to an Oscar.
Shortly after the
program aired, Corbyn’s team disputed
the Panorama narrative, saying it had contained “deliberate and
malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public”. They
also described the “whistleblowers” as disaffected former staff
with “political axes to grind”.
Ware and seven of the
former staff members who appeared in the program launched a defamation
action against the Labour party.
After the internal
report was leaked in April, the legal scales tipped decisively in
Labour’s favor. Starmer was reportedly
advised by lawyers that the party would be well-positioned to defeat
the legal action and clear Corbyn and the party’s name.
But again Starmer
preferred to fold. Before the case could be tested in court, Starmer issued an
apology last week to the ex-staff members and Ware, and paid them
a six-figure sum in damages.
Admitting that
“antisemitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent
years”, the statement accepted the claims of the ex-staff to be
“whistleblowers”, even capitalizing the word to aggrandize their
status.
It said:
“We acknowledge the many years of dedicated and committed service
that the Whistleblowers have given to the Labour Party … We
unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and
lying.”
Threat
of bankruptcy
With typical
understatement, Corbyn said he was “disappointed” at the
settlement, calling
it a “political decision, not a legal one”. He added that it
“risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations
about action taken to tackle antisemitism in the Labour party in
recent years.”
Starmer’s decision
also preempted – and effectively nullified – the Forde inquiry,
which was due to submit its own findings on antisemitism in Labour
later in the year.
Many in the party were
infuriated that their membership dues had been used to pay off a
group of ex-staff who, according to the leaked report, had undermined
the party’s elected leader and helped to throw a general election.
But in what looked
disturbingly like a move to silence Corbyn, Ware said he was consulting
lawyers once again about launching a legal battle, personally
against the former Labour leader, over his criticism of the
settlement.
Mark Lewis, the
solicitor acting for Ware and the whistleblowers, has said he is also preparing
an action for damages against Labour on behalf of 32 individuals
named in the leaked report. Among them is Lord Iain McNichol, who
served as the party’s general secretary at the time.
Lewis reportedly
intends to focus
on staff privacy breaches under the Data Protection Act,
disclosure of private information and alleged violations of
employment law.
Conversely, Mark
Howell, a Labour party member, has initiated an action against Labour
and McNichol seeking
damages for “breach of contract”. He demands that those named
in the leaked report be expelled from the party.
He is also reported to
be considering referring named staff members to the Crown Prosecution
Service under the 2006 Fraud Act for their failure to uphold the
interests of party members who paid staff salaries.
This spate of cases
threatens to hemorrhage money from the party. There have been
warnings that financial settlements, as well as members deserting the
party in droves, could ultimately
bankrupt Labour.
Corbyn
to be expelled?
Within days of the
apology, a crowdfunding
campaign raised more than £280,000 for Corbyn to clear his name
in any future legal actions.
Given his own
self-serving strategy, Starmer would doubtless be embarrassed by such
a move. There are already rumors
that he is considering withdrawing the party whip from Corbyn – a
form of exile from the party.
Pressure on him to do
so is mounting. At the weekend it was reported
that ex-staff might drop the threatened case over the embarrassing
revelations contained in the leaked report should Starmer expel
Corbyn.
Quoting someone it
described as a “well-placed source”, the Mail
on Sunday
newspaper set out the new stakes. “Labour says they have zero
tolerance to anti-Semitism. Zero tolerance means no Corbyn and no
Corbynistas,” the source said.
Starmer has committed
to upholding “10
Pledges” produced by the Board of Deputies – a conservative
Jewish leadership organization hostile to Corbyn and the left –
that places it and the pro-Israel lobbyists of the Jewish Labour
Movement in charge of deciding what constitutes antisemitism in the
party.
Selective
concern
Starmer’s decision
about who can serve in his shadow cabinet is a reminder that the
storm over Corbyn was never about real antisemitism – the kind that
targets Jews for being Jews.
It was a pretext to be rid of the Corbyn
project and democratic socialism.
Starmer quickly pushed
out the last two prominent Corbynites
in his shadow cabinet – both on matters related to criticism of
Israel.
By contrast, he has
happily indulged the kind of antisemitism that harms Jews as long as
it comes from members of his shadow cabinet who are not associated
with Corbyn.
Starmer picked
Rachel Reeves for his team, even though earlier this year she tweeted
a tribute to Nancy Astor, a supporter of Hitler and notorious
antisemite. Reeves has refused to delete the tweet.
And Steve Reed is
still the shadow communities secretary, even though this month he
referred to a Jewish newspaper tycoon, Richard Desmond, as a “puppet
master” – the very definition of an antisemitic trope.
Starmer’s “zero
tolerance” appears to be highly selective – more concerned about
harsh criticism of a state, Israel, than the othering of Jews.
Tellingly, Starmer has been under no serious pressure from the Jewish
Labour Movement, or from the media or from Jewish leadership
organizations such as the Board of Deputies to take any action
against either Reeves or Reed.
He has moved swiftly
against leftists in his party who criticize Israel but has shrugged
his shoulders at supposed “moderates” who, it could be argued,
have encouraged or glorified hatred and suspicion of Jews.
But then the
antisemitism furor was never about safeguarding Jews. It was about
creating a cover story as the establishment protected itself from
democratic socialism.
Jonathan
Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books
include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the
Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing
Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books).
His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.(vreemd genoeg kom je door klikken uit op de site van Middle East Online >> MEO, door daar eerst op de ‘knop’ home te klikken en daarna op de volgende pagina zijn naam op het zoekvlak in te voeren, krijg je artikeln van Cook te zien, echter niet het bovenstaande artikel, hier de directe link naar de site van Jonathan Cook, waar je dit artikel wel kan vinden)
Het was afgelopen zondag de Internationale Dag van de Persvrijheid. Een goed uur nadat die dag voorbij was, op 4 mei rond 01.20 u. op ARD, een tirade tegen de persbreidel in Turkije. Geen punt als je ook andere schendingen van de persvrijheid meeneemt, zoals in feite de grootste van deze zaken, die al jaren speelt: Julian Assange, die nu NB in isolatie zit en dat alleen omdat hij zijn werk als onderzoeksjournalist uitstekend heeft gedaan, het aan de paal nagelen van de VS wegens ernstige oorlogsmisdaden…… Alle verhalen dat hij mensen in gevaar zou hebben gebracht berusten op smerige leugens en waren bedoeld om Assange te isoleren in de reguliere media en dat is ‘goed gelukt……’ Collega’s van Assange in die media velden op grond van die leugens een belachelijk oordeel over deze geweldige onderzoeksjournalist, waarbij hij niet zelden als verrader werd neergezet, die Rusland diende…..
Zoals gemeld: Assange zit gevangen en dat in de Belarsh Prison, waar al gevangenen zijn overleden aan het Coronavirus, gezien de gezondheidstoestand van Assange valt te vrezen dat wanneer hij besmet raakt, de kans groot is dat hij het niet overleeft……. Dan te bedenken dat Assange op valse gronden vastzit……. Nogmaals ongelofelijk dat zijn collega’s niet massaal demonstreren tegen het feit dat Assange gevangen zit en tegen de aanklachten die de VS heeft verzonnen om hem uitgeleverd te krijgen….. Overigens de kans op een eerlijk proces tegen Assange in de VS is nihil, de VS een land dat geen eerlijk rechtssysteem kent en zelfs werkt met het meer dan belachelijke ‘plea bargain’, ofwel je kan beter bekennen, ook al heb je ‘het’ niet gedaan, daar je anders een grote kans loopt veel meer gevangenisstraf opgelegd te krijgen…… Hoe kan een beschaafd land nog mensen uitleveren aan de VS??!!! (Nederland doet dat overigens ook bij herhaling…..)
Leugens over Assange, onder meer herhaalt door de ARD, die als een heel groot deel van de westerse reguliere media Assange als een steen hebben laten vallen en hem zelfs niet zien als journalist maar zoals gezegd als een verrader, terwijl Assange van alle kanten zou moeten worden gesteund door de internationale pers……. Assange had al lang een grote prijs moeten krijgen voor zijn journalistieke onderzoekswerk, zoals de Pulitzer Prize, een schande dat de staf van de New York Times (NYT) in 2017 die prijs kreeg, waarbij de site van de Pulitzer Prize een aantal artikelen van de NYT op haar site heeft gezet, zonder meer anti-Russische propaganda die berust op leugens en verdraaiing van feiten…….
Overigens ook een Nobelprijs zou Assange niet misstaan, zeker als je ziet wat hij heeft geschreven en voor zijn baanbrekende werk met het opzetten van Wikileaks!
Nee, de ARD sprak alleen over Turkije, niet over Assange, niet over Hongarije of Polen, waar ook journalisten gevangen zitten of zelfs ‘miraculeus om het leven zijn gekomen’ (ofwel vermoord….)…. Ook in Oekraïne kan men er wat van: journalisten in de cel en een aantal vermoord, geen reden voor de ARD om hier aandacht aan te schenken…..
Over Hongarije gesproken: de partij van ‘would-be dictator’ en fascist Orbán, de Fidesz zit NB als ‘ons’ CDA in de EU fractie van de EVP, met de grootste partij van Duitsland, de CDU…… Nooit een reden voor de ARD om de link te leggen tussen Orbán, Fidesz, EU en CDU…… Als de ARD al bericht over Fidesz dan wel Orbán is het altijd zonder de EVP te noemen, laat staan dat men daar de afkorting CDU gerbruikt…….
De ARD? Een afhankelijk nieuws medium dat al lang is vergeten wat het betekent om onafhankelijk ofwel objectief te berichten…….
De Internationale Dag van de Persvrijheid, wat een sof!!
Gelukkig zijn er nog andere media die wel aandacht aan Assange hebben besteed n.a.v. de Internationale Dag van de Persvrijheid, zoals De Wereld Morgen.be:
Internationale
dag van persvrijheid: ‘Red Julian Assange’
Op de werelddag van de
persvrijheid, zondag 3 mei, vinden wij het gepast om de ondraaglijke
behandeling in herinnering te roepen waaraan Julian Assange, wiens
leven in de zwaarbeveiligde gevangenis van Belmarsh in Londen in
gevaar is, wordt onderworpen.
maandag
4 mei 2020 21:52
Foto:
Cancillería del Ecuador, Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 (More information
about the rights of this work, see below article)
Zijn situatie is vandaag de dag des
te kritieker omdat de coronavirusepidemie ook in zijn gevangenis
woedt, waar al meerdere gevangenen zijn gestorven en anderen ziek
zijn, terwijl meer dan 100 bewakers met ziekteverlof zijn. Al
verzwakt, als Assange zou worden getroffen, zou hij een enorm risico
lopen. Zijn dood in dergelijke omstandigheden zou neerkomen op een
“legale” moord.
Is dat het doel? In ieder geval
weigert het Britse rechtssysteem hem systematisch vrijlating op
borgtocht en onder voorwaarden, waardoor hij een tijdje op een
veilige plaats zou kunnen blijven en de rechtszittingen met zijn
advocaten, met wie vandaag de dag geen geldig contact mogelijk is, in
betere omstandigheden zou kunnen voorbereiden.
Na veel verzet stemde de rechter
die de procedure leidt er uiteindelijk mee in om de rest van de
hoorzittingen (die oorspronkelijk gepland waren voor 18 mei) uit te
stellen tot september. Dit is zowel het enige goede nieuws tot nu
toe, maar ook slecht nieuws als het neerkomt op een verlenging van
Assanges risicovolle detentie. Het zou daarom de eis moeten
versterken dat hij onverwijld wordt vrijgelaten, wat veel
organisaties en individuen nu bepleiten.
Ter herinnering, in 2010
publiceerde WikiLeaks veel informatie over het verloop van de
oorlogen in Afghanistan en Irak door de Amerikaanse militairen,
waarbij oorlogsmisdaden werden begaan. WikiLeaks publiceerde ook
talrijke rapporten van de Amerikaanse diplomatie. Dit is vrije
informatieverstrekking en journalistiek, maar dat komt Assange zwaar
te staan: de wraakzucht van de Verenigde Staten. De oprichter van
WikiLeaks, een redacteur en journalist, is op de een of andere manier
al bijna tien jaar opgesloten zonder enige misdaad te hebben begaan.
Vandaag wordt Assange in de
gevangenis van Belmarsh vastgehouden omdat de Verenigde Staten het
Verenigd Koninkrijk hebben gevraagd hem uit te leveren op
beschuldiging van spionage en schending van de veiligheid. Als hij
wordt uitgeleverd, zal dat een harde klap zijn voor de vrijheid van
meningsuiting en voor alle journalisten die hun werk doen en
informatie publiceren die de gevestigde orde verstoort. En het
zal een dramatisch resultaat zijn voor Assange zelf, wat zal leiden
tot een zeer lange en waarschijnlijk fatale gevangenisstraf in de
Verenigde Staten.
Zijn lot in het Verenigd Koninkrijk
is daar al een voorbode van, want hij wordt mishandeld door de
Britse staat en zijn magistraten. Alle procedures die de afgelopen
tien jaar tegen Assange zijn aangespannen, of het nu gaat om Zweden,
het Verenigd Koninkrijk, de Verenigde Staten of, meer recentelijk,
Ecuador, zijn ontsierd door diepgaande onregelmatigheden die door
verschillende VN-rapporteurs duidelijk en nauwkeurig zijn
gesignaleerd. Ze zijn ook bezaaid met bedreigingen, spionage en
gruwelijke intimidatie, niet alleen van Assange, maar ook van zijn
vriendin – de advocaat Stella Maris – en hun twee zeer jonge
kinderen, haar familie, verschillende leden van haar team, en haar
advocaten.
De Verenigde Staten moeten de
uitleveringsprocedure en alle aanklachten tegen Assange laten vallen.
En dat de Britse staat en de Britse Justitie, die nu helaas gedwongen
is om zich ondergeschikt te maken aan Washington, deze exorbitante en
gevaarlijke claim voor de persvrijheid afwijzen.
Tot slot moeten we eraan herinneren
dat de Belgische staat tot op heden geen gevolg heeft gegeven aan het
verzoek om Julian Assange bescherming te verlenen, een verzoek dat
door meer dan 130 vooraanstaande personen uit de academische en
culturele wereld en duizenden burgers is ondertekend
(https://www.belgium4assange.be/appel).
Groothuis (hik)
©
